“Of a sudden, while panting up the hillside, with an upper stratum of lead travelling over our heads towards our friends we had left behind us, I saw that long black line of heads waver. I heard confused cries and shouts presaging disorder—and lo!—it broke and fled—some to the right, where I saw the Defence Corps after them; and some to the left; to these we lent our company. Maoris have a natural affinity to swamp; there is a strong amphibious tendency in the brown man. Ducks are no more at home in the swamps than Maoris. Only in this instance the ‘being at home’ was extended perhaps beyond the wish of many by our carbines. So soon as we had reached the peach-grove which commanded the swamp to our left, we had a fine play upon the greater part of the Maoris who were trying to make their escape. I had some soldiers of the 70th with me who, seduced by the example of my men, had followed my fortunes faithfully that day. They were, however, despatched back to their regiment by the arrival of Colonel Carey of the Staff. “Some skirmishers still lurked between us and that part of Rangiaowhia where the two churches stood; so we took our way in that direction, getting now and then a sight of a Maori and a hearing of their bullets. I was just directing one of my foremost skirmishers to aim at a figure of a man which I could see behind a bush, when something struck me in the attitude as being nerveless like that of a wounded man. I gave the word to stop firing, and, surrounding the Maori carefully, as some sham being dead and then blaze into you, then approached him. Resting on his right elbow, his back against a stump, the left leg stretched from him with a large pool of blood around it, the Maori surveyed our approach without a start or a movement of a muscle in his face, even. Now, let me tell you that my men in the day of battle are not very confidence-inspiring objects to look at. What with dust, smoke, their wild dress, their armament, and faces wild with excitement of the hour, a man would be quite justified in hesitating to trust his life altogether to their keeping, not being able to see the golden sub-stratum of that desperado exterior. A calm, steady, almost indifferent look was fixed on me by the dark eye of the Maori. I made to him a gesture of friendship, and proceeded to examine his wound. An Enfield bullet had shattered his left leg below the calf, and he was rapidly bleeding to death. A boot-lace twisted under the knee had to do duty as a tourniquet, and the Maori’s shirt had to supply the bandages. One of our men who spoke a little Maori told him we would come back for him, and left him with water and some rum; the latter he refused taking.