Rorke's Drift

by Adrian Greaves

  There can be little doubt that, thereafter, even battle-experienced officers of the invasion force were reluctant to challenge or query any order from one of Chelmsford’s staff officers for fear of humiliation. This might also explain why, at the moment of the main Zulu attack on the column a few days later at Isandlwana, all the 24th officers totally obeyed their orders to hold their exposed positions even as the Zulu army closed in and overwhelmed them.

  Nevertheless, Dunbar’s work was successfully completed by 20 January and the whole column moved through to the new campsite next to the long rock outcrop at Isandlwana. In the final approach to the camp the wagons constituted a column of 110 great Cape wagons, each drawn by up to sixteen oxen. Lieutenant Penn Symons wrote a description of Isandlwana:

  The hill was at its highest at its southern end, beyond which was a neck over which the track passed, and beyond that again an isolated kopje [hill] 500 yards from the main hill. In front, facing Eastward, open ground sloped gently down from Isandhlwana Hill, forming a plain about four miles from North to South and eight from East to West. Beyond that were hills and to the North of the plain a steepish ridge ran from East and West, at one point coming within a mile of the site chosen for the camp just in front of Isandhlwana Hill. To the right flank the ground between the camp and the Buffalo river was undulating and much broken.

  Chelmsford intended that the column, once restocked with supplies, would move towards Isipezi hill and thence to Ulundi to confront Cetshwayo and his army. During the establishment of the camp on 20 January Chelmsford received a number of intelligence reports that the Zulu army was approaching his position from the direction of Ulundi. This made perfect sense and he accordingly dispatched a large reconnaissance party under Major John Dartnell towards the Mangeni falls to locate the Zulus, with orders to bring his force back to Isandlwana before nightfall. During the day Dartnell reported seeing numerous Zulu scouting parties and after dark he saw countless Zulu cooking fires across the distant hills towards Ulundi. He accordingly requested further reinforcements from Chelmsford, who mistakenly presumed that Dartnell had found the Zulu army. At 1.30 a.m. on 22 January Chelmsford divided his force; he accompanied the force now tasked with supporting Dartnell.

  The camp was left with six companies of the l/24th, one company of the 2/24th, two guns of the Royal Artillery and some 600 members of the NNC, a total force of over 1, 700 men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pulleine who had only just arrived at Isandlwana from Pietermaritzburg to take over the command of the l/24th from Glyn. Pulleine was an accomplished administrator, and, rare for a senior officer at that time, he totally lacked any combat experience. His orders were to ‘defend the camp’ while at the same time he was to pack the camp ready to move to the next campsite at Isipezi.

  Pulleine inherited a camp that was totally undefended; no defensive measures had been taken although Glyn and several of his officers had expressed concern that the camp was ‘as vulnerable as an English village’.3 Despite the instructions in the Regulations for Field Forces in South Africa, the Isandlwana camp had not been entrenched nor had the wagons been formed into a laager; Chelmsford’s staff had overruled the junior officers’ concern on the grounds that the precaution of laagering was unnecessary and that the wagons had to return to Rorke’s Drift for further supplies.

  It is impossible to pass over this matter because a terrible disaster resulted from the decision. The official records of the 24th Regiment state:

  The point has to be considered in the light of the methods and ideas then prevalent in the Army. In those days “theirs is not to reason why” was the accepted gospel of the majority, for a subordinate officer to criticise or protest or even make suggestions wanted a marked degree of self-confidence and moral courage, while individual initiative and independence of thought was hardly encouraged in the highest circles. An order was an order, what was not ordered was not done.

  A field officer of the 2nd Battalion on duty with the pickets on the previous day had expressed strong misgivings about the protective arrangements to the staff officer on duty, pointing out the poor defensive position of the camp and that there were no guards to the rear of it. Another officer, Lieutenant Melvill, adjutant of the l/24th, stated at the time:

  These Zulus will charge home and with our small number we ought to be in laager, or, at any rate, prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder.4

  Pulleine’s orders were to ‘keep his men in camp, to act strictly on the defensive, draw in the infantry and extend the cavalry picquets’5. Accordingly, Pulleine ordered the combatant troops out in a defensive line some 800 yards beyond the outer edge of the tented camp. The line ran along the crest of a low ridge, forming a quarter circle subtending the north-east of the Isandlwana position. The men were deployed in skirmishing order, i.e. between 3 and 5 yards apart. Two 7 pound guns (N Battery, 5th Brigade) of the Royal Artillery were placed on the knuckle of the line.

  At about 10 a.m. parties of Zulus were seen looking down on the Isandlwana camp from the Nqutu plateau to the north; this confused Pulleine who believed the Zulu army was still approaching from Ulundi in the east. In fact the Zulu army was camped in a great hidden valley, the Ngwebeni, in the north-east and only 5.5 miles from the British camp; its fighting strength was between 23, 000 and 25, 000 men and the clusters of Zulus watching the camp were the Zulu commanders and their escorts.

  Before leaving Isandlwana Chelmsford had ordered Colonel Durnford and his 2nd Column, consisting mainly of mounted native troops, to move towards Mangeni from Rorke’s Drift where he had been held in reserve. By 10.30 a.m. Durnford and his mounted men reached Isandlwana – just as the observing Zulus appeared to move away from the ridge towards Chelmsford’s position. The Zulus already on the edge of the plateau were in sufficient numbers to cause the experienced Durnford some concern; he was clearly puzzled as to why the camp was being observed from the north if the Zulu army was still many miles off to the south. As a precaution, he dispatched two of his mounted troops under the command of Lieutenants Raw and Roberts to ascend the plateau by the nearest ridge to ascertain the situation. At the same time Durnford moved off towards Mangeni in a due easterly direction, past the prominent conical hill and onto the plain beyond towards Ulundi. Durnford was followed by his rocket battery under Major Russell RA and presumably their intention was to protect Chelmsford and his highly exposed force.

  When Lieutenant Raw and his men reached the top of the plateau the Zulus had disappeared; all that remained about 2 miles across the plateau was a small herd of cattle being led by several Zulu boys. Forgetting that this was a classic Zulu decoy, Raw and his men set off to investigate. They ascended a small rise only to ride into the advance guard of the approaching main Zulu army. They immediately opened fire on the Zulus with a series of rapid volleys. Stimulated by the sound of these volleys, the main Zulu force immediately sped up its advance towards the British position. The Zulu force, superbly disciplined and under the command of the chieftains Ntshingwayo ka Mahole Khoza and Mavumengwana ka Ndlela Ntuli emerged swiftly from the hidden valley, deploying into the tactic of the ‘horns of the bull’. The first inkling the British force at Isandlwana had of their coming crisis was when they saw the Zulu, right horn descend from the plateau and destroy the rocket battery under the command of Major Russell. More Zulus then descended off the plateau to engage Colonel Durnford on the plain below, and they began to push Durnford’s men obliquely back towards Isandlwana. Durnford’s force made a valiant stand in a dry watercourse east of the camp, known thereafter as ‘Durnford’s Donga’.

  The two guns of the Royal Artillery were then unlimbered and accurately fired several shells into the right horn of the Zulu army who were now pinned down by Durnford on the far side of the donga. This action elicited ‘three cheers’ from the watching infantrymen.

  It was only then that the terrifying sight of the main Zulu force massing on the heights to the north and north-east of the camp became visible to the British.
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br />   A large wing of the Zulu army (the right horn) broke away from this force and moved down the valley that extends north-west from a point north of Isandlwana, and the British forces up on the ridge fired into them, eliciting little or no response. These warriors then turned south, threatening the road back to Rorke’s Drift.

  The Zulu commanders sat on the great bluff of rocks known as iNyoni, from where they directed the movements of Zulu forces, and when the ‘horns of the bull’ were in position the main body of the Zulu army descended into the killing field. Within half an hour the whole Zulu force had deployed and commenced its attack on the British front line. Due to the distance of the British firing line from the camp, it is unlikely that the camp commander, Colonel Pulleine, could even see their position or predicament. There was something of an impasse when the Zulu force came up against the concentrated Martini-Henry rifle fire of disciplined British troops; the Zulus sustained heavy casualties in the depression below the British firing line, but they bravely held their position.

  Zulu warriors began to edge their way around the south of Durnford’s position in the donga; this threatened G Company 2/24th who, having been detached from the southern extremity of the British firing line to assist Durnford, got caught out in the open and were swiftly overrun and slaughtered. Durnford retired to a position to the right (south) of the Isandlwana camp and made a determined last stand near the north-eastern base of the ‘Stony Koppie’ (Black’s Koppie).

  A bugler sounded the ‘retire’, whereupon a tactical withdrawal of the line commenced towards the camp. It failed, and the retreat became a rout when the soldiers were forced to fight the advancing Zulus through the chaos of their own camp, the tents of which had not been struck. Some British soldiers fought their way in small pockets down what is today known as the ‘Fugitives’ Trail’, and the last stand of the 24th was probably fought on the banks of the Manzimyama river a mile south-west of Isandlwana.

  At least one company of men, thought to be C Company of the l/24th under the command of Captain Reginald Younghusband, made a last stand high up on the shoulder of the Isandlwana hill, and the last man to die on the British side is thought to have taken up a position in the cave high on the side of Isandlwana itself, immediately above Younghusband’s position where he is believed to have kept off his enemy for some considerable time. Within half an hour the Zulus breached the British defences, forced Colonel Durnford’s survivors back towards the camp and completed their encirclement. Within a further half-hour the camp and its occupants were completely destroyed. Trooper W. Barker of the Natal Carbineers later commented in a letter home: ‘Zulus seemed to be behind, before, and on each side of us, and as we hurried on we had to leave poor fugitives crying and begging us not to leave them’.

  The scene across the British position, as stabbing Zulus fought hand to hand with desperate soldiers, was unimaginably terrifying. British discipline had been replaced by rout; it was every man for himself amidst the carnage. Nevertheless, some acts of selflessness were recorded; the Hon. Standish Vereker gave his horse to an injured man, which resulted in his own death moments later. Surgeon Major Peter Shepherd would have escaped on his horse had he not stopped to assist a severely wounded soldier; Shepherd was stabbed through the neck by a passing Zulu. With the British force so outnumbered, it was remarkable that anyone could have escaped back to the safety of Natal, although of the fifty-five Europeans who did escape, the majority were camp followers who departed before the battle was under way, or Colonials who were mounted and could outran the Zulus. Lieutenant Horace Smith-Dorrien, who was one of only five Imperial officers to escape, was in camp as the Zulus attacked and wrote of his escape to his father:

  I was out with the front companies of the 24th handing them spare ammunition. Bullets were flying all over the place, but I never seemed to notice them. The Zulus nearly all had firearms of some kind and lots of ammunition. Before we knew where we were, they came right into the camp, assegaing everybody right and left. Everybody then who had a horse turned to fly. The enemy were going at a kind of very fast half walk and half run. On looking round we saw that we were completely surrounded and the road to Rorke’s Drift was cut off. The place where they seemed thinnest was where we all made for. Everybody went pell-mell over the ground covered with huge boulders and rocks until we got to a deep spruit or gully. How the horses got over, I have no idea. I was riding a broken kneed old crock which did not belong to me, and which I expected to go on its head every minute. We had to go bang through them at the spruit. Lots of our men were killed there. I had lots of marvellous escapes, and was firing away at them with my revolver as I galloped along. The ground there down to the river was so broken that the Zulus went as fast as the horses and kept killing all the way. There were very few white men; they were nearly all mounted niggers of ours flying. This lasted until we came to a kind of precipice down to the river Buffalo. I jumped off and led my horse down. There was a poor fellow of the Mounted Infantry, a Private, struckthrough the arm, who said as I passed that if I could bind up his arm and stop the bleeding he would be alright. I accordingly took out my handkerchief and tied up his arm. Just as I had done it, Maj. Smith of the Artillery came down by me wounded, saying, “For God’s sake get on, man, the Zulus are on the top of us”. I had done all I could for the wounded man as I turned to jump on my horse. Just as I was doing so, the horse went with a bound to the bottom of the precipice, being struck with an assegai. I gave up all hope, as the Zulus were all round me, finishing off the wounded, the man I had helped and Maj. Smith among the number. However, with the strong hope that everybody clings to that some accident would turn up, I rushed off on foot and plunged into the river, which was little better than a roaring torrent.

  Lieutenant William Cochrane was also in the camp when it was overran by the Zulus; he echoed the desperate attempts to escape when he wrote to his family:

  I made in the direction which I had seen taken by the mounted men, guns and Royal Artillery, and natives on foot. I was cut off by the enemy, who had now reached the line of retreat; but with a good horse, hard riding, and good luck, I managed to reach the Buffalo River. The Zulus seemed perfectly fearless; they followed alongside, having desperate fighting with those retreating, mostly our natives on foot. On several occasions they were quite close to me, but I was fortunate enough to escape, while others dropped at my side. They fired at us the whole way from the camp to the river, but having mounted the bank on the opposite side we were safe.

  With the exception of Lieutenant Curling who vainly tried to save the artillery guns, no British frontline soldier or officer survived. This situation caused much controversy when, a few days after the battle, it was discovered that two mounted officers of the 24th Regiment, Lieutenants Coghill and Melvill, had not only managed to escape from the camp but had reached Natal on horseback before being killed. Their departure from the battlefield while their regiment’s soldiers were still fighting for their lives, and the circumstances in which the two officers died, were to become the subject of much speculation, debate and a harsh statement from Chelmsford’s successor, Sir Garnet Wolseley.6

  In the closing moments of the battle Lieutenant Melvill tried to rally his men to the Queen’s Colour of his battalion. He quickly realized the futility of his actions and instead tried to save the Colour from the Zulus. He made an epic ride over some 5 miles of boulder-strewn, bush-clad broken country down to the Buffalo river. He and Lieutenant Nevill Coghill both crossed the river but were both killed high up on the lip of the gorge on the Natal side of the river, having saved each other’s lives but lost the Queen’s Colour to the waters of the flooded river in a gallant attempt to get the Colour to the Natal bank. Both officers were killed by previously friendly locals from Sihayo’s homestead – angry at the British attack on their village and their brutal treatment under questioning when taken prisoner.

  Only three Isandlwana Victoria Crosses were awarded; curiously, each recipient had fled the battlefield. Private Sa
muel Wassail’s VC was presented to him in September 1879; Coghill and Melvill were honoured posthumously in 1907, after a delay of nearly thirty years.7

  As part of the Zulus’ battle ritual, warriors invariably disembowelled, and occasionally mutilated, the bodies of their slain enemy. It was an act that horrified British soldiers who initially believed that disembowelment was a process of torture. In fact it was a post-combat ritual which reflected the extent to which death in combat was linked to the spiritual world of the Zulus.

  Isandlwana

  After battle, freshly slain bodies were repeatedly stabbed in a practice known as ukuhlomula. The practice of blomulaing a fallen enemy was a ritual to mark a participating warrior’s role in the kill. Warriors who had been involved in the fighting but had not actually killed an enemy were still entitled to share the glory that was attached to the victory – stabbing the corpse after it was dead and ‘washing the spear’ in blood acknowledged this.