THE CAMP.
On the 20th of January the column began its march for the hill of
Isandhlwana, through a country open and treeless.
'Where and how is Dulcie now?' was the ever-recurring thought of
Florian as he tramped on in heavy marching order in rear of
Hammersley's company. Oh, to be rich and free--rich enough, at
least, to save her from that cold world upon which she was cast, and
in which she must now be so lonely and desolate.
But he was a soldier now, and serving face to face with death in a
distant and savage land, and, so far as she was concerned, hope was
nearly dead.
'My position seems a strangely involved one!' thought Florian, when
he brooded over the changed positions of himself and Shafto; 'there
is some mystery in it which has not yet been unravelled. Am I to be
kept in this state of doubt and ignorance all my life--but that may
be a short period as matters go now. _My father!_ Must I never more
call or consider him I deemed to be so, by that name again!'
Four companies of the 24th Regiment were left at Rorke's Drift when
Colonel Glyn's column reached Isandhlwana, which means the Lion's
Hill. Precipitous and abrupt to the westward, on the eastward it
slopes down to the watercourse, and grassy spurs and ridges rise from
it in every direction. The waggon track to Rorke's Drift passes over
its western ridge, and groups of lesser hills, covered with masses of
loose grey stones, rise in succession like waves of a sea in the
direction of the stream called the Buffalo.
When the column reached the hill and began to pitch their tents, the
young soldiers of the 'new system' were sorely worn and
weary--'pumped out,' as they phrased it. 'We may laugh at the old
stiff stock and pipeclay school,' says a popular military writer,
'but it may be no laughing matter some day to find out that, together
with the stock and pipeclay which could easily be spared, we have
sacrificed the old _solidity_ which army reformers should have
'grappled to their souls with hooks of steel,' and painfully was that
want of hardihood and foresight shown in the tragedy that was acted
on the Hill of Isandhlwana.
A long ridge, green and grassy, ran southward of the camp, and
overlooked an extensive valley. Facing this ridge, and on the
extreme left of the camp, were pitched the tents of the Natal Native
Contingent. A space of three hundred yards intervened between this
force and the next two regiments.
The British Infantry occupied the centre, and a little above their
tents were those of Lord Chelmsford and the head-quarter staff. The
mounted infantry and the artillery were on the right, lining the
verge of the waggon track--road it could scarcely be called. The
camp was therefore on a species of sloping plateau, overlooked by the
crest of the hill, which rose in its rear, sheer as a wall of rock.
The waggons of each corps were parked in its rear.
The camp looked lively and picturesque on the slope of the great
green hill, the white tents in formal rows, with the red coats
flitting in and out, and the smoke of fires ascending here and there,
as the men proceeded to cook their rations.
Florian was detailed for out-piquet duty that night, for the Zulus
were reported to be in force in the vicinity, and no one on that duty
could close an eye or snatch a minute's repose. The circle of the
outposts from the centre of the camp extended two thousand five
hundred yards by day, lessened to one thousand four hundred by night,
though the mounted videttes were further forward of course; but, by a
most extraordinary oversight, no breastworks or other barriers were
formed to protect the camp.
Before coming to the personal adventures of our friends in this
story, we are compelled for a little space to follow that of the war.
Early on the morning of the following day, the mounted infantry and
police, under Major Dartnell, proceeded to reconnoitre the
mountainous ground in the direction of a fastness in the rocks known
as Matyano's stronghold, while the Natal force, under Lonsdale, moved
round the southern base of the Malakota Hill to examine the great
dongas it overlooked.
Dartnell's party halted and bivouacked at some distance from the
camp, to which he sent a note stating that he had a clear view over
all the hills to the eastward, and the Zulus were clustering there in
such numbers that he dared not attack them unless reinforced by three
companies of the 24th next morning.
A force to aid him left the camp accordingly at daybreak, in light
marching order, without knapsacks, greatcoats, or blankets, with one
day's cooked provisions and seventy rounds per man; and with it went
Lord Chelmsford.
These three detached parties so weakened the main body in camp that
it consisted then of only thirty mounted infantry for videttes,
eighty mounted volunteers and police, seventy men of the Royal
Artillery, six companies of the 24th, including Hammersley's, and two
of the Natal Native Contingent.
When these reconnoitring parties were far distant from Isandhlwana,
the Zulus in sight of them were seen to be falling back, apparently
retiring on what was afterwards found most fatally to be a skilfully
preconceived plan; and, prior to making a general attack upon them,
Lord Chelmsford and his staff made a halt for breakfast.
It was at that crisis that a messenger--no other than Sergeant
Florian MacIan--came from the camp mounted, with tidings that the
enemy were in sight on the left, and that the handful of mounted men
had gone forth against them.
On this Lord Chelmsford ordered the Native Contingent to return at
once to the hill of Isandhlwana.
Soon after shots were briskly exchanged with the enemy in front; a
vast number were 'knocked over,' and some taken prisoners. One of
the latter admitted to the staff, when questioned, that his King
Cetewayo expected a large muster that day--some twenty-five thousand
men at least.
It was noon now, and a suspicion that something might be wrong in the
half-empty camp occurred to Lord Chelmsford and his staff, and this
suspicion was confirmed, when the distant but deep hoarse boom of
heavy guns came hurtling through the hot atmosphere.
'Do you hear that?' was the cry on all hands; 'there is fighting
going on at the camp--we are attacked in the rear!'
Then a horseman came galloping down from a lofty hill with the
startling tidings that he could see the flashing of the cannon at the
hill of Isandhlwana, and that it was enveloped on every side by smoke!
To the crest of that hill Lord Chelmsford and his staff galloped in
hot haste and turned their field-glasses in the direction of the
distant camp, but if there had been smoke it had drifted away, and
all seemed quiet and still. The rows of white bell-tents shone
brightly in the clear sunshine, and no signs of conflict were
visible. Many men were seen moving among the tents, but they were
supposed to be British soldiers.
This was at two in the afternoon, and the suspicion of any
fatality--least of all the awful one that had occurred--was dismissed
from the minds of the staff and Lord Chelmsford, who did not turn his
horse's head towards the camp till a quarter to three, according to
the narrative of Captain Lucas of the Cape Rifles.
When, with Colonel Glyn's detachment, he had marched within four
miles of it, he came upon the Native Contingent halted in confusion,
indecision, and something very like dismay, and their bewilderment
infected the party of the General, towards whom, half an hour after,
a single horseman came up at full speed.
He was Commandant Lonsdale, the gallant leader of the Natal
Contingent, who had gone so close to the camp that he had been fired
on by what he thought were our own troops, but proved to be Zulus in
the red tunics of the slain, the same figures whom the staff from the
distant hill had seen through their field glasses moving among the
snow-white tents.
Out of one of them he saw a Zulu come with a blood-dripping assegai
in his hand. He then wheeled round his horse, and, escaping a shower
of rifle-bullets, galloped on to warn Lord Chelmsford of the terrible
trap into which he was about to fall. The first words he uttered
were, 'My Lord, the camp is in possession of the enemy!'
Of the troops he had left there that morning nothing now remained but
the dead, and that was nearly all of them.
The silence of death was there! And now we must note what had
occurred in the absence of the General, of Colonel Glyn, and the main
body of the second column.