Exercises in the Dark

"The enemy" was to take the homestead. It was a moonless night, and the defenders had covered their trench with the dry bracken that grew plentifully around the area. They were sure none could come near without being heard this time. Silently, one of the "enemy" approached the trench (the Māori men were particularly good at this), and he was undetected until he threw a match onto the dry bracken, which burst into flames immediately. As the men dived through the fire above their heads, the attackers easily "popped them off".

"That's not funny!" they stormed, some of them very angry indeed, but they did realise what would have happened in a real war situation.

On the way home, another man in the car told the new recruit that on a previous parade, they had assembled at the barn at Okoropong.

"It's ideal for the purpose," he said. "It's almost completely hidden under the big macrocarpa trees and a solid barberry hedge surrounds the paddock, and there is room for us all inside. We were to reach the Horsham Downs Hall without being captured by that platoon. Across the swampy bed of the old Lake Tunawakapekepeke the fences are rather low, but there's a drain beside them. Several of the men forgot the drains and jumped the fence to land—splash!—in the water.

You’d be surprised how much noise that makes on a clear night; and it's much harder to move quietly when your boots are swishing with water, too."

"But what's the use without guns and ammunition?" demanded the new man. "We couldn't do any real good."

"I suppose not," Fred answered rather reluctantly, "just delaying tactics really. We can blow up the bridges," (he did not tell of the gelignite stored for that purpose in his wool shed), "but a modern army can build a Bailey bridge quicker than we could blow one up. Our only real hope is to stop them before they reach New Zealand. The most important function of the Home Guard is that in working together like this, we are getting to know the countryside and learning to take orders and co-operate with each other. New Zealand farmers are individualists, you know."

Reference:
Rushes ‘an Raupo, To Cows an’ Clover by Edith Williamson