by John Wilcox
To Simon, staring wide-eyed, there was nothing to admire in the tactics of the fast-moving mass before him. Never had he seen so many armed men before and the prospect was terrifying. The plain was full of black warriors, the sun glinting and flashing from their spearheads like a thousand heliographs. Out on the flat, away from the rocky outcrop of Isandlwana itself, recent rain had made the plain soft, but even so, the force of so many feet pounding on the surface was raising dust, and as the Zulu army drew nearer and began deploying across the face of the British line, the noise was like that of a dozen express steam trains thundering at once into a station. Simon realised that the palms of his hands were perspiring and he wiped them quickly on his trousers.
It was indeed easy to detect the pattern of the attack now. Instead of a shapeless sea of men pouring across the plain, it was clear that the Zulus - still moving at a fast lope - had split by regiments into Shaka’s distinctive encircling movement. The left horn was swinging wide, attempting to get round Durnford in the south. To the north, the right horn could now be seen moving out of sight behind the great rock to take the camp in the rear and cut off any retreat. In the centre, the chest of the buffalo was massing in front of the main lines of the 24th, who were now shooting coolly into their midst. There, at least, the Zulu movement had been halted.
‘Get into line, you two.’
They did not know from where the order came, but Simon and Jenkins immediately unswung their rifles and joined the rear rank below the guns. The line was marked by a continuous billow of blue smoke, pierced by yellow flame as the volleys thundered out. They had fallen in on either side of a small corporal of the 24th whose cheeks were already blackened by the discharge of his Martini-Henry.
‘This is a real cow, this thing,’ he said confidingly in the sing-song of the Welsh valleys. ‘Pulls me shoulder off every time I fire it, see.’ He glanced at Simon and noticed the pips on his shoulder. ‘Oh, beggin’ your pardon, sir.’
Simon felt his hand trembling as he tore off the paper wrappings from the cartridges in his pouch, but he thumbed down a bullet into the grooved block behind the back sight of the rifle and levelled it to fire when the smoke lifted. As it did so, it revealed, less than 200 yards away, the heads of the Zulus, who were now kneeling, lying and taking whatever cover they could from the cruel volleys. He sighted on one giant warrior who was standing, his spear raised in defiance, the corrugations of his stomach muscles gleaming with sweat and looking like an ebony washboard in the sunlight.
‘Rear rank, FIRE!’ For a moment Simon hesitated, the unaccustomed weight of his rifle causing the foresight to wander away from its target. ‘I said, fire,’ said a cool voice in his ear. He turned and met the angry but puzzled face of the young subaltern.
‘Sorry,’ muttered Simon. He levelled the rifle again and pulled the trigger. It had been months since last he had fired a Martini-Henry and the vicious kick-back took him by surprise, turning him half round and causing him to wince as a shaft of pain shot through the shoulder wounded by the Zulu spear. Through the smoke he saw the warrior still standing. ‘Damn!’
‘Aim lower, old boy,’ murmured the subaltern. ‘These things shoot a bit high.’ And then, in his high-pitched barrack-square scream: ‘Rear rank, LOAD!’
Within a minute, Simon was subsumed into the orderly rhythm of an infantry front line in battle; reloading, aiming and firing in a smooth sequence choreographed by two young lieutenants whose orders ensured that each rank took aim and fired as the other was reloading. As the volleys crashed out, Simon rammed in the cartridges and fired them, beginning, at last, to understand the excitement of battle and to exult in the sense of comradeship, if not joy, of fighting with disciplined troops in action. He caught Jenkins looking at him with a half-smile playing beneath the bedraggled moustache. The Welshman gave a nod and once again put his rifle to his cheek.
The fire had been intense and virtually unanswered. Volley after volley had crashed out and torn great holes in the mass of spearmen that faced the redcoats. No warriors, however brave, could continue to run into that terrible barrage of heavy bullets. Yet Simon’s elation had begun to ebb. The Zulus were still there, the gaps in their ranks immediately filled by reinforcements from the rear. Admittedly, they were lying low, but they were creeping ever nearer. The cannon and the modern rifles had not swept them away, as was supposed to happen when aboriginals came face to face with European firepower. And what about the ends of the line? Had they been turned? Simon looked left and right. The smoke was thick but the line seemed to be holding.
Now that the massed attack had been stemmed, the synchronised British volleys had been replaced by individual firing. The crack of sporadic shooting sounded almost feeble after the disciplined thunder of the volleys. Simon’s mind raced. The line was holding, but it was a thin line and how long could it stand? The firepower of white soldiers was supposed to dispel the charge of native warriors long before the defenders’ line was reached. But here, the Zulus had approached within spear-throwing distance of the redcoats and were now calmly waiting and taunting. They remained in overwhelming numbers. He peered through the smoke and attempted to calculate the odds - perhaps twenty to one, perhaps more.
The corporal at Simon’s left caught his eye. The man’s cordite-blackened face now seemed less sanguine. ‘We’re goin’ to be all right, aren’t we, sir?’ he asked, almost plaintively. He nodded towards the Zulus. ‘Only there’s so many of them black bastards and they don’t seem to be goin’ away, see.’
‘Don’t talk rot, Corporal. Look to your front and select your target. We’re all right as long as the ammunition holds out.’
As he spoke, Simon’s fingers were foraging in his pouches for cartridges. Two in one pouch, five in another. Seven rounds left. He couldn’t have fired sixty-three bullets since the attack began! He glanced at Jenkins. Intuitively, the Welshman held up just a handful of cartridges. Simon looked along the line again. Was it his imagination, or was the fire slackening?
‘Do you have plenty of ammunition, Corporal?’ he asked.
‘About fifteen or sixteen rounds left, sir.’
This was serious. Looking behind him, Simon saw a white-covered wagon about five hundred paces back, towards which men were doubling, carrying their helmets like empty pails before them. It was clearly an ammunition point. He turned to Jenkins. ‘Come on.’ Then to the subaltern at the rear, ‘We are running out of ammunition. We’ll go and get some for the line.’
They ran back to the wagon, whose open end faced away from the fighting, and as they came alongside they heard the familiar voice of the quartermaster sergeant raised in peevish complaint: ‘You’re from the Native ’Orse. You’ve got your own supply wagon. This is First Battalion ammo. Bugger off.’ The voice was accompanied by the sound of heavy hammering.
At the front of the wagon, the red-faced QM was addressing a black cavalryman who held out several wide-brimmed hats in supplication. Behind the QM two soldiers were crouched probing with bayonets in an attempt to break the steel bands binding the ammunition boxes. The QM caught Simon’s eye. ‘Can’t get the bleedin’ screws out,’ he said, in half anger, half apology. ‘They’ve rusted. Can’t get the boxes open.’
The black trooper turned to Simon. ‘Colonel Durnford’s men out in the donga ain’t got no bullets left, baas. I don’t know where our wagon is.’
‘For God’s sake, Q,’ shouted Simon, ‘give him cartridges. These men are protecting our southern flank. If that’s turned, we’re done for.’
The quartermaster puffed out his cheeks. ‘Can’t do that without a proper requisition, sir,’ he said. ‘The Commissariat Officer would kill me.’
Simon climbed into the wagon. ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t,’ he hissed. ‘This is no time for dockets, man.’ He plunged his hand into the only open box and began filling the trooper’s hats with cartridges. Behind the cavalryman, a line of soldiers of various denominations was forming, all anxious for ammunition. ‘352,’ called Simon.
‘Get in here and see if you can open these blasted boxes.’
For ten minutes the men laboured to prise open the cases. The steel bands were held firmly in place by screws that had rusted in the heavy humidity of Zululand. They proved impervious to the one small screwdriver with which the wagon was equipped, as they did to the bayonets. Only by smashing in the wooden sides with rocks could entry be gained eventually. As they struggled, the queues lengthened outside the wagon.
Simon took a moment to look at the line. There was no doubt about it, shortage of ammunition was making itself felt and the rate of fire had undoubtedly slackened. In fact, there were now no white puffs of smoke lining the edge of the donga out on the plain, and as he watched, he saw Durnford’s mounted men pour out of the depression and begin to gallop back to the camp. God! Was the unthinkable about to happen? Was the line going to break?
The thought seemed to have communicated itself to the men waiting outside the wagon. Looking over their shoulders, they gradually began to break out of their orderly queues to bunch around the wagon opening, stretching their helmets and hats forward beseechingly. The air of oppression had gone. Fear was now in its place and death was edging in, just over their shoulders.
Simon turned his gaze to the south of the line. The sight of the cavalry retreating from the Zulus was too much for the men of the Natal Native Contingent who manned that section. Desperately short of ammunition, not well armed anyway, they saw the most feared warriors in South Africa storming towards them. Suddenly they broke and began streaming back up towards the neck of Isandlwana, from which led the trail to the Buffalo River drift.
‘Fix your lunger, boyo.’ It was Jenkins’s voice in his ear. ‘We’re goin’ to be in trouble now, look you.’
Simon pushed a handful of cartridges into his pocket, twisted the 21-inch triangular ground bayonet on to the muzzle of his rifle and jumped from the wagon. As he did so, he heard the bugle of the 24th Regiment sound the retreat and saw the line in front of him begin to fall back. To the south, the Zulus were already pouring through the gap left by the native troops. It was the turning point of the battle.
The retreat of the 1st Battalion in the centre began in disciplined fashion, with the rear rank covering as the front rank doubled back through them. But the fire was inadequate. From the heart of the Zulus facing them a strong voice called out above the noise and was answered from ten thousand throats with the great war cry ‘USUTHU!’ and the thunder of spears on shields. Immediately, the whole of the Zulu centre now rose and rushed forward. This time there were no withering volleys to stop the charge and the Zulus broke through the retreating line within seconds, leaving the men of the 24th reduced to small islands of red in a surging torrent of black. The unthinkable had happened. The line had broken.
‘God almighty!’ cried Jenkins. He seemed transfixed by the hacking, stabbing multitude before him.
Simon looked round desperately. The two men had gained precious seconds by falling back to the ammunition wagon. ‘Make for the higher ground, by the neck below the rock,’ he cried. ‘We might be able to hold them back there.’
‘All right. You first. I’ll cover your back.’
The two ran uphill towards the southern end of Isandlwana, where, at the base of the rock, a high neck was intersected by the rough trail leading back to the Buffalo and the crossing to Natal. The noise engulfed them as they scrambled up the slope: the crack of rifles, the shouting of the Zulus, the cries of the wounded and the dying, and now the whinnying of horses, for the Zulus had penetrated to the horse and cattle compound. Then one, singular sound which rose from the general hubbub - more a close, deep sigh than a groan - made Simon whirl round. He was just in time to see Jenkins fall to the ground, a throwing spear protruding from his back.
‘Jenkins!’ Simon sprang astride the fallen Welshman and was about to stoop to withdraw the spear when two Zulus, one of whom had obviously thrown it, were upon him. He dropped the first with the bullet he had slipped into the breech as he ran up the hill and faced the second with his bayonet. The warrior’s shield was presented to him, so Simon quickly estimated where the handgrip might be and plunged the bayonet through the cowhide. He felt the point of the lunger jar on bone, sharply withdrew it and, side-stepping the raised shield, jabbed the bayonet firmly into the man’s ribs.
Simon looked quickly down. Jenkins had not moved. He lay prostrate, the spear firmly embedded beneath his right shoulder blade, a trickle of blood oozing through the thick fabric of his patrol jacket. Simon bent and pulled the spear out. This produced a quickening of the blood flow from the wound, and unthinkingly, he attempted to stifle it with the flat of his hand. Jenkins did not stir. He seemed to be quite dead. A great howl of anguish sprang from Simon’s throat and he thrust his hand to his mouth in despair. The Welshman’s blood tasted warm and salty. The horror of losing Jenkins, the indestructible, ever-reliable Jenkins, engulfed him. ‘No, no. Don’t die,’ he cried. The words emerged as a croak, so dry was his throat, so full of dust was his mouth. He tried to spit but could dredge up no saliva.
Then a spear clanged into the rock at his foot and Simon rose and presented his bayonet once again as the mêlée swung back towards him and engulfed him. He tried to remain astride Jenkins, thrusting desperately with his long bayonet and, where he could, ramming cartridges into the breech of his rifle and firing into the black figures around him, but the surge of the fighting took him away, up the hill.
Nothing in Simon’s short life - his childhood imaginings, his months of disciplined training, his adventures so far in Zululand - had prepared him for this battle. All around him leaped the black warriors, hacking and thrusting, their spearheads scarlet, their bodies glistening and their yellow eyeballs rolling and painting them, as though with a last distinguishing mark, as the devil’s mercenaries. The acrid smell of cordite, the heat, the dust and the din of screams, battle cries and - less frequent now - rifle shots all merged into a barbaric assault on the senses, horrifying beyond any one man’s imagination. It was a hell’s kitchen of a blood bath that defied rationality, and now, a kind of hysterical exultation took possession of Simon, turning him into a hyperactive combatant, plunging repeatedly at his assailants until, once again, he somehow gained a moment’s respite in the middle of the maelstrom.
Drawing in deep draughts of hot air, he looked desperately for Jenkins, even crouching in a desperate attempt to catch a glimpse of his body on the ground through the thicket of legs. By now he was completely disoriented and was only saved - for an undefended back in that free-for-all meant death sooner or later - by the arrival of about a dozen red-coated infantrymen, fighting coolly shoulder to shoulder in a circle and inching up the hill under the command of a bearded sergeant, whom Fonthill vaguely recognised.
‘Come in ’ere quick, Mr Fonthill sir,’ the veteran shouted. ‘Got any ammo?’
Simon dug into his pockets and hurriedly handed round most of what remained of the cartridges. ‘I must get back,’ he gasped, gesturing downhill. ‘My man’s gone down there.’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘No way you can do that, sir,’ he said. ‘You’d never get through, and anyway, these bastards disembowel the wounded and the dead as they go. I’ve seen’em doing it.’ He looked with approval at Simon’s rifle. ‘Lucky you’ve got a lunger. The Zulus don’t like the bayonet. You wouldn’t ’ave lasted five minutes with a sword. Now,’ he shouted to the others, ‘those with ammo pick off the buggers with the throwing spears. We’ll take the rest with the bayonets. On the left there, keep edging up this bloody ’ill.’
Shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, the little group slowly made its way up to the neck below the rock, while the tide of warriors ebbed and flowed all around them. Sometimes it appeared as though the Zulus seemed to ignore them and they were able to shuffle onwards without hindrance. But mostly the warriors were all around them, thrusting with their assegais or swinging their knobkerries in great loops. Simon occasionally caught glimpses of other knots of red
coats, standing back to back and presenting their bayonets to their assailants, but the multitude of Zulus pressing around them made it impossible to link up to form a more sophisticated defence.
A thrown spear caught the sergeant through the throat and he sank to the ground coughing, his beard turning bright red. Simon, brutalised and machine-like, stepped over him, his weary arms holding up the long rifle, presenting and thrusting, presenting and thrusting. It was true, the Zulus seemed to respect the bayonet - and with some reason. With lunger fitted, Simon’s rifle had become a stabbing weapon just under six feet in length, compared to the assegai’s four feet, and time after time, his adversary would fade away to find easier pickings elsewhere. But it was desperately tiring work and Simon’s arms and shoulders were now aching with the effort of wielding his heavy weapon and he could hardly see for the perspiration that poured down into his eyes. As he fought, the words ‘Jenkins is dead’ echoed through his head. His friend, his only real friend, had gone. His own fate hardly seemed to matter.
Once he saw, rising above the crowd, a young red-coated drummer boy skewered on a spear and held up as some sort of trophy. The boy could not have been more than thirteen years old and his eyes were wide open, as if in astonishment. Then he was gone.
The little circle was reduced to eight now, they were out of ammunition and fighting only with bayonet and rifle butt. Nevertheless, they had reached the summit of the neck, and in another brief break in the fighting, Simon was able to look about him once more. To the west, down the hill, most of the defence had been completely eliminated and the warriors were racing through the tents and commissariat lines, looting and shouting. There was no sign of Jenkins, of course, and there was no way he could have survived. Up the ledges of the great rock, other small bands were still holding out, firing and bayoneting. To his right, Simon observed a middle-aged officer with drooping moustaches and an injured arm methodically directing fire on Zulus - the impi’s right horn? - who had swept round the eastern side of the rock. He was doing so, Simon realised, in an attempt to keep clear an escape route to the south-east, the track to Rorke’s Drift and the Buffalo crossing, along which a motley line of fugitives were riding, running and hobbling, including a battery of artillery which had somehow managed to limber up before the Zulus were upon them.