CHAPTER XXI.

ZULULAND.--HOW THEY HELD THE POST AT RORKE’S DRIFT.

The story of Rorke’s Drift is the story of one of the most heroic defences in our military annals. At this small post on the Buffalo River one hundred and thirty-nine men of the 24th (South Wales Borderers) Regiment, Durnford’s Horse, and the Natal Mounted Police, kept off a huge army of three thousand Zulus all through the afternoon and night following the disaster at Isandhlana.

Modern history, I believe, contains no parallel to this brilliant feat of arms, which stands for all time as an example of the splendid courage and devotion of which Englishmen are capable when duty calls.

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At three o’clock in the afternoon of that fateful January 22nd an officer of the Royal Engineers was down at the drift watching the working of some pontoons. This was Lieutenant John Rouse Merriott Chard, now on active service for the first time after seven years spent at various dockyard stations. He had reason enough to be thoughtful, as he paced slowly along the bank, for the drift was a position of extreme importance. At this spot, where the river was most easily fordable, the Zulus might be expected to cross if they attempted the invasion of Natal. And to stay them if they came was only a small garrison of less than a hundred and fifty men.

The post itself was about a quarter of a mile distant, an old Swedish mission-station converted into a commissariat depôt and hospital for the use of Lord Chelmsford’s force. From where he stood Lieutenant Chard could see the two low buildings of which it consisted, with a small cluster of trees in front and at one side, and behind the white tents where the soldiers were. It looked a poor means of defence indeed.

From the mission-station his thoughts wandered to the little force which had crossed by that same ford eleven days previously and disappeared into the Zulu country. What had been happening behind those distant hills? He was not to be left long in doubt. Suddenly two horsemen appeared in sight on the other side of the river, spurring furiously towards the ford. As they dashed up, the pontoon was pulled across and the two were ferried over to the Natal bank.

The new-comers were Lieutenant Adendorff, of Lonsdale’s corps, and a carabineer who had escaped with him from the Zulus. The lieutenant was in his shirt-sleeves and hatless, his only weapon being a revolver strapped round his breast. As soon as he reached Chard’s side he poured out his breathless tale of horror, the tale of the Isandhlana massacre. He himself had come straight from the camp of death to tell the news of the disaster and to warn the little garrison at the drift that a large body of Zulus was advancing upon it.

Sending the carabineer on to Helpmakaar, twelve miles away, where Major Spalding, the commandant of the post, had gone to fetch another company of the 24th Regiment, Chard proceeded with Adendorff to the mission-station. Here he found his brother-officer, Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead, who commanded the company of the 24th, then encamped close by, already engaged in putting the mission-house, or store-building as it may more properly be called, and the hospital in a state of defence. Barricades were being prepared, and loopholes made in the walls. Bromhead had a few minutes before received a similar message of alarm.

As quickly as possible the tents were struck, and all who were able were set to work to build up a wall of mealie-bags, about four feet high, from one corner of the stone cattle-kraal to the wall of the hospital building. This afforded a protection to the front of the post. The waggons, which all the morning had been unloading the stores they had brought from Helpmakaar, were called into requisition and made to form a barricade between the two buildings.

Everything that was possible was done to render the position safe against attack, but the proximity of a high hill (the Oscarberg), and a large patch of bushes which there was no time to cut down, gave an enemy a decided advantage.

Having seen that his directions were being carried out, Chard, who succeeded to the command in Major Spalding’s absence, went back to the drift to bring up the pontoon guard. To the honour of these brave fellows, a sergeant and six men, it is said that they offered to moor the boats in the stream and defend the ford as long as they could; but the lieutenant would not permit such a sacrifice. So the party went up the bank together to the station.

Half an hour had now elapsed. The next thing to be done was to send out scouts to watch for the Zulus, and some of Durnford’s Horse rode out on this duty. Their officer dashed back hastily soon after four to report that an impi was marching rapidly towards the drift, and further that his men were bolting along the road to Helpmakaar.

With the cowards went a detachment of the Natal Native Contingent, their “gallant” officer, Captain Stevenson, flying with them. This desertion so enraged the others that they fired a round after them, killing a European non-commissioned officer of the Native Contingent. The garrison was now sadly reduced, but there were no more desertions. Every man at the post was prepared to stand by it to the last.

The line of defence appearing to Chard to be too extended for his few defenders, he constructed an inner breastwork of--biscuit boxes! “We soon had completed,” he says in his brief report, “a wall of about two boxes high.” Behind this frail barrier was to be fought as fierce a fight as history has ever recorded.

At about twenty minutes past four the leading files of the Zulus hove in sight, and the garrison of Rorke’s Drift flew to their several stations. Some went to the rampart of mealie-bags, others to the windows of the store-building, and others to the hospital where there had been forty-five men when the alarm first came, but where only twenty-three now remained. Among those told off to guard the wounded were Privates Henry Hook, Robert Jones, William Jones, and John Williams, of whom more hereafter.

Following the few hundred Zulus who came leaping and dancing round the base of the hill came a host more, their ox-hide shields in different colours marking the regiments to which they belonged. In true Zulu fashion they tried to “rush” the place at once, but a heavy volley drove them back. Then they began to take up positions on the hillside, where many rocky ledges and caves afforded them vantage-points, while others dropped behind ant-hills and bushes, or sought cover in the two little outhouses of the hospital.

“From my loophole,” says Hook, “I saw the Zulus approaching in thousands. They began to fire, yelling as they did so, when they were five hundred or six hundred yards off. More than half of them had muskets or rifles. I began to fire when they were six hundred yards distant. I managed to clip several of them, for I had an excellent rifle, and was a ‘marksman.’”

Hook in his account recollects particularly one Zulu whom he “clipped” at four hundred yards while running from one ant-hill to another. The warrior made a complete somersault and fell dead. Another Zulu who sheltered himself behind an ant-hill gave Hook some trouble, for the Gloucester man had to sight his rifle three times ere he got his enemy’s range. The Zulu never showed his head round the heap again, and when Hook went round to look at him after the fight was over he found the warrior lying there with a bullet hole in his skull.

The hospital was the first building to receive the attack, but at the outer wall of defence a fierce hand-to-hand struggle soon ensued. Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead were fighting hard at the front, the latter being conspicuous in many a bayonet charge at the dark-skinned figures that climbed again and again over the mealie-bags. Prominent, too, in repelling the Zulus at this position was one Corporal Schiess, a Swiss, who left the hospital to join in the fight, and distinguished himself by creeping along a wall to shoot a Zulu who was firing from the end.

At last it was recognised that the defenders could not hope to hold this rampart long. They fell back accordingly behind the inner defence of biscuit boxes, after two hours of fighting.

We may leave them there for a little time while we take note of what is happening at the hospital. Here the gallant six defenders have been quickly reduced to four, two of the number having been killed out on the verandah. Four men to get the patients safely out of the building which the Zulus have rendered untenable by firing the thatch!

Hook and John Williams come to the front first with William and Robert Jones (the last two not being related, by the way). As the Zulus burst in the outer doors the two Jones guard these entrances with their bayonets, their cartridges being expended. It is quick work; stabbing and thrusting until the pile of corpses in the doorway itself helps to check the rush. This gives time for Hook and Williams to carry the patients from the first room to an inner one.

There are four apartments to be gone through before the sick men can be carried out to the shelter of the barricade, for the inner rooms do not communicate directly with the outside. Holes have to be made in the partitions, and the poor sufferers passed through these in turn.

Driven back and back, Hook finds himself suddenly in a room where there are several patients. Then a wounded man comes in with a bullet hole in his arm which has to be bound up. A minute later John Williams appears--John Williams who has just seen his brother Joseph hauled out and assegaied before his eyes, and who is now a still more dangerous man to deal with.

Williams breaks a hole in the partition with his bayonet, and whilst he does this Hook takes his stand at the door. A few moments later the rush comes. There is a fierce hammering at the door, it gives way, and the sturdy Gloucester private drops the first man to enter. Shooting and lunging with his bayonet, he soon accounts for four or five. Assegais fly past, but only one touches him, inflicting a scalp wound. One Zulu seizes his rifle and tries to drag it away, but while they are tussling Hook slips in a cartridge, pulls the trigger, and another body is added to the heap at his feet.

Every now and then a Zulu makes a rush to get through, for the narrow entrance admits one man only at a time; but none pass the grim figure on guard there. And when all the patients have been got out save one who has a broken leg, Hook makes a jump for the hole himself, and gets through, dragging the last wounded man after him--“in doing which,” he says, “I broke his leg again!”

From this last room a window opens out on to the biscuit-box defences. The patients are quickly passed out to willing hands below, the while Hook with his reddened bayonet stands by the hole in the wall to see that no Zulu follows. Then, still sticking to his particular charge, he drags him out and takes up a position behind the barricade to do some more useful work there before the morning dawns. Of the twenty-three wounded who were in the hospital twenty have been saved. The remaining three are believed to have wandered back, delirious from fever, into the rooms that had been cleared.

Although Hook and Williams have escaped injury of any serious nature, the gallant Welshman, Robert Jones, has not been so fortunate. Three assegais have struck him in the body. He and his namesake William, as I have said, have been most busy in the front of the building, and how many Zulus they have put to their account is not known, but the number is large judging from the heaps of dead warriors whose bodies are found in the ruins of the building next day.

In this last stage of the rescue of the wounded William Allen and Frederick Hitch, fellow-soldiers of the 24th Regiment (to which, by the way, the four brave privates above-named belong), make good their claim to glory. Taking up an exposed position on some steps leading to a granary, these two men keep the ground clear between the burning hospital and the barricade, their accurate fire making it certain death for a Zulu to venture near.

By their courageous stand, for which they pay dearly, every one of the rescued twenty is brought into safety. And even when incapacitated by their wounds from taking part in the fighting, the two brave fellows stand by all night to serve out ammunition to their comrades.

At the rampart of biscuit boxes were several vacant places ere the first beams of light showed in the sky. Where Hook knelt three men had previously been shot. But under the cool direction of Chard, Bromhead, and Assistant-Commissary Dalton, another of the garrison, the line of defenders kept up a deadly fire against the Zulus which stayed the rushes time and time again, and drove back the picked warriors of Cetewayo’s army to the shelter of their rocks and ant-heaps. Thirteen hours in all the fight lasted, until the Zulus drew off, baffled, beaten.

Several times they had seemed to be retiring, but after renewed war-dances and that stamping of the earth peculiar to Zulu warriors, accompanied with much shouting and waving of assegais, they came on again with a fierce yell of “Usutu!” which is a far more fearsome cry to hear in battle than the war-whoop of the painted Sioux. At last, just after four a.m., there was a long pause, and then the impis were seen to sullenly roll back out of sight behind the Oscarberg.

The grim, smoke-blackened defenders peered wonderingly after them from behind the barricade, hardly believing that the host was actually in retreat. But such was the case. After some time, those who went out to reconnoitre and look for the wounded saw no signs of the enemy. The Zulus had gone, leaving some 350 dead behind them. On our side the losses were but fifteen, though two of the wounded died afterwards.

With the fear of a renewed attack later on, the weary soldiers laid their rifles aside, and at once began to strengthen the defences where they had been broken down. Lest the store-building itself should be threatened with fire, they set to work to remove the thatch from its roof, and while engaged in doing so the watchers announced that another large body of Zulus were in sight some distance to the south-west. Immediately the men flew to their stations, but the alarm fortunately turned out to be a false one. The enemy, after advancing a little way, swung round and disappeared behind the hills. They had seen the column under Lord Chelmsford marching towards the drift, and had had their stomachful of fighting.

A little later the British force, which had seen the flames of the burning hospital as far off as Isandhlana and had marched from the fatal camp to relieve their comrades at Rorke’s Drift, came round the Oscarberg, to be greeted with wild cheers and waving of helmets.

“Men,” said the General, as he surveyed the group before him and heard the story of their great stand, “I thank you all for your gallant defence.”

It was not a moment for fine speeches. The hearts of all present were too full to find utterance in words. But every man knew what was in Lord Chelmsford’s heart as he thanked them simply for himself and for his country.

For that defence, gallant indeed, eleven Crosses were awarded, to Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead, to Assistant-Commissary Dalton, Corporals Allen and Schiess, Privates Hook, Williams, Hitch, and W. and R. Jones, and to Surgeon-Major Reynolds, whom I have not mentioned in my account, but who showed great devotion to the wounded under fire.

Private Henry Hook, one of the principal heroes of the defence, was called up at once before Lord Chelmsford, just as he was, in shirt sleeves and with his braces hanging down behind, to receive the General’s praise for his conduct. He was the only one of the eleven to receive his V.C. at Rorke’s Drift, on the very scene of his gallantry, Sir Garnet Wolseley pinning the little bronze Cross on to Hook’s breast with his own hands on the following 3rd of August.

Until a few years ago Hook was a familiar figure to frequenters of the British Museum Reading Room, where, on retiring from the service, he obtained an appointment.

Of the rest, Lieutenant Bromhead died in 1891, and Lieutenant (afterwards Colonel) Chard in 1897. I find only the names of Brigadier-Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Reynolds, and Privates J. Williams, F. Hitch, and W. Jones, in the list of surviving recipients. To those who have the opportunity I would say, seek out these heroes while they are still in the land of the living and hear from their lips, if they can be led to speak, the full story of Rorke’s Drift, which I feel I have told but baldly here.