War to the Knife 38
CHAPTER XII
The campaign dragged on till June, the antipodean mid-winter, was
reached. Dark were the long cold nights, ceaseless the rain, as the
troops and volunteers struggled through forests knee-deep in mud, with
creeks to ford and flax swamps to wade through.
An insufficient commissariat tried the constitution of the hardiest.
Massinger was now in a position to comprehend thoroughly the fearful
odds against which the British regulars fought in the American
revolutionary war. There they confronted an enemy whose very children,
as soon as they were strong enough to lift the long rifle of the
period, were the deadliest of marksmen.
Behind the forest pillars or beneath the fallen logs, what perfect
cover had the backwoodsmen, trained to all woodcraft and inured to a
hunter's life, where subsistence often depended upon patient stalking
and accuracy of aim!
Almost similar conditions prevailed in this guerilla warfare to which
England's armaments stood committed. The "mute Maori" glided through
the underbrush or amid the fern, himself invisible, until he arose in
open order before the astonished troops.
"At times a warning trumpet note,
At times a stifled hum,"
he had winded from afar. Reckless in assault as elusive in retreat, the
desperate Maori seemed a demoniac foe. Living on fern-root, shell-fish,
or kumera, he needed no baggage. The women of the tribe, mingling with
the warriors, cooked the necessary food, carried off the wounded, and
were not averse to occasional fighting. With ten thousand regular
troops, as well as levies of militia and volunteers against them, with
powerful tribes of their own race, _rusés_ and daring as themselves,
who fought for the pakeha with a ferocity not exceeded in the bloodiest
tribal wars, their position appeared hopeless. Still the stubborn Maori
held his own. In staying power, as in other respects, the aboriginal,
the Briton of the South, displayed his similarity to his Northern
prototype. No such conflict had been waged by an aboriginal race
against the arms of civilization since the Iceni and the Brigantes
confronted Cæsar's legions, fought the world's masters for generation
after generation, century after century, till, wearied with the
profitless strife and barren occupation, they withdrew, and left the
savage inhabitants to a climate of such rigour and gloom that they
alone seemed to be its fitting inhabitants. Such for a time appeared
to be no improbable _finale_ to the Waikato war. Months, even years,
passed without tangible result, without solid advantage to the invaders.
So the seasons wore on, until Massinger began to look upon himself less
as a colonist than a soldier. "The reveillé," the bugle-call, became
familiar to him and his companions; for neither Slyde nor Warwick,
more than himself, dreamed of quitting service until the war was over,
the play played out.
Both Englishmen had been wounded at different times, but so far not
severely. They were commencing to feel the true fatalism of the
soldier, convinced that they were invulnerable until their predestined
hour. They came to be well known among the forces, with their guide,
from whom they were rarely separated. With no personal interest in the
matter, with no land to defend, no interest to conserve, they remained
simply because they happened to be on the spot, and, coming of fighting
blood, had no power to withdraw themselves from the fascination of
battle, murder, and sudden death.
Strange as it seemed to Massinger, they had never happened to meet
Erena. They heard of her from time to time, but Mannering and his
_hapu_, though always at the front, were either in another direction
when they fell across the Ngapuhi contingent, or the Forest Rangers
were on outpost duty.
Nor was intelligence wanting of traits of heroism on her part in the
numerous skirmishes and sorties of which her father was the leader.
Dressed like his Maori allies, with a plume of feathers in his hair,
with cartridge-pouch and waistbelt accoutred proper, wherever the fight
was fiercest, high above friend and foe rose the tall form of Allister
Mannering.
And ever as the battle-waves surged forward, or were rolled back by
superior forces, the eager, fearless face, the huntress form of Erena
was seen, disdainful of danger as the fabled goddess in the Trojan war.
Her chosen band of dusky maidens--relatives or near friends--accepted
her guidance, and surrounded her in every engagement; many a wounded
soldier or native ally had they borne from the fray, or succoured when
wounded and helpless on the field. Often had they warned outlying
settlers when the prowling _taua_ was approaching the unsuspecting
family. Nay, it was asserted that had Erena's counsel been taken, her
letter regarded, the murder of the missionary, with wife and babes,
might have been averted. Sometimes near, sometimes afar, but never
absolutely within speech or vision, the situation to Massinger's
aroused imagination became tantalizing to such a painful degree that he
felt resolved to terminate it without further delay.
It is not to be supposed that he was without occasional tidings from
that land of his fathers, from which, as he sometimes considered, he
had hastily exiled himself.
For was it not exile, in the fullest sense of the word? Œdipus in
Colona was a joke to it. Was this travel-stained, over-wearied, haggard
man, who trudged day by day, and often from night to dawn, through
darksome woods and endless marshes, in daily risk of being "shot like
a rabbit in a ride," the same Massinger of the Court, who was wont to
turn out so spick and span at covert and copse?
He could hardly believe it, any more than that the sardonic soldier
at his side, whose unsparing comments included the Government, the
New Zealand Company, the soldiers, and the sailors, the general, the
governor, the colonists, the natives, by no means excepting himself, as
the champion idiots of the century, was the erstwhile debonair Dudley
Slyde, faultless in costume as unapproachable in languid elegance.
It has been observed that a campaign brings out the best or worst
points of a man's character. This struck Massinger as a proposition
proved to demonstration when he saw the cheerful acquiescence of Mr.
Slyde in the drudgeries and dangers of their harassing expeditions.
He it was who volunteered for "fatigue" duty by night or day; ready
at any hour to help to bury the dead, to forage for provisions, to
cover retreat, to attend the wounded, at the same time keeping up the
cheerfulness of the rank and file by his withering execrations, which,
from their very incongruousness, always provoked the laughter of his
comrades.
The simple privates voted him the "rummest chap as ever they see," at
the same time fully appreciating his coolness under fire and many-sided
utility.
Nor was Warwick unmindful of the necessity of keeping up the reputation
of _les trois mousquetaires_, as they were occasionally called. He
exhibited in his personal traits certain distinct tendencies derived
from an admixture of the races. Grave, steadfast, and trustworthy,
obedient to orders, as became his Anglo-Saxon descent, he was
occasionally affected with the Berserker frenzy of his mother's people.
At such moments he would rush to the front, heedless of friends or
foes, and indulge himself in the blood-fury of her reckless race. When
mixed up with friendly natives he would stalk through the hottest of
the fire with those younger chiefs, who desired to have some daring
achievement to boast of when the war was over. It more than once
happened that his companions returned no more, having fallen to a man
in the breach, or when they had surmounted the lofty palisades which
engirdled the fortress, behind which lay trench and fascine, gallery
and bastion. So far Warwick had always returned, blood-stained and
powder-blackened, with torn uniform and dimmed accoutrements, dropping
with fatigue, and half dead with thirst, but safe and unharmed,
ready--and more than ready--for the next day's exploits. When in this
mood he had been seen side by side with the famous Winiata, standing on
the parapet of a beleaguered redoubt, having guns handed to them, with
which they kept up a ceaseless fusilade, they themselves the centre of
a close and deadly volley.
Even in the midst of war's alarms the English soldier finds time for
recreative pastime and the omnipresent national sports.
Football and cricket, polo and other matches flourish, in which
distinction is enjoyed with a pathetic disregard of the morrow. When
it chances that the "demon bowler" of the regiment, who has taken five
wickets in four "overs," is himself bowled next day with a smaller ball
and yet more deadly delivery, short shrift and brief requiem suffice.
The batsman's stumps are scattered, and no L.B.W. affords an appeal to
the umpire.
In polo the fortune of war, indeed, dwarfs the untoward accidents of
the game. Who can object to a "crumpler" of a fall, when horse and
rider may so soon form part of the sad company "in one red burial
blent"? No! the bugle-call sounds to arms, and his comrades form in
line, all unheeding of the gap in the ranks.
There is a superficial appearance of callousness about our British
customs in this respect. But none the less is deep and sincere
mourning made for the dead; none the less among Britons in action all
over the world is care for the wounded, self-sacrificing heroism in the
field, so common as to be inconspicuous.
Hurdle-racing, not to say steeplechasing, was in abeyance, owing to
the low condition of the cavalry arm, and the extreme difficulty in
procuring fodder. The climate and the native pasture forbade the
grass-feeding, which in Australia would have been all-sufficing. But
polo, owing to the exertions of those officers who had served in India,
and to the occasional capture of Maori ponies, became most popular.
Football, again, was eminently suited to the damp and cold region in
which their lines were cast, and supplied the means of warmth and
exercise at small cost.
These sports kept up the spirits of the variously gathered forces. The
Maori allies took to the game of football with zest and enthusiasm,
their astonishing activity and strength making them almost an overmatch
for their British instructors. Their shouts and war-cries, when there
was no particular need for caution, made the camp lively and animated,
tending to produce, as similar sports peculiar to England and her
colonies always do, a feeling of harmony and good fellowship between
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