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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 6 (September 1, 1938)

Gilbert Mair to the Rescue

Gilbert Mair to the Rescue.

Hori Kawakura's little band of fighting men, now formed the backbone of the defence; but stoutly as they and their fellow-tribesmen fought, their plight appeared hopeless. Their ammunition was failing. For two days and two nights the garrison had steadfastly resisted the overwhelming force of well-armed rebels. It was now the early morning of the third day, and although urgent messages had been sent for help there was no appearance of the reinforcements to avert defeat and massacre.

At this moment Lieutenant Gilbert Mair was coming up at his best speed with a column of 130 Ngati-Rangitihi from Matata. Was he too late? He had ridden through the night from Tauranga, desperately anxious for his Whakatane friends and the gallant Frenchman and his little Maori family at the mill. After crossing the Orini stream, Mair met the first of the whati, the fugitives from Raupo-roa. The pa had fallen, but whether there had been a terrible massacre or not was as yet uncertain.

The first Ngati-Pukeko refugee, Mair met was an old fellow running hard, in great distress. He cried out to Mair: “Kau tahuri te motu nei!” Kau tahuri te motu nei!” (“The island has been overturned!”) Mair's men opened their ranks to let the fugitives through. At a deep raupo swamp south of Te Poroporo settlement, the first of Te Kooti's men came in sight, pursuing the fleeing Ngati-Pukeko. There were about seventy Hauhaus, all mounted, many of them armed with Calisher and Terry carbines.

Mair extended his men, tired after their heavy forced march, and kept Te Kooti's horsemen in check, while the Ngati-Pukeko, the Raupo-roa fighters, turned and assisted the relief force. There was good cover along the edge of the flax and raupo swamp and among the manuka. Mair steadily advanced, skirmishing up the valley until the pa was reached. There it was discovered that there had been no heavy losses except on the side of the Hauhaus. The pa had been captured, but not until nearly all the defenders had made their escape down through the swamps and thickets north of the fort. Only four had been killed in the attack. But the mill-redoubt had been captured; Jean, the Frenchman, lay dead in the gateway.

No memorial marks the place where the brave miller defended his charge to the last. But the parapets of Rauporoa (“The Tall Swamp Reed”) still stand firm—or did when last I rode that way. The tribe proposed, as Te More told me, to restore some of the stockades and the gates, out of the abundance of drift totara timber lying about the Whakatane banks. Such an attempt to renew the defences of the old-time fighting-pa deserves pakeha encouragement.

* * *

It was not so easy to construct the connected account of Rauporoa's siege as the reader possibly would imagine. For the Hauhau side of the story, old warriors who followed Te Kooti were looked up at Ruatoki, Waimana, and Ohiwa, and in Ruatahuna Valley, Urewera country. In particular there were Te Tupara, of Ruatoki, a big soldierly stalwart, who fought for Te Kooti for three years; Netana Whakaari, tall and thin, a keen blade of a veteran, with a face so deeply and blackly tattooed that his glittering eyes looked out as through a dark carved mask. There was Te Whiu, too, the man who two years later ran down and captured Kereopa the Eye-eater, at daylight one morning near Ruatahuna. That was in 1871, when Netana and Te Whiu had both turned to the Government side, by way of variety. Many others had a shot at both sides. The pakeha officers found that an ex-Hauhau bushman made the best Government scout. He knew all the tricks.