DEFENDERS OF THE DRIFT

 

In the month of January

Of the year eighteen seventy nine

Lord Chelmsford,

The General Officer Commanding the British forces

Without the sanction of the British Government

By crossing over the great Buffalo River

Invaded KwaZulu,

In Southern Africa

The British entered the Sovereign Kingdom

In response, the fiercely independent AmaZulu people

Mobilized their armies against the invaders

Chelmsford, ignoring intelligence received

Arrogantly committed a fatal error and split his force

With the result that on the 22nd of January

A British force, seventeen hundred strong,

Was attacked by King Cetshwayo’s Impi’s

At a place called Isandhlwana

An isolated hill in Zululand

The British force encamped at the foot of the hill was attacked

By an army of about 10,000 Zulus,

The flower of Cetshwayo’s warriors

And destroyed The British

Who were quickly overwhelmed and routed

In the mayhem the camp was lost

The British tried to hold together

But any kind of discipline among the British and colonial ranks

Was lost along with the camp

As the remnants retreated before the superior force

Lieutenant’s Melvill and Coghill

Tried in vain to save the queens color

But when there horses were shot from under them

They were hacked to death by their pursuers

The few hundred who survived the battle

Had to fight a running battle with the Zulu

Skirmishing for there lives with blood thirsty warriors

Who did not take prisoners

During the retreat Private Samuel Wassall,

Of the eightieth regiment

Stopped to save a drowning soldier from the Buffalo River

He dismounted his horse and left it on the Zulu side

And swam out to rescue his comrade

Dragging him to safety under a hail of gunfire

Thirteen hundred soldiers died

Both British and natal native contingent

Their corpses all mutilated by the victors

In the aftermath of their great victory

It was the heaviest defeat ever inflicted

By a native force on an organized army

 

Encouraged by the momentous events at Isandhlwana

Cetshwayo’s brother, Dabulamanzi took his impi

The four and a half thousand strong undi corps

Intending to cross the buffalo river

And take his warriors into natal

But first he wanted to crush the meager British force

That remained at the small supply post

Eight miles North West of Isandhlwana

Close to the buffalo river crossing

The post was known to the British as Rorke's Drift,

Which the AmaZulu called KwaJimu

The post had formally been a trading store and a mission station

This consisted of a house and a chapel

And some dilapidated out buildings

The house was being used as a field hospital

While the chapel was the quartermasters store

Not much of a target

Of such little value

Not much of a prize for the Zulu

Of no strategic value

Not much honor to be had

In crushing such a small force

Not much of a victory to be had

Outnumbering the British forty to one

Hardly a fair fight

Not much worthy of defending by the British

Why did they stand?

Not much of a command

Some one hundred and fifty men

Though only 104 men were fit enough to fight

The men at Rorke’s drift had been warned

By retreating survivors of Isandhlwana

That the Zulu were coming

But they stayed anyway

Only one survivor of the defeat at Isandhlwana

Stayed to help defend Rorke’s drift

A Lieutenant James Adendorff of the NNC

 

Left in overall command of the post

Was Lieutenant Chard of the Royal Engineers

And, commanding a company-strength

Was Lieutenant Bromhead of the 24^th Regiment of foot

But it was a volunteer, acting assistant commissary

James Dalton, a former Staff Sergeant,

With some twenty two years military experience

Who took control of the defenses

He ordered the construction of barricades

Connecting the two buildings with sacks of corn,

And an inner barricade with biscuit boxes

And determined the position of a redoubt

Where they would make their final stand

Dalton kept the men well occupied

Giving them little time to dwell on the situation

Or contemplate the impending assault

 

They heard the approaching Impi’s

Long before they could see them

The sound was like that of distant thunder in the hills

Drawing ever close and louder

Then a brief silence, very brief

When the fearsome Zulus finally attacked,

Wielding their short stabbing assegais,

They were unable to reach the soldiers

Who from behind the barricades blasted the Zulu warriors

With rifle fire at point blank range

Undaunted the Zulu kept coming

Wave upon wave, Charge upon charge

Eventually by sheer weight of numbers

They began swarming up the barricades

But Most of those who did mount the breastwork

Were repulsed by the bayonets of the defenders

Many of the Zulus were armed with rifles,

Some Taken from the dead at Isandhlwana

But many were obtained from Boer traders

Although they were older than the army issue Henri-Martini

Rifles they were

And a bullet from an old weapon kills just as efficiently

As from a new one

They took advantage of the high ground

And were able to pin down the gallant defenders

Again Wave upon wave of warriors charged the defenses

And again and again they were repulsed

Then After numerous unsuccessful attacks

And with many Zulu dead the attackers withdrew

But only to regroup and not for long

There was barely time to repair the walls

And take a much needed drink when they came again

Each attack varied slightly concentrating on different points

Probing for weaknesses

But again the redcoats held firm

By late afternoon they turned there full attention on the hospital

Where with four other men the Privates, Robert and William Jones,

Defended with valor the hospital door at bayonet point

Unable to break though the redoubtable Privates defense

The attackers set fire to the hospital’s roof,

And broke in through the burning thatch

The savage warriors began to spear the patients,

Mercilessly killing the sick and the lame

A private named Alfred Hook,

A Gloucestershire man,

Kept them at bay with his bayonet while his comrade

Private John Williams hacked holes in the wall

That separated one room from another

Then he dragged the patients through one by one

Once they had made there escape to the adjoining room

Hook continued to fight off the Zulu’s

As the patients were bundled out the window

The last man had dislocated his knee.

Williams had to break the other one

To get him through the window

Before the burning roof finally fell in

Once through the window and into the yard

The barricades offered them some protection.

 

The Fighting went on all night in the fitful glare

From the blazing hospital

As the Zulus made charge after charge on the barricades.

Both sides fought with desperate courage.

A patient from the hospital,

A Swiss born adventurer Christian Schiess,

A corporal of the Natal Native Contingent

Stabbed three Zulus in quick succession after clambering over the breastwork

In the yard Surgeon General Reynolds

Tended to the wounded, seemingly oblivious

To the life and death struggle going on all around him

Those too badly hurt to shoot propped themselves up

And reloaded the guns for those who were still on their feet.

Private hitch and Corporal Allan although wounded

Dragged ammunition around to the men on the barricades

In between engagements work continued rebuilding barricades

And constructing the redoubt, for the final stand

 

When the time came to form up on the redoubt

Each row fired there volley in turn

Then reload and await the command to fire

Then each in there turns fired another volley

Then reload and await the command to fire

Then another and another

Then reload and await the command to fire

Volley after deafening volley

Until the Zulu stopped coming

When the last echo faded all around were Zulu dead

Heaped upon each other

When dawn came at last, the Zulus withdrew

Taking their wounded with them and leaving the dead where they fell

Around the barricades

Not because they could not crush the meager British resistance

The defenders were desperately short of ammunition

And exhausted from the long battle

They could not have held out much longer

Despite the heroic stand against overwhelming opposition

It was Lord Chelmsford’s arrival on the scene

With a fresh column of British Soldiers

That finally tipped the balance

In the aftermath of that January day

A terrible revenge was exacted against the Zulu nation

Chelmsford on the Mahlabatini plains

Comprehensively defeated Cetywayo’s

Twenty thousand strong Impi’s

Then after the battle Ulundi Cetywayo’s royal kraal was burned

The Zulu have never again been one nation

However for the defenders of the drift

The highest honors where bestowed

Gunner John Cantwell

Private William Roy

Colour-sergeant frank Bourne

Second corporal Francis Attwood

And Private Michael McMahon

All received Distinguished Conduct Medal’s

While Victoria crosses were awarded to

Lieutenant, John Rouse Merriott Chard

Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead

Acting assistant commissary James Langley Dalton

Corporal William Wilson Allen
Private Frederick Hitch

Private Alfred Henry hook
Private Robert Jones
Private William Jones
Surgeon General James Henry Reynolds
Corporal Ferdnand Christian Schiess
Private John Williams,

In addition for his gallantry at Isandhlwana

A VC for Private Samuel Wassall

For selflessly putting his life at risk to save a fallen comrade

At the time posthumous medals where not given

So it wasn’t until 1907

When for attempting to save the queens color

From the field at Isandhlwana

Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill

And Lieutenant Neville Josiah Aylmer Coghill

Were finally honored for their courageous act

When they were awarded the Victoria Cross

For valor

 

In these changing days

It not PC to have military heroes

You will be told of Rorke’s drift

How the honors were not earned

You will hear things belittling the efforts of the defenders

The medals were awarded only to save face

To put a positive spin on the days events

Don’t listen to them

Don’t let them blacken the memories of our heroes

They could have abandoned the post,

They chose to stand

They could have fled to natal

They chose to stay

A courageous act by courageous men

Remember them with pride