Rorke's Drift

by Adrian Greaves

  It gradually dawned on the survivors that most of their jackets had been destroyed in the attempt to bind their red-hot Martini-Henry rifles during the heavy fighting of the night and there were certainly no replacement uniforms in the remaining piles of stores. Once the soldiers were fed they turned their attention to finding replacement clothes, and within the hour soldiers had used their scavenging initiative to manufacture jackets from the heavy and abundant mealie sacks that were littering the ground; they simply cut holes in the empty sacks for their heads and arms and the one size fitted all. It was to be several weeks before replacement uniforms reached the men, and even then it took a question in Parliament before one flannel shirt and a pair of trousers, but not jackets, could be issued to the defenders ‘cost free’ as compensation for uniforms damaged during the fighting. The Referee, an English newspaper, published the following verse to make its readers aware of the soldiers’ plight.

  RORKE’S DRIFT

  There was an old soldier named Dan’el

  He fought till his clothes were in rags,

  So the Government gave him a flannel,

  And also a new pair of bags.

  And the news it went over the Channel,

  Through Europe it’s chaff for the wags,

  That we honour our heroes in flannel,

  And clothe their achievements in bags.

  ’Tis a blot on our glorious annals,

  Oh, who were the elderly hags,

  Who suggested those charity flannels

  And ordered those beggarly bags?

  When the public its jury empanels,

  ’Twill suggest, ere the interest flags,

  That the Tories for skirts take the flannels,

  And they might put their heads in the bags.

  Within a matter of hours of the engagement at Rorke’s Drift, and in true British Army fashion, an inventory was drawn up to account for the remaining ammunition; when redistributed, there were now seventy rounds per man. Donald Morris stated that 20,000 rounds of Martini-Henry ammunition had been fired in the space of twelve hours by the 104 British combatants.3 This roughly equates with twenty-five rounds per man per hour – yet Zulu casualties from the battle amounted to not more than 500 at the highest estimate. This implies that it took roughly forty rounds to kill one Zulu in a battle that was fought at very close range. Were the British poor marksmen, was the figure of 20,000 rounds incorrect or were there other factors? This question becomes even more interesting in view of the lack of archaeological evidence concerning the few finds of empty ammunition cases or of fired rounds on the battlefield.4 Commandant Hamilton-Browne, commander of the Natal Native Contingent, wrote of the aftermath of the battle:

  The dead Zulus lay in piles, in some places as high as the top of the parapet. Some killed by bullets and the wounds, at that short range, were ghastly but very many were killed by the bayonet.

  If the figure of 20,000 rounds is correct, Hamilton-Browne’s statement certainly appears to raise a question about the efficacy of the Martini-Henry rifle especially as so many of the Zulus had died of bayonet wounds. There were certainly many occasions during the night when the British defenders relied on their bayonets to drive the Zulus back from the defensive positions. It is possible the defenders were short of ammunition before the battle commenced – certainly the actual defenders in the hospital either were not well supplied with ammunition or had ‘blazed away’ in the opening stages and then found themselves short. In any event no medical examination was conducted to establish the individual causes of death among the Zulu attackers before they were buried and so the reason for the apparent ineffectiveness of the Martini-Henry rifle at Rorke’s Drift remains unclear – other than to acknowledge that much of the fighting took place in darkness, only illuminated by the fire of the hospital thatch.

  In December 1936 the BBC conducted a radio interview with Colour Sergeant Bourne about the battle of Rorke’s Drift. In the programme he was asked about the rifles used by the Zulus; Bourne was adamant that the Zulus attacking the outpost had used British Martini-Henry rifles captured earlier in the day at Isandlwana. He stated:

  The Zulus had collected the rifles from the men they had killed at Isandlwana, and had captured the ammunition from the mules which had stampeded and threw their loads; so our own arms were used against us. In fact, this was the cause of every one of our casualties, killed and wounded, and we should have suffered many more if the enemy had known how to use a rifle. There was hardly a man even wounded by an assegai – their principal weapon.5

  Of all the Rorke’s Drift defenders, Colour Sergeant Bourne was possibly the most experienced soldier present, both on army firing ranges and in battle; he would certainly have recognized the distinctive report of a Martini-Henry rifle being fired compared with the reports from antiquated Zulu muskets. Most historians have claimed the Zulus did not possess Martini-Henry rifles and have accordingly dismissed Bourne’s report. It is historically accepted that the Zulus who attacked Rorke’s Drift had earlier formed the reserve at Isandlwana and had not taken part in the destruction of the British camp; throughout the battle they were deployed at a distance between 1 and 2 miles from the action. Historians support their hypothesis by relying on two fundamental points: there were no weak links in the Zulu attack at Isandlwana and the Zulus who attacked Rorke’s Drift had not taken part in the battle of Isandlwana. So, they argue, if the Zulus did have Martini-Henry rifles at Rorke’s Drift, where did they obtain them?

  Bourne was probably correct: they came from Isandlwana, although not from the main battle but from two comparatively minor encounters when the 4,000 Zulus detailed for the reserve at Isandlwana swept behind the mountain and overran two isolated groups of British soldiers before successfully blocking the British escape route back to Rorke’s Drift. (See Appendix F for full details.)

  Commandant Hamilton-Browne, the commander of the NNC who had accompanied Chelmsford during the previous two days, was ordered to remain at Rorke’s Drift with his black troops. He later recalled some of the events that then occurred when he wrote:

  Well we went into the laager. No one seemed to know what to do and certainly no one tried to do anything. I spoke to several of the seniors and suggested that the thatch should be taken off the store and more loopholes made, also that the stacks of forage should be removed, but until I came to Colonel Harness, R.A., no one would pay the least attention. He at once saw things in the same light as I did and said, “I will send my gunners to remove the thatch if you will get the forage away.” This we did and in a short time the place was secure from fire.

  No sooner had I seen my part of this work done than I began to feel as if I was rather hollow and I rejoined Lonsdale and Harford. Rations had been served out and we had bully beef, biscuit, tea and sugar in plenty but no cups, plates, knives, forks or spoons – not even a pot or kettle to boil water in. However we made shift to eat the bully and biscuits with our fingers, then boiled water in the empty bully tins, added tea and sugar and drank it with gusto.

  Well Lonsdale and myself went round to the front and there saw what a tremendous effort must have been made by both sides.

  The dead Zulus lay in piles, in some places as high as the top of the parapet. Some killed by bullets and the wounds, at that short range, were ghastly but very many were killed by the bayonet. The attack must have been well pushed home and both sides deserve the greatest credit. The hospital was still smouldering and the stench from the burning flesh of the dead inside was very bad; it was much worse however when we came to clear the debris away two days afterwards. Some of our sick and wounded had been burned inside of the hospital and a number of Zulus had been also killed inside of the building itself.

  In front of the hospital lay a large number of Zulus also a few of our men, who had been patients, and who when the hospital had been set on fire had, in trying to escape, rushed out among the enemy and had been killed, their bodies being also ripped and much mutilated.

  A few dea
d horses lay about, either killed by the assegai or by the bullets of the defenders, and I wondered why they had not been driven away before the fighting began.

  One thing I noticed and that was the extraordinary way in which the majority of the Zulus lay. I had been over a good many battlefields and seen very many men who had been killed in action but I had never seen men lie in this position. They seemed to have dropped on their elbows and knees and remained like that with their knees drawn up to their chins.

  One huge fellow who must have been, in life, quite 7 feet high lay on his back with his heels on the top of the parapet and his head nearly touching the ground, the rest of his body supported by a heap of his dead comrades.

  The following days were undoubtedly difficult for the Rorke’s Drift garrison, every member of which was either a survivor of the battle of Rorke’s Drift or from Chelmsford’s fatigued column; all were exhausted, hungry and undoubtedly anxious lest the Zulus should return in force. There was little order or control and it was commonly known that ammunition reserves were insufficient to enable the men to withstand a further sustained Zulu attack; there were few useful supplies and the men’s uniforms were in tatters. Hamilton-Browne summed up what many felt on the first evening:

  The evening grew on and Lonsdale went into the laager for orders. He returned and told us that the white troops were to hold the laager and that we were to remain outside. This was as absurd as it was shameful; not only were our white officers and non-coms to meet, unprotected by the laager, the first rush of the Zulus, in case of an attack, but we should have been swept away by the fire of our own friends inside it.

  We were also to find the outlying pickets and the advanced sentries. Our natives, with the exception of the Zulus, were quite useless for this service. In fact they had all taken refuge in the caves and among the rocks of the mountain, and sternly refused to come out. And now there was a row. Of course the roster was lost and I regret to say that the officers and the non-coms, furious at what they considered their unfair treatment, refused to turn out. Lonsdale, Cooper and myself talked it over with them and at last we said we would take the outlying picket ourselves. Harford at once chipped in, so three commandants and a staff officer formed the most dangerous picket that night.

  Quin, my servant, swore that I should not go on picket while he was to the fore and Captains Duncombe, Develin and Hayes volunteered for the other picket. Of course when we were moving off everyone wanted to come and the cuss words and recriminations flew like hail. We quieted them down. We took one picket, Captain Duncombe and three other officers formed the other; there was not much choice between them. In-lying pickets were told off and as soon as it was dark we took our posts, extending the Zulus in a chain between them. The night was very dark but passed off quietly although there was a false alarm at the laager, and most of our white men who had remained there got inside. I don’t blame them. What was the use of staying outside to be shot down by their own friends?

  The troops that had previously formed Chelmsford’s Centre Column were now left at the mission station, many without orders or officers to organize them. There was no definite news and rumours of a renewed Zulu attack were rife; the command structure under Glyn appeared to be numb with indecision: little more is heard of Chard and Bromhead and the overall level of morale throughout the garrison began to sink at an alarming rate. Reserves of ammunition were critically low, as the scheduled ammunition supplies for Rorke’s Drift had been hurriedly buried near Helpmekaar when the officer in charge of the supply wagon heard the news from Isandlwana; he ordered it all buried to prevent the Zulus getting possession of it in case he was overpowered during the night. After reaching Helpmekaar in safety, a party was sent to recover it but the incessant rain had removed all traces of the cache and although lines of soldiers were formed who advanced prodding the ground with their cleaning rods, no ammunition was ever found.

  The awful sickly smell of burnt and bloated bodies, now crawling with flies, hung over the immediate area and finally, late in the day, the British reluctantly set about burying the putrefying Zulu dead. They had not reckoned on the refusal of their own black troops to handle the bodies due to their fear of umnyama, the belief that the spirits of the dead would attach themselves to anyone touching the bodies without due rituals having been completed. They were, however, prepared to dig the long deep pits and the British regulars of the 24th Regiment were then given the gruesome task of collecting the Zulu bodies; this they did by dragging the bodies with makeshift ropes and then dumping them in the freshly dug pits. The NNC were further ordered to collect brushwood and to cut down trees from the nearby orchards to provide the basis of a funeral pyre. When the resulting blaze subsided, the remains of the 371 Zulu bodies collected from the hospital and from around the perimeter wall were covered with the spoil previously dug from the pits; the whole macabre process took several days to complete.

  The total number of Zulu dead from Rorke’s Drift, it must be said, will never be known. Many wounded Zulus were helped away by their able-bodied colleagues only to die well away from the outpost or to drown during the river crossing; the river remained in full flood for three days after the battle. Even several years later, skeletons were still to be found near the Zulus’ route back into Zululand.

  Lieutenant Archibald Milne, the Royal Navy staff officer to Lord Chelmsford, mentioned in a report that when he arrived at Rorke’s Drift at about 9.30 a.m. on the 23rd, ‘the occupants received the General with three cheers. Then was seen the gallant defence made by the small garrison of 80 men’. The dead Zulus were lying about in scores, close up to the parapet. There was to be no mercy for captured or wounded Zulus and firing was still going on to bring down wounded men trying to escape. Evidently the grisly ‘clearing up’ operation to search out and kill the scores of wounded Zulus was just beginning when Chelmsford arrived.

  During the early evening of the same day, a rumour began circulating around the Rorke’s Drift garrison that several hundred Zulus, either wounded or in hiding, had been found and killed by British soldiers at two separate but nearby locations, one behind the Oskarsberg and the other in a maize field less than a mile from the outpost. To conserve their depleted ammunition supply, the British patrols that discovered the hiding Zulus had killed them all with bayonets or the Zulus’ own spears. Commandant Hamilton-Browne wrote of one incident that occurred that same day:

  During the afternoon it was discovered that a large number of wounded and worn-out Zulus had taken refuge or hidden in the mealie fields near the laager. My two companies of Zulus with some of my non-coms and a few of the 24th quickly drew these fields and killed them with bayonet, butt and assegai. It was beastly but there was nothing else to do. War is war and savage war is the worst of the lot. Moreover our men were worked up to a pitch of fury by the sights they had seen in the morning and the mutilated bodies of the poor fellows laying in front of the burned hospital.

  Lieutenant Horace Smith-Dorrien, who had escaped from Isandlwana to Helpmekaar, later wrote concerning two gallows he had constructed at Rorke’s Drift prior to the battle. These gallows were originally intended to stretch leather riems for the ox wagons. Smith-Dorrien wrote:

  The next day (23rd January) I rode down to Rorke’s Drift, some twelve miles, to resume charge of my depot. There was the improvised little fort, built up mostly of mealy-sacks and biscuit-boxes and other stores which had so gallantly been defended by Chard, Bromhead, and their men, and Parson Smith, and all around lay dead Zulus, between three and four hundred; and there was my wagon, some 200 yards away, riddled and looted; and there was the riems gallows I had erected the previous morning. Dead animals and cattle everywhere – such a scene of devastation! To my young mind it was impossible that order could ever be restored, but I set to work, and next day, whilst sitting in my wagon, I saw two Zulus hanging on my gallows and was accused by the Brigade Major, Clery (afterwards General Sir Francis Clery) of having given the order. I was exonerated, however, when it was
found that it was a case of lynch law performed by incensed men, who were bitter at the loss of their comrades. Other incidents of the same sort occurred in the next few days before law and order were re-established.

  Later that same day, Lieutenant Curling RA returned to Rorke’s Drift and that night he wrote:

  The farmhouse at Rorke’s Drift was a sad sight. There were dead bodies of Zulus all round it, in some places so thick that you could hardly walk without treading on them. The roof had been taken off the house as it was liable to be burnt and the wounded were lying out in the open. A spy was hanging on one of the trees in the garden and the whole place was one mass of men. Nothing will now be done until strong reinforcements arrive and we shall have much bloodshed before it is all over.6

  One Zulu warrior found alive and uninjured was taken prisoner by Private Ashton of B Company. That evening Bromhead sent for Ashton to enquire after the prisoner only to find that the Zulu had been hanged by mistake. Apparently Ashton had asked Bromhead what to do with the prisoner and had been told ‘to get the hell out of here with him’. Ashton had misinterpreted the oath as an instruction and executed the hapless Zulu.7

  The necessity of killing seriously injured Zulus on the field of battle was generally if reluctantly accepted by the British soldiers, and so the British systematically killed the Zulu wounded at Rorke’s Drift in the same way that the Zulus killed British soldiers wounded after Isandlwana; the fate of abandoned casualties was well understood by both sides. Regrettably, the fate of fleeing Zulus or those who had gone into hiding well away from the outpost was to be more disturbing, even in the climate of such total warfare; any comment on the Zulus’ fate was deliberately omitted from official reports to prevent details of the events being published. This extraordinary and merciless mopping-up operation was nevertheless seen as a success and was thereafter repeated as a matter of military policy after each of the remaining battles of the Zulu War, especially after the British victories at Gingindlovu, Kambula and Ulundi. The indiscriminate and wholesale killing of Zulu survivors, those either in hiding or fleeing from the battlefield was, in later battles of the Zulu War, to cause the military authorities much embarrassment.8