Zulu Hart

by Saul David

'Yes?'

  'Stay away from Harris.'

  He smiled. 'I assure you, I have no intention—'

  'I'm serious, George,' she said, grim-faced. 'He's a powerful man who never forgets a slight.'

  George nodded. And neither do I, he thought, neither do I.

  Author's Note

  This book came out of a meeting I had with George Mac- Donald Fraser, the creator of the Harry Flashman novels, two years before his death in 2008. I asked Fraser whether he planned to make good on hints in previous books that he would depict Flashman in the Zulu War of 1879. He said no. Six months later I pitched the idea of a novel set in that war to Hodder and Zulu Hart is the result.

  I knew my central character had to be very different from Fraser's scurrilous anti-hero. Thus I created George Hart, the son of an English VIP and brought up a gentleman, but of mixed Irish-African descent on his mother's side and therefore a man with a foot in both camps, capable of seeing the British Empire from the perspective of both ruler and ruled. He is, I hope, a character that modern readers can empathize with.

  As a historian of Victorian warfare, I was determined to make this book as authentic as possible. George's VIP father, for example, is a real historical figure who had 'a penchant for actresses', secretly (and illegally) marrying one and having two illegitimate sons by her. Both were gamblers and spendthrifts who went on to have moderately successful military careers. Their father fought in the Crimea, but did not cover himself with glory at the hard-fought battles of Alma and Inkerman, where he failed to cope under pressure.

  George's nemesis Sir Jocelyn Harris is a fictional creation but very loosely modelled on that arch-snob and martinet Lord Cardigan, who quarrelled with most of his officers, wounding one in a duel and secretly recording the conversation of another (for which he was condemned and sacked from the command of the 15th Hussars). Cardigan had earlier abused the 'purchase system' to rise from cornet to lieutenant colonel in just six years. He would go on to command the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade, and return from the Crimea a hero, but questions about his conduct that day would contrive to dog him.

  The brief time George spends with the 1st (King's) Dragoon Guards in 1877 is a faithful record of that regiment's activities when it was, as I state, stationed in Manchester. Among its troop officers was a Captain Marter, who later gained fame as the captor of King Cetshwayo in Zululand in August 1879. Its second-in-command, Major Winfield, had a few years earlier invented the game of 'Sphairistike', an early form of lawn tennis.

  Many of the details of George's trip out to Africa are based on the diary of a Lieutenant Molyneux, aide-de-camp to Lord Chelmsford, who travelled out with his chief on board the steamer SS American in January 1878. Also on board were Lieutenant Colonel Wood, VC, Major Buller, Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Crealock, Captain (later Major) Gossett and Lieutenant Melvill. The flogging of Private Thomas (another fictional creation) is based on an actual punishment parade that took place a year later on board a troopship bound for Durban.

  Most of the main events in Africa prior to and during the Zulu War were as I describe: the long deliberation of the Boundary Commission (one of whose members was Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Durnford); the pro-Zulu stance of the Colenso family; the recapture and execution of two (I only mention one) of Chief Sihayo's wives by his sons and one of his brothers; the gradual build-up of troops on the Zulu border; Sir Bartle Frere's cynical delivery of an ultimatum that he knew the British government did not support and King

  Cetshwayo could not accept; and, finally, the invasion of Zululand and the blunders that resulted in the catastrophic defeat at Isandlwana and, just a few hours later, the heroic defence of Rorke's Drift.

  For the purposes of plot I have taken one or two minor liberties with the historical record. There is, for example, no evidence that Bishop Colenso ever tried to give King Cetshwayo an early warning of the Boundary Commission's favourable decision, nor that Henry Fynn had a grudge against Chief Matshana and plotted with Colonel Crealock to destroy him. On the other hand it was Fynn who convinced Lord Chelmsford that the main Zulu army intended to link up with Matshana in the vicinity of the Mangeni Gorge, thus prompting the general to fatally divide his column on the morning of 22 January 1879. Colonel Crealock, meanwhile, was the man who orchestrated the cover-up for the defeat by lying on oath to the court of inquiry that he had ordered Durnford to 'take command' of the camp at Isandlwana in Chelmsford's absence. The actual order - recovered from the battlefield and suppressed for a number of years - had simply instructed Durnford to 'march to this camp at once with all the force you have with you'. Only when the truth about the battle became known later that year did HRH the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief, exonerate Durnford in a secret memorandum that did not come to light until the 1960s.

  At our meeting in 2006, George MacDonald Fraser told me the trick to writing about real people was to 'stay true to the spirit of the person'. I have tried to heed that advice, particularly in the case of Colonel Crealock. There is, for example, no doubt that Crealock was hugely influential in all of the bad decisions that Lord Chelmsford made during the Zulu War. Sir Garnet Wolseley, Chelmsford's replacement, acknowledged this when he described his predecessor in his journal as a 'weak tool in the hands of Crealock, whom everyone execrates as neither a soldier nor a gentleman'. Such a man was certainly capable, if not guilty, of the misdeeds that I attribute to him.

  For any readers who would like to delve further into the history of the period, I recommend the following books:

  Daphne Child (ed.), The Zulu War Journal of Colonel Henry

  Harford, C.B.

  (1978)

  Richard Cope, Ploughshare of War: The Origins of the

  Anglo-Zulu War of 1879

  (1999)

  Saul David, Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879

  (2004)

  R.W.F. Droogleever, The Road to Isandhlwana: Colonel Anthony Durnford in Natal and Zululand 1873-1879

  (1992)

  John Laband (ed.), Lord Chelmsford's Zululand Campaign

  1878-1879 (1994)

  Major-General W.C.F. Molyneux, Campaigning in South Africa and Egypt

  (1896)

  Donald Morris, The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall

  of the Great Zulu Nation

  (1966)

  C.L. Norris-Newman, In Zululand with the British

  (1880) Wyn Rees (ed.), Colenso Letters from Natal

  (1958)

  Sir Evelyn Wood, From Midshipman to Field Marshal

  (1906)

  Writing a novel, I discovered, is very much a collaborative effort. The most telling contributions were made by my editor Nick Sayers and his assistant Anne Clarke who together helped to transform my pig's ear of an early manuscript into something approaching a silk purse. And to everyone else at Hodder who has worked so hard on the book - Kerry, Susan, Mark, as well as Kelly, Lucy, Diana, Jason and their teams, in particular Asian and Laura - I'm extremely grateful.

  A big thank-you, also, to my publicist Richard Foreman who suggested I try my hand at writing a historical novel and who set up my initial meeting with Nick; to my good friend Matt

  Jackson, who helped me with plot and character while we were sailing off Turkey; to the novelist Aminatta Forna for much invaluable advice; to my agent Peter Robinson who never voiced any doubts that I could make the difficult transition from non-fiction to fiction; and to my wife Louise who did voice one or two doubts, but who read the manuscript chapter by chapter and provided invaluable advice regardless.

  Glossary

  amakhosi - regional chiefs (sing, inkhosi)

  assegai — slender iron-tipped spear of hardwood, with variations for throwing and stabbing (see iklwa) donga — ravine or dry watercourse with steep sides drift — river ford

  head-ringed - indicative of manhood and adult status (see isicoco)

  iklwa - short stabbing assegai with a broad, flat blade

  impi — Zulu arm
y

  induna - minor Zulu chief

  inkhosi — regional chief or great man (pi. amakhosi) insangu - wild hemp, a popular narcotic for Zulu men and

  older boys inspan - harness cattle to a wagon isanusi - tribal diviner or medicine man isibaya - cattle enclosure

  isicoco - black head-ring worn by married men iwisa - Zulu name for a knobkerric

  knobkerrie (see iwisa) - hardwood club with a thick handle

  and bulbous head kopje - small hill

  kraal - village of huts enclosed by a stockade and containing a

  central enclosure for cattle (see isibaya) krans — sheer rock face, precipice laager - circle of wagons to protect a camp loophole - a small gap or hole in a wall for firing through nek — broad saddle of land between two hills off-saddle - unsaddle a horse to give it a rest

  outspan - unharness cattle from a wagon

  undlunkulu - a chief's great (or principal) wife

  Usuthu! - Zulu war cry, derived from the Usuthu faction that

  supported Cetshwayo's claim to the throne in the 1850s veldt - open grassland voorloper - leader of a team of cattle wideawake - broad-brimmed hat