Rorke's Drift

by Adrian Greaves

  Rorke’s Drift hospital at 4 p.m. (before the attack)

  The Zulus in the orchard then charged at the mealie bag barrier along the ledge to the front of the hospital. They were met with devastating blasts of volley fire at close range; as warriors fell, those behind jumped over them and crashed against the barrier. A fierce and desperate struggle ensued before the Zulus suddenly retreated leaving scores of their dead and wounded warriors lying several deep against the defensive wall of sacks. In the mêlée Dalton, a former army marksman, shot a Zulu who was in the act of stabbing a corporal of the Army Hospital Corps; the Zulu had seized the corporal’s rifle muzzle rendering the soldier momentarily defenceless. The impetus and ferocity of the Zulus’ attack began forcing the soldiers back from the barrier immediately in front of the hospital and, with no time to reload their rifles, the defenders desperately fought with their bayonets. Although the Zulus relished close combat, they had a fearful respect for the British bayonet and after suffering very severely in the struggle they suddenly retreated back into the cover of the garden wall and orchard. In the midst of the initial attack, one of the two mounted Zulu chiefs was shot from his horse by Private Dunbar; according to his comrades, Dunbar then calmly hit another six Zulus with as many shots.

  Zulu attack 5–6 p.m.

  The defenders had but a momentary respite before the main Zulu body appeared to the rear of the outpost across the forward ridge of the Oskarsberg. As the soldiers watched, the Zulus formed into skirmishing order and advanced down the steep slope towards the mission station. Their marksmen took up sniping position in the Oskarsberg caves and from behind the hill’s rocky ledges less than 300 yards from the defenders; the Zulus commenced firing directly at the backs of the soldiers manning the far barrier overlooking the orchard. Fortunately for the British, the Zulus were poor shots. Meanwhile the strongest mass of Zulus concentrated in the area of the garden and orchard and began creeping forward through the rough bush that grew right up to the front defensive line. Although Dalton had given orders for the garden wall and bush to be cleared, there had been insufficient time even to commence the task. Consequently the British defended their side of the mealie bag wall; the Zulus commanded the other side. There can be little doubt that an organized rush by the Zulus at this early stage of the battle would have resulted in a rapid overwhelming of the British position. However, the Zulus were not organized and their mounted chief, Dabulamanzi, now sheltering behind a tree, seemed unable to coordinate their attacks even though he was less than 100 yards from the front of the hospital. Dabulamanzi had earlier seen his induna shot from his horse and this may well have encouraged him to keep out of sight during the remaining period of daylight. For the next hour or so, the Zulu attacks evolved into a series of uncoordinated rushes at the front wall; all were beaten back by the British who, so far, had not incurred any serious casualties.

  The Zulus then turned their attention to the mealie bag walls either side of the hospital, which they attacked in a series of brave but reckless assaults. As each wave of Zulus reached the walls, they were met with a volley of rifle fire and then the line of waiting soldiers behind their blood-covered bayonets; with the speed of the Zulu attacks, there was no time for the soldiers to reload their rifles. The Zulus suffered greatly: as each wave reached the British position they first had to jump or climb over the growing pile of dead and wounded Zulus and then, sliding on their comrades’ slippery gore, they faced the 6ft high ledge supporting the mealie bag wall. The ferocity of such close combat was totally new to the British soldiers whose experience of native warfare had been limited to distant volley fire, before which previous native adversaries had always retreated. Now they were desperately fighting for their lives, their forward vision clouded by the acrid smoke from their own volleys as deafened by the combination of gunfire and screaming Zulus, they shot and furiously stabbed at the terrifying black mass while desperately seeking to hold their position. Through the smoke and noise of battle, Chard, Bromhead and Dalton skilfully maintained control over the outpost and concentrated their small force to meet each fresh attack. When a gap appeared, one or other of these officers would step forward and join the fight. This pattern of assault continued for the next hour or so with each repulsed wave of Zulus being forced to retreat back into the scrub and undergrowth of the orchard. Meanwhile the Zulu marksmen positioned in the Oskarsberg caves maintained sporadic but mostly ineffective rifle fire into the British position.

  At about 6 p.m. and with daylight rapidly fading, the area of the orchard and road, screened as it was by the original garden wall and thick bush, was now swarming with Zulus. Dabulamanzi abandoned his horse and, while controlling the Zulu attack from the cover of a nearby gully, directed his warriors to divide their attack against the north (front) wall and the south (rear) wall facing the Oskarsberg. This tactic put the British under severe pressure; Dalton was in the forefront of each attack using his rifle with deadly effect on any Zulu who got close. He moved up and down his section of the wall calmly directing fire and encouraging everyone as they fought the spear-slashing Zulus who, if they could, would try and wrench the defenders’ rifles from them – usually without success. It is no wonder that he inspired the admiration which caused ordinary soldiers to remember and write, as did Private Hook: ‘Mr Dalton was one of the bravest men who ever lived’, or remarked later, like Corporal John Lyons, ‘Mr Dalton, who has since received a commission, deserved any amount of praise’. Dalton was then shot at close range through his shoulder; without comment he handed his rifle to Chard before collapsing. Surgeon Reynolds quickly pulled Dalton from the firing line and dressed the wound. Within a matter of minutes, Dalton was back on his feet encouraging the defenders and, where necessary, giving orders. Surgeon Reynolds, separated from the hospital and his patients, also actively assisted with the defence; he repeatedly carried ammunition to the hospital, a Zulu bullet once striking his helmet as he did so.

  Corporal Schiess of the NNC, a Swiss national, had been hospitalized with blisters on his foot following the initial British attack against Sihayo’s homestead. Nevertheless, he joined the defensive line at the front of the outpost and fought alongside his British colleagues. He noticed a cluster of Zulus, who had hidden themselves on the far side of the mealie bag wall and who were taking close-range but ineffective shots at Schiess and those around him. Infuriated, Schiess mounted the barrier to shoot the Zulus, only to find himself looking down the barrel of a Zulu rifle. The Zulu fired and the round missed Schiess but pierced his hat; now face to face with the startled Zulu, Schiess bayoneted the warrior, reloaded his rifle and shot a second, only to be attacked by a third warrior, whom he also bayoneted off the wall. Schiess later received the Victoria Cross for his bravery. Another hospital patient, Corporal Scammell of the NNC, had joined the line only to be shot in the back by a Zulu sniper firing from the Oskarsberg. Scammell fell to the ground and was quickly attended to by Acting Commissariat Officer Byrne.

  Having played a leading part in building up the original barricades, the young Byrne had put himself in the forefront of the firing line. Noticing that Corporal Scammell was wounded and calling for some water, Byrne opened his water bottle and, bending down to give him a drink, was shot dead by a Zulu sniper and fell on top of Scammell. The corporal pulled himself free of the body and, seeing Chard with Dalton’s empty rifle, he crawled over to Chard and gave him the rounds in his pouch before reporting to Surgeon Reynolds.

  One Zulu attack nearly succeeded in breaking over the south wall of biscuit boxes. Chard and Bromhead rushed forward with half a dozen men but they were too few; Chard realized they could no longer hold that part of the position and, in a fortuitous brief lull, he gave the order to abandon the position and to withdraw to within the inner wall of boxes – the wall that had been erected across the outpost almost as an afterthought. No sooner had Chard’s men run back to the entrenchment than the Zulus occupied the far side of the wall just abandoned; the Zulus now used the wall as a protective
breastwork to fire over. The British retreat had both halved the size of the area to be defended and left the hospital and its six able-bodied men and twenty-four patients isolated and virtually surrounded by Zulus.

  First withdrawal 6 p.m.

  Chard now took stock of his defenders; his men were beginning to suffer serious casualties and apart from two fatalities, Byrne and Private Cole, another four were seriously wounded – Corporal Allen and Privates Chick, Fagan and Scanlon. Chard’s main fighting force was now concentrated in the small entrenchment but he had lost control and communication with those trapped in the hospital some 40 yards away. Officers and soldiers alike were becoming wearied by the constant attacks but all knew it was a fight to the death – the Zulus would take no prisoners.

  It was now that a series of dramatic and heroic events occurred. The hospital veranda and far end of the hospital could not be covered by fire from Chard’s new position, a situation that the Zulus were quick to exploit. They massed around the building and closed right up to the barricaded doors and windows, grabbing at the rifles being fired through the loopholes. Other Zulus threw spears with tufts of burning grass onto the hospital’s thatched roof. Due to the heavy rains of the previous weeks the thatch was damp, and even when it did catch fire it was slow to burn. To the alarm of the defenders, the pressing Zulus began clawing and battering at the barricaded doors. The lack of interior doors or means of communication throughout the building was already obvious to the defenders; they were ‘like rats in a trap’, according to Private Hook in his account of the action. Hook and Cole were busy defending a corner room when Cole, who suffered from claustrophobia, could no longer stand the strain; he opened the door and in a wild panic rushed outside only to be immediately slashed to death by the Zulus. Private Beckett also escaped in the same direction; he was badly wounded by a number of spear thrusts as he ran through the enemy. In the darkness he managed to crawl away and hide himself in the scrub near the garden, only to be found dying the following morning. Using his bayonet, Hook broke through to the next room where the three defenders, Privates John and Joseph Williams and Horrigan, had realized their predicament; not only were they and their patients trapped, the Zulus could break through at any moment and the roof fire was beginning to fill the room with thick choking smoke. While Hook kept the Zulus at bay with his bayonet, Williams hacked a hole into the next room in the hope they might reach the far end of the building before the Zulus broke in. They eventually cut their way through and managed to pull three sick men after them before the Zulus broke in and killed the remaining patients.

  The wounded Zulu (taken prisoner during the attack on Sihayo’s stronghold) was still in his room when Hook thought to rescue him; Hook realized the Zulus had already gained access to the room and, thinking they would assist their comrade, Hook left him. His charred body was discovered the following morning in the hospital ruins.

  Then the process began all over again, Hook firing and wielding his bayonet by the hole and Williams swinging his pick to break into the next room where they joined up with Private Waters who, when the time came to crawl through into the final room, chose to hide in a wardrobe. Later, when the Zulus broke into the same room, they ignored the wardrobe, Waters was not detected and he later escaped into the darkness outside and was able to hide until dawn, when he rejoined his comrades. Two defenders holding this last room brought the total trapped inside to eighteen. One patient, Private Connolly, had suffered a dislocated knee and in dragging him through a hole his knee was again dislocated causing him to scream with pain. It took a further fifteen long minutes for the final wall to be breached; all the time Hook guarded the last escape hole and every time a Zulu tried to get through, the warrior would be skewered by Hook’s bayonet; the Zulus would then pull the twitching victim back to enable another warrior to receive the same treatment. Once in the last room, the survivors had a few seconds’ respite; the Zulus could not breach the hole guarded by Hook and the roof fire had not yet reached their end of the building. There were no doors and the only possible exit point was a window high up in the wall; to their relief, they saw that it overlooked open space between the hospital and the defended position some 40 yards away. The window was, however, too small for a man to climb through and the frame had to be smashed out before the process of lowering the injured to the ground could begin.

  At Chard’s position, the defenders saw the plight of the hospital survivors; they could clearly see from the light of the hospital flames that the Zulus were only yards away from the escape window and the end wall. Chard called for two volunteers and as the first patient was lowered from the window, Private Hitch and Corporal Allen raced across the no-man’s-land to render assistance. Their actions were all the more remarkable as Hitch had already been shot through the shoulder and Allen through the arm. As the two raced towards the hospital Chard ordered covering fire. The patients were gently lowered to the ground and Hitch and Allen, in turn, carried or dragged each one to safety.

  Rifle fire from Chard’s inner wall kept most of the Zulus behind their position, but one managed to leap over the wagon and kill a patient, Trooper Hunter of the Natal Mounted Police, as he hesitatingly crawled on all fours towards safety. Hunter was repeatedly stabbed before the defenders’ eyes; the Zulu who killed him was then shot dead by a furious British volley. Having reached the outside of the building, one of the defenders realized that the delirious and fever-ridden Sergeant Maxfield was still inside and climbed back into the blazing building to rescue him. Maxfield’s rescuer tried to dress him but in his delirium he refused to co-operate and fought the attempt to save him. Maxfield had to be abandoned and was killed as the Zulus broke into the room. A partial collapse of the hospital roof gave Gunner Howard an opportunity to escape. With Private Adams he had been cut off in an isolated room throughout the fight; now he dashed and dived for cover where he lay in the darkness and survived to tell the tale; Adams stayed behind and died. Within the hospital building the terrifying ordeal in the darkness, thick smoke and deafening noise had lasted well over two hours. Commissary Dunne later wrote: ‘overhead, the small birds disturbed by the turmoil and smoke flew hither and thither confusedly’.

  Rorke’s Drift hospital at time of attack

  Patients were saved through the high window Z where Cpl Allen and Pte Hitch, both already wounded, gave invaluable assistance getting the patients down from the window and, while keeping the Zulus at bay, ferried the wounded to safety.

  The smouldering thatched roof of the hospital now blazed and illuminated the surrounding Zulus.

  With the fall of the hospital the final desperate phase of the battle began. For Chard and his men, squeezed into the compound round the storehouse and the adjoining cattle kraal, it was simply a fight for survival. Dabulamanzi was also in serious trouble, albeit of a different nature. He had already ignored Cetshwayo on two counts, firstly by crossing into Natal and secondly by attacking the British in a defensive position; to make matters worse, his men had suffered enormous casualties with nothing to show for their bravery and efforts. The other Zulu skirmishers who had been burning local farms had since been drawn back to Rorke’s Drift by the flames and sounds of constant firing; they joined Dabulamanzi’s force and in the light from the burning hospital the Zulus increased their pressure all round. The Zulus had not yet realized that the same light illuminated their massing ranks and made them easy targets for Chard’s marksmen. Then Dabulamanzi changed tactics: he ordered the firing of the storehouse thatched roof. As soon as Chard realized that the Zulus were making a determined effort to set fire to the storehouse roof, presumably to force out the defenders, he ordered Commissary Dunne to construct a redoubt from two huge piles of mealie bags that had been previously stacked at the front of the store. Chard knew that if the storehouse fell the Zulus would be able to surround the defenders at a distance of less than 20 yards; Dunne, a quiet young man, directed the work without thought for his personal safety. He stood on the mound of sacks and encourag
ed the weary soldiers to construct the final redoubt. In so doing he attracted steady fire from the Zulus on all sides, but he remained unscathed throughout.

  Second withdrawal 7 p.m.