Overhead the thatch is burning, acrid smoke fills the air. Outside a Zulu impi is threatening to break into the hospital building, one of the structures that played an important role at the battle of Rorke’s Drift. Inside a small group of injured men frantically try to escape.
There are no interleading doors between the rooms, and one of these men will bear scars on his hands for the rest of his life, from using his bayonet and bare hands to break through wall after wall, in an attempt to get to the other end of the building.
Every time he cleared a small passage, the men behind him would wriggle through. Eventually some of them escaped through a hole in the wall, two and a half metres above the ground, and were taken by other heroic volunteers to the storeroom.
We stand in icy rain and wind outside the former hospital as Andrew Rattray, the oldest son of that famous historical narrator, David Rattray, paints a verbal picture for us of that valiant stand at Rorke’s Drift.
A stay at Fugitives’ Drift Lodge and Guest House, is inevitably linked with Rorke’s Drift, Isandlwana, and that crossing of the Buffalo River at Fugitives’ Drift, after which it’s named.
If anyone thought the lodge might have lost impetus when David died, they will find instead that his legacy lives on strongly in the likes of Andrew, middle son Douglas, and two wonderful Zulu orators, Mphiwa Ntanzi and Joseph Ndima.
The old maxim of the woman behind every successful man is true of David’s wife Nicky, who kept the home fires burning when David was alive and still does.
As visitors come to pay homage at the places where those stirring scenes from the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War unfolded, the Rattrays are well aware that setting the right atmosphere is important.
So, as we drove off to visit Rorke’s Drift, the place where defenders gathered 11 Victoria Crosses, a military march rat-a-tat-tatted from the vehicle’s speaker.
This surely was how men set off for war in those days: at a brisk pace, in high spirit for the coming battle. After all, Lord Chelmsford had already expressed his opinion that the war against the Zulus would be a walk in the park.
Instead, as history was to show, Isandlwana was a bloody rout for the British. For the Zulus, it was their moment of glory.
Most people know the stories of that military campaign, so it takes skill and passion for narrators to inspire fresh empathy in listeners.
Andrew, Mphiwa and Douglas – who lead our three battlefield trips – easily evoked this. I shall single out defining moments without going into too much detail:
Andrew portraying little things like the discomfort of the British soldier in his steel-capped boots, washing them out with urine to prevent athlete’s foot; the tragedy of how some of those recipients of the Victoria Cross ended their lives. One sold his medal for just five pounds to give his dying wife a little comfort. Another was believed to have committed suicide.
Then there was the not-so-valiant man who hid in a cupboard, pulling a woman’s cloak he found hanging there over him; of goose-bumps hearing what is supposedly the only recording of the voice of a Zulu warrior who survived the battle.
Mphiwa, our guide to the battlefield of Isandlwana, played David’s The Day of the Dead Moon, en route. This five-part CD helps give insight into events that led to the invasion of Zululand by the British colonial army and includes Zulu music as well as Welsh soldiers in full throat.
Mphiwa’s grandfather and great-grandfather fought at Isandlwana, one on the right, and the other the left horn of the buffalo – the Zulu battle formation.
King Cetshwayo, meanwhile, had ordered his impis not to cross the Buffalo River into Natal. He imposed a penalty of five cows on those who disobeyed by attacking Rorke’s Drift.
Every so often Mphiwa broke into Zulu, quoting what commanders and warriors had said on the day. He stamped his feet and raised his knobkierie, just as they would have done. Then he translated.
He told how David had, many years ago, decided to try to learn more of the Zulu side of the battle of Isandlwana. He and his companion, Mzonjane Mpanza, met with an old man who was able to relate the history handed down in oral tradition.
He told of a warrior who raced from the back of the ranks at a time when the main body of the Zulu army was faltering, after falling in droves before the withering hail of British bullets.
This warrior stood before his fellow men and exhorted them not to flee, for that was not what Cetshwayo had instructed them to do. They were to stand and fight.
As his head “burst open like a pumpkin” from a British bullet, the impis, looking upon his fallen body, took new courage, and overran the British line of defence. “The old man told David that warrior was the true hero on the Zulu side,” said Mphiwa.
He sketched a scene of how a Basotho member of Colonel Anthony William Durnford’s Natal Native Horse, desperately tried, in vain, to persuade their much-loved commander to escape with him; and how one Zulu commander had ordered his men to wait while Captain Reginald Younghusband shook hands with each of his men before they made their final stand.
As for Douglas, he was the one who walked us along the edge of the gorge, pointing out the route taken by the few fugitives from Isandlwana. We could picture the gloom of the partial eclipse that day; the despair of fleeing horsemen, with Zulus hot on their heels, finding their steeds had blundered into a marsh.
Looking down from the heights was an eye-opener. Far from the shallow ford at Rorke’s Drift (where the British army first crossed before the battle of Isandlwana), Fugitives’ Drift is a wide crossing, flanked by steep cliffs. On that day in 1879 the river was in full spate and we were able to visualise the frightful crossing, the screams of the terrified horses, the predicament faced by the native regiment who fought with the British. Unable to swim, they had to choose between drowning or the Zulu stabbing spear.
As for the end of the famous Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill – who rode from the battlefield trying to save the queen’s colours – and Lieutenant Nevill Coghill, who came to his assistance at the river, another question was raised.
These two, who won the first posthumous Victoria Crosses in history, had made it high up the banks of the cliffs on the Natal side and must have felt safe from the pursuing Zulus. Yet they died there. We were told the people living around maintain they were killed by Zulus living in Natal at that time. It is said Cetshwayo’s impi called across the Buffalo River to them, saying if they did not kill the two British men, they and their families would be killed.
The fact that Melvill and Coghill were not disembowelled like the rest of the troops at Isandlwana (it was Zulu custom to do this, so the dead man’s spirit could be set free) bears this out.
My room at Fugitives’ Drift Lodge was the perfect spot to visualise that harrowing day. The veranda offered a view of the gorge with the eerie peak of Isandlwana on the horizon.
I had a clear view of the escape route the few survivors from the battle chose, across terrain they did not know, hoping to reach the safety of Rorke’s Drift.
I spent hours sitting, listening to a red-chested cuckoo giving vent to its famous Piet-My-Vrou call, wondering if on January 22, 1879, the birds had grown silent.
Everything I did, I juxtaposed against that day.
As we tucked into tasty meals, I thought of the humble army fare of bully beef and porridge for the British army; of how the valiant Zulus ran barefoot to finally fight at Rorke’s Drift on empty stomachs.
As I slept in my comfortable bed, I pondered on the men who had ridden out in search of the Zulu army – in the wrong area – and returned after the battle of Isandlwana to the horror of the rout of their army. They rested that night among the bodies of their fallen comrades in arms.
As I sat on the balcony of the Harford Library, where we had lunch each day, with splendid views up the Buffalo River, which forms a 22km border along the Rattray property, I tried to plot the escape route I might have chosen in 1879. Hindsight brings clarity.
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Contact 034 642 1843 or 034 271 8051; e-mail: [email protected]; web: www.fugitivesdrift.com
Travel advisory: The route via Stanger and Greytown, while rollingly pretty, is not recommended in rain. The Pietermaritzburg to Greytown option is better. - Sunday Tribune