THE CHARGE OF THE MAORIS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2625, 22 November 1915, Page 6

THE CHARGE OF THE MAORIS

WAR CRIES AND COLD STEEL ON GALLIPOLI MAORI OFFICER'S STORY Lwutenant J; 0. Tikao, son of Mr. •'H: T.' Tikao, of RapaM, Lyttelton,' has written; to .his family- from hospital in : : Malta, a graphic account of tho, fighting on Gallipoli in August,'in which the Maori Contingent' distinguished itself. Tho following extract gves. tbo best de- .; tailed story .of tho. Maoris'.; charge on . the Turkisli positions yet received' from •ur actual, participant:— . "On .th night: of August 6 I had a platoon of Hawko's Bay and 1 Wairalapa men. .We wore; with;tho Otago mounted men. .The colonel who was in charge of.us that night (Colonel Bauohop) was killed: We were ordered to ' take a lino of trenches on a : 'ridgo some distance ahead;'. \ The ibayonet liad to do the business.' . •' Well, we sneaked up '"••to within 200; yards,' when; the Turks must have spotted us, ; because they. .. turned their machine-guns and rifle fire on us. I can assure you. truthfully'l svas aJI. shakes, which I must put; down . to excitement, and not fright,' as I ..: don't think there was anyone there : moro anxious to get at them than I ! •.was. At any rate/ we half ran and half crawled towards the Turks, - until .we got within about fifty yards of 'them. We got to a' bit of a' dip in' the ground, .where I called a halt to : spell _my men before the final spurt. Up till now about five, of my. men oiit of about fifty had been hit; .Of courso, Ho one could stop to help them just •then. -. Charging uphill: "It was uphill going, about.as steep as. our -paddock' above the house just ; where it meets the road, but, of course, rough and covered with scrub. To ; make it 'harder, they had barbed-wire entanglements in front." This I had partly cleared before moving on, and after about fifteen minutes': spell I passed the word along to 'Prepare to chargo.' I had hardly got' the word /'Charge' out, when my men were into it hcll-for-leather. I had all my time cut out, to, keep ahead of them.' It .was solid going, .through prickly scrub, ibut in t)h© excitement you didn't feel anything—your one and whole desire was to get there. On we went; several of my 'test men were near me all /tho-time. ■ I think they were taking ca'ro of me, as several times I fell over or was caught in a bush, when they .would anxiously spring to my side to see if. I was hit or to set dm free. It was not till then that I knew for sure that I liadthe Confidence, of those men. . ''On we went, nearer the .Turk every stride. On'getting near the trench we could see quite a line of bayonets wait-, ing for ns.. Immediately iri : : front of me 'I could plainly see. tlireo bayoiiete, but no Turk (as I thought) behind them.. 'No I 'sooner had I reached the trench than up the three of them popped, and foang-bang-bang in' quick succession. ~I can hear thoso three shots yet. How , they missed me I can't to this 3ay tell. ■I don't suppose I was .more than two yards at the most off them., I could feel the heat from the charges on my face. Anyhow the shock, must have knocked me over, as I went wallop on. my back. One of my chaps.:came to , me at once, and while bending over me .ho was shot, but not seriously. I really'thought ■_ my' time wais up. I suppose I ivas down a couple of minutes. I started to. move my legs and feel'myself to see if I could feel any pain, hut ,r couldn't feel anything. .Revolver Practice. "After being convinced that nothing was wrong I hopped up in time just to see these Turks turning to run away. They had dropped their rille3. ' I meant to pay back tne fright they liad given me. They were not' more than fifty yards away when I opened fire with my revolver—and she's a beauty. My second shot dropped the first' chapi with a scream', the fifth shot got the second one, the third chap I missed, but he was chased by one of the men and got sixteen inches of steel through him, which.'finished him there and then;' - As my revolver only held six rounds I loaded her . again, and we started.'to clear the trench we had captured. , I cannot-say how many. Turks were ac- . counted for, as we were only in the trench about half an hour when we pushed on again. Anyhow, each of my men had accounted for a Turk, some fo r itwo and some three. That was one of ; the few narrow squeaks I have had, and 1 can -assure you I'm not! looking, for' any more like it: How they missed me I can't understand—just luck, I suppose. ■' "Well, we pushed on to' the next ' trench, which was about three hundred yards further on, but they had been warned and had bolted. This trench we occupied for the night and put on' the defensive touches, such as shifting ' the sandbags to tho opposite side to protect us against bullets coming from the- enemy. I gathered my • men to-' gether to see who was missing, and sent some to look for and attend to our wounded until "the stretcher-bearers arrived. . ; War Cries in tho.Night.v "I forgot to mention that when . I gave the word 'Charge,' my boys broke out: into 'Ka mate, ka mate' ; but the yelling and screaming, way they, in fact the whole lot of us, went into it roust ■have sent a cold feeling down ' the Turks' backs. In the meantime my South boys under Captain Dansey, were charging on our right about half a mile away from us. As soon as wo had ■ cleared oiir first trench, when we heard them screaming 'Ka mate, ka mate,' we knew they were at it; too This started tho ball ■. rolling, and every charge the New Zealand pakehas made that night you would hear 'Kamate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka oral' It simply . made our blood boil every time we heard it. Wo knew our boys .were getting into it. "The next day about midday we wero reinforced by our New Zealand iufantp'i aud I withdrew my men. Our contingent was called together, and we were ordered to push On to help to hold a big hill where .our men - were being hard pushed. We had to go about two miles to get this hill. Half-way there wo halted. We were on the point of commencing the attack when our Brigadier-General istopped hs, as he could see we were walking into hell. ■•We at once commenced digging in to Jirotect ourselves, and in a short rime lad a shallow trench made, and also dug-outs. All this time we were under & hoavv ■ fire—shrapnel and machineguns. Now 'and again one of our men would get hit. This is where my luck favoured me again, as several times I was just missed by inches. Two men wore killed by my side with bullets that I sn-ear were meant for me. "It seems' marvellous how narrowly one is missed. The Turks were now trying to get us with their big guns. They eventually .got the range, and they peppered away at us for two solid hours without a 6top. We wore in a hit of a gully dug in on tho side nearest to them. All you could do was to luii against the side as close as wissiblo. Every inch meant your life. Pieces of the shrapnel would perhans | catch the top of tho dugout and would nearly take the boots off us—in one ' case 'it did. Tho chap . was not far enough in," and his feot wero sticking out. a little; it just: got the he.el of his Wt. and simply toro tlie wliolo sole off. Beyond a fright-he was cot lnirt.