BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY

David Rattray on the extraordinary courage

of the British and Zulu warriors who fought at Isandlwana

Rorke's Drift WHEN Lt Col Henry Pulleine looked out from his command position above the tented camp at Isandlwana at the thousands of Zulu warriors massing on the lip of the plateau two miles away to the north, I venture to suggest that he must have been excited. He was going to get a battle, after all. When his lookout came scuttling down to report that thousands of warriors had just appeared a mile and a half to the west, now effectively preventing any possibility of retreat, I ask you to accept that he experienced a pang of nerves.

Of all the Victorian battles, Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift, fought in the Zulu War of 1879, occupy a place that is unique in our modern imaginations. I make my living by giving tours of the site, and by writing and lecturing on what took place. We look back, from our softer and more comfortable times, at extraordinary feats of valour. And we must all be driven to meditate on whether our own cultures could ever again produce such an instinct for heroism and self-sacrifice, either by the Zulus or by the present British armed forces.

The camp at Isandlwana was a huge affair, the column consisting of 4,850 men, 220 wagons and carts, and 4,500 oxen. The British commander, Lord Chelmsford, failed to entrench his position, and failed to draw his wagons into a defensive arrangement. He believed, as a result of what he thought was sound scouting, that the main Zulu army was in a range of mountains way off to the south-east.

In retrospect it could be said that Chelmsford made a terrible error. He split that huge column and went off into the south-east with more than half the men. While he was away, a patrol of mounted men strayed up on to the plateau to the north-east of Isandlwana and stumbled upon the unimaginable.

Twenty-five thousand Zulu warriors, accompanied by several thousand teenage boys carrying their older brothers' spare rations and sleeping mats, and several thousand women, were lying in a massive hidden valley. The patrol fired a volley into this packed mass and fled, and this great cimpiT of Zulus rose up and raced for Isandlwana, spreading out into their famous 'horns of the buffalo' formation. Within two hours, the British camp at Isandlwana had been smashed: 1,329 men on the British side had been killed and Britain had suffered one of the most catastrophic defeats in her colonial history. Lieutenants Melvill and Coghill lost their lives trying to save the Queen's Colour of their regiment and in so dying won the first posthumous Victoria Crosses.

A great wing of this same Zulu army went on to defy their king's instructions. They forded the Buffalo river into Natal and attacked the British garrison at Rorke's Drift. Outnumbered 30 to one, the defend ers of Rorke's Drift stubbornly held their position for 11 hours. Intelligently fortifying the mission buildings, they held on grimly.

When the Zulus set fire to the thatched hos pital building, the soldiers defending it fought a sequential retreat by bashing holes through the mudbrick walls that divided it into a warren of tiny rooms. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded for valour in this battle — more than in any other action in the annals of British military history.

For 120 years historians have been trying to explain away the British defeat. For many years we were told that the collapse of the British positions at Isandlwana happened because of a lack of ammunition. We were told that there were 440.000 rounds of ammunition in that camp at Isandlwana, but somehow brave Tom Atkins on the line never got it. We were told that pig-headed quartermasters failed to hand over ammunition to men from regiments other than their own, and we were told that the quartermas ters had failed to bring along enough screwdrivers to free the copper-strapping on the ammunition boxes; this is a famous theory.

Some believe that untrained black soldiers fighting for the British broke and fled, leaving our brave man Atkins to face the Zulu, which he did with great resolve and courage.

But has anyone contemplated the predicament of the Zulus? It is too often ignored that these warriors had run for anything up to 120 miles to get to the field, had forded a flooded river, and gone on to fight all night on stomachs that had probably been empty for 36 hours. It is gratifying to note that people are now starting to see the battle of Isandlwana for what it was — a great Zulu victory.

The Zulu commander-in-chief, Ntshingwayo-ka-Mahole Khoza, has been lucky to get one line in most histories on this battle. We should be urged to contemplate that he was 70 years of age. He had run 55 miles barefoot to be with his warriors on the field. Imagine what his presence must have done to the esprit de corps of the Zulu army — having one's 70-year-old commander-in-chief loping along with his warriors, as they cut great swaths through that gorgeous grassland, swaths that were still visible six months later.

It was his day and, as he sat on that most magnificent bluff overlooking the battlefield and saw that the 'horns' of his great formation were in position, he rose up and bellowed 'Aye Hlorner (To Arms!), and the huge head and chest of his formation descended from the plateau and lapped against that thin red line of British soldiers.

And the British line held. They were tough, strong men, these British soldiers. They had marched well over 1.000 miles to get to this field. They were extremely proficient with their Martini-Henry rifles, which had been developed for exactly this kind of warfare.

Zulu oral tradition is adamant: this battle had a moment when it might have gone the other way. Every Zulu source that I have ever tapped into has stressed to me that this was a terrible battle. This was no pushover. This was nearly a British victory.

There was an impasse in the battle when British infantrymen, superbly disciplined and drilled, were pouring volley after volley of rifle fire into the packed ranks of the famous Umcitjo regiment, whose warriors were starting to fall back. This would have thrown the whole Zulu tactic into jeopardy, but an old Zulu chieftain, Mkhosana-kaMvundlana of the Biyela clan, leapt to his feet and, ignoring British bullets, screamed at the warriors that King Cetshwayo had not ordered anyone to run away. An instant later, this great and brave chief lay dead, a bullet from Birmingham in his brain — but not one Zulu fell back after this selfless act.

One must wonder how this single act of bravery might have influenced the course of this battle and indeed the history of South Africa. There is no doubt in my mind that the great respect that the British and the Zulus have for each other stems from this very battle. One Zulu veteran said of the British at Isandlwana, `All those Red Soldiers at Isandlwana! Like lions they fought, like stones they fell — each man falling with a thud like a rock in his place.'

Legend has it that, when Captain Reginald Younghusband was making his last desperate stand high up on the hill, the Zulus paused and allowed Younghusband to shake hands with all his men before they killed them.

Would our modern soldiers behave as he did? Could we walk a thousand miles in steel-shod boots? Could we face 25,000 brave warriors in hand-to-hand combat? Could we claw our way through burning buildings on a pitch-black, moonless night?

All this for a shilling a day?

David Rattray is lecturing at the Royal Geographical Society on 18119/20 June. For details, please telephone 020 7221 4886. Other inquiries: fugdrift@trustnet.caza.