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"Why, in a place like this, where nobody puts in but gen'lemen of fortune, Silver would fly the Jolly Roger, you don't make no doubt of that. No, that's your friends. There's been blows too, and I reckon your friends has had the best of it; and here they are ashore in the old stockade, as was made years and years ago by Flint. Ah, he was the man to have a headpiece, was Flint!
The original object in establishing the dead line was a precaution against a sudden raid on the stockade, but it often afforded an excuse for some cowardly guard to shoot a Yankee prisoner, who inadvertantly came near enough to place his hand against it. We were not allowed to hang our clothes on this fence to dry, and on no account could a prisoner pass it with impunity.
The Stockade was built originally to accommodate only ten thousand prisoners, and included at first seventeen acres. Near the close of the month of June the area was enlarged by the addition of ten acres. The ground added was situated on the northern slope of the largest hill. The average number of square feet of ground to each prisoner in August 1864: 35.7
The Creek was the great meeting point for all inside the Stockade. All able to walk were certain to be there at least once during the day, and we made it a rendezvous, a place to exchange gossip, discuss the latest news, canvass the prospects of exchange, and, most of all, to curse the Rebels.
The second stockade stood their charge a little longer than did the first, but finally this gave way, and the leaders pushed on through, only to fall into the second ditch and meet a similar fate to those in the first.
Even Lakamba came out of his stockade in a great pomp of war canoes and red umbrellas, and landed on the rotten little jetty of Lingard and Co.
The two young men, following this track at a run, found that it brought them, at the end of a mile or so, to the chief kainga, or village, of the Aohanga Maoris. "It looks as if we had run our fox to earth," cried Fred exultingly, as they made for the gateway of the high wooden stockade relic of the old fighting days which surrounded the kainga.
One hundred picked warriors made a feint on one side of the fort, trying to entice the men out from behind the stockade, while the remainder were concealed in ambush near the spring with which the garrison was supplied with water.
He asked the Court to consider favorably two important items in his defense: first, that he had of his own accord taken the drummer boys from the Stockade, and placed them where they could get purer air and better food. Second, that no property taken from prisoners was retained by him, but was turned over to the Prison Quartermaster.
There was one diversion during the time I speak of, and that from the west side of the fort, where a great clamor of firing and whooping suddenly broke out. I did not dare to leave my post I was virtually in charge of the east stockade but Captain Rudstone led half a dozen men to the disturbed quarter. The scrimmage was quickly over, and when the captain returned I got a report from him.
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