The Washing of the Spears by Donald R. Morris

Author:Donald R. Morris
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781568520278
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1994-01-14T13:00:00+00:00

INVASION

Reveille at Rorke’s Drift sounded at two on the morning of Saturday, January 11, 1879. It was an hour earlier than expected; someone had looted Stewart’s wagons after dark and as soon as the men paraded, their officers began to inspect their haversacks for cigars and their water bottles for gin. They found nothing, and Chelmsford told Stewart he would have his wagons pitched into the river if he had not cleared off by daybreak. The skies had clouded while the search was in progress, and by four-thirty a thick fog and a drizzling rain had all but choked out the first light of a chill dawn as the men began to move down to the river.

Lieutenant Colonel Harness took his six guns to a small knoll, from which he could see nothing, to cover the crossing, and the first companies of the 24th Regiment embarked in the two punts. Chelmsford was eager to get some weight across the river as soon as possible, and the mounted volunteers and the Natal Native Contingent were to wade across. Lieutenant Harford, scouting a few hundred yards upstream, discovered a second drift which looked feasible, and Chelmsford at once directed Major John Cecil Russell to take the cavalry and Cooper’s 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment, NNC, to the new crossing while the Natal Mounted Police and Hamilton-Browne’s 1st Battalion crossed near the punts. Cooper’s Natal Kaffirs had brought their own witch doctor along, and he felt that the invasion of the ancestral homeland called for a speech. The battalion settled on its haunches to listen attentively while he launched into a long harangue, and he was still recounting the early history of the Zulu nation when Harford cut him off and got the men moving again. In the meantime, the first man of the column to set foot in Zululand had splashed across — Charles Norris-Newman, a garrulous but competent ex-Imperial officer now serving as special correspondent for the London Standard, and the only English journalist then in Natal. Known as ‘Noggs,’ he had attached himself to Lonsdale’s staff, and he proudly wore the badge of the NNC, a red rag twisted into a puggree about his sun helmet.

The mounted men were soon across and spurred on to the low ridge beyond the flats at the edge of the Buffalo. Dismounting, they established a ragged line of vedettes on the rising ground and settled down to guard the crossing. Several men went astray in the fog, wandering off into the hills and staying lost until a hot early morning sun burned off the mist and enabled them to find their units.

The water in the drift was neck-deep and the current was swift. Zulu-fashion, the men of the NNC locked arms and rushed the river, the force of those behind sustaining those in front who lost their footing. Cooper’s battalion crossed without loss, but several of Hamilton-Browne’s Natal Kaffirs were swept away and drowned. How many, he could not say, for he had never bothered to count his command.

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