“The following morning (2nd April) General Cameron made his appearance with a detachment of the Defence Corps and some packhorses with hand-grenades. * * * Our sap was now so far advanced that it entered the old stock-yard fence, which surrounded the pa at some distance. It was in rashly jumping out of the sap and cutting down gallantly one of these posts that Major Hurford received his death-wound in the head. He rallied for a short space of time, long enough to receive the attentions of his poor wife, but the ball, remaining in his head, caused his death at last at Otahuhu. Many gallant deeds were done that day in the sap, but the same being at the opposite extreme of the pa from our position I was not an eye-witness to them. I only know from good testimony that Captain Baker was amongst the foremost to urge the work by word and example; Jackson’s Ensign Whitfield behaved with his usual distinction; Ensign Harrison, of the Transport Corps, did good service with his rifle en amateur; my Sergeant Southee later in the day, still with the 65th detachment, was the first to change his footing from our works into that of the Maoris. (Note.—Poor Whitfield lost his life in one of my engagements in the Wanganui district. He was one of the most gallant officers I have known.) “The weariness on our post on that third day was becoming to me almost unbearable. There was no excitement to compensate for the constant annoyance of bullets flying about you for three days and two nights, and the constant false reports of the assault going to take place sickened one at last of the whole affair. There had been a demand for volunteers in the morning to go sapping. I knew it did not refer to me, but I thought they might accept me after all when the hottest work commenced, so I took sixteen volunteers from my company and marched round to the sap. I was close to the sap when Baker met me and instantly drove me back in spite of all my expostulations and pleas of the morning’s order. ‘No, no! To your post! To your post!’ And as a sweetener for this disagreeable treatment the cunning Staff Machiavelli told me to come back at four o’clock in the afternoon, when I would be allowed to sap, knowing himself perfectly well that by that time I would have found other work to do. I went back crestfallen and miserable. My return instantly enfranchised Jackson, who took the opportunity of trying his rifle skill en amateur in the sap—and his skill in this department is by no means contemptible.