prevent the retreat of the occupants if and when they were driven out. April 29 was a misty, unpleasant day. The first shot from Cameron's men killed a Maori priest as he was conducting prayers. All day his guns pounded the fortification till about mid-afternoon a breach was made. Cameron moved his men up for an assult upon the pa. Led by their officers (who thus were the first to be struck down by the Maori warriors) the men swarmed into the trenches, and began to drive out the defenders. But Greer's men were at the exits, and the Maoris poured back into the trenches. The soldiers and sailors now in the pa believed this rush to be reinforcements. Without the leadership of their officers, they fled the pa, still held by Ngaiterangi and their allies. During the night, the Maoris silently withdrew, disappearing through the swamps to higher ground up the valley. The pa was occupied only by the wounded and the dead invaders. It was through this night that the cries of the wounded calling for water could be heard — and it was the compassion of a Maori that responded to the plea. At risk of being heard and shot by the British sentries, this compassionate warrior stole down to a well among the fern with a container, and brought back water for the parched lips of the stricken soldiers. This then is the deed that epitomised the chivalry of the Maori as a warrior and as an enemy at the Battle of Gate Pa, 29 April, 1864. Who was this courageous and compassionate warrior? The plaque on the obelisk to Rawiri Puhirake attributes it to Henare Taratoa, and there was circumstantial evidence that it was he. Henare was the scribe who had penned the messages from Rawiri to the British through the months of occupation, notes which in all their messages conveyed a feeling of Christian concern for the British. Henare had been a student at St John's College under Bishop Selwyn, and had been imbued with the Christian ethic. He had, however, allied himself with his own people in their quarrel with the Pakeha. Probably the greatest piece of evidence was produced at his death, when, fighting beside his leader, they were both shot down in the trenches at Te Ranga, some months after Gate Pa. On his body was found a paper that was the Battle Orders. Beginning with a prayer, containing instructions for the treatment of prisoners and killed, the order concluded with a text from Scripture, words which identified themselves with the action of giving water to those parched and thirsty in the lonely trench. ‘If thine enemy hunger,’ the words read in Maori, ‘feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink.’ What more striking proof could anyone wish, to ensure that the young Christian student from Otaki was the hero of the battle! And yet it wasn't Henare Taratoa, although his name gained the history books. He was only believed, from the weight of evidence, to have been that warrior. Later evidence has revealed that we can believe that the carrier of water in the night was a woman — a halfcaste who had been fighting beside her brother. Being part-European, she was not under the tapu that forbade Maori women to fight in battle. The evidence comes from more than one source. First, we have the word of Col Booth, one of those who lay through that night, and who was rescued the next day, mortally wounded. He told how a woman had brought water to them in a can. Some years later, the proprietress of an inn near Maketu, one Jane Foley, told James Cowan of the incident, and described how she had carried out the act. Before her marriage, she was Heni Te Kirikaramu, and living with her tribe. The word of these two has led to the recognition of this brave woman for the act of bravery and compassion that has made the story of Gate Pa live on in history, and has ennobled the record of the Maori as an enemy. Heni te Kirikaramu is immortalised by a plaque erected in the porchway of the Memorial Church of St George erected on the battle-site. Heni was the grand-daughter of a Ngapuhi chief, and the daughter of a European named Russell. By her first marriage to an Arawa chief, Janie Russell became Heni te Kirikaramu. Some years