Zulu Hart (37 page)

‘You,’ shouted George at one such young
voorloper,
‘where are you going?’

The man ignored him and hurried on.

With no sign of Durnford’s supplies, George made straight for the ammunition wagon at the back of the Carbineers’ tents. It was occupied by the quartermaster, a strapping fellow called London, who was busy handing out packets of bullets to a long line of waiting soldiers. George rode to the head of the queue and shouted, ‘Quartermaster, I need ammunition now. Colonel Durnford’s mounted troops are almost out.’

‘Officer or no, Hart, you’ll wait in line like everyone else.’

‘You don’t understand. The situation’s critical.’

‘It’s critical everywhere. You’ll wait your turn.’

George looked beyond London to the huge pile of
maho
gany ammunition boxes, each one containing sixty ten-round packets. One of London’s assistants was going from box to box with a screwdriver, removing the two-inch brass screw that secured the box’s sliding lid. ‘Let me help that fellow, Quartermaster. We’ll be here all day.’

‘There’s no point. We’ve only got one screwdriver.’

‘Ye gods!’ roared George, looking right and left for an alternative supply.

‘Try the Second Twenty-Fourth next door,’ suggested London. ‘They’ve only got one company in the firing line and should have plenty of bullets to spare.’

‘ You’ve
got plenty of bullets,’ roared George in frustration.

‘We’re doing our best.’

George galloped along the back of the 2nd/24th’s tents, sneaking a glance to the front of the camp where the firing seemed, to him at least, to be dropping in intensity. The scene that greeted him at the 2nd/24th’s ammunition wagon was, if anything, even more chaotic. A crowd of men were clamouring for bullets, but the florid-faced Quartermaster Bloom- field, wearing shirtsleeves and braces, was having none of it. ‘I’ve signed for this ammo,’ he said in his Geordie accent, ‘and it’s only going to the Second Battalion. All the other units have got their own supplies.’

‘I’m from G Company of the Second Battalion, sir,’ piped up one young drummer boy who could not have been more than sixteen.

‘Give that boy some packets,’ said the quartermaster to his assistant. ‘The rest of you can scarper.’

‘Are you insane?’ barked George. ‘The Zulus are about to break through and you’re worrying about which units you’re supplying.’

‘I’ve got to account for every bullet, and if you think …’

George stopped listening. He needed bullets and nothing was going to stop him from getting them. He dismounted, tied Emperor to the front wheel of the ammunition wagon and walked round to its back flap, which he began to untie.

‘What are you doing?’ asked a voice.

George swung round to see Lieutenant Smith-Dorrien, the long-chinned officer who had delivered Chelmsford’s message to Durnford. ‘What does it look like I’m doing, Lieutenant? That fool Bloomfield will only supply his battalion, so I’m taking matters into my own hands.’

Smith-Dorrien nodded. ‘Good thinking. Let me help.’

Together they untied the flap and removed the wagon’s back board. Then they grabbed the nearest ammunition box by its rope handles and threw it to the ground.

‘Christ, that’s heavy,’ said George, gazing down at the solid two-foot-long mahogany container.

‘Stop complaining,’ said a grinning Smith-Dorrien as he reached for the next box. ‘It only weighs eighty pounds.’

When they had a dozen on the ground, they set about breaking them open, George with the butt of his carbine, Smith-Dorrien with a rock. The noise of splintering wood brought Bloomfield round from the front of the wagon. ‘For heaven’s sake,’ he said to Smith-Dorrien, ‘don’t take that, man. It belongs to our battalion.’

‘Hang it all,’ replied Smith-Dorrien. ‘You don’t want a requisition slip now, do you?’

‘Yes, I do. You’re not entitled to those bullets.’

‘Well, we’re taking them anyway,’ said George, ‘and if you try to stop us I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.’

Bloomfield was about to respond, but the look on George’s face made him think twice and, muttering to himself, he retreated back round the wagon.

‘Right,’ said George. ‘I think we’ve got enough bullets. Now we must get them to Durnford.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Holding a donga about a mile from the camp.’

‘You’ll need a cart. Wait here.’

Smith-Dorrien reappeared a couple of minutes later with a mule harnessed to a small cart, and together they threw the contents of six boxes — 3,600 rounds in all - into the back.

‘I’ll get going,’ said George, as he hitched Emperor to the rear of the wagon. ‘You organize some more for the infantry and let’s pray we meet later. Good luck with the rest.’

‘Thanks. I’ll need it.’

George climbed into the box seat and whipped up. But with the mule refusing to go faster than a jog-trot, George was still moving along the back of the camp when he was overtaken by Lieutenant Melvill on a tall black charger.
‘Hart!
Where are you going?’

‘I’m taking ammunition to Colonel Durnford in the donga.’

‘Good, you’ll save me the journey. Can you ask Durnford to pull back his men closer to the camp? Colonel Pulleine wants to tighten the defensive perimeter.’

‘To where?’

‘To a line a couple of hundred yards in front of the tents.
He’s already withdrawn the two companies on the plateau; they’re now holding the far end of the camp.’

‘I’ll tell him, but it’s going to be very difficult for the men in the firing line to disengage. Look what we’re up against …’ George swept his hand along the thick mass of Zulus pressing towards the camp, from the spur above the camp to the plain in front of the donga, where more and more warriors were edging to their left in an effort to outflank Durnford’s position. They were making a low, musical murmuring noise, like a swarm of bees getting closer and closer. ‘If the men fall back, the Zulus will charge. We need a redoubt. Why hasn’t Pulleine
laagered
the wagons?’

‘Have you any idea how long it takes to do that? There isn’t time. Just deliver the order, there’s a good fellow.’

George whipped up, shaking his head in disgust, and had just turned on to the wagon track when he sighted Durnford and his men galloping back from the donga, the dust rising behind them in a thick cloud. They came to a juddering halt next to George’s cart. ‘We couldn’t hold out any longer,’ explained Durnford, his dusty face streaked with little runnels of sweat. ‘We’re almost out of bullets and they were getting round our flank. I see you got some more.’

‘Yes, but only about twenty per man.’

Durnford turned to the officers behind him. ‘Lieutenant Henderson, give your men thirty rounds each and then try and locate our supply. Davies, you do the same. The volunteers and mounted police can seek out their own supplies. We’ll rendezvous on the nek in five minutes.
No longer.
If we can’t keep the horns apart the camp is doomed.’

‘Sir,’ said the officers, almost in unison. Bradstreet and Lieutenant Scott of the Carbineers led their men away, while Henderson and Davies transmitted the orders to their NCOs and the resupply began, each trooper riding forward in turn and being handed two packets of bullets.

George, meanwhile, had informed Durnford of Pulleine’s intention to pull his troops back closer to the camp. ‘Much good it will do him,’ commented Durnford, pulling on his moustache. ‘There are too many of them, George. They’ve hoodwinked us good and proper this time.’

‘You should have listened to me, Colonel.’ George couldn’t help saying it.

‘I know, and I’m sorry. I’ve always been a headstrong fellow. Do you think they’ll blame me for this too?’

‘Let’s forget about blame while there are lives to save!’

‘You’re right. Our only hope is to collect all the troops for a last stand. Do you know where Pulleine is?’

‘I imagine he’s still at the column office.’

‘Good. Come with me.’

George nodded, dashed to the back of the cart and untied Emperor. Seconds later he and Durnford were clattering between the tents of the lst/24th and the mounted volunteers, dodging the camp casuals who were making their way on foot, on wagons and on mules towards the top of the camp where the wagon track crossed the nek - the broad saddle of land between the hill of Isandlwana and the Stony Koppie - before dropping steeply towards the Manzimnyama stream on the first leg of its circuitous ten-mile route to Rorke’s Drift. ‘Like rats leaving a sinking ship,’ remarked Durnford sourly.

Just before the nek they turned right and rode along the base of the mountain until they reached the tent that served as the column office. A corporal was burning papers on a campfire, a bad sign. ‘Where’s Colonel Pulleine?’ demanded Durnford.

The soldier looked up, a sheaf of papers in hand. ‘He and Lieutenant Melvill left a few minutes ago for the First Twenty-Fourth’s tents to the right of the track.’

‘Why?’

Before the soldier could reply, a limping Lieutenant Coghill appeared at the entrance to the tent. ‘He’s gone to save the battalion’s colours. We lost both to the Sikhs at Chillianwala in the Second Sikh War and Pulleine doesn’t want that to happen again.’

For a brief moment, as he tried to take in the lull absurdity of Coghill’s explanation, Durnford was too stunned to speak. ‘Is he
insane
?’ he shouted, his face mottled with fury. ‘The Zulus are about to overwhelm the camp and he’s worried about the damn colours! If we don’t shore up the right of our line, and prevent the Zulus from outflanking us, we’re all dead men, every one of us. We need to get troops over to the nek, and I mean now. I don’t care who they are, as long as they can hold a gun. Do you think you can manage that,
Lieutenant?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Good, and you can start with him,’ said Durnford, pointing towards the corporal. ‘George, come with me. We’d better get over to the nek and see what needs to be done.’

On the way they passed the hospital tent, so full of casualties that Surgeon-Major Shepherd was treating the overflow of wounded on the ground outside. Durnford drew rein to warn him that time was running out.
‘Surgeon-Major!
We’re trying to organize a last stand on the nek. You must make your way there
now.’

Shepherd looked up from his patient, a redcoat with a jagged abdominal wound. ‘What about the wounded?’

‘They’ll have to stay where they are. There’s no time to move them.’

‘In that case, Colonel,’ said Shepherd, wiping his bloody hands on his apron, ‘I’m staying with them.’

‘Don’t be a fool, Surgeon-Major,’ interjected George. ‘You can still save yourself. All the noncombatants are leaving for Rorke’s Drift.’

Shepherd shook his head.

‘All right,’ said Durnford. ‘We’ll keep the Zulu horns apart for as long as possible. If you change your mind …’

‘I won’t.’

Durnford nodded and dug in his spurs, George following. They found the nek choked with wagons, their panic-stricken drivers yelling at their cattle and each other, desperate to get on to the Rorke’s Drift track and away. Civilians on foot dodged round, and even over, the lumbering wagons, all heading in the same direction. ‘This is hopeless,’ shouted Durnford above the din as he urged his pony, Chieftain, through the traffic. ‘We’d best make for the Stony Koppie beyond the saddle and rally there.’

From the rock-strewn lower slopes of the koppie, they had a panoramic view of the camp and the battlefield beyond. George could see a dense mass of Zulus pressing ever closer to the thin red and black line, not even continuous, which was defending the front of the camp. Already the Zulus had worked beyond the right of the line, Jake’s G Company, which had been left exposed by Durnford’s withdrawal from the donga. It was only a matter of time, thought George, before G Company itself fell back. He wondered what was going through Jake’s mind. Was he frightened by the prospect of death, or just too preoccupied with loading and firing to dwell on the matter?

‘Where the hell have Henderson and Davies got to?’ asked Durnford, interrupting George’s morbid thoughts. ‘They’ve been gone for more than ten minutes.’

There was no sign of any black troopers on the nek. But other
horsemen
were forcing their way through the traffic, led by Bradstreet and Scott. Durnford waved furiously until the
horsemen
spotted him and made their way over. ‘I hope you got some bullets,’ said Durnford.

‘We did, sir,’ replied Scott.
‘Fifty a man.
Quartermaster London was killed by a stray bullet as he served us.’

‘Poor bastard.
Tell your men to dismount and form a line facing the plain. Pope’s company can’t hold on much longer, and when it breaks we need to give it covering fire.’

The two officers did as they were told, detailing a handful of troopers to hold the horses while the rest knelt in two lines on the edge of the koppie. No sooner were they in position than George noticed the sound of firing from the centre of the battlefield begin to lessen in intensity until it ceased altogether.

‘Christ, Colonel,’ said George to Durnford, ‘they must have run out of ammunition.’