(Told by the old Kai Tongata)

There was nothing of a picnic about the wars in New Zealand.

The cold-blooded massacres at Poverty Bay, Mohaka, and scores of other places, as well as the vile tortures practised on any of our men who were unfortunate enough to fall alive into their hands, made us treat the Hau Haus with very scant mercy; and this savagery was not diminished by the brutal hardships, hunger, cold and toil we underwent while in pursuit of Te Kooti and his bands of bloodthirsty and fanatical followers.

Among these was a half-caste, the son of a very prominent white official. As a boy he had been sent to school by his father, and had been highly educated. He had then been entered for the law, but, committing a forgery, had fled to the bush and joined his mother’s tribe, then in rebellion.

To show and prove his Maori blood, on joining them he had murdered, with his own hand, in cold blood, a number of helpless white women and children who had been taken prisoners; and this horrible crime, together with his ferocious courage in action, and further murders, perpetrated whenever he had the chance, caused him to be held in high repute by the Hau Haus and in bitter detestation by us.

To such an evil notoriety had this fiend attained that his father, then high in the Government, sent the unnecessary and quite superfluous order, that if his son were captured he was to receive no mercy. This order I carried myself to the officer commanding one of the flying columns that was then operating against rebels who by that time were getting considerably knocked about.

It was most dangerous work, despatch-riding in New Zealand. You had to travel through a rough and hostile country to find a moving column, or perchance a place the position of which was not known, and even the direction to it most uncertain. The Hau Haus, always on the look-out to catch the unfortunates employed on this job, would lay ambuscades in the long fern, alongside the footpaths, in such places as it was impossible to avoid passing, or at a ford you were obliged to cross.

Their dart was to kill your horse and take you alive, if possible, and then God help you if you were unable to blow your brains out—your death would be a very, very hard one.

We lost numbers of men this way; and although no officer or man was ever known to shrink the duty, yet we hated it. On the arrival of this most unnecessary order to the column with which I was serving, being first for duty, it was my fate to have to carry it on to another column and then, provided I lived, to rejoin my colonel at the earliest possible moment.

Now I was aware of the contents of the despatch, and it did not make me more pleased with the job, as I knew I was running the most desperate risks to carry an order absolutely superfluous.

Long before the despatch had even been penned, had either of the three white columns been lucky enough to catch the bounder whose name was mentioned in it, he would have been shot on the spot; while if Rapata and his friendly natives had rounded him up his end would have been quite as certain, though probably more complicated; and any orders on the subject were quite superfluous.

Well, I was warned to go, and went. I started at daylight, and after a long day’s ride, during which I had a few squeaks for my bacon, I fortunately, just as evening was coming on, fell in with the column I was in search of, and delivered my despatches to the O.C.

This column was composed of friendly natives, of course on foot, so I dismounted and joined the O.C., who was making for a camping-ground on which to pass the night.

We had nearly reached the desired spot when a body of the enemy who, unaware of our presence, were making for the same place opened fire on us.

The O.C. and myself were some short distance ahead of the majority of his men, who, after the usual way of native contingents, straggled a good deal when marching into camp.

We, however, at once charged, and the enemy gave ground until we came to a long natural opening in the manuka scrub, through which we were moving, and which was about twenty yards across. Here we halted and took cover, as we heard the Hau Hau leader shout to his men to turn and come back quickly, as there were only two white men by themselves and they, the Hau Haus, could kill them before the others came up. We stood our ground, as we knew our men were close up, and we both carried carbines.

All at once I saw a man on the other side of the opening aiming at my companion, and I at once fired and knocked him over; at the same moment my companion fired and hit a man I could not see, but who was aiming at me. Our men just then rushed up, and we continued the charge; but the enemy had bolted, and as night was falling fast we did not pursue them, but went up to the two men we had put out of mess. My man was quite dead, and was quickly recognised as a man of no great consequence, though of some reputation as a fighting man. The other one, however, was only wounded, but refused to tell us who he was, and to our questions replied by using the greatest insult in the Maori language—i.e. called us boiled heads. Having a suspicion as to his identity, the O.C. tore the breast of his shirt open, and there across his breast was tattooed the much-cursed name. Well, if he had lived like a beast, he met the death of a beast without flinching.

Two years later, after the wars were over, I was again crossing that part of the country and rode a little out of my way to the scene of the fight, to see if there were any traces of the men we had killed. Sure enough the skeleton of the half-caste was at the very spot on which he had fallen. Dismounting, I picked up a leg-bone, slipped it under my wallet straps and rode away. Later, I had it made up into a Maori flute by an old native—they used to make all sorts of useful and ornamental instruments out of human bones—and hung it on the wall of my quarters among other trophies and curios.

Some time after I was visited by the very official who had been father to this half-caste. He examined my collection of curiosities with some interest, and catching sight of the flute, said: “Oh, I used to tootle a bit on a Maori flute in my young days.” Then taking it down he tootled a “wyetta” (a Maori song). Little did he think he was playing a tune on the leg-bone of his own son; and I was not such a bally fool as to tell him.

Let sleeping dogs lie is an old and true aphorism, and I did not wish to stir up bitter family recollections by reminding him of a dead one; besides, he was a very big pot indeed, and the head of my department, so that a discreet silence as to who had been the original owner of that flute was sound policy.