Chapter XXII: Part 22

Some idea of the stubborn character of those wild Cossacks may be formed from one little incident. One of them came into the Russian camp, having ridden twenty miles after being hit by a cannon shot. His arm was taken out at the shoulder-joint by the famous Doctor Wiley, who afterwards amputated Moreau’s legs at Dresden. During the operation, which lasted four minutes, the man never spoke, the next morning walked about his room, and drank tea, and, getting into a cart which jolted him fourteen miles over a Russian road, was afterwards heard of, many hundreds of miles on his journey homeward to the Don, doing well!

Small wonder, then, that the hoarse _hourra_ struck terror into the fugitives, and that half a dozen of the barbarians would send a battalion of bleeding conscripts flying for their lives down the glittering aisles of drooping birches, whose fairy-like branches glistened with magic beauty in the wintry sunshine.

Eugène was attacked as his corps crossed the Wop with five or six thousand soldiers under arms, double that number of stragglers and wounded, and more than a hundred guns. The ford became blocked, the current was very rapid, and the river only partially frozen. A shameful pillage of the waggons took place, gold, silver, and costly plunder being scattered in the mud; and it was not until a brave Italian colonel named Delfanti crossed up to his waist in the floating ice that the others took heart and followed him.

Colonel Labaume tells us that he picked up a magnificent cup of splendid workmanship, drank some muddy water out of it, and flung it aside with indifference; but others, thinking only of gain, exchanged silver money for gold at a great sacrifice, secretly laughing at their comrades, who soon sank under the weight, while they escaped with the lesser bulk.

One officer, apparently lifeless, felt a man pulling off his boots, and exclaimed, “Ah, rascal, I have still need of them. I am not quite dead.”

“_Eh bien, mon général_,” said the soldier, coolly sitting down beside him, “_I can wait_.”

Napoleon rested five days at Smolensk; but so neglected had been his orders that no meat was found there--only rye flour, rice, and brandy--and the army fought desperately at the doors of the magazines, killing many men, raging at the Guard, whom they accused, with great reason, of being unduly favoured, and breaking out into excesses of every kind.

On the 14th November, at four o’clock in the morning, the main column left for Krasnoë, leaving little or nothing behind them for Eugène, Davout, and the valiant Ney, who had instructions to evacuate the city with a day’s interval between each corps, Ney to blow up the place when he took his departure.

Out of 37,000 dashing cavalry who had crossed the Niemen only _eight hundred_ remained mounted at Smolensk, the 20th Chasseurs being credited with a hundred; and this remnant was collected under Latour-Maubourg, a brave and very popular officer, who, on losing a leg at Leipzig the following year, said to his weeping servant, “_Mon ami_, why do you grieve? In future there’s only one boot to clean.”

The army was now 42,000 strong, having lost 18,000 in the previous eight days; but it was estimated that 60,000 unarmed stragglers still impeded the march. Before leaving Smolensk, however, a reinforcement brought the force up to 47,000, to meet _four_ Russian armies, one of them with 90,000, under Kutusoff, another commanded by Miloradowitch with 20,000 men.

The artillery of the Guard took twenty-two hours to do the first five leagues out of Smolensk. One company of sturdy Wurtembergers mustered _four_ men, and when Eugène reached the abandoned city in a furious gale his men had to mount the slippery hill literally _on their knees_.

Beyond Korythnia Miloradowitch opened on the Imperial column, and Napoleon rode in the centre of the Grenadiers of the Old Guard. He seemed to bear a charmed life, for three times a certain Captain Finkein had penetrated Moscow to kill him, and he was often under fire during the retreat. This time, however, he had to pass a hill bristling with cannon, and the band struck up a then well-known air, “Where can one be happier than in the bosom of his family?”

“Stop,” cried Napoleon, fearful of the memories it might raise in the minds of the men. “Rather play, ‘Let us watch over the safety of the Empire.’” And to that air they marched past the batteries, soon leaving the danger behind them.

When the column had gone, Miloradowitch descended from the hills, drew across the road, and cut off the rear corps, who had to fight their way through with terrible loss.

NAPOLEON’S RETREAT
from Moscow.
1812.]

Eugène tried to force a passage, but failed; and leaving his fires burning--and what miserable fires they were!--turned the flank of the Russians, and got by in the night.

At the critical moment the moon shone out, and the wretched band was challenged.

“Hist, fool,” whispered a Polish officer named Klisby in Russian. “Do you not see that we belong to Suvarow, bound on a secret mission?” And so, without interruption save from the Cossacks, the Viceroy joined his stepfather at Krasnoë, where Napoleon made a retrograde march to succour Davout, who came in, his baggage gone, his marshal’s baton taken, his men reduced to a few platoons, and with no news of Ney, who was reluctantly left to his fate, the army moving on Orcha, Mortier and the wreck of the Young Guard retiring slowly in the rear, after holding Krasnoë as long as possible, Laborde saying to the troops, “The marshal orders the ordinary time--do you hear?--the ordinary time, soldiers,” although under a heavy fire of balls and grape shot.

At Orcha Napoleon destroyed his papers. At Lubna the twenty-one staff officers of the 4th Corps crouched round a miserable fire in a cart-shed, with their horses behind them. At Krasnoë the brave Delfanti limped along on the arm of Villeblanche. A round shot struck him between the shoulder blades, carried off Villeblanche’s head, and they fell dead on the snow. Wherever one turned it was horror upon horror. Delicate women and little children lay by the roadside. The Cossacks stripped everyone they found.

Wilson has some dreadful details in his interesting diary. At one place a number of naked men sat round a burning hut, their backs quite frozen, when, turning to warm them, the fire caught the congealed flesh and roasted it in his presence.

Again, he saw four wretches huddled together, hands and limbs immovable, _but minds yet vigorous_, with two dogs snarling and tearing at their frozen feet; while nearly all the dead he came across seemed to have been “writhing with some agony at the moment their heart’s blood congealed.”

Woe to the man who lost his bivouac, and strayed to another fire. He was driven away with blows and curses from one after another until he sank and died. If anyone fell on the march, and implored a helping hand, the passers-by shook their heads and passed on, although many were still laden with plunder.

An awful thing occurred as Ney left Smolensk, showing the depths to which human nature can sink, a female sutler being seen to throw her little five-year-old boy off her heavily-laden sledge and leave him. Twice the marshal had him placed in her arms, and twice she flung the child from her, saying, “He had never seen France, and would never regret it, while she was resolved to see it again.” The soldiers could stand it no longer, They carried the boy safely through the rest of the march, and left the unnatural woman to perish in the snow!

Ney’s retreat with the rear-guard was one of the great events in French history, and has never been exceeded by any general for courage, determination, and self-reliance.

With barely 6,000 men, twelve guns, and 300 crawling skeletons--which it is a mockery to call horses--and burdened with 7,000 stragglers, whose wants and selfishness added greatly to the difficulties, he followed the traces of the _Grande Armée_, easily recognisable by the burnt-out bivouacs with their circles of dead--the white mounds that indicated where a cuirassier, a dragoon, a barefooted voltigeur, slept his last sleep, and the patches of trampled, blood-stained snow strewn with helmets and corpses, over which the dogs wrangled and the ravens croaked in the dull light that showed a battle-ground.

Beyond the plain of Katova, where, three months before, they had driven Newerowskoi through the cornfields, they were summoned by an officer in the name of Kutusoff; but while he was speaking forty guns opened on the French, and Ney exclaimed, “A marshal never surrenders--you are my prisoner,” the astonished Russian marching with them for twenty-six days without attempting to break his parole.

Ney boldly attacked the _eighty thousand_ men, heading his feeble band in person. They broke the first line, and were rushing on the second when the guns began again, sweeping the columns and killing some women in the waggons.

The French fell back in confusion, but Ney rallied them again, replying with his _six_ remaining guns, and showing his teeth with the _two thousand_ ragged wretches who kept their ranks. If Kutusoff had sent a single corps against them, not a man would have survived to tell the tale. As it was, when night fell Ney turned his back on them, and retreated towards Smolensk.

After an hour’s dreary march they halted, Ney, as usual, in the rear; and breaking the ice on a streamlet to find which way the current ran, followed its course through the silent forests until they reached the Dnieper.

Guided by a lame peasant, they found a spot where the ice would bear them, although a thaw was setting in; and, after lighting fires to deceive the hovering Cossacks, the intrepid marshal rolled himself in his cloak and slept on the river bank for three hours.

At midnight they began to cross, the ice parting and letting many of them in as they crept in single file. An attempt was made to get the wounded over in the waggons, but the treacherous blocks gave way, and they were drowned with heartrending screams, Ney himself rescuing one survivor, an officer named Brigueville.

Using the cowardly stragglers as a shield, by placing them between his men and the foe, he pursued his way, taking advantage of the woods, surrounded by 6,000 Cossacks, and repeatedly played upon by cannon; lying in the forests by day, and marching when darkness had set in, until, with 1,500 men under arms, most of the stragglers slain or taken, and all his guns and baggage gone, he rejoined the wreck of the army at Orcha on the 20th November, Napoleon well saying before his arrival, “I have two hundred millions (francs) in the cellars of the Tuileries, and I would have given them all to save Marshal Ney.”

Oudinot and Victor also joined the wreck about this time, bringing up the total number to 30,000 or thereabouts, the Emperor’s column mustering only _seven_ thousand men and _forty_ thousand stragglers, mingled with the enormous baggage train of the 2nd and 9th Corps that had escaped much of the previous disaster; and closely pressed on each flank by the immense armies of Kutusoff and Witgenstein, the doomed men prepared to cross the Berezina in the face of Admiral Tchitchakof, who lined the opposite bank.

Latour-Maubourg had only 150 horsemen left, and Napoleon formed 500 mounted cavalry officers into what he called his Sacred Squadron, Grouchy and Sebastiani commanding it, and generals of division serving in it as captains; but in a few days this last romantic idea had crumbled away.

Corbineau, with the remains of the 8th Lancers and 20th Chasseurs, saw a peasant riding a wet horse, and compelled him to show them the ford opposite to Studzianka; and while the French made all the parade they could lower down the river to attract Tchitchakof’s attention, the brave engineer Eblé arrived at Studzianka in the dark winter evening of the 25th November with two field forges, six chests of tools, some clamps made from waggon tyres, and a few companies of pontoniers, and began to make a bridge, the water rising, the ice floating in blocks, and the men working up to their necks without even a draught of brandy to protect them from the cold.

As the grey dawn broke, the first pile was driven; eight hours’ work was required before the bridge would be practicable, and the haggard fugitives waited with agonised hearts for the cannonade that would destroy their last hope; but to the astonishment of all, the admiral was seen in full retreat on the farther bank, disappearing into the woods with all his guns.

A caricature exists, showing Kutusoff and Witgenstein tying Napoleon up in a sack, while Tchitchakof is cutting a hole in the bottom of it; clearly indicating the Russian view of that individual’s conduct.

Napoleon wished to question a prisoner, and two officers swam their horses across, through the ice, Jacqueminot, Oudinot’s aide-de-camp, seizing a Russian, holding him on his saddle-bow, and _swimming back with him_.

When an old man he mounted to the top of Strasbourg Cathedral, and hung fearlessly from an arm of the cross with hundreds of feet of space beneath him: it was natures like his alone that survived the retreat.

_Chef d’escadron_ Sourd, with fifty men of the 7th Chasseurs, carried some infantry over behind them, and two rafts conveyed four hundred more across to defend the bridge head. A second bridge for artillery and baggage was finished at four o’clock; it broke twice during the night, and again the following evening: all was confusion and disorder. The Russians were expected any moment on the heights that commanded the low-lying snow-covered shore, yet the stragglers waited fatuously until the morning of the 27th, and then all attempted to cross at the same time.

When the remnant of the Guard was seen clearing a way for the Emperor, there was a rush; the bridges were blocked--men, women, and children were crushed to death and many drowned. Yet that night--the panic over--thousands returned to the bivouacs of Studzianka, and the bridges were deserted again.

Victor, with 6,000 men, kept Witgenstein in check; Tchitchakof, a martyr to the cold, who had by that time warmed his toes thoroughly, returned to the opposite shore and began firing, and another terrible rush was made for the frail structures on the 28th, while Ney, across the river, was repulsing the admiral, and Victor fought all day long to give the wretches time.

The waggons and carriages were more than could have crossed in six days, said Eblé--who died soon after from exposure. Ney wished them burned, but Berthier, who was little better than a writer of reports and a species of machine actuated by Napoleon himself, opposed it on his own responsibility, and caused the death of a multitude of sufferers in consequence; for when the shot and shell began to fall in the river and splinter the ice, the drivers charged down on the bridges, tearing their way remorselessly through the living obstacle.

Sword in hand, single horsemen cut a passage for themselves; women, waistdeep in the water alongside, were frozen with their arms raised to preserve their children, who were too often left to freeze there by the passers-by.

The Countess Alesio--a young Italian bride of eighteen, who had accompanied her husband on that ghastly wedding-trip--survived all these horrors, and _lives_, as I write these lines, full of terrible memories of the retreat.

Selfishness and heroism went hand in hand. An artilleryman jumped from the bridge to save a mother and her two little ones, succeeding in rescuing one boy; others pushed their comrades off to find room for themselves. And even when the early night settled down, the Russians knew where to point their guns by the screams and curses that rang over the waste amid a fearful snowstorm.

When the 4th Corps reached the other side, their only fire was a miserable blaze lighted for Eugène, of wood begged from some Bavarians, and his officers ran about _all night_ to keep warm.

The artillery bridge had long since broken down--hundreds being engulfed--and only one remained, leading into a marsh choked with carriages, guns, waggons, wounded, dead and dying; across which, at nine o’clock, Victor’s shattered battalions had to force their way over with their bayonets.

One instance of remarkable coolness is recorded of an artillery officer named Brechtel, whose wooden leg was smashed by a cannon ball. “Look for another leg in waggon No. 5,” he said to a gunner; and when it was brought, he screwed it on, and calmly continued his firing.

Ney’s pay-waggons were crossing at the same time under the care of Nicolas Savin, a hussar who had been at Toulon in 1793, in Egypt with Bonaparte, at Austerlitz, Iena, and in the Peninsula; but through a breakage of the bridge he and his gold were taken by Platoff’s Cossacks, and marvellous to relate, the veteran died in Russia, during the winter of 1894, at the extraordinary age of 127.

In vain Eblé urged the fugitives to fly--many still lingering on, until at half-past eight on the morning of the 29th, the engineer set fire to their sole means of escape on the approach of the enemy.

Heartrending was the scene; language fails to describe it, though many men of many nations have poured forth all their eloquence upon the theme.

Snow, flames, round shot and shells; the half-frozen river, the army already passed on its way; France, friends, home, _everything_ gone. A father on one bank, a mother on the other, never to meet again in this world; brothers, children, old men and young girls, the bridges blazing, and the hoarse “Hourra!” of the Cossacks as they tore down the bank among the forsaken crowd like vultures on a carcass.

A little while and the frozen land was still again; the wolves came out of the woods to sniff at the ghastly heaps; the white dogs, no longer lean and famished, wrangled with each other for the choicer morsels, finding the mother and the babe more to their liking, and leaving the war-worn veteran to the carrion crows.

When spring thawed the ice, _thirty thousand_ bodies were found and burned on the banks of the Berezina; and happy they whose troubles had ended there. For the weather grew colder, the storms were more frequent, hundreds of miles had yet to be traversed; the Old Guard had lost from cold and missing a _third_ of its diminished numbers, the Young Guard _half_, and the army was reduced to a wandering mob of _nine thousand_, twenty-one thousand having fallen in three days and four actions.

Over the marshes in the keen north wind they hurried, Ney still commanding the rear-guard; on the 30th, Oudinot, badly wounded, defended himself in a wooden house with _seventeen men_ for several hours, and drove the Russians out of the village.

The sun shone out to mock them; there was hard fighting almost every day; and at length, when the main body reached Smorgoni, the Emperor resolved to put in practice an intention he had formed some time before of hurrying secretly to Paris to forestall the real truth of his disasters.

He has been unjustly accused of deserting his men when they were at their last gasp; but in reality no blame attaches to him, as his presence in France was absolutely necessary, and had he remained with the army he could have done nothing to restore it, for things had gone too far. To what extent he had contributed to those disasters is, of course, another matter.

After revising his 29th Bulletin, and appointing Murat to the chief command, he got into his carriage with Caulaincourt (brother of Auguste), Rustan the Mameluke, and Captain Wukasowitch sitting on the box, Duroc and Lobau following in a sledge, and escorted by some Polish lancers, drove off in the dark on the night of the 5th December.

Later on he exchanged the carriage for another sledge, the peasant driver of which died in Bavaria as recently as 1887, preserving to the last some of the coins Napoleon had given him.

On the 18th the Emperor arrived in Paris. The day after his departure the cold increased to a frightful degree; men lost their reason, and sprang into the burning huts. At Wilna, where there were great stores of food, they pillaged without check; and even the Old Guard paid no heed to the _générale_. All Napoleon’s linen and his state tent were burned there, and the few remaining trophies, drawings being made of them before their destruction by his orders.

The Jews committed nameless cruelties on the French wounded, and although Durutte’s division increased the army by 13,000, they died by hundreds, immense numbers having been frozen and suffocated at the gate of the city in their mad attempt to get in.

The day after their arrival the Russians were on them again. De Wrede’s Bavarians were routed, Murat lost his head and bolted, and everything devolved on the heroic Ney, who volunteered again for rear-guard duty, keeping Kutusoff at bay while the army retreated on the road to Kowno, the last Russian town before they could reach the Niemen, 4,000 men alone preserving an orderly demeanour under arms.

At the hill of Ponari the Cossacks fell foul of them, and, while under fire, Napoleon’s private treasure was portioned out equally among such of the Guard as remained, every man who survived afterwards accounting for his share to the last coin.

The final scene may be summed up by a brief narration of the fabulous gallantry of Marshal Ney.

It had been his invariable custom to halt and rest from five in the evening until ten, and then resume the march; but at Evé, near Kowno, he woke up to find his _fourth_ rear-guard gone, their arms still piled, and glistening in the frosty night.

When he overtook them they were in disorder, and could not be rallied, Ney entering the town attended only by his aides, but instantly setting to work to form a _fifth_ guard.

He found 2,000 drunken men dead on the snow, and the fugitives gone on to the river; but with 300 German Artillery and 400 others, under General Marchand, he set about to defend Kowno.

The last remnant, having crossed the Niemen, were flying through the Pilwisky forest, from which they had issued five months before in very different plight, only 13,000 in reality mustering behind that river. Kowno was attacked on the morning of the 14th December, and hastening to the Wilna Gate, Ney found the German artillery had spiked their guns and fled.

In a towering passion the marshal drew his sword and rushed at the officer in command, who still remained there, and, but for his aide-de-camp averting the blow, would have slain him. The officer escaped, and Ney summoned one of his two weak battalions, also German, and after a spirited address, formed them behind the snow-capped palisade as the enemy approached, but fate was against him.

A ball broke the colonel’s thigh, and he blew out his brains before his men, who instantly threw down their guns and fled, leaving Ney alone.

Gathering all the muskets he could reach, the marshal fired them through the palisade--_one_ man against _thousands_--until others came to his help; the town was attacked on the opposite side at the same time, and though he maintained his post with thirty ragged scarecrows until dark, he had to retreat step by step, through the town and across the Niemen, the last man, after forty days’ and nights’ incessant fighting with the rear-guard, to leave the Russian shore.

* * * * *

In Gumbinnen, Mathieu Dumas was sitting down to breakfast, when a man in a brown coat entered, his beard long, his face blackened and looking as though it had been burnt, his eyes red and glaring.

“At length I am here,” he exclaimed. “Don’t you know me?” “No,” said the general. “Who are you?” “I am the Rear-Guard of the _Grande Armée_; I have fired the last musket-shot on the bridge of Kowno; I have thrown the last of our arms into the Niemen, and come hither through the woods. I am Marshal Ney.”

* * * * *

Macdonald, in the North, was reduced by hardship and the defection of the Prussians; Schwartzenberg, in the South, had been obliged to retire, and the magnificent army of the Centre, led by masters in the art of war, under the Emperor himself, we have seen dwindled down to 13,000 in less than six months. It was not altogether the Russians, it was not entirely the frost, although both contributed to its destruction: when all laws, physical and moral, are transgressed, when flesh and blood are tried beyond the limits of possible endurance, and wild ambition takes the place of common-sense, something will give, and disaster is certain in the long run.

By one of the most careful of contemporary computations it is concluded that 552,000 unfortunate creatures who had marched under the eagles of Napoleon never returned from that campaign, and the medal struck by Alexander to commemorate it, sums up the whole case in a sentence of singular piety.

On one side, in a triangle surrounded by rays, is the Eye of Providence, with the date beneath it; on the other, the inscription: “_Not unto us; not unto me; but unto Thy Name_.”

_RORKE’S DRIFT_

_BY C. STEIN_.]

At the end of 1878 there stood upon a rocky terrace on the Natal side of the Buffalo River two stone buildings with thatched roofs, which had formed a Swedish mission station, one of them having been used as a church and the other having been the dwelling of the missionary. These two humble edifices were destined to be, on the 22nd January, 1879, the scene of the most brilliant feat of arms performed during the whole Zulu War--a defence by a small determined force against the attack of vastly superior numbers, an exploit whose lustre, relieving a period of disaster, maintained the prestige of British arms, and whose success, there can be little doubt, secured Natal from invasion when failure would have laid the colony open to the advance of a savage enemy. So perfect was the conduct of the officers and men concerned in the episode, and so well conceived and executed were the measures adopted, that even foreign military books quote the exploit as an example of the value of improvised fortifications when they are held by brave men.

When war was declared by Sir Bartle Frere, the High Commissioner for South Africa, against Cetewayo, the Zulu king, the conduct of operations was placed in the hands of Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford, K.C.B., as Commander-in-Chief. It was determined to invade Zululand, and all the forces available for this purpose were moved to the frontier. They were divided into five columns, of which three were to advance into the enemy’s country from different points, with the intention of finally concentrating at Ulundi, the Zulu capital, while the other two were in the first instance to guard the frontier against possible Zulu raids. The third column, under the command of Colonel Glyn, C.B., the centre of the three columns of invasion, was to assemble near Rorke’s Drift and cross the Buffalo River at that spot, within a mile of the old Swedish mission station.

The river at Rorke’s Drift was, like most African streams, an impassable torrent after rain, but the flood quickly ran off, and a passage could then be effected by the “drift,” or ford. There had also been established two ponts, or big, flat-bottomed ferry-boats, each of which could transport an African wagon or a company of infantry.

Colonel Glyn’s column crossed the river on the 11th January, 1879, and from that time was engaged in operations in Zululand. Its line of communications with Pietermaritzburg, the chief city of Natal, was through Rorke’s Drift to Helpmakaar, and thence by Ladysmith and Estcourt, or by the shorter, though more difficult, route through Greytown. Rorke’s Drift, as the actual starting-point of invasion, was formed into a depôt of stores and a hospital. The deserted mission-station buildings were utilised for this purpose, the old church being converted into a storehouse and the missionary’s dwelling forming the hospital. As a garrison for this important post and to secure the passage across the river, Colonel Glyn left B Company of the second battalion of the 24th Regiment, under command of Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead. With him were also Major Spalding, who was in general charge of the line of communications, Lieutenant Chard, Royal Engineers, Surgeon Reynolds, Army Medical Department, and other officers. This garrison was encamped near the store and hospital.

For some days after the departure of the third column, which was also accompanied by Lord Chelmsford and the Headquarter Staff, the quiet routine of duty was pursued. Letters were passed to and from the front, necessary stores and supplies were sent on, and the men wounded in the first engagements were received into the hospital. Among these last was one of the enemy, who had been shot through the thigh at Sirayo’s kraal, and who was treated and nursed with the same care and attention as the Englishmen against whom he had fought. On the 20th January, however, a large portion of the second column, under Colonel Durnford, Royal Engineers, arrived at Rorke’s Drift and encamped. Their stay was brief, for they were summoned to the fatal camp of Insandhlwana on the morning of the 22nd, Colonel Durnford leaving a company of the Natal Native Contingent, under Captain Stephenson, to strengthen the little post. It became evident from various circumstances that Colonel Glyn’s column was encountering a stronger resistance than had been anticipated, and that, as the enemy were in force within a few miles, they might make a rapid descent upon the weakly-guarded line of communications. It was known that two companies of the first battalion of the 24th were at Helpmakaar, ten miles distant, and Major Spalding resolved to go there at once in order to bring them up as a reinforcement to Lieutenant Bromhead’s force. In his absence, Lieutenant Chard became senior officer at Rorke’s Drift, and responsible for its well-being.

Although on the 22nd January there was thus a feeling of uneasiness at the river post, nothing had occurred till some hours after midday to cause any special alarm to its garrison. We may believe that a general plan of action had been considered if an attack should be made upon it, but in the meantime all the officers and men were engaged in their usual employments. Lieutenant Chard was at the ponts, and Lieutenant Bromhead was in his little camp hard by the store and hospital. Shortly after 3 p.m. two mounted men were seen galloping at headlong speed towards the ferry from Zululand. There is little difficulty in recognising messengers of disaster, the men who ride with the avenger of blood close on their horses’ track, and Chard, as he met them, knew that something terrible had happened. His worst anticipations were more than realised when the two fugitives--Lieutenant Adendorff, of the Native Contingent, and a Natal volunteer--told their story: the camp at Insandhlwana had been attacked and taken by the enemy, of whom a large force was now advancing on Rorke’s Drift. The Natal volunteer hurried on to give the alarm at Helpmakaar; but one man was enough for this service, and Adendorff--gallant fellow!--said that he would remain at Rorke’s Drift, where every additional European would be a valuable reinforcement, and cast in his lot with its defenders. Chard at once gave orders to the guard at the ponts to strike their tents, put all stores on the spot into the wagon, and withdraw to the main body of the post. Now occurred the first incident which testified to the spirit which animated the small force on the banks of the Buffalo. The ferryman--Daniells--and Sergeant Milne, of the 3rd Buffs (who was doing duty with the 24th), proposed that they should be allowed to moor the two ponts in the middle of the river, and offered, with the ferry-guard of six men, to defend them against attack--a brave thought, indeed, but it was put aside. Chard was too good a soldier to divide his few men in any way. He saw at once that the commissariat stores and hospital would require every available rifle for their defence, and that the safety of every other place was comparatively a very minor consideration.

While he was giving his orders an urgent message came from Bromhead asking him to join him at once. To Bromhead also had come several mounted men fleeing from Insandhlwana, bearing the same dread intelligence which Adendorff had brought to the ferry, and the trained officer of engineers was required to concert and decide upon measures of defence. But when he joined the infantry subaltern he found that the latter, aided by Assistant-Commissary Dunne and Assistant-Commissary Dalton, had already set to work, and that there was nothing to change, if much was still left to complete. The three officers held a hurried consultation, and prompt use was made of all ordinary expedients of war, while materials never before employed in fortification were pressed into service. The store and hospital were loopholed and barricaded, the windows and doors blocked with mattresses; but it was necessary to connect the defence of the two buildings by a parapet. There were no stones at hand with which to build a wall, and if there had been, there was no time to make use of them; the hard rocky soil could not be dug and formed into ditch and breastwork; but there was a great store of bags of mealies, or the grain of Indian corn, which had been collected as horse provender for the army. Assistant-Commissary Dalton suggested that these should be used in the fashion of sandbags for the construction of the required parapet. Everybody laboured with the energy of men who know that their safety depends on their exertions. Chard and Bromhead, Reynolds, Dunne, and Dalton not merely directed, but engaged most energetically in the work of preparation. When the alarm was first given it was intended to remove the worst cases from the hospital to a place of safety, and two wagons were prepared for the purpose; but it was found that the attempt to move the patients at the slow pace of ox-teams when the Zulus were so close at hand would only result in offering them as easy victims to the murderous assegai. The two wagons were therefore used as part of the defences, and mealie bags were piled underneath and upon them, so that each formed a strong post of vantage.

(_Photo, J. Hawke, Plymouth._)]

(_Photo, Elliott & Fry, Baker Street, W._)]

The ferry-guard had joined the rest of the force at 3.30 p.m., and a few minutes later an officer of Durnford’s Natal Native Horse, with a hundred of his men who had been heavily engaged at Insandhlwana, rode up and asked for orders. Chard directed him to watch for the approach of the enemy, sending out vedettes, and when he was pressed, to fall back and assist in the defence of the post. So far it seemed certain that when the threatened Zulu attack developed itself against the Rorke’s Drift fortifications they would be found, though hurriedly devised and executed, to be adequately defended by the company of the 24th, Captain Stephenson’s company of the Native Contingent, and about a hundred Basutos of the Natal Native Horse. But if the gallant English officers who had striven so hard and with so much military genius to make their position tenable looked forward to this amount of support, they were destined to grievous disappointment and mortification. At 4.15 p.m. the sound of firing was heard behind a hill towards the south, and told that the vedettes of the Native Horse were engaged with the enemy. Their officer returned, reporting that the Zulus were close at hand, and that his men would not obey orders. Chard and his comrades had the sore trial of seeing them all moving off towards Helpmakaar, leaving the garrison to its fate. Nor was this all. The evil example was only too soon followed. Captain Stephenson’s company of the Native Contingent also felt their hearts fail, and, accompanied by their commander, also fled from the post of duty. For the Native Horse there is some excuse to be made. They had been in the saddle since daybreak; they were the survivors of a terrible defeat and massacre; they had seen a large number of their comrades slain, and they were demoralised by the loss of their beloved commander, Colonel Durnford. If on this occasion their valour failed them, it is to be remembered that they had behaved nobly in the early part of the day, and that in later episodes of the war their gallantry and self-devotion were proverbial. But for the Native Contingent company nothing can be said. They were fresh, and as yet unscathed by war; they had the best example in the calm demeanour of their English comrades, and they had many causes of feud and quarrel with the enemy. But, as in all other occasions of the war where Natal Kaffirs were employed, they gave way in time of stress, and the greatest shame of the matter was that their colonial European officer now shared their misconduct.

(_From a Photo by Mr. G. T. Ferneyhough, Pietermaritzburg,
South Africa._)]

The garrison at Rorke’s Drift was now reduced to Bromhead’s company of the 24th--about eighty strong--and some men of other corps, the total number within the post being 139, of whom thirty-five were sick or wounded men in hospital. The original scheme of defence had provided for a much larger force, and Chard recognised that it would now be impossible long to occupy effectively the range of parapets and loopholes which had been prepared. There was nothing for it but to form an inner line of defence, to which the garrison might fall back when the outer line became untenable. He decided that, if necessary, the hospital must be abandoned, and that the defence must be restricted to the store and the space in front of it, including a well-built stone kraal or enclosure which abutted on it to the eastward. To carry out this plan he commenced an inner retrenchment, forming a parapet of biscuit-boxes across the larger enclosure. This was only about two boxes high when the expected flood of attack hurled its first waves against the frail solitary bulwark which stood between Natal and savage invasion.

About 4.30 p.m. five or six hundred of the enemy appeared, sweeping round the rocky hill to the south of the post, and advancing at the swift pace characteristic of the Zulu warriors against the south wall which connected the store and hospital. But they had to deal with stern men who were braced up for the encounter by feelings of duty, patriotism, and the long habit of regimental discipline and comradeship which makes each feel assured and confident that all are striving shoulder to shoulder, and that none will blench from his appointed place. From the parapet of mealie bags and from the hospital poured forth a heavy and well-sustained fire, which was crossed by a flanking discharge from the store. No man wasted a shot, and the aim was cool and deliberate. Even Zulu valour and determination could not face the deadly leaden hail, and the onslaught weakened and broke within fifty yards of the British rifles. Some of the assailants swerved to their left, and passed round to the west of the hospital; some sought cover where they could, and occupied banks, ditches, bushes, and the cooking place of the garrison. But this first attack was only the effort of the enemy’s advanced guard. Masses of warriors followed and flowed over the elevated southward ledge of rocks overlooking the buildings. Every cave and crevice was quickly filled, and from these sheltered and commanding positions they opened a heavy and continuous fire. It was fortunate that the spoil in rifles and ammunition taken at Insandhlwana was not yet available for use against the English, as at Kambula and later engagements, but the enemy’s firearms were still the old muskets and rifles of which they had long been in possession. Even so, at the short range these were sufficiently effective, and, in the hands of better marksmen than Zulus usually are, might have inflicted crushing losses.

The first attack repulsed, a second desperate effort was made by the enemy against the north-west wall just below the hospital; but here again the defenders were ready to meet it, and again the assailing torrent broke and fell back. Such of the sick and wounded in the hospital as were able to rouse themselves from their beds of pain had by this time seized rifle and bayonet and joined their comrades; but though every man was now mustered, the total number was all too small for the grim task before them. The misfortune of the extreme hurry in the preparations for defence was now painfully apparent. In strengthening any position for defensive occupation one of the first measures taken by a commander is to clear as large an open space as possible round the parapet or fortifications which he proposes to hold. All ditches and hollows should be filled up; all buildings, walls, and heaps of refuse should be pulled down and scattered; all trees, shrubs, and thick herbage should be cut and removed; so that no attack can be made under cover, no safe place may be found from which deliberate fire may be delivered, or any movement can be made by an enemy unseen, and therefore unanticipated. At Rorke’s Drift, not only were the buildings and parapets overlooked and commanded to the southward by a rocky hill full of caves and lurking-places, but there was a garden to the north, a thick patch of bush which was close to the parapet, a square Kaffir house and large brick oven and cooking trenches, besides numerous banks, walls, and ditches, all of which offered a shelter to the enemy, which they were not slow to profit by. The post was encircled by a dense ring of the foe, and from every side came the whistle of their bullets.

Up till this time, though several men had been wounded, no one had been struck dead. Suddenly a whisper passed round among the 24th, “Poor old King Cole is killed.” Private Cole, who was known by this affectionate barrack-room nickname, was at the parapet when a bullet passed through his head, and he fell doing his duty--a noble end.

If the Zulu fire was telling, however, the steady marksmanship of the English officers and men was still more effective. Private Dunbar, of the 24th, laid low a mounted chief who was conspicuous in directing the enemy, and immediately afterwards shot eight warriors in as many successive shots. Everywhere the officers were present with words of encouragement, exposing themselves fearlessly and showing that iron coolness and self-possession which rouses such confidence and emulation in soldiery on a day of battle.

Assistant-Commissary Dalton was continually going along the parapet, cheering the men and using the rifle with deadly effect. There was a rush of Zulus against the spot where he was, led by a huge man, whose leopard-skin kaross marked the chief. Dalton called out “Pot that fellow!” and himself aimed over the parapet at another, when the rifle dropped from his hand, and he spun round with suddenly pallid face, shot through the right shoulder. Surgeon Reynolds was by his side at once, and bound up the wound.

Unable any longer to use his rifle, Dalton handed it to storekeeper Byrne, but continued unmoved to superintend the men near to him and to direct their fire. Byrne took his place at the parapet, and his bullets were not wasted. In a few minutes Corporal Scammel, Natal Native Contingent, who was next to him, was shot through the shoulder and back. He fell, and crawling to Chard, who was fighting side by side with the men, handed him the remainder of his cartridges. In his agony he asked for a drink of water. Byrne at once fetched it for him, and whilst handing it to the suffering soldier, was himself shot through the head, and fell prone, a dead man.

While fighting was thus going on all round the post, a series of specially determined attacks was made against the northern side. Here the Zulus were able to collect under cover of the garden and patch of bush, and from that shelter were able to rush untouched close up to the parapet. Soon they were on one side of the barricade, while the defenders held the other, and across it there was a hand-to-hand struggle of the bayonet against the broad-bladed _bangwan_, the stabbing assegai. So close were the combatants that the Zulus seized the English bayonets, and in two instances even succeeded in wrenching them from the rifles, though in each case the breechloader took a stern vengeance. The muzzles of the opposing firearms were almost touching each other, and the discharge of a musket blew the broad “dopper” hat from the head of Corporal Schiess, of the Natal Native Contingent. This man (a Swiss by birth), who had been a patient in hospital, leaped on to the parapet and bayoneted the man who fired, regained his place, and shot another; then, repeating his former exploit, again leaped on the top of the mealie bags and bayoneted a third. Early in the fight he had been struck by a bullet in the instep, but though suffering acute pain, he left not his post, and was only maddened to perform deeds of heroic daring.

LINES OF COMMUNICATION
ZULU CAMPAIGN. 1879.]

The struggle here was too severe and unequal to be long continued. Besides the ceaseless attacks of their enemy in front, the defenders of the parapet were exposed to the fire which took them in reverse from the high hill to the south. Five soldiers had been thus shot dead in a short space of time. At six p.m. the order was given to retire behind the retrenchment of biscuit-boxes. When the defence of the parapet was thus removed, the dark crowd of Zulus surged over the mealie bags to attack the hospital; but such a heavy fire was sent from the line of the retrenchment that nearly every man who leaped into the enclosure perished in the effort. Again and again they charged forward, shouting their war-cry “Usutu! Usutu!” and ever the death-dealing volleys smote them to the ground.

The story has now been told of the struggle during the first hour and a half about the storehouse and large enclosure, till the moment came when it was no longer possible to hold the whole of the defences as they were at first organised, and Chard was constrained to withdraw behind the biscuit-box retrenchment which his foresight had provided. All this time the enemy had been making fierce and constantly reiterated attempts to force their way into the hospital, which was at the west end of the enclosure. Here Bromhead personally superintended the resistance, and here such deeds of military prowess, cool presence of mind, and glorious self-devotion were performed as our nation may well inscribe on its proudest records. It has been said that the building had a thatched roof, and the Zulus not only strove to force an ingress, but used every expedient to set the thatch on fire, and thus to destroy the poor stronghold which so long mocked at their attempts to take it. While many of the patients whose ailments were comparatively slight had risen from their pallets and taken an active part in the defence, there were several poor fellows, utterly helpless, distributed among the different wards; and it is difficult to conceive a situation more trying than theirs must have been, listening to the demoniac yells of the savages, only separated from them by a thin wall, thirsting for their blood. At every window were one or two comrades, firing till the rifles were heated to scorching by the unceasing discharge. Bullets splashed upon the walls, and the air reeked with dense sulphurous smoke. The combatants may have been excited and carried away by the mad fury of battle; but to men depressed by disease, weakened and racked with pain, truly the minutes must have been long and terrible in their mental and physical suffering. Shortly after five o’clock the Zulus had been able so far to break down the entrance to the room at the extreme end of the hospital that they were able to charge at the opening; but Bromhead was there, and drove them back time after time with the bayonet. As long as the enclosure was held, they failed in every fierce attempt. Private Joseph Williams was firing from a small window hard by, and on the next morning fourteen warriors were found dead beneath it, besides others along his line of fire. When his ammunition was expended, he joined his brother, Private John Williams, and two of the patients who also had fired their last cartridge, and with them guarded the door with their bayonets. No longer able to keep their opponents at a distance, the four stood grimly resolute, waiting till the door was battered in and they stood face to face with the foe.

DEFENCE OF
RORKE’S DRIFT.]

Then followed a death struggle. The English bayonet crossed the broad-bladed _bangwan_, the stalwart Warwickshire lads met the lithe and muscular tribesmen of Cetewayo, and the weapons glinted thirsty for blood. In the _mêlée_ poor Joseph Williams was grappled with by two Zulus, his hands were seized, and, dragged out from among his comrades, he was killed before their eyes. But now it was known that the hospital must be abandoned, and as the usual path was occupied by the enemy, a way had to be made through the partition walls. John Williams and the two patients succeeded in making a passage with an axe into the adjoining room, where they were joined by Private Henry Hook. John Williams and Hook then took it in turn to guard the hole through which the little party had come, with the bayonet, and keep the foe at bay, while the others worked at cutting a further passage. In this retreat from room to room, another brave soldier, Private Jenkins, met the same fate as did Joseph Williams, and was dragged to his death by the pursuers. The others at last arrived at a window looking into the enclosure towards the storehouse, and leaping from it, ran the gauntlet of the enemy’s fire till they reached their comrades behind the biscuit-box retrenchment. To the devoted bravery and cool resource of Privates John Williams and Hook, eight patients, who had been in the several wards which they had traversed, owed their lives. If it had not been for the assistance of these two gallant men, all the eight would have perished where they lay. These, however, were only some of the hairbreadth escapes from the hospital, and only some of the deeds of stubborn hardihood performed in it.

A few of the sick men were half carried, half led by chivalrous comrades across the enclosure to the retrenchment, but many had to make their own way over the space now swept by the Zulu bullets, and that that space was clear was due to the steady fire maintained by Chard, which prevented the Zulus themselves from leaving the spots where they were under cover. Trooper Hunter, Natal Mounted Police, a very tall young man, who had been a patient, essayed the rush to safety, but he was hit and fell before he reached his goal. Corporal Mayer, Natal Native Contingent, who had been wounded in the knee by an assegai-thrust in one of the early engagements of the campaign, Bombardier Lewis, Royal Artillery, whose leg and thigh were swollen and disabled from a wagon accident, and Trooper Green, Natal Police, also a nearly helpless invalid, all got out of a little window looking into the enclosure. The window was at some distance from the ground, and each man fell in escaping from it. All had to crawl (for none of them could walk) through the enemy’s fire, and all passed scathless into the retrenchment except Green, who was struck on the thigh. In one of the wards facing the hill on the south side of the hospital, Privates William Jones and Robert Jones had been posted. There were seven patients in the ward, and these two men defended their post till six of the seven patients had been removed. The seventh was Sergeant Maxfield, who, delirious with fever, resisted all attempts to move him. Robert Jones, with rare courage and devotion, went back a second time to try to carry him out, but found the ward already full of Zulus, and the poor sergeant stabbed to death on his bed.