Notwithstanding the experiences of others in the not very remote past, General Chute determined to assault the well-garrisoned _pa_ of Otapawa, and on the 12th of January the Armstrong gun roared a challenge to the Hauhau. Grimly silent, the defenders kept so strictly to cover, that General Chute, half-inclined to believe that they had escaped, thought it unnecessary to wait until the Native Contingent and volunteers (_kupapa_) had worked completely round to the rear. So he ordered Colonel Butler and his "Die Hards" (57th), supported by the 14th, to storm the stockade. He had barely finished speaking when he received a practical hint that the _pa_ was not empty; for a bullet carried away one of the buttons of his tunic. "Aha! The beggars seem to have found me out," General Chute coolly observed. "Go on, Colonel Butler." Colonel Butler went on, Lieutenant-Colonel Hassard beside him, and the "Die Hards" close behind them. The Hauhau had removed every vestige of cover from the front of the _pa_--which fact alone should have warned the General that the place was occupied, and by a skilful foe--and, as the 57th came on, they were greeted with a volley from the covered rifle-pits which staggered them, veterans of Sebastopol though they were. "Come on, Die Hards!" shouted Colonel Butler, and the gallant fellows charged over the glacis, dropping fast and losing Colonel Hassard on the way. Enraged, the men tore down the palisades with their bare hands and drove the enemy helter-skelter out at the rear of the _pa_ into the clutch of Von Tempsky and his Forest Rangers. Thirty-two of the Hauhau fell, while General Chute lost a colonel and eleven men, not to speak of twenty wounded. A little patience, siege instead of assault, and the stronghold might have been reduced without loss. As it is, the action is memorable as being the only occasion during these wars upon which a well-defended _pa_ was ever taken by assault. Whereas General Cameron would never go near the bush, General Chute now determined to march through it a distance of sixty miles to Taranaki, and sweep the enemy out of his path. But General Cameron despised the native levies, while General Chute realised their value, particularly when led by such a man as Major McDonnell, and it cannot be gainsaid that their presence greatly contributed to the success of the bush march. But for McDonnell and another, General Chute must either have chosen another route, or have marched without the Native Contingent, for the Maori, men of the Whanganui district, decided not to go to Taranaki, alleging that "it was too far from home!" Nor would they have yielded either to advice or persuasion, but for the timely arrival in camp of Major McDonnell and Dr. Featherston, the Superintendent of the Wellington Province, who, like the major, exercised unbounded influence over the Maori, and particularly over the men of Whanganui.