Early one morning, Rāwiri paid Hulke a visit. He was worried for his life, he said. He'd seen a particular man loading his gun and knew trouble wasn't far ahead.
He told him he had come to say goodbye in case something happened to him. Hulke could see he was afraid of Katatore and his men.
An hour had scarcely passed after Rāwiri had gone on his way, when Hulke heard gunfire echo over his fields. Leaping onto his horse, he galloped up Corbett Road towards the mountain. Not far from his house, he came upon a terrible scene.
There on the track lay four bodies, with many others dead or dying scattered all around, all from Rāwiri's kinsmen. Rāwiri lay amongst them.
Hulke fell from his horse and dropped onto his knees in the dirt beside Rāwiri, who had caught a bullet in his side. Rāwiri drew Hulke close enough to whisper in his ear.
"William," he said. "I have a greenstone mere, a tribal one of great importance, value and beauty. My enemies will not rest until it is taken from me. Please take it and hide it for me. It is concealed between my thighs."
The mere had once belonged to the now fractured Puketapu hapū and Rāwiri had taken to carrying it for safekeeping. As Hulke fumbled to find it, blow after blow began to rain down on him from behind. A Māori woman nearly kicked him into the dirt as she had assumed he was robbing the corpse.
"Stop! Stop!" Came Rāwiri's breathless voice. "Stop! Stop!"
And it was only after she'd heard the dying chief's assurances that Hulke was a friend that the woman turned away.
Hulke slipped the mere inside his shirt and stood up. Then wishing his friend a safe last journey, he remounted his horse and sped for home.
Back at Hawetaone, Hulke quickly told his wife what had happened and together they decided to hide the mere deep inside a feather mattress.
A seam was ripped apart, the mere laid inside, and the opening sewn back up. But Mrs Hulke had barely put the needle down when Katatore's men pounded at the door.
"Where is the mere!" they shouted. The couple stood firm in their denials. They didn't have it.
When Katatore gave the order to ransack the house, the Hulkes had no choice but to nervously stand by and hope the mere would not be found. They knew if was their house would be burned to the ground in retribution.
Though every nook and cranny was thoroughly searched, Katatore and his men came up empty-handed. Reluctantly, they went back to their pā.
Three days later, Rāwiri Waiaua died. Without him on their side, Hulke and his neighbours knew they would no longer be safe in the district. Eventually, they gathered together, deciding their soundest plan was to move into town where they would be fully protected. But first they would pay a timely visit to Ihaia, who had assumed leadership of the Hua people.
Altogether, 26 settlers packed up and left their farms, but as well as escape, they embarked on a wholesale smuggling expedition.
They were laden down with the munitions of war for Ihaia, their new ally. The bustles of the women hung heavy with bags of gunpowder and Hulke wore his wife's corset with gunpowder padding next to his skin. Rāwiri's greenstone mere stayed hidden inside the mattress.
The wagon train travelled slowly and carefully, but at Māhoetahi, two armed Māori warriors suddenly sprang out of the fern.
They scrutinised the settlers closely but left them alone, disappearing just as suddenly as they'd come. This happened several more times yet the settlers were able to travel on.
As the party drew level to the Big Jim's Hill quarry, a larger, more menacing group appeared. The settlers pulled their horses up and stopped on command.
"We want to know what you're doing?" a Māori spokesman said. "We want to know where you're going."
Hulke kept his wits about him. He knew better than to lie. Though he knew it was still dangerous, he explained how they were simply paying a visit to Ihaia.
And afterwards, perhaps, they might call on Wi Kīngi. Both were enemies of Katatore, whose men stood challenging him.
"What are you taking to Ihaia?" Katatore's warriors asked.
"Nothing at all," replied Hulke.
Now Katatore's men began a rough search, running their hands over Hulke, feeling the men's long boots and the women's dresses. When they found nothing, reluctantly they waved them on. "Go on," they said.
The relieved settlers took their horses and wagons down into the gully, crossing the old ford as heavy rain began to batter their loads. All around them, the countryside looked dark and sinister.
The river was rising, but the water was still low enough to cross. As they pulled up the eastern bank, they were stopped yet again. But these were Hua people and their old trustworthy friends. They scolded them all soundly for being so foolhardy as to ride around with so many enemies on the warpath.
"Go back before the floods come," they said.
While some of settlers squabbled, a few turned around. But not Hulke, who was determined to push on to Mamaku Pā, Ihaia's stronghold on the west bank of the Waitara River, a short ride away.
But the Hua men stood their ground and barred his way.
"It's far too dangerous," they said. "Too much of a risk."
Eventually, Hulke too, turned back towards the ford.
But before the hooves of Hulke's horse hit water, he was stopped for the last time, by men from Wi Kīngi's tribe, who were armed and agitated.
Hulke, who must have nearly had enough of being told what to do, threw open his coat and then his waistcoat and shirt and demanded that they search him.
This single act of bluff and boldness probably saved his life because Kīngi's men were in such a state they might have shot him first and asked questions later. Instead, they did as he insisted, and moved in to pat him down.
Immediately, overhead came a volley of gunfire from Ihaia's pā. The Kīngi followers scattered, leaving Hulke to plunge his horse into the Waitara River and join his wife and fellow farmers on the other side.
They continued on their journey unharmed, the gun powder safely hidden and were not stopped again - though later Hulke would discover that a man named Smith, who had regularly sold gunpowder to Wi Kīngi's people, had told them Hulke was doing the same for his enemy Ihaia and had tipped them off.
He had told them where and when to expect him. Unbeknownst to most, Smith had a wooden leg which he hollowed out and filled with gunpowder. In this way, he passed safely round the countryside without detection.
After Rāwiri's death, local Māori were plunged further and further into civil war until the area around Bell Block became a bloody battleground.
When Ihaia's pā was besieged by his enemies, Hulke and his colleagues regularly rode out, taking caps and gunpowder, stowed away in their knee-boots or in medical supplies for the wounded, such as linen bandages and bread for poultices.
From an account by W.H.Skinner in 1908 Taranaki Herald, as told to him by William K. Hulke.
Ihaia would one day build another stronghold, Huirirapa Pa, at the Waitara River mouth. This is how it looked in 1860. From a sketch by Lt Rees of the 40th Regiment, 10 September 1860.