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Maori Soldiers

The n.c.o.'s of the Maori drafts have been taught their soldiering in Trentham Camp since it was established. When they have proved their efficiency they are posted to companies at Narrow Neck Camp, near Auckland The Maori camp is a perfect little camp, everything being provided which makes for health and happiness and discipline. It is situated on the high land behind Devonport, overlooking the Rangitoto Channel. There is an atmosphere of freedom about it which suits the Maori nature, and at the same time there are good marching roads and country suitable for manoeuvres in the neighbourhood. Here is a glimpse of a night in the camp at the time when one of the Maori contingents was in training:

When passing showers and sunset lights were warring for supremacy and making the sea and skies beautiful with every shade of delicate colouring, a company of two hundred Maori soldiers marched briskly up the hill from Narrow Neck Beach to the camp. The pakeha officer who led them was making the pace and making it brisk. But no man lagged, though their lungs were working at full power. Into the gateway they turned, a Maori non-commissioned officer urging the men on. And at the same quick march they swung into the barrack square, that is formed on three sides by the camp buildings and on the fourth by the rifle-bank and Rangitoto and the sea and sky.

The company of men, in blue trousers and khaki sweaters and caps, wheeled quickly and formed up in four separate platoons. Presently another company came in and occupied the other half of the scoria-paved square, which had been rolled all day by a panting steam road-roller, till the surface was smooth for the soldiers' feet.

In a very brief space of time the men were dismissed, and at once the iron hutments, looming in the shadow of the trees, became brilliant points of light, as the electric lamps were switched on, including a powerful page 175lamp over the door of each hutment. With the additional illuminations provided by the lamp over the clock in the orderly-room wall and the bright glare from canteen, picture show, barber's shop, and billiard-room, the Maori camp at Narrow Neck made a pretty picture in its setting of sombre trees.

The cook-house orderlies had lined up and obtained the evening meal for the rest of the soldiers. Each section had said grace in good Maori fashion and fallen upon the food with enthusiasm; the camp adjutant and orderly officer, with a punctilious orderly sergeant to precede them, had visited each hutment and asked if there were any complaints.

That had all been done; the officers had dined; the picture show and billiard-room were looking most alluring. Yet there was no easing off—no sense of evening rest. Instead, the men were buckling on accoutrements, the officers were talking together; and the words one heard most frequently were "night manoeuvres, night parades, rounds of blank, judging distances."

Suddenly the lights in the huts occupied by one company were snapped out. Only the clock lamp saved the square from being in utter darkness. In its weak beams, grey shapes moving in masses were seen. Some whispered words echoed sibilantly. There came the sound of many heavy boots crunching the scoria. Then the shapes were still.

The second company was moving down the main avenue to the square; the shop-lights prevented it from doing so as secretly as the other company. Yet the men were just as silent. Nearly four hundred men were standing there in the almost dark square, and no one spoke above a whisper. The Maori soldier excels in night drills: the mysteriousness of them appeals to him. Except for a cough here and there no sound was made until the order to march was given. Then platoon after platoon swung away, past the glare of lights into the dimly-lighted road and away to the level paddocks for night manoeuvres.

At the foot of the hill the leaders turned from the main road along a rough grass by-way which skirted a fenced area of level, rain-soaked land. A squad of men, under an officer, went straight along the by-way, while the main body, in obedience to whispered orders, strode through wet grass and ditches to the fence. In the darkness, the complaining of the wires and staples as the men squeezed through suggested that the fence was being utterly wrecked. But it still stood after they had passed.

To and fro across the dark landscape the black masses of men moved. The few horses which were grazing there fled in panic, and here and there along the ranks was heard the whispered jest:

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"Cavalry on the right—look out !"

At last the whole of the four hundred men stood, two deep, in long lines, while the officer in command "Morsed" with a hand-lamp to the firing squad. A light gleamed in response. There was a pause. Then the rip and crackle of rifles came, following close on the heels of vivid flashes from the muzzles.

"Can you judge the distance?" the officer asked. Quick as a flash, a young soldier said, "Yes, suh!" "Well, keep it to yourself," was the officer's rejoinder. "How many rifles?" the officer asked. "Three! Four! Six!" were the guesses hazarded. "Four is right."

While waiting for the firing party to advance another hundred yards there was much whispering. Some of the men coughed a lot, until a non-com, hissed, "Shut up!" Then there was no coughing for a while.

By stages, up to eighty yards distance, the rifles advanced with starry outbursts of vivid light and ringing reports. It gave one an idea of how a night attack would impress one—the real thing. In the darkness and silence the thought came that, perhaps, one night, these very soldiers would be in just this position, with the enemy blazing away—perhaps the thought of that future happening was helping to make them quiet in that wet paddock at night manoeuvres. Perhaps—but all such thoughts were dissipated when the men were marching up the main road to camp again, singing. Beginning with a haunting Maori love-song, they drifted into a song of their own, consisting of a well-known patriotic song with a truly Maori syncopation at the end of nearly every line. To the tramp of many feet they sang, in firsts and seconds, this song:—

Sons of the—you know what,
All British—you know what;
Sailing every—you know what,
Laughing foes to—you know what.

To stand at the Camp gateway and hear each lot of men coming singing out of the darkness was a strange experience. Long before they could be seen, every word of the songs they sang rang clearly, the Maori chants—often in minor keys—being wonderfully sweet. As soon as they came into the light of the lamps at the gateway the order was given, "Slope arms!" With fierce non-commissioned officers spurring them on, the men marched into camp as blithely as though they were beginning, instead of ending, a long day's work.

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