Early in the war we did none too well in an attack upon a hill pa at Waireka, a few miles south of New Plymouth.  Colonel Murray was sent out from the town with some 300 troops and militia to take it, and at the same time to bring in some families of settlers who had stuck to their farms, and who, if we may believe one of them, did not want to be interfered with.  The militia were sent by one route, the troops took another.  The Maoris watched the arrangements from the hills, let the militia cross two difficult ravines, and then occupied these, cutting off the Taranaki contingent.  The militia officers, however, kept their men together, and passed the day exchanging shots with their enemy and waiting for Colonel Murray to make a diversion by assailing Waireka.  This, however, Colonel Murray did not do.  He sent Lieutenant Urquhart and thirty men to clear the ravines aforesaid, and give the militiamen a chance of retreat.  But when the latter, still expecting him to attack the pa, did not retire, he rather coolly withdrew Urquhart’s party and retraced his steps to the town, alleging that his orders had been not to go into the bush, and, in any case, to return by dusk.  Great was the excitement amongst the wives, children, and friends of the settlers away in the fight when the soldiers returned without them, and when one terrified woman, who clutched at an officer’s arm and asked their whereabouts, got for answer, “My good woman, I don’t know”!  Loud was the joy when by the light of the moon the militiamen were at length seen marching in.  They had been rescued without knowing it by Captain Cracroft and a party of sixty bluejackets from H.M.S. Niger.  These, meeting Colonel Murray in his retreat, and hearing of the plight of the colonial force, pushed on in gallant indignation, and in the dusk of the evening made that assault upon the pa which the Colonel had somehow not made during the day.  Climbing the hill, the sailors chanced upon a party of natives, whom they chased before them pell-mell.  Reaching the stockade at the heels of the fugitives, the bluejackets gave each other “a back” and scrambled over the palisades, hot to win the L10 promised by the Captain to the first man to pull down the Maori flag.  The defenders from their rifle-pits cut at their feet with tomahawks, wounding several nastily; but in a few minutes the scuffle was over, and the Niger’s people returned victorious to New Plymouth in high spirits.  Moreover, their feat caused the main body of the natives to withdraw from the ravines, thus releasing the endangered militia.  Among these, Captain Harry Atkinson—­in after years the Colony’s Premier and best debater—­had played the man.  Our loss had been small—­that of the natives some fifty killed and wounded.