The following day we waited at the Waingangora, but no Hau Haus came; we were not disappointed, as none of us expected they would, and at nightfall we returned to camp. Our O.C. now determined, as there was no chance of peace, to strike a rapid blow, so on the evening of the 1st of August he moved out of camp with a strong force to surprise the village of Pokaikai. The night was a fine one, though the cold was so intense that it numbed our thin-clad men to the bone, while the stirrups and scabbards of us mounted men were quite thick with frost. Cold as it was we had to face it, and before daylight had reached our positions, halted and dismounted. Shortly after we had halted Pierre and George came in with wonderful information, which was that they had crawled so close up to the Hau Hau pickets as to be able to overhear their conversation, the tenor of which was that they, the Hau Haus, considering there was no possibility of being attacked on such a dreadfully cold night, had decided that bed was the best place for them, and so had taken themselves off to their virtuous, or otherwise, couches; also that the village was an open one, that they had penetrated into the middle of it, and that all the natives were asleep in the arms of Morpheus or their own various ladies. This was a piece of unprecedented luck, nor was our O.C. the man to let such a chance slip, and the new orders he gave were excellent. He had at his disposal one company of military settlers armed with rifles and bayonets, the remainder of the outfit carrying carbines and revolvers, so this company he ordered to silently fix bayonets, enter the village and post themselves at the doors of the various whares (huts) so as to imprison the inmates. He also gave orders that on no account was a shot to be fired, as he now had great hopes of being able to surprise an adjacent village, hive its inhabitants in the same way, and so kill two birds with the one stone. The movement was a plain and straightforward one, so simple, in fact, that no one doubted its successful termination, but, as Bobby Burns asserts, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often run crooked,” and it was to be so on this occasion. It has often been the lot of an unfortunate commander, after a long and harassing night’s march, to have his well-thought-out plans utterly ruined by some crass idiot discharging his rifle, lighting his pipe, or committing some other wicked act of folly or culpable clumsiness, and unfortunately the military settlers had in their ranks a half-baked rotter, whose nerves, getting overwound, let go a cheer just as the company was about to enter the village. The cheer was taken up by his comrades, which gave the alarm to the sleeping enemy, who rushed out of their huts and took to headlong flight.