Zulu Hart (36 page)

Durnford then sought out Pulleine. ‘We’re setting off, Colonel. But if you see us in difficulties you must send out troops to support us.’

‘I will,’ replied Pulleine.
‘God speed.’

As George was leaving the tent, he overheard Pulleine say to his adjutant, Lieutenant Melvill, ‘Send Cavaye’s company up the Tahelane Spur so they can support the horsemen on the Nqutu Plateau. The rest of the fighting troops can return to their messes for lunch. But they’re to keep on their accoutrements, eat as quickly as possible and be ready to turn out at a moment’s notice. We’re not out of the woods yet.’

Near the Central Column’s camp, Isandlwana, 22 January 1879, 11.45 a.m.

The steady beat of 400 hooves on the hard earth of the sunbaked plain reminded George of field days in the 1st Dragoon Guards. Then the enemy had been imaginary; now he was all too real.

They had left the camp by the Ulundi track at 11.30 a.m., George trotting just behind Colonel Durnford at the head of a hundred black troopers in slouch-hats and khaki tunics, with bandoliers slung across their chests, and riding hardy ponies without stirrups. Half of them were Christian converts from the Edendale Mission, the other half Basutos, and all fiercely loyal to their leader, Durnford.

It had not taken the horsemen long to overtake Russell and his rocket battery, its V-shaped iron troughs and thin seventeen-inch rockets strapped to the back of a string of mules. But as they thundered on up the plain, George kept glancing nervously to his left where the ground rose sharply to the Nqutu Plateau, and where it appeared the Zulus, in scattered groups, were indeed withdrawing in the face of Barton’s advance.

‘You see, Hart,’ shouted Durnford above the din, ‘I was right all along. And if they’re going towards the general, we must stop them at any cost.’

They had been riding for a good fifteen minutes, and were almost level with the end of the Nqutu Plateau, four miles from the camp, when they were overtaken by a scout from the Carbineers who signalled for them to stop. Durnford raised his hand in the air and the column reined in as one. ‘Hello, Tommy,’ said George, recognizing the freckle-faced youngster as the teenage son of the Pietermaritzburg mayor. ‘What’s the hurry?’

‘You’re riding into a trap. Two of our men have just discovered a huge Zulu
impi
squatting in the valley beyond the plateau.’

‘How big?’ asked Durnford.

‘They didn’t count.
But many thousands.’

The blood drained from Durnford’s face. He knew he had been outwitted, and was looking for someone to blame. ‘Sergeant Major,’ he shouted to the nearest native rider, a huge man with a broad face, ‘where the hell are those scouts you sent out earlier?’

The man was about to reply when a burst of gunfire broke out on the plateau above them.

‘Captain Barton must have found the
impi
,’ said George. ‘We’d better get back to the camp.’

‘Colonel,’
shouted the sergeant major in alarm, ‘Up ahead!’

George looked and his blood froze. A solid wall of Zulus was racing up the plain towards them, their shields held high and their plumed headdresses nodding as they effortlessly ate up the ground. Hundreds more were debouching on to the plain from the valley beyond the plateau and coming on in their turn.

‘Draw your weapons,’ roared Durnford. ‘We’ll conduct a staggered withdrawal. One troop firing while the other takes up a position four hundred yards to the rear, and so on. Take the Edendale Contingent back first, Lieutenant Davies. Henderson’s Basutos can hold here.
Volley-fire at six hundred yards, if you please, Lieutenant Henderson.’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied a baby-faced officer with a droopy moustache.
‘Troop dismount.’

George followed the troopers’ lead, sliding off Emperor and handing his reins to one of the men in charge of the ponies. Drawing his Martini-Henry carbine from the bucket in front of his saddle, he joined the firing line. His heart was going like a steam-hammer as he fell on one knee, loaded the carbine with a cartridge from his pouch and adjusted the sight.

‘On my command,’ shouted Durnford, pistol in hand.

George raised the carbine to his shoulder. The Zulus were barely half a mile away now, with one fleeter-footed warrior, possibly an induna, a good ten yards ahead of the main body, his headdress bobbing as he sped across the turf. George drew a bead on the leading warrior. There was something about his lean physique, the way he moved, that seemed familiar. But he pushed all thoughts to the back of his head, held his breath and waited for the order.

‘Fire!’

The volley from fifty carbines was deafening. George peered through the smoke, half expecting the Zulus to have halted, or at least slowed. But they were still coming on as before, with the odd gap in their ranks as evidence of the damage the carbines had wrought. Of the leading warrior there was no sign.

‘Reload and adjust your sights to three hundred yards.’

George ejected the cartridge by depressing the lever behind the trigger, but his hand was shaking so much he had trouble placing the next bullet in the breech.

‘Come on, Hart,’ said Durnford with a frown, ‘we haven’t got all day.’

George took a deep breath to calm
himself
and pushed the bullet home.

‘Fire!’

The Zulu front rank seemed to shiver as the bullets slammed into flesh and bone, but those who fell were simply hurdled by the warriors behind, their pace never slacking.

‘Mount up,’ instructed Durnford. ‘We’ll pass through Davies’s Zikalis and form a new line behind.’

George was no sooner in the saddle than he heard, from back down the plain, a hideous shrieking noise as one of Russell’s rockets arced towards the plateau in a trail of white smoke and yellow sparks, exploding with a loud boom. ‘Russell must have seen Zulus on the plateau above him,’ said Durnford. ‘We’d best make straight for the camp or they might cut us off. Follow me.’

They passed through Davies’s men, shouting for them to mount up and follow, and as the plain narrowed between the conical hill and the edge of the plateau they came upon the remnants of Russell’s battery. Four bodies lay beside a single iron trough, the one that must have been used to fire the rocket. There was no sign of the escort, the mules and the remaining gunners.

‘Leave them,’ said Durnford from his horse.

‘What about the others?’

‘There isn’t time. We’ve got to get to the camp before the Zulus.’

George looked back the way they had come. The pursuing Zulus were less than half a mile away and closing fast. Up on the plateau the crack of carbine and rifle shots was growing louder and more persistent. So much for Zulu caution, thought George, as he pursued Durnford and his men along the plain.

As they approached the Nyokana Donga — a dry watercourse with steep sides that bisected the plain a mile from the camp - Durnford raised his hand to slow the column. He could see from the presence of helmets and carbines that the donga was partially occupied by a mixed force of around fifty men from various mounted regiments. They had left their horses in the cover of the donga and were
manning
the lip of its steep, east-facing bank. Durnford at once ordered his men to do likewise, extending the defensive line towards the heights, with Davies’s Zikalis on the extreme left.

George followed Durnford as he sought out the officer in command, Captain Bradstreet of the Newcastle Mounted Rifles. ‘Who placed you here, Captain?’ asked Durnford.

‘Colonel Pulleine, sir,’ replied the officer, his walrus moustache only a shade smaller than Durnford’s. ‘He’d just received news from one of your officers, Captain
Barton, that
a huge Zulu
impi
was advancing on the camp.’

‘What other defensive arrangements has he made?’

‘He’s sent two companies of British infantry up on to the plateau to support your troopers, and placed the remaining four companies and the guns along the front of the parade ground.’

That meant, George knew, the main defensive position was at least half a mile from the camp, and protected by just 600 British soldiers. It was a line, moreover, that had no defence against an attack from the rear, and one that was far from unbroken, with dangerous gaps between its three strong- points: the troops on the plateau, those in front of the camp and the horsemen with George in the donga, who were themselves 500 yards to the right front of the main position.

‘What about the native contingent?’ asked
Durnford.

‘They’re supporting the British infantry in both positions.’

George looked over his left shoulder and could just make out a thin line of redcoats, some kneeling, others lying down, almost certainly the men of Jake’s G Company. Then there was a gap before more redcoats, some NNC and what looked, at a distance, like the two seven-pounder guns, which were firing at an unseen target on the heights.

Durnford turned to Bradstreet. ‘Tell me, Captain, has Pulleine informed Chelmsford of our predicament?’

‘He has, sir. He sent a message informing the general of heavy firing to our left front.’

‘Nothing else?
I think he could have been a bit more specific.’

‘Here they come!’ shouted a Carbineer to their left.

The same warriors who had pursued Durnford from iThusi were making straight for the donga. Most were carrying black shields, the sign of a young regiment.

‘Fire!’ ordered Durnford, and 150 carbines obeyed. Down went Zulus in heaps, but others kept coming.

George reloaded as fast as his fumbling fingers would allow, just in time to join the second volley. Again, the donga was momentarily wreathed in a thick bank of white smoke, which hid the defenders from their onrushing foe and seemed to take an age to clear.
Boom
went the carbines on Durnford’s command and more warriors fell. And so it went on, until the advance of the Zulu left ‘horn’ slowed, faltered and then came to a stop, the warriors lying down behind bushes, folds in the ground and the corpses of their comrades. Some fired their rifles from this prone position; others rose up between volleys to gain forty or fifty yards before taking cover.

Once the attack had stalled, Durnford ordered independent fire and remounted. With his withered left arm thrust into the pocket he had had sewn on the front of his tunic, and his body exposed above the top of the donga, he rode up and down the line, encouraging his men with jokes and praise. ‘Well done, my boys,’ he urged, ‘keep it up. It’s too hot for them.’

But as the Zulu counter-fire began to find its range, with bullets pinging off the lip of the donga, the big African sergeant major became concerned for Durnford’s safety and pleaded with him to keep down. ‘Please,
Inkhosi
, it’s too dangerous.’

‘Nonsense,’ replied a smiling Durnford. ‘These Zulus couldn’t hit a house at fifty paces.’

With the firing incessant, more and more carbines jammed, their brass shells refusing to eject. Each time Durnford calmly dismounted, held the gun between his knees and winkled out the cartridge with his knife. But there was soon a far more serious threat to the defenders’ rate of fire than the odd jammed cartridge. Each man had ridden out of camp that day with seventy rounds of ammunition, but after thirty minutes of constant firing, very few had more than ten rounds left.

George brought the problem to Durnford’s attention. ‘Colonel, we need more ammunition.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that? I’ve already sent a messenger back but he hasn’t returned.’

‘He might have been killed. I’ll go. Where are your supply wagons?’

‘They were en route and should have reached the camp by now. If not, try and scrounge some rounds from another regiment. But hurry. We can’t hold out for long.’

George untied Emperor’s knee-halter, mounted and rode hard up the track for the camp, his body hunched forward to produce the smallest possible target for a stray bullet. About a third of the way there, he came upon the right edge of Jake’s G Company, arrayed in two staggered lines roughly ten yards apart, with ten yards between each prone soldier, providing a rifle for every five yards of front.

‘Where’s Second Lieutenant Morgan?’ George shouted to the nearest redcoat.

‘Over to the left,’ replied the soldier, barely pausing in his repetitive task of loading, aiming and firing. George found him in the centre of line, near Pope, directing the fire.

‘George!’ said Jake, looking up. ‘What are you doing here? Is Chelmsford on his way?’

‘No. He was convinced the Zulus wouldn’t attack and sent me back with orders for Pulleine to send on supplies.’

‘The bloody fool.
So where are you headed?’

‘Back to the camp to fetch ammunition for Durnford, who’s holding the donga up ahead.
How are you for bullets?’

‘We’re running through them fast. We’ve sent runners back but they haven’t returned.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. I won’t be long.’

George dug in his heels and Emperor cantered on down the track towards the camp. The mood was very different from when he had ridden in an hour and a half earlier: then it had been calm and unconcerned; now it was like a disturbed wasps’ nest with civilians and soldiers, black and white, running in all directions, some leading mules with boxes of ammunition strapped to their back, others carrying weapons and heading for the firing line. One or two, with furtive looks over their shoulders, were edging towards the nek at the back of the camp where the track dropped away towards Rorke’s Drift, unconvinced that the British had enough troops to hold the camp.