It is not like an advance in the open, where as one of a mass of men marching shoulder to shoulder the numbers and continuity of comrades gives one a sense of security and companionship, nor is it like sitting on a good horse waiting for the trumpet call to charge, for then also you have fellowship of the very best. But to skirmish through a bush, even a fairly open one like this one was, is quite enough to give a new chum a fit of the jumps, for a sense of loneliness comes over a man, and the inclination to close in becomes intense. This, however, was not to be thought of, and I found myself boiling with excitement, keeping my line easily as I worked alongside the road, and instinctively moving forward with the others. Occasionally I could see Tim, who was next me on my right, and sometimes three or four others as we moved rapidly from tree to tree; but still the dim light of the bush, its intense silence and the ghostly, gliding figures were conducive to serious thoughts, while once the bell-like note of the Tui bird made my heart jump into my throat. Nearer and nearer we glided towards where, we knew, the line of savages was awaiting us, and Mr Roach had just taken up his position by me as I crouched forward to my next cover and knelt down on a mass of dry fern that lay against the root of the tree. Holy Moses! I nearly jumped out of my skin, and could scarcely smother a yell of consternation as I felt the fern heave under me, and heard a voice whisper: “If Monsieur will have the goodness to remove his knee from off my back I will get up.” I at once rolled over, when Pierre wriggled, like a snake, backwards from under his cover, at the same time placing his finger on his lip and extracting from its hiding-place his cherished _batterie de cuisine_, which he placed carefully on his head. “Not more than fifty paces in front,” he hissed to Mr Roach, who nodded, and I slid on to the next tree, then to another. I peered into the bush in front but could see nothing. Mr Roach again joined me and again nodded, and once more I crawled forward. I was under a low punga (tree fern), making for a big rata-tree some twelve feet farther on, when a rush of flame and smoke darted out of the bushes not twenty yards in front of me, and I heard the fern leaves just over my head torn to ribbons, while the howl of the slugs through the air and the crash of the volley sounded simultaneously. One spring took me to the rata-tree, round the root of which I peered, but saw no meat to fire at. I glanced to my right. Tim was on his face taking aim, and I could hear the crack, crack of individual carbines answering the volley, which in another second was repeated.