I was at this time attached to Colonel Fraser’s outfit that held the rear of the pah, and that gallant officer, not being content to look on, gave the order for us to mount the serrated ridge that led up the back of the hill. This we did; scaling ladders were quickly formed out of poles and vines. Rough constructions they were, but they served at a pinch for active, determined men, and we were all that, though perhaps not a highly moral community. We scrambled up one precipitous terrace after another under heavy fire, but covered by our sharpshooters, who, being infinitely better shots than the Hau Haus, afforded us sufficient protection, until we at last formed a rough shelter trench under the steep rock that formed the summit of the hill and the rear defence of the pah, so that the natives were hived in their works. This they bitterly resented, and made sally after sally to drive us out of our hardly gained position, but we clung to it like limpets to a rock, and, although we lost many good men in the savage hand-to-hand fighting, still we managed to hold on to the end. Colonel Whitmore and Rapata now determined to storm the advance parapet, for, although we were well aware that the Hau Haus had no water, and we surmised they could have but little food, if any, still we were on less than half rations ourselves, as owing to the sinful country we were fighting in it was absolutely impossible for pack-horses, much less drays, to keep us supplied, so that many of the friendly natives, should they feel the pinch of hunger, might at any time take it into their heads they had business at home and clear out. This being so, Rapata, with fifty picked Ngatiporou, under cover of the best shots in the force, scaled the almost perpendicular sides of the slope, and, with picks and spades carried up with them, broke through the trench behind the parapet, and by doing so were able to enfilade it. The defenders drew to that end to oppose him, and were doing their best, when with a cheer the Armed Constabulary, who were in the advanced trench of the attack, jumped out and rushed the parapet. The Hau Haus, taken in front and flank, fought bravely, but were either killed or driven pell-mell behind their second line of defences. A fresh sap was immediately commenced, the captured trench being used as a new base, and the men working like niggers, notwithstanding the heavy fire and a furious sally by the enemy had excavated by midnight sufficient cover for two hundred stormers close up to the second line.