ISANDHLWANA
Midnight came, and the camp was sunk in sleep. Up to the sky, whither
it was decreed their spirits should pass before the dark closed in
again and hid their mangled corpses, floated the faint breath of some
fourteen hundred men. There they lay, sleeping the healthy sleep of
vigorous manhood, their brains busy with the fantastic madness of a
hundred dreams, and little recking of the inevitable morrow. There, in
his sleep, the white man saw his native village, with its tall,
wind-swayed elms, and the gray old church that for centuries had
watched the last slumber of his race; the Kafir, the sunny slope of
fair Natal, with the bright light dancing on his cattle’s horns, and
the green of the gardens, where, for his well-being, his wives and
children toiled. To some that night came dreams of high ambition, of
brave adventure, crowned with the perfect triumph we never reach; to
some, visions of beloved faces, long since passed away; to some, the
reflected light of a far-off home, and echoes of the happy laughter of
little children. And so their lamps wavered hither and thither in the
spiritual breath of sleep, flickering wildly, ere they went out for
ever. The night-wind swept in sad gusts across Isandhlwana’s plain,
tossing the green grass, which to-morrow would be red. It moaned
against Inhlazatye’s Mountain and died upon Upindo, fanning the dark
faces of a host of warriors who rested there upon their spears,
sharpened for the coming slaughter. And as it breathed upon them, they
turned, those brave soldiers of U’Cetywayo—“born to be killed,” as
their saying runs, at Cetywayo’s bidding—and, grasping their assegais,
raised themselves to listen. It was nothing, death was not yet; death
for the morrow, sleep for the night.
A little after one o’clock on the morning of the 22nd of January,
Ernest was roused by the sound of a horse’s hoofs and the harsh
challenge of the sentries. “Despatch from Major Dartnell,” was the
answer, and the messenger passed on. Half an hour more and the reveille
was sounded, and the camp hummed in the darkness like a hive of bees
making ready for the dawn.
Soon it was known that the General and Colonel Glynn were about to move
out to the support of Major Dartnell, who reported a large force of the
enemy in front of him, with six companies of the second battalion of
the 24th Regiment, four guns, and the mounted infantry.
At dawn they left.
At eight o’clock a report arrived from a picket, stationed about a mile
away on a hill to the north of the camp, that a body of Zulus was
approaching from the north-east.
At nine o’clock the enemy showed over the crest of the hills for a few
minutes, and then disappeared.
At ten o’clock Colonel Durnford arrived from Rorke’s Drift with a
rocket battery and two hundred and fifty mounted native soldiers, and
took over the command of the camp from Colonel Pulleine. As he came up
he stopped for a minute to speak to Alston, whom he knew, and Ernest
noticed him. He was a handsome, soldier-like man, with his arm in a
sling, a long, fair moustache, and restless, anxious expression of
face.
At 10.30, Colonel Durnford’s force, divided into two portions, was,
with the rocket battery, pushed some miles forwards to ascertain the
enemy’s movements, and a company of the 24th was directed to take up a
position on the hill about a mile to the north of the camp. Meanwhile,
the enemy, which they afterwards heard consisted of the Undi Corps, the
Nokenke and Umcitu Regiments, and the Nkobamakosi and Imbonambi
Regiments, in all about twenty thousand men, were resting about two
miles from Isandhlwana, with no intention of attacking that day. They
had not yet been “moutied” (doctored), and the condition of the moon
was not propitious.
Unfortunately, however, Colonel Durnford’s mounted Basutos, in pushing
forwards, came upon a portion of the Umcitu Regiment, and fired on it;
whereupon the Umcitu came into action, driving Durnford’s Horse before
them, and then engaged the company of the 24th, which had been
stationed on the hill to the north of the camp, and, after a stubborn
resistance, annihilating it. It was followed by the Nokenke, Imbonambi,
and Nkobamakosi Regiments, who executed a flanking movement, and
threatened the front of the camp. For awhile the Undi Corps, which
formed the chest of the army, held its ground. Then it marched off to
the right, and directed its course to the north of Isandhlwana
Mountain, with the object of turning the position.
Meanwhile, the remaining companies of the 24th were advanced to various
positions in front of the camp, and engaged the enemy, for awhile
holding him in check; the two guns under Major Smith shelling the
Nokenke Regiment, which formed the Zulu left centre, with great effect.
The shells could be seen bursting amid the dense masses of Zulus, who
were coming on slowly and in perfect silence, making large gaps in
their ranks, which instantly closed up over the dead.
At this point the advance of the Undi Regiment to the Zulu right and
the English left was reported; and Alston’s Horse were ordered to
proceed, and, if possible, to check it. Accordingly they left, and,
riding behind the company of the 24th on the hill, to the north of the
camp, which was now hotly engaged with the Umcitu, and Durnford’s
Basutos, who, fighting splendidly, were slowly being pushed back, made
for the north side of Isandhlwana. As soon as they got on to the high
ground they caught sight of the Undi, who, something over three
thousand strong, were running swiftly in a formation of companies,
about half a mile away to the northward.
“By Heaven, they mean to turn the mountain, and seize the waggon-road!”
said Mr. Alston. “Gallop!”
The troop dashed down the slope towards a pass in a stony ridge, which
would command the path of the Undi, as they did so breaking through and
killing two or three of a thin line of Zulus that formed the extreme
point of one of the horns or nippers, by means of which the enemy
intended to enclose the camp and crush it.
After this, Alston’s Horse saw nothing more of the general fight; but
it may be as well to briefly relate what happened. The Zulus of the
various regiments pushed slowly on towards the camp, notwithstanding
their heavy losses. Their object was to give time to the horns or
nippers to close round it. Meanwhile, those in command realised too
late the extreme seriousness of the position, and began to concentrate
the various companies. Too late! The enemy saw that the nippers had
closed. He knew, too, that the Undi could not be far off the
waggon-road, the only way of retreat; and so, abandoning his silence
and his slow advance, he raised the Zulu war-shout, and charged in from
a distance of from six to eight hundred yards.
Up to this time the English loss had been small, for the shooting of
the Zulus was vile. The enemy, on the contrary, had, especially during
the last half-hour before they charged, lost heavily. But now the
tables turned. First the Natal Contingent, seeing that they were
surrounded, bolted, and laid open the right and rear flank of the
troops. In poured the Zulus, so that most of the soldiers had not even
time to fix bayonets. In another minute, our men were being assegaied
right and left, and the retreat on the camp had become a fearful rout.
But even then there was nowhere to run to. The Undi Corps (which
afterwards passed on and attacked the post at Rorke’s Drift) already
held the waggon-road, and the only practical way of retreat was down a
gully to the south of the road. Into this the broken fragments of the
force plunged wildly, and after them and mixed up with them went their
Zulu foes, massacring every living thing they came across.
So the camp was cleared. When, a couple of hours afterwards, Commandant
Lonsdale, of Lonsdale’s Horse, was sent back by General Chelmsford to
ascertain what the firing was about, he could see nothing wrong. The
tents were standing, the waggons were there; there were even soldiers
moving about. It did not occur to him that it was the soldiers’ coats
which were moving on the backs of Kafirs, and that the soldiers
themselves would never move again. So he rode quickly up to the
headquarter tents; out of which, to his surprise, there suddenly
stalked a huge naked Zulu, smeared all over with blood, and waving in
his hand a bloody assegai.
Having seen enough, he then rode back again to tell the General that
his camp was taken.
To God’s good providence and Cetywayo’s clemency, rather than to our
own wisdom, do we owe it that all the outlying homesteads in Natal were
not laid in ashes, and men, women, and children put to the assegai.