Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/265

in Tauranga-ika. In one of these rencontres a young Wanganui trooper—now a resident of Wellington—won his New Zealand Cross. This was William Lingard, a member of Captain John Bryce's troop of Kai-iwi Cavalry.

Out scouting one day, Bryce took a party of his men boldly up to the front of the stockade on a reconnaissance. The place was unusually quiet, and a white flag was flying on the flag-staff in front of the pa. One of the cavalrymen, Sergeant Maxwell, leaping a ditch and hedge that intervened between the farm lands and the pa, raced right up close to the stockade, and fired at it. Trooper Lingard, also leaping the obstacles, with the rest of the detachment, rode up past the pa. Lingard, though he could see nothing of the Maoris, raised his carbine and fired a shot. The next instant the whole palisade front—just above the ground, where the interstices were left for musketry—was a blaze of fire, and a storm of lead sang over the little troop. The Hauhaus, hidden in their trenches, and preserving complete silence, had waited till the patrol was within murderously close range. Maxwell was mortally wounded; but he sat his horse till it carried him out of range. Several horses were shot, and fell. One trooper, H. Wright, was pinned to the ground by his horse falling on his leg, and was unable to extricate himself, but, nevertheless, drew his revolver, and kept popping away at the palisades.