Following on from my Battle of Isandlwana series, I intend to cover Rorke's Drift with a mixture of historical fact and Hollywood fiction from the film Zulu, so please take this account with a large pinch of salt.
Since the main column's move forward to Isandlwana, life had been quite at Rorke's Drift.
Lieutenant John Chard, Royal Engineers, was supervising work on the ponts at the crossing. Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead, commander of B Company of the 2nd/24th, stationed at Rorke's Drift, was returning from a hunting trip when he came across Chard at the crossing.
Bromhead: "Hot work?"
Chard: "Damned hot work."
Bromhead: "You've come down from the column?"
Chard: "That's right.They want a bridge across the river"
Bromhead: "Who said you could use my men?"
Chard: "They were sitting around on their backsides doing nothing."
Bromhead: "Rather you asked first old boy".
Chard: "I was told their officer was out hunting."
"Fall them in Corporal Allen."
The first distant shots from Isandlwana could be heard at Rorke's Drift shortly after noon, and by 3.00pm news had reached them by a stream of exhausted and terrified survivors from the defeat of the main column at Isandlwana, who had ridden past.
The decision was made to make a stand and the men were ordered to drag out the mealie-bags and biscuit-boxes from the store, ready to form barricades.
Chard and Bromhead agreed, the garrison would make a stand.
Rorke's post consisted of two long thatched bungalows, 30yds apart. The storehouse was the bigger of the two, about 80ft by 20ft, while the hospital was 60ft by 18ft.
Both buildings had opened verandas at the front.
A wooden staircase ran up the outside wall at the western end of the storehouse, to an attic under the eaves.
The general feeling amongst the garrison was that the loss of either building would spell the end of the post, so it was decided to leave the patients where they were, and to place half a dozen men in the hospital to assist in its defence.
Rorke had built his buildings on a flat shelf which dropped away a few feet in front of them in a bank four or five feet high. The storehouse was set back slightly, and a well-built stone cattle-krall lay on its right front corner.
This was incorporated into the defensive line. A barricade was run across the front of the post to the far left corner of the hospital, where possible this was placed on top of the ledge.
The two wagons were run into a line between the front left corner of the storehouse and the right rear of the hospital.
"Beg pardon Sir, about the soup Sir."
Pre-battle nerves and a visit to the W.C.
Sergeant Windridge: "Owen you've got a voice haven't you?"
Owen: "Yes sergeant, Baritone."
Windridge: "Well get up on that hill and sing out if you see anything, you too, and take your bundle you dozy Welshman."
"When you look at it this country's not as bit as good as Bala and the lake there. Not really green like, nothing to hold a man in his grave."
"He's a Peeler 716, come to arrest the Zulus."
At about 4pm whilst the garrison was working feverishly to complete the barricades, a party of about 100 black horsemen under a white officer rode up to the post. These were NNH survivors of Isandlwana, who had cut their way through the encircling Zulu horns.
Chard: "Thank God you're here".
Mounted Officer: "I'm surprised your still here, do you know there are 4,000 Zulus coming this way?"
Chard: "Throw your men out in a screen South of here, you know how the Zulus think about cavalry".
Mounted Officer: "I know how my men feel about Zulus, we only just got through."
Chard: "Bromhead if you know this man, tell him we need him. Stand fast, stand fast all of you, where the hell do you think you are going?"
Mounted Officer: "If they're going to die, they will die on their own farms."
Chard: "Dont go. We need you, damn you."
There departure caused a much more serious defection, however. The NNC company garrisoned at Rorke's Drift took one look at them and decided to follow their example, throwing down their weapons, voulting over the barricades and fleeing into the bush.
In a matter of minutes Chard's position had deteriorated badly, he had counted on between 300 and 400 men to man a perimeter which stretched for more than 100yds and included two buildings and now he just had 150. As a precaution he immediately gave the order to build a new barricade which would bisect the yard, running from the front left corner of the storehouse to the front barricade. The position was now effectively cut in half, so that if either buildings fell it would be possible to fall back on the other.
This line was scarcely complete when a shout from a lookout warned that the Zulus were approaching.
Colour Sergeant Bourne: "Sentries report Zulus to the South West, thousands of them."
NEXT WEEK................ part 2. The Initial Attack.
