by Saul David
'Too late for that, Padre Smith,' said Chard, appearing through the gap in the wall. 'In any case, our orders are to defend the post.'
George smiled at Chard's change of tune. He was not a bad sort; just inexperienced and in need of a little moral encouragement.
'You stay if you want, Chard,' interjected Witt, 'but none of you will leave here alive.'
'But it's your home, Reverend Witt. Are you not staying to defend it?' asked Chard.
'No. My priority is to my wife and children at Umsinga, and from the look of the damage your soldiers are doing to my home,' he added, gesturing towards the loopholes in the side of the hospital, 'there won't be much left to come back to.'
Chard was about to reply when a gunshot sounded from beyond the hill to the rear of the post, followed by another, and finally a fusillade.
'Zulus,' said Smith nervously. 'We'd better go inside.'
Chard led the way, telling the soldiers on either side of the entrance to wait until the horsemen had returned before they closed it up. George was about to follow when he spotted the black hood of Witt's buggy disappearing up the track to Helpmekaar. He paused to watch its progress, wondering if he would have done the same thing in Witt's position if Fanny and their children were waiting for him, and only tore his eyes away when he heard horses approaching from the back of the hospital. Henderson's men rode into view, but instead of taking the fork to the post, they carried on up the hill after Witt.
Some of the defenders manning the front wall realized what was happening and gave off a howl of disapproval, catcalling and shouting. But only a single rider detached himself from the mass. It was Lieutenant Henderson, and by the time he had reached the front of the post, George and Chard had been joined there by Bromhead.
'Where the devil are your men going?' shouted Chard, his calm resolve shattered.
'I'm sorry,' said Henderson, 'but they won't obey orders. They saw the Zulus coming and bolted for Helpmekaar. I'll do my best to rally some, but I can't promise anything.'
'You're leaving too?'
'I must follow my men.'
'At least tell us how many Zulus we're up against and how long we've got.'
'Several thousand, and they'll be here in under ten minutes.'
'Christ,' said Chard, the blood draining from his face.
As Henderson cantered off after his men, the three officers re-entered the fort to be met by a sea of anxious looks. 'Why are they leaving, sir?' asked Colour Sergeant Bourne, a short young man who looked scarcely old enough for his rank.
'Because they're bloody cowards,' responded Chard. 'But no matter. We can hold out just as well without them.'
No sooner had Chard spoken than a commotion broke out near the rear wall of the redoubt where Captain Stephenson's hundred black warriors were gathered in little clumps, chatting nervously and gesticulating in the direction of the retreating troopers. Suddenly one warrior, evidently the chief, vaulted on to the wall and urged the others to follow, which they did without hesitating. George and the other officers ran over, but by the time they reached the wall most of Stephenson's men had melted into the surrounding countryside.
'Why didn't you stop them?' Chard demanded of their startled captain, a rotund, red-faced colonial who did not look cut out for war.
'It all happened so quickly. But let me go after them. I'm sure I can persuade a few to return.' And with a nimbleness that belied his rotund physique, the captain scaled the wall and made off after his men, closely followed by his two white NCOs.
'Wait!' shouted Chard, but the trio kept running.
'Shall I fire a warning shot?' asked George.
But before Chard could answer, a shot rang out from further down the wall, hitting one of the corporals in the back and sending him sprawling to the ground.
Bromhead ran over to discover the culprit. 'Who fired that shot? I gave no permission to fire.'
The soldiers defending that part of the wall looked sullenly defiant, but said nothing.
'I'm not going to ask you again. Who fired that shot?'
'I did,' said a bearded sergeant. 'The cowardly bastard deserved to die.'
'That's as may be, Sergeant,' responded Bromhead. 'But it wasn't your decision to make. I'll deal with you later.'
George was more worried about Chard and the effect this latest desertion had had on his fragile confidence. 'Sir,' he said, 'we've got about ten minutes before the Zulus get here. Don't you think we should use that time to reduce the size of the perimeter? We'll never be able to defend the existing area with the men we've got left.'
Chard was staring out over the wall, in the direction Stephenson's men had gone, and seemed not to hear. Then he replied, 'There's no time.'
'What about an inner redoubt?' persisted George. 'We could use the heavy wooden biscuit boxes to build an inner wall from the edge of the storehouse to the mealie-bag wall to its front. That way we'll have a smaller area we can withdraw into if we can't hold the original perimeter.'
'Yes,' said Chard enthusiastically, as if suddenly rejuvenated by George's suggestion. 'Good idea. Half the garrison can get on with that, while the other half man the walls.'
'And the patients?'
'What about the patients?'
'We can't leave them in the hospital or they'll be cut off when we move behind the biscuit boxes.'
'I'm sorry, Hart, but that's a risk we'll have to take. There's no time to move them now. We've got enough on our hands building this new wall.'
Events proved Chard right, because it was still just two boxes high, and far from complete, when a lookout on the thatched roof of the storehouse reported the approach of a huge Zulu column from behind the Oskarberg.
Bromhead put down the box he was carrying. 'How many are there?' he shouted to the lookout, an anxious quaver in his voice.
'Four to six thousand, sir,' came the reply.
'Is that all?' muttered a wag close to George. 'We can manage that lot very well for a few seconds.'
'Stand to,' bellowed Chard, drawing his revolver and making for the rear wall closest to the Oskarberg. 'Volley- fire at five hundred yards. Wait for the order to fire.'
George grabbed his carbine and took his place on the south wall between a private and the sergeant who had shot the fleeing white NCO. He could feel his heart racing as he waited, not for the first time that day, for the Zulus to come within range. He had been lucky so far, very lucky, he told himself; but would his luck hold?
He was about to find out. From round the west side of the Oskarberg trotted the Zulu vanguard, a dense mass of warriors from the veteran Utulwana Regiment with white shields and otter-skin headbands, and bristling with spears and knobkerries. At a signal from a mounted induna, they made straight for the centre of the south wall, between the hospital and the storeroom, where George was standing with his carbine propped on a mealie bag.
'Here they come!' shouted the sergeant in a thick Irish accent. 'As thick as grass and as black as thunder!'
George drew a bead on the lead warrior, a magnificent- looking six-footer whose long stride was eating up the ground, and held his breath.
'Fire!' commanded Chard.
The south wall erupted in a wreath of flame and smoke, bringing down Zulus in heaps. George's bullet passed through the lead warrior's soft rawhide shield and thudded into the left side of his chest, lifting him in the air and depositing him on his back, his outstretched right arm still clutching his iklwa.
'Reload and adjust to two hundred. Steady. Steady. Fire!'
More gaps were torn in the Zulu line, but on they came now in small rushes, using the cover provided by the trees, banks and brick cookhouses at the back of the post to approach within fifty yards of the mealie-bag wall. Chard had ordered independent firing by now, and George scanned the undergrowth, looking for a target. Suddenly a warrior leapt up from the grass barely twenty yards away and loosed his throwing spear. George saw it late, but swayed just in time, the spear passing harmlessly over his shoulde
r and thudding into the red earth behind. He snapped off a shot in retaliation and saw the warrior fall.
By now the assault on the south wall had stalled, caught in the crossfire from the two buildings, but a burst of firing from the end of the hospital suggested a switch in the focus of attack.
'Every second man to the north wall. Go!' shouted Chard.
George joined the sprint across the compound and made it to the wall in front of the hospital at the same time as the Zulu attackers. A fierce hand-to-hand fight developed, with the defenders shooting and bayoneting every Zulu who tried to cross the wall. With no time to reload his carbine, George drew his revolver and was blazing away when the man next to him, a tall, fair-haired young soldier, had his rifle pulled from his grasp by a huge warrior. Defenceless, the private was seconds from being speared when George shot his assailant in the face, the bullet leaving a tiny entry hole but carrying away the back of the warrior's head in a shower of blood and skull fragments.
More Zulus joined the struggle, and their weight forced the defenders back towards the hospital veranda, enabling a handful of warriors to leap over the wall. George could see to his left a Zulu trying to wrestle the rifle off a white- faced corporal of the Army Hospital Corps. But the corporal refused to panic and, clinging to his weapon with one hand, managed to grab a bullet from his pouch, reload his weapon and fire. The Zulu shuddered and fell, only releasing his grip as he lay twitching on the floor.
Supporting fire from the hospital now drove the Zulus from the space in front of the veranda, enabling the defenders to return to their post at the wall. A couple of soldiers went round the Zulu casualties, ruthlessly dispatching those who displayed any signs of life with shots and bayonet thrusts.
'Is that necessary?' George asked one.
"Fraid so,' intervened Bromhead, who, like George, had shot a number of warriors with his revolver. 'Better to be safe than sorry.'
In his heart, George realized now that both sides would fight to the death, the defenders because they had to.
He flinched as a bullet smacked into the mealie bag he was leaning on. More shots struck the ground behind him. He turned round and could see little puffs of white smoke coming from the ledge of rocks and caves that ran along the centre of
Oskarberg Hill to their rear. Having failed with their initial assault, the Zulus had surrounded the post and were firing from behind every scrap of cover, including the five-foot wall in front of the hospital and the rough stone kraal to the right of the storehouse. With the advantage of height, the Zulu gunmen on the Oskarberg had a clear field of fire into the unprotected backs of those, like George, who were manning the north perimeter. Yet, thankfully, most were poor marksmen, with a tendency to fire high, and proved as dangerous to their own side as to the British.
For much of the remaining hour of daylight, the Zulus launched a series of piecemeal attacks against the hospital and the north wall from the orchard and some brush to its front. After each attack the Zulus would melt back into the thick undergrowth while their comrades provided covering fire. Then, after a brief pause, they would rise as one and rush the wall, the bolder spirits trying to grab the eighteen-inch lunger bayonets that barred their passage. But a burst of gunfire and a flurry of bayonet thrusts were enough to clear the wall and send the warriors scuttling for cover.
With darkness falling, George was crouched behind the wall, checking his pockets for more ammunition, when he noticed a slight figure crawling along to his right. As the figure got nearer, he could see it was Padre Smith, dragging beside him a helmet full of rifle bullets, handfuls of which he was doling out to each defender.
'Don't suppose you've got any for this?' George asked, waving his revolver.
'Sadly no,' replied a grim-faced Smith, seemingly recovered from his earlier loss of nerve. 'You could ask Bromhead. But before you do, could I ask you to caution the men about their swearing? I've never heard the like.'
George chuckled. It was not unusual for soldiers, in the heat of battle, to let off steam by swearing. 'Let them be,
Padre,' he replied. 'If it makes them fight harder, then so much the better.'
A hand tapped George on the shoulder. It was Bromhead. 'Good work, Hart. I saw you save Private Hitch's life earlier. He's one of my best young soldiers, and I wouldn't want to lose him.'
'It was a lucky shot,' said George, grinning. 'Talking of which, I don't suppose you have any spare revolver bullets?'
Bromhead frowned. 'I'm running out myself. I can give you half a dozen.'
'Six rounds!'
'Take them or leave them.'
'I'll take them.'
Bromhead handed over the bullets and left. As George loaded his revolver, mindful that each bullet would have to count, a voice shouted, 'Here they come again!'
'Stand to! Stand to!' roared Chard from the direction of the storehouse. 'They're attacking from both sides.'
George peeked over the wall and saw to his dismay a solid line of warriors bearing down on the north wall; a quick look over his shoulder confirmed that the south wall was also under attack.
'Oh Christ!' muttered a Welsh private close by. 'We're for it now.'
'Fire!' shouted Chard, and more than a hundred Martini- Henrys complied, bringing down scores of Zulus. But there were many more to take their place, and barely had a second volley been fired before the front rank of warriors had reached the walls on both sides, stabbing, clubbing and hacking at the defenders. George ducked to avoid a flying knobkerrie, and as he rose to his feet a head-ringed warrior clambered on to the wall, stabbing spear in hand. Before he could bring his pistol to bear, the Zulu was springing through the air towards him. George avoided the spear, but not the man, and the pair went down in a sprawling tangle of limbs. The Zulu lifted his assegai for the killing blow, but as his arm came down, George caught it by the wrist and held the fearsome blade inches from his chest. Grunting with exertion, the Zulu was using both hands to drive the spear home; George fought fiercely to prevent him, but fraction by fraction the tip was getting closer.
In desperation, George called out in Zulu, 'Don't kill me, brother.'
For a brief moment the Zulu relaxed his pressure and looked at George quizzically. He was about to say something when his body jerked and the tip of a bayonet emerged from the centre of his chest, and was just as quickly withdrawn. He looked down at the wound in surprise and then collapsed. A large hand pulled the Zulu corpse aside and helped George to his feet. It was Corporal Allen.
There was scarcely time for thanks before George and his rescuer had resumed their places on the wall, George using a discarded rifle and bayonet to save his remaining bullets. For a time they kept the Zulus at bay, inspired by the example of Commissary Dalton, who was coolly moving up and down the barricades, fearlessly exposing himself and using his rifle to deadly effect. But as more Zulus joined the assault, it became obvious to George that they could not hold out indefinitely, and that the time to withdraw to the inner redoubt was almost upon them.
Crouching low, he ran across the open ground to where Chard was directing the defence from an eight-yard gap in the centre of the biscuit-box wall. 'Sir,' said George, ducking as a bullet passed close, 'I think it's time.'
Chard nodded. 'Yes, I think you're right. Private,' he said to the nearest soldier, 'tell Lieutenant Bromhead and everyone in the vicinity of the hospital to fall back on the second line. Quick now.'
'Sir,' saluted the private, before setting off at the run.
Chard turned to George. 'That should reduce the area we need to defend by at least two-thirds.'
'Yes, but what about those in the hospital?'
'As I said before, they'll have to take their chances. We'll give them what covering fire we can.'
By now the word had spread and the withdrawal to the gap in the biscuit-box wall had become a stampede, with Bromhead, in true officer fashion, bringing up the rear. 'Not a moment too soon, John,' he said, gasping for breath. 'I don't think we could have held
them for much longer.'
George scanned the dark compound they had just vacated, expecting at any moment to see warriors pour over its now undefended perimeter. But, as yet, the Zulus seemed unaware of the withdrawal and only the occasional shot from the hospital gave an indication of their continuing presence outside. Then, through the gloom, George saw a small flame flickering on the edge of the hospital roof. 'My God,' he shouted, 'they've set fire to the thatch. We must do something.'
'What can we do?' said Chard, helplessly.
George looked across at the hospital. On the left side of its end wall he could just make out a single high window. It was the only possible escape route, but would the defenders use it? And what about those unfortunates like Hook and Thomas in sealed rooms on the far side of the hospital? How would they get out unless someone showed them the way? Someone had to take the initiative or all the hospital's occupants would die. He thought of Jake and how he had been powerless to save him. Well, he was not powerless now and, suicide mission or no, he would never forgive himself for not trying.