The Heroic Defence of Rorke's Drift

James Rorke was an Irish trader and son of an Irish soldier who had been sent over to serve in South Africa. In 1849, Rorke purchased around 1,000 acres of land and it was on here he built his trading station. He lived there with his wife Sarah and their two children but apart from the small settlement at Helpmekaar, there were few Europeans in the area. Apart from passing hunters, Rorke had a lot of dealings with the local Zulus on both sides of the Buffalo River with whom he had a good relationship. By the mid 1870s, a Norwegian missionary had expressed an interest in buying the trading station to convert into a mission station. However, in 1875, Rorke shot himself in a drunken rage and the property fell into the hands of the Swedish missionary, Otto Witt.

Rorke was buried a couple of hundred yards away from the buildings under a block of concrete. His grave is still marked to this day.

The defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift immediately followed the British Army's defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana earlier that morning on 22nd January 1879. The overwhelming Zulu attack on Rorke's Drift came very close to defeating the tiny garrison, and the British success is held as one of history's finest defences. The 11 Victoria Crosses awarded for valour at Rorke's Drift are still more than for any other military action in history.

There were a number of reasons for the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 but following the issue of an ultimatum for the Zulus to disband their army, the British under Lord Chelmsford began to move their forces up from Pietermaritzburg to various points along the border of Natal and Zululand. On the expiry of the ultimatum, the Number 3 column was to cross into Zululand at Rorkes Drift.

Lord Chelmsford, had 'requisitioned' the property and used the house as a hospital and the chapel as a storehouse. During the battle it was used as a surgery. When the British ultimatum expired on 11th January 1879, the column crossed the Buffalo River and headed into Zululand. The first thing Chelmsford did was attack the stronghold of Sihayo. It was a minor skirmish and the column moved on. A few days later, it set up camp under a mountain known as Isandlwana. Desperate to find and engage the Zulu army which had been sent up from Ulundi days early, Chelmsford split his forces. Around 1,700 men were left at the camp while over 2,500 men headed out in search of the Zulus.

On the morning of 22nd January 1879, a patrol from the camp at Isandlwana stumbled across the Zulu impi in a nearby valley. Remarkably, there was due to be a solar eclipse on this day and according to custom, Zulus were not meant to fight. However, they had been discovered and needed to attack in order to retain the element of surprise. Using their 'Horns of the Buffalo' tactics to perfection, the Zulus attacked and all but wiped out the British camp at Isandlwana.

A number of Natal Native Contingent (NNC) soldiers and around 50 white soldiers on horseback were all who managed to escape the slaughter. Some headed straight for Helpmekaar while some went via the tiny garrison at Rorkes Drift to warn the men of what was coming their way.

Although Rorke's Drift was only a few miles from Isandlwana, it was over the border in Natal and the Zulu king Cetswayho had forbid his warriors from entering Natal. However, not all the Zulus had seen action at Isandlwana so 4 regiments (2 senior and 2 junior) persuaded their commander Dabulamanzi kaMpande to allow them to attack the mission station. Dabulamanzi was the King's half brother and led a force of around 4,000 warriors.

The British were altered to the threat of the Zulus at around 3.15pm on the afternoon of Wednesday 22nd January by Lieutenant Adendorff of the NNC and a trooper of the Natal Carbineers and broke the news of the disaster at Isandlwana. The decision was made to stand and fight. As a supply garrison, there was ample ammunition and in any case, if they had attempted to run to Helpmekaar, it is likely the Zulus would have caught them in the open.

Acting Commissariat James Dalton came up with a brilliant plan to form a defensive arrangement. He intended to connected the hospital, store room and the cattle kraal with stacks of mealie bags and wagons. The injured men in the hospital could not be moved so volunteers were needed to protect them. The men who were to go down in history were Corporal William Allen, Privates Thomas Cole, John Dunbar, Fredrick Hitch, William Horrigan, John Williams, Joseph Williams, Henry Hook, Robert Jones and William Jones. These men were each given a sack of ammunition and barricaded into the cubby holes in the hospital. They were, as Henry Hook famously said, 'pinned there like rats in a hole'.

At this stage, there were 139 officers, NCOs and men at Rorke's Drift along with around 300 men of the NNC. However, the men of the NNC were soon to desert the post. 100 men of the Natal Native Horse arrived from Isandlwana. They offered to help but as they would not leave their horses Chard felt they would be more use trying to harass the oncoming Zulus. Any delay would allow more time for the defences to be built. It was one of the Zulu speaking men of the NNH who said to the men of the NNC behind the defences,

"You won't believe what happened at Isandlwana. Everyone has been killed and disembowelled. Now the Zulus are coming here and the same fate awaits you."

With that, the 300 men of the NNC upped and left. The soldiers who were left were so enraged at the desertion, they fired a volley into the departing men of the NNC and succeeded in killing Corporal Anderson. The loss of the 300 men meant the defenders of Rorkes Drift were spread very thin around the defensive perimeter. The store room contained a large number of army biscuit boxes each weighing about a Hundred Weight. They ran a line of these boxes across the courtyard to split the defensive area in half. This gave the British a fallback position and without this line of boxes which was about four feet high, it is likely the Zulus would have over run them.

In the meantime, Surgeon Reynolds, Otto Witt and the Reverend George Smith had gone to the top of the Oskarberg to watch for the Zulus. At around 4pm, the three of them came running down the mountain with the shout "Here they come. Black as hell and thick as grass". Otto Witt left the garrison to be with his family and the men were ordered to "Stand To". Ten minutes later, the Zulus appeared at the top of the hill with Dabulamanzi mounted on a magnificent white horse. A number of the Zulus had rifles and the positioned themselves on the Oskarberg before opening fire on the garrison.

The first attack was by the young warriors of the iNdluyengwe regiment who tried to rush the hospital. They were caught in a fierce crossfire and took terrible casualties. Some Zulus made their way round the back of the hospital and attempted to attack it from there. Joseph Williams was one of the defenders and outside his window lay the bodies of 14 Zulus he had killed. However, he was overrun, dragged outside and hacked to pieces. The same fate soon befell William Horrigan and one of the patients, Private Robert Adams.

By now the Zulus were all round the hospital and the British had retreated behind the line of biscuit boxes leaving a no mans land in the courtyard between the hospital. The men in the hospital didn't know this and they believed their only way out was to dig their way through the unfired brick walls from room to room. Hook would hold off the Zulus as John Williams hacked holes in the wall. Once the hole was big enough, the patients were dragged through and the men fell back. This was repeated room by room.

The determination of the men can not be overstated. The roof was on fire, there were Zulus outside and Zulus inside. As Hook said, all they could do was fight. Hook was struck in the head by an Assegai but continued the fight. It should be pointed out that the work being done to dig the holes by John Williams was a supreme effort. Each hole took up to an hour to dig and all the time, Zulus were trying to get in and kill them. At one stage, Private Thomas Cole couldn't take it any more. He suffered from claustrophobia and went outside where he was almost instantly killed.

The retreat inside the hospital continued and by the time they made it to the end of the building, the Zulus had also managed to kill Sergeant Maxfield and a private of the NNC who was briefly questioned by the Zulus in his sickbed before they killed him. Two patients had also hidden in a wardrobe in their attempts to escape the onslaught. Privates John Waters and William Beckett hid in the wardrobe until they felt it was safe to go outside and hid. They couldn't stay in the building as it was on fire. Waters was wearing one of Mrs Witt's black coats and found refuge in the long grass but Beckett was spotted and stabbed by a Zulu. He later died.

When they reach the window at the far end of the hospital, Hook and his colleagues were horrified to see the British had gone. They had to make the dash across the courtyard with the injured on their backs and it was during this phase that Trooper Sidney Hunter was killed by a Zulu who jumped into the courtyard and speared him. The Zulu was quickly shot and killed. The men were now behind the defensive line and the evacuation of the hospital was complete but the fight was not over.

It was a dark moonless night and once the fire at the hospital was out, there was no light in which to see the Zulus. One warrior armed with a rifle had found a position along the line of mealie bags where he could take shots at the British. A Swiss national serving in the NNC volunteered to deal with him. Corporal Christian Scheiss had been injured in the attack on Sihayos stronghold days earlier but still hopped out, and killed three Zulus before returning safely into the perimeter.

The Zulu attacks continued until around 2am and at one stage, Chard had been so concerned with the situation, he ordered a position of mealie bags to be built large enough to hold 12 men. It was to be the place where they would make their last stand. However, it wasn't needed and around 4am, the rifle fire from the Zulus ceased and the enemy were out of sight over the hill.

A total of 15 men had been killed with a further two who were soon to die from their wounds. They were;

Sergeant Robert Maxfield, G Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment.
Private John Scanlon, A Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment
Private Garret Hayden, D Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment
Private Robert Adams, D Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment
Private Thomas Cole, B Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment
Private John Fagan, B Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment
Private James Chick, D Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment
1398 Private Joseph Williams, B Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment.
Private Edward Nicholas, 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment.
Private William Horrigan, 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment.
Private James Jenkins, 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment.
Louis Byrne, Commissariat Department.
Trooper Sydney Hunter, Natal Mounted Police.
Corporal William Anderson, Natal Native Contingent
1 Private (Native) Natal Native Contingent
Sergeant Thomas Williams, B Coy, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment
Private William Beckett, 1st Battalion 24th Regiment

5 of the fatalities were inflicted by rifle fire. The number of Zulu dead is harder to put an exact number on. In his initial report, Chard put the figure at around 350 but other accounts put the total at over 500. There were also reports of wounded Zulus being executed but given the events at Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift, this was understandable.

What is often overlooked is that the Battle at Rorke's Drift could very well have ended in the same disastrous manner as Isandlawana, but for one key factor: Rorke's Drift was a supply depot, so the British soldiers who defended it were able to rely on a substantial amount of ammunition. The Quartermasters report showed that 20,000 rounds were fired during the course of the battle. By the time the Zulus left, the garrison were down to just 600 rounds.

Four Zulu regiments under the command of Dabulamanzi kaMpande attacked Rorkes Drift. The regiments had not seen any action at the Battle of Isandlwana earlier in the day. The regiments were iNdluyengwe, uThulwana, iNdlondo and uDluko. Two of the regiments were senior and two were junior. Together there were around 4,000 warriors.

The defenders at the garrison were a bit of a mixed bunch who had been left behind while the No 3 column had advanced into Zululand. The bulk of the force was made up of Non-Commissioned Officers and men of he 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment, B Company. There were also men from 1st Battalion 24th Regiment, Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, 90th Light Infantry, Commissariat and Transport Department, Army Medical Department, Natal Mounted Police, Natal Native Contingent, Army Medical Department and a Chaplain.

They were under the command of Lieutenant John Rouse Marriot Chard of the Royal Engineers and Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead, commander of B Company, 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment. Chard was the senior officer as he had been promoted to Lieutenant 3 months earlier than Bromhead.

At the time of the battle, there were a total of 139 men although 35 were officially sick and a couple of others were non-fighting men.

Rorke's Drift has gone down in British military history with good reason. 11 men were awarded Britain's highest medal for bravery, the Victoria Cross. It remains the highest number awarded for a single action. In addition, four Distinguished Conduct Medals were also awarded.

At the time, there was no provision to award the Victoria Cross to men killed in action. Two men who had died earlier in the day trying to save the Queens Colour were the first men to posthumously receive the Victoria Cross 28 years later. Lieutenants Melville and Coghill are buried near where they died at Fugitives Drift.

The men who were awarded the Victoria Cross at Rorkes Drift were;
Lieutenant John Rouse Merriott Chard, 5th Field Coy, Royal Engineers
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Corporal William Wilson Allen; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Frederick Hitch; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Alfred Henry Hook; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private Robert Jones; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private William Jones; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Private John Williams; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Surgeon James Henry Reynolds; Army Medical Department
Acting Assistant Commissary James Langley Dalton; Commissariat and Transport Department
Corporal Christian Ferdinand Schiess; 2nd/3rd Natal Native Contingent

The men who were awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal were;
Gunner John Cantwell; N Batt, 5th Brig Royal Horse Artillery
Private John William Roy; 1st/24th Foot
Colour Sergeant Frank Edward Bourne; B Coy, 2nd/24th Foot
Second Corporal Francis Attwood; Army Service Corps

Colour Sergeant Frank Bourne was one of five men to be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the rare honour of a commission. However, his army pay was his only money had he felt he couldn't not financially afford to become an officer so declined the commission. Fittingly, he was the last survivor of Rorke's Drift to pass away on 8th May 1945 - VE Day. Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Edward Bourne OBE, DCM was 91 years old.

David Rattray was one of the first people to realise that there was an amazing story to tell about the Anglo Zulu War of 1879.

He became world-renowned for his emotive and enthralling battlefield tours as well as lectures he gave throughout the United Kingdom. His annual three night series of lectures at the Royal Geograhic Society was always sold out. The Zulu people - their history, culture and future - have always been close to his heart.

For more information about the David Rattray Foundation, please visit their website: http://www.davidrattrayfoundation.org/