“Yes,” he replied. “We shall know more of that mountain before we have finished with it, and perhaps many of us will remain on its shoulders and foot-hills for ever, as they are going to be the battle-ground for a year or more, and many a weary day and night’s march we’ll have over them, untrodden as yet by foot of white man. Mr Burke, I want to give you a tip or two about bush fighting, and if that’s your comrade alongside of you, it’s as well that he should also listen. Well, the first thing you have to remember in bush fighting is, that you must learn to work independently, as every man has more or less to act on his own initiative, and as it is absolutely imperative to work in extended order you very often lose sight of the men on either flank of you and fancy you are left alone. This feeling in men untrained to this special sort of fighting has often caused a catastrophe, as it is the nature of Englishmen to close in and fight shoulder to shoulder, therefore men finding themselves, as they fancy, alone, close in, and if they do so they are easily surrounded and may be shot down like sheep in a pen by invisible enemies. I therefore want to impress on you fellows that, no matter what happens in the bush, remain in extended order, and wait for the bugle to close. I expect we shall be in action in a day or so, and we have one or two tough nuts to crack. Sir Trevor Chute has already shown himself to be far more enterprising than the late general, and the hostile natives have gathered great strength through the new religion.” He remained beside me, chatting in the free-and-easy colonial way, for some time, during which I gathered much information about the country and war, and was surprised to discover how utterly ignorant people in England were of all things colonial. He also told me he had come out to the country as an infant and had served all through the war. During that march I took a great fancy to my new officer, and we started a friendship that has lasted over forty years. Well, mile after mile, through the ankle-deep sand we toiled on, at least I did, for the rest of the men, hardened as they were to marching and accustomed by constant practice to humping their swags, made light of the road and swung along as if they had nothing on their backs at all, while I could only grit my teeth and determine I would hang on to the last, but was very glad when an opening in the manuka bushes showed us a river on the other side of which stood a large, well-ordered camp. This river was the Manawapou, which we easily forded, and, pushing on through the camp, bivouacked in a clump of manuka just in rear of the outlying picket. Oh, but I was glad, very glad, when the order was given to form bivouac and I could slip off my pack and belts even for a minute, for, as soon as we had had a stretch, the latter had to be replaced and continually worn, day and night, nor were our carbines ever allowed to be out of reach of our hands.