Arm Shattered at Paparatu

When word was received that Te Kooti and his band had landed from the Chathams at Whareongaonga, Colonel Whitmore went out with a force, which included Mr. Goldsmith, to intercept the Natives. Te Kooti made for Tiniroto en route to the Urewera country and it was at Paparatu that the opposing forces came into conflict. Colonel Whitmore came up with Te Kooti about 9 o'clock in the morning and immediately engaged him, the fight taking place in nills covered with bush. The Hau-Haus were on one side of a gully and the European force on the other, so that there was little scope for a straight-out encounter. The two forces took cover in the bush, each man finding the best shelter he could and keeping up a desultory fire whenever a target presented itself. Until darkness fell the engagement lasted, but, thereafter, Colonel Whitmore, who had by far the fewer number of troops, deemed it necessary to withdraw and Te Kooti continued his dash for the Urewera country.

It was in this fight that Mr. Goldsmith received a wound, the scar of which he bears to this day. He had taken cover behind some bushes, but exposed his left arm and a ball smashed through it at the elbow. A comrade saddled a horse for him and he rode back to Matawhero, where a temporary hospital had been set up in the small church—the first established church in Poverty Bay. After being tended there, he was sent down by boat to Napier and remained there until news of the terrible Massacre.