Like Wolves on the Fold: The Defence of Rorke's Drift

By Mike Snook

A detailed chronicle of a significant opening battle in the Anglo-Zulu War: ”The Zulu attack on Rorke’s Drift thrillingly retold” (Richard Holmes).

On January 22nd, 1879, the British Army in South Africa was swept aside by the seemingly unstoppable Zulu warriors at the Battle of Isandlwana. Nearby, at a remote outpost on the Buffalo River, a single company of the 24th Regiment and a few dozen recuperating hospital patients were passing a hot, monotonous day. By the time they received news from across the river, retreat was no longer an option. It seemed certain that the Rorke's Drift detachment would share the same fate. And yet, against incredible odds, the British managed to defend their station.

In this riveting history, Colonel Snook brings the insights of a military professional to bear on this fateful encounter at the start of Anglo-Zulu War. It is an extraordinary tale—a victory largely achieved by the sheer bloody-mindedness of the British infantryman. Recounting in detail how the Zulu attack unfolded, Snook demonstrates how 150 men achieved their improbable victory. Snook then describes the remainder of the war, from the recovery of the lost Queen's Colour of the 24th Regiment to the climactic charge of the 17th Lancers at Ulundi. We return to Isandlwana to consider culpability, and learn of the often tragic fates of many of the war's participants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9781783469949

Book preview

Dedication

To my boys

The privilege was mine

While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, fall be’ind,’ But it’s ‘Please to walk in front, sir,’ when there’s trouble in the wind, There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind, O it’s ‘Please to walk in front, sir,’ when there’s trouble in the wind.

‘Tommy’, Rudyard Kipling

Like Wolves on the Fold

The Defence of Rorke’s Drift

Mike Snook

Like Wolves on the Fold: The Defence of Rorke’s Drift

A Greenhill book

This edition published in 2010 by

Frontline Books, an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Limited,

47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS

www.frontline-books.com, email [e-mail]

First published in 2006 by

Greenhill Books, Lionel Leventhal Limited

www.greenhillbooks.com

Copyright © Mike Snook, 2006

Revised edition © Mike Snook, 2010

The right of Mike Snook to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

9781783469949

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP data record for this title is available from the British Library.

For more information on our books, please visit www.frontline-books.com, email [e-mail] or write to us at the above address.

Printed in Great Britain at CPI Antony Rowe.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Title Page

Copyright Page

Foreword

Preface

Prologue

Part One - Race against Time

Chapter 1 - Nothing Will Happen

Chapter 2 - Trouble in the Wind

Part Two - Thin Red Line of Heroes

Chapter 3 - At the Point of the Bayonet

Chapter 4 - Like Rats in a Hole The Evacuation of the Hospital

Chapter 5 - The Night is Darkest before the Dawn

Chapter 6 - Deliverance

Part Three - The Leaves of Autumn

Chapter 7 - Despise Not Your Enemy

Chapter 8 - How Did It Come to This?

Epilogue - Footnotes in History

Appendices

Bibliography and Sources

Glossary

Index

Foreword

The Defence of Rorke’s Drift is one of the most famous and enduring tales of British arms. Yet the fate of the nation did not hang on the outcome of the battle, as in 1940, nor did victory herald the final defeat of a sworn enemy, as was the case in 1815. The battle saw no great technological leap forward, nor did it entail any brilliant military innovations. Instead, our fascination with the Rorke’s Drift episode has much more in common with the esteem in which we hold Henry V’s band of brothers — a plucky few, far from home, outnumbered and with their backs to the wall, who pull off a seemingly impossible victory — for this too is a ‘boy’s own’ story.

Just as Shakespeare’s pen guaranteed Agincourt’s place as an iconic moment in the history of these islands, so did Sir Stanley Baker’s cinematic epic Zulu serve to immortalise the story of Rorke’s Drift. It can be both a boon and a curse to the historian when the arts and the past collide. On the one hand great artistic portrayals can engender immense public interest in a subject, but on the other they tend to entrench distortion and myth. In this, the second of his Anglo-Zulu War books, my old friend and one-time company commander strips away the numerous misconceptions that surround Rorke’s Drift. In doing so he succeeds in demonstrating why the true story is fit to be considered as one of the great tales of human fortitude and tenacity. Rightly, he draws no distinction between Briton and Zulu.

I was commissioned into The Royal Regiment of Wales, the modern-day descendant of the old 24th, in the 1980s. Now, twenty years on, it has fallen to me to be the last commanding officer of the last RRW battalion. I have served alongside the author throughout that time. As a subaltern I served under his command in the Far East. It falls to company commanders to bring up their young officers in the ways of the regiment, and to instil in them pride in the heroic deeds of their forbears. I could not have wished for a better education.

Inevitably the most gripping of Mike’s stories were those of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift; even then he seemed to know every detail of these hard-fought actions. Sitting in the officers’ mess in Stanley Fort, Hong Kong, surrounded by the regiment’s memorabilia, he could bring our paintings and artefacts to life like no other. In the years that followed he enthralled successive generations of our officers and soldiers, inspiring great regimental pride in them. At one point in his career he was posted to live and work in South Africa; as a consequence he brings to the party a highly developed understanding of the land and its people; not least he is a great admirer of the Zulu. He combines the historian’s grasp of primary source material, a professional soldier’s eye for ground, and a raconteur’s turn of phrase. Here in these pages he unfolds the splendid tales he once told me, for the benefit of a much wider audience.

Through a series of name changes from the 24th Regiment of Foot, to The South Wales Borderers, to The Royal Regiment of Wales, the events of 1879 have remained pre-eminent in the regiment’s folklore. Down the years, in all great moments of peril, from Flanders to Normandy, from Malaya to Aden, and from Belfast to Basra, the fight at Rorke’s Drift has been an inspiration to our officers and soldiers. Inevitably the current round of reforms to the regimental system will once again require us to adjust our identity. On 1 March 2006 The Royal Regiment of Wales will merge with The Royal Welch Fusiliers to become a two-battalion regiment known as The Royal Welsh.

Needless to say the events of January 1879 will continue to be preserved prominently under the new arrangements. We are fortunate to have Mike’s books as a historical handrail at such an important time. Our proudest traditions will march inexorably on. The Queen’s Colour will continue to be adorned with a silver ‘Wreath of Immortelles’; the battle honour ‘South Africa 1877 – 8 – 9’ will still be borne on the Regimental Colour; Nevill Coghill’s sword will continue to hang in pride of place between the colours and, when on parade, be worn by the Queen’s Colour ensign. We will commemorate Rorke’s Drift Day each year, and will march-past to that most rousing of battle-songs, ‘Men of Harlech’. The second company of the 2nd Battalion will be known as ‘B (Rorke’s Drift) Company’.

In his first book, How Can Man Die Better, Mike analysed the disastrous sequence of events that culminated in the crushing Zulu victory at Isandlwana. That book has established him in the public eye as one of the foremost experts in the field. In my view no other author has been able to master the details of the fight, whilst at the same time recounting the episode with such clarity. He now brings these same skills to bear on those remarkable few hours at Rorke’s Drift. Like Wolves on the Fold provides the most comprehensive assessment of the battle I have yet read and then goes on to address, and I would say resolve, the controversies that still surround Isandlwana. It is without doubt a work of the very highest quality.

COLONEL HUW LLOYD-JONES

Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion,,

The Royal Regiment of Wales (24th/41st Foot)

Preface

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen:

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’, Lord Byron.

By breakfast time the great chain of events was already in motion. Wednesday 22 January 1879 was set to become one of the most calamitous days in the long history of the British Empire, one of the most renowned in the august history of Britain’s standing army, and one of the most momentous in the timeless history of Southern Africa. Like Wolves on the Fold picks up the story of that most remarkable of days from my first book, How Can Man Die Better. We left Lieutenant General Lord Chelmsford, Colonel Richard Glyn and the remnants of No. 3 Column bivouacked in a state of shocked and stunned disbelief amongst the grisly remains of their slaughtered comrades: men they had soldiered with, men they had admired, men they had great affection for; all of them reduced now to mere butchered carcasses, silent, still and strewn grotesquely through all that was left of their sacked encampment.

In Parts 1 and 2 of this second volume we examine the equally dramatic events which took place on the other bank of the Buffalo River, the famous episode centred upon the mission station at Rorke’s Drift. The first two parts of this second book stand alone and can be read and enjoyed without reference to How Can Man Die Better. But additionally, in Part 3, we examine the subsequent course of the war, revisit Isandlwana to discuss the issue of culpability and blame, and reflect on the fates and destinies of many of the war’s most notable participants, some of whom are central only to the first volume. To derive maximum enjoyment from Part 3 of this book it will have been beneficial to have read How Can Man Die Better, not as part of some cunning marketing ploy, but simply because of the way so rich and complex a story plays itself out across two more readily affordable volumes.

In these two books I have been moved to dissect the Battles of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift specifically from a soldier’s perspective, in the hope that the insights of a military professional might contribute usefully to our modern-day understanding of the events of 1879; I have done so partly out of concern that some recent contributions in the field seem to have led down a number of false trails. I hope then to straighten the tiller.

I am most grateful to Her Majesty the Queen for her gracious permission to reproduce works of art and photographs from the Royal Collection. I am also particularly grateful to Mr Jason Askew for his kind permission to use a number of his dramatic Anglo-Zulu War paintings as illustrations, and similarly to Mr David Cartwright for his equally generous permission to make use of The Formidable 24th and Incident at Isandlwana. The splendid tributes by both these artists to the men who fought in the AZW will I am sure be greatly appreciated by the reader. My thanks too to Dr Adrian Greaves, the owner of the two Askew paintings. John Richards drew the excellent maps and plans, which will be of great assistance in following the compelling tale of Rorke’s Drift. Fieldwork in South Africa was as ever an immensely enjoyable experience, due largely to the kind hospitality of Ms Pat Stubbs at Isandlwana Lodge, of David and Nicky Rattray at Fugitives’ Drift Lodge, and of Lourens and Nan Roos at the Battlefields Country Lodge, Dundee, all of whom looked after this particular thirsty, hungry traveller superbly well. I have provided a travel guide to visiting the battlefields as Appendix 7 which includes the contact details for all three establishments.

I am duty bound to acknowledge the inspiring work in the AZW field of such eminent figures as Ian Knight, David Jackson, and John Laband, whilst the published research of Julian Whybra and the late Norman Holme was essential, in particular, to the production of the nominal rolls in the appendices. Any errors in the acute detail will be of my own making. Colonel Mike McCabe RE was a mine of information on the part played by his corps in the Anglo-Zulu War, and a more than worthy devil’s advocate on behalf of Colonel Anthony Durnford. I am most grateful to Major Martin Everett, Mrs Celia Green and the rest of the staff at the Brecon Museum of the Royal Regiment of Wales, who have invariably made me feel very much at home during my visits there. Mr Ron Sheeley has been particularly helpful and generous in making his private collection of photographs and other memorabilia available for publication.

Rorke’s Drift, we all know, was the ultimate triumph against the odds — an impossible victory. How could a mere 150 men, of whom almost a quarter were hospital patients, standing behind an improvised barricade of mealie-bags, hold off some four and a half thousand assailants? We struggle to comprehend how this could happen. Often we mistakenly, but perhaps understandably, attribute it to being a victory of men armed with rifles, over men armed with spears. We put it down, inevitably, to British ‘pluck’, the same determination in adversity that got 338,000 men off the beaches at Dunkirk, when by rights this should not have been so. Perhaps, we reason, there is some magical quality in the British national temperament that leaps to the fore when things are going badly awry. The worse the situation, it seems, the brighter this quality shines forth. Never was there a better example than the defence of Rorke’s Drift. But perhaps we British are just a little self-satisfied about this idiosyncratic national trait. The truth is that, just as there were sound military reasons why the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe were unable to overwhelm the BEF in 1940, so too were there military factors which account for the inability of the Zulu to overrun a determined band of redcoats on the Buffalo River. That is not to say that British ‘pluck’ did not play an extensive role – it did. It may well be true that only the British infantry, that most steadfast caste of fighting men, could have done it.

If forced to put one’s finger on the exact nature of this mysterious British trait, it is perhaps best characterised as a stubborn refusal to panic. It was precisely this attribute which allowed the 1st Battalion of the 24th Regiment to make so brave a stand at Isandlwana. I hope that How Can Man Die Better conveyed this effectively. Panic is a killer, a destroyer of armies. It was the panic that seized Durnford’s native horse that precluded any possibility of a strong enough stand being made in the saddle to hold back the Zulu left horn and so allow the 24th to fall back to a new line of defence. So panic had reared its virulently contagious head already that day. Unsurprisingly the terrified native infantry and the non-combatants had also been infected by it, then ‘the fugitives’ in their turn. Even at Rorke’s Drift the contagion did not immediately come to a halt. Kipling famously characterised one of the essential qualities of manliness as the ability to keep one’s head when all around are losing theirs. That is precisely what John Chard, Gonville Bromhead and the other 150 men who stood their ground at Rorke’s Drift did; they kept their nerve, stopped the rot and did what their training told them was militarily prudent.

Famously neither of these officers was a cutting-edge thruster. But neither were they, as some modern historians would suggest, mere low-calibre plodders. Much of this cynicism is based on the back-biting correspondence of officers like Major Francis Clery, men who had themselves played a part in botching the Isandlwana campaign, and who were hugely jealous of the two subalterns’ great achievement. Furthermore they were writing of the victors of Rorke’s Drift, whom they had barely known beforehand, at a time when the two officers were recovering from an extremely traumatic experience. In 1879 there was nothing that would pass for the trauma counselling of today. It is hardly surprising that both men were withdrawn and little inclined to be patronised by those who were not there. Bromhead tended to move away whenever the subject came up. To his colleagues and the wider empire it was a glorious deed, but for Bromhead himself it had been a vicious, harrowing dogfight. In many ways there is an element of the miraculous about his survival, for he was fearlessly brave and terribly exposed throughout the fight. It must have seemed for a long while, minute by agonising minute, that it was only a matter of time before he was killed or maimed.

The uncharitable comments on Chard and Bromhead were penned at a time when they were in a psychological state for which today they would receive formal medical treatment, but which in the Victorian era went unheeded, unrecognised and untreated. In fact both Chard and Bromhead were typical of their kind; they were experienced professionals and knew their business well. Both were modest, mild-mannered men by temperament. Most men at Rorke’s Drift were. And yet they fought like lions. Perhaps one of the most significant messages of this famous battle is that the most ordinary of men can move mountains when they are put to it. Maybe that is what we like best about the tale.

The cataclysmic events at Isandlwana were surely drama enough for one day. But, extraordinarily, as if to herald the portentous news to the rest of Southern Africa, its final stages were played out under a partial eclipse of the sun. When the last British soldier died beneath the sphinx, Wednesday 22 January had all but run its course. Sunset was only four hours away. The day may have been on its last legs, but the drama was far from over.

In this second book I hope to explain how it was that the apparently miraculous victory at Rorke’s Drift was actually achieved. In doing so we will see that there was no miracle, but rather some soldiering of the very highest order. It was not confined to one man or a few men; every man present played his part. With only a few exceptions – Chard, Bromhead, Dalton and the half dozen soldiers fighting in defence of the hospital patients – the defenders of Rorke’s Drift were not required to think or make decisions. This was war at its simplest – nose-to-nose, face-to-face, hand-to-hand. Each man had charge of his own little stretch of barricade and had nowhere else to go. His duty was to defend his sector, at the cost of his life if necessary and, where possible, help out the mates left and right of him with a well timed snap-shot or a lightning-quick thrust of the bayonet. It was the simplest of military propositions and to fail in it meant certain death.

Perhaps it is easier to fight for one’s life at close quarters when there is no other option, than to skirmish forward into an extremely heavy fire, when alternatives abound. And yet this is precisely what the Zulu participants in the battle did. They took extremely heavy punishment for an hour, for two hours, for three – and still they fought on. They came on heroically, and then they came again. They kept coming – endlessly. They came until the corpses of the slain were piled high around the barricades and hundreds of men were lying maimed and bloodied in the shadows of the night. To sustain their attack for as long as they did was an extraordinary feat of endurance and determination, and one which has received but scant tribute.

Above all else, I hope in writing this book that we are able in our national consciousness to elevate the mighty Zulu above the role of mere extras in Sir Stanley Baker’s movie, compelling entertainment as it undoubtedly was. For the Zulus of 1879 were real men: they had wives and they had children; they liked nothing better than to look proudly upon their cattle; they liked to gossip and they liked to laugh. And they were warriors too – surely to be numbered amongst the most formidable warrior societies in the history of mankind. Let us recognise, then, not only the remarkable achievement of the British soldiers who held Rorke’s Drift, but also the quite extraordinary courage of the men who gave their lives, in the words borne on the war monument at Ulundi, ‘in defence of the old Zulu order’.

These days we can but reflect upon the passing of the old ways, but let us not forget that the children of the men of 1879 had children in their turn, and they in theirs, and three more generations since. And should you be moved by this remarkable tale to visit modern Zululand, the chances are you will be struck immediately by its beauty and by the warmth of its people. But go deeper and you will learn something of its poverty, of the social ills consequent upon it, and of the devastating impact of pandemic disease. If you are a rich man or a wise man, please come home resolved to do whatever you can to help. Remarkably, for all their tribulations, the Zulus are smiling yet.

MIKE SNOOK

Prologue

From the bluff high above Sothondose’s Drift, Captain Alan Gardner looked down at the scenes of chaos and bloody carnage being played out beneath him. The river was full of bodies, live and dead, black and white, man and beast. The hillside opposite was swarming with the enemy. They were exultant, triumphant, victorious, and still they were mad for blood. Here and there a number of frenzied life or death chases through the rocks were in progress. Every so often handfuls of frantic horsemen would come clattering down Mpethe Hill at breakneck speed, to enter the maelstrom around the drift, some of them separated and riding alone, others clustered in groups of three or four. Some men did indeed break their necks, or might as well have done, for a fall of any kind meant virtually instantaneous death at the hands of their merciless pursuers. Other men zigged and zagged desperately, trying hard to avoid the nimble-footed warriors scrambling over the rocks towards them. Many men, too shocked to think, some too stupefied even to care, trusted instinctively to providence alone, and spurred their horses straight at the enemy, hoping somehow to break through at the gallop. Most of the terrified fugitives had long since emptied their revolvers. The pursuit had been relentless; there had been no question of pausing and hence no time to reload, so that now horsemanship was their only defence.

The lucky ones survived the frantic descent of Mpethe Hill and plunged over the river bank with a terrific splash. There were treacherous sub-surface boulders strewn in great quantities along both sides of the river, so that it was largely a matter of luck whether the riders kept their seats or not. Mounted or unhorsed, now they were just a target. Bullets threw up plumes of water around them. Throwing assegais came raining down about them. No. 3 Column was no longer fighting – it was running, hell for leather, every man for himself, the devil take the hindmost. The scenes being played out around Sothondose’s Drift, soon to become better known as Fugitives’ Drift, were more to do with bloody murder than with death in battle.

Gardner’s mind raced with vividly dramatic and unpleasant memories of the past two and a half hours. He was glad to be alive; he was lucky to be alive; but he was shocked and he was frightened. Already his conscience was uneasy. Cavalryman and staff officer he may have been, but as a holder of the Queen’s Commission his proper place was with the embattled infantrymen of the 24th Regiment. He had last seen them falling back slowly in the face of an overpowering enemy assault and, in common with many others, had lacked the inner strength to stand by them. Surely now, he reasoned, they were all dead. Henry Pulleine, William Degacher, Charlie Pope, George Wardell – all of them – dead and no doubt butchered. Gardner pulled himself together as best he could and tried to behave as an officer should behave in so grave a crisis. He tried to think of the wider military situation and what the enemy might do in the wake of so crushing a victory. Lord Chelmsford and his flying column were still at Mangeni, on the wrong side of the Zulu main impi. They were the largest force in the field and would have to shift for themselves. In the meantime there were two outposts on the lines of communication to worry about.

The garrisons of Rorke’s Drift and Helpmekaar were in the gravest danger: isolated, lightly held and completely unfortified. The Rorke’s Drift mission station was closest to the looming menace – just a few miles upstream – and there seemed to be nothing to prevent the Zulus descending upon it within the hour. Major Henry Spalding, as far as Gardner knew, was in charge there. Under his command was a company of the 2nd/24th, amounting to less than a hundred redcoats, a numerically much stronger body of black levies, the handful of men who constituted No. 3 Column’s logistic staff, and around three dozen hospital patients. Helpmekaar was about twelve miles away. Gardner knew that there was at least one company of the 1st/24th there, and that by now it was distinctly possible that it had been joined by a second company of the same battalion.

The great majority of Isandlwana survivors, Alan Gardner included, deemed discretion to be the better part of valour. To go to Rorke’s Drift would be to put their heads in the noose once more, all but tantamount to an act of suicide. Mostly they decided to head for distant Helpmekaar and struck out across country. The ‘lucky five’ regular officers were caught on the horns of a dilemma. They knew they could not go to Rorke’s Drift without running the twin risks of being killed en route, or of being ordered by Major Spalding to stay there. When it came down to it, Spalding would not actually need to say anything; it would be their bounden duty to stay. This was all well and good if the garrison had a sporting chance, but it seemed to have no chance at all.

Gardner had made his decision: he was bound for Helpmekaar with everybody else. But his sense of duty obliged him at least to alert the garrison at Rorke’s Drift to its peril. He collared one of Durnford’s mounted natives, almost certainly a member of the Edendale Troop, and asked if he would ride via the mission station with a warning for the troops there. The man agreed to go and Gardner quickly scribbled a pencil note to the post commander into his damp pocket book. Moments later this unknown but faithful trooper turned his exhausted pony away to the north-west, riding parallel to the line of the Buffalo. Gardner spurred on to the south-west behind everybody else bound for the Biggarsberg high ground.

Unaware that Gardner’s man was already ahead of them, a number of other fugitives, some of whose identities are uncertain, would also cross the river and make the seemingly selfless decision to head for Rorke’s Drift rather than Helpmekaar. In fact most were inspired by a combination of instinct and necessity – the ingrained need to find a route that they knew. It is perhaps indicative of their terrible ordeal up to this point and the fear still coursing through their veins, that none of them stayed on at the mission to make a fresh stand; all would ride on after delivering a brief and doom-laden warning. In some cases they cantered past without stopping, shouting a few words of pessimistic advice to the enlisted men. Thus they evaded the time-consuming duty of making a full report to an officer and avoided any possibility of being ordered to stay.

Away to the north, still on the Zulu bank of the river, Lieutenant Gert Adendorff of 2nd/3rd Natal Native Contingent (NNC) had fallen in with a trooper of the Natal Carbineers.¹ Undoubtedly they got away from Isandlwana on the wagon road, some minutes before the Zulu right horn emerged from the hills to complete the ‘horns of the buffalo’ encirclement of the camp. It follows that both of them had given up the fight well before it was lost beyond redemption. But in their own minds at least, as they had looked down from the encampment at the great host manoeuvring impressively across the plain, there had been absolutely no doubt as to the outcome. Adendorff was a non-swimmer and, with the Buffalo in spate, was determined to avoid a risky river crossing if at all possible. Hence he had settled on the ponts at Rorke’s Drift as his immediate destination, a journey of around 7½ miles. The two riders scanned the ground ahead for signs of the enemy, and from time to time looked back over their shoulders for any indication of a pursuit. They may have clapped eyes on harassed parties of Basuto or amaNgwane riders some way behind them, and would certainly have overtaken scattered bands of NNC levies on the road, but reassuringly, for the time being at least, there were no Zulus in sight. They skirted the north bank of the Buffalo, crossed the Batshe Stream, and rode on, until at length they came to the low ridge immediately above the ponts and began the long downhill gallop to the river.

Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers was taking his responsibilities as the temporary post commander none too seriously. Major Spalding would be back in a few hours and in the meantime Gonny Bromhead would have all the routine administration of the post well in hand. Chard had come up to Rorke’s Drift only three days earlier, on Sunday 19 January. He had arrived just in time to watch No. 3 Column depart for Isandlwana early on Monday morning. Later that same day Colonel Durnford and his native troops had arrived at the river. They had crossed the Buffalo in the late afternoon and established their bivouac on the site only recently vacated by Colonel Glyn’s men. After two nights on the river Durnford had also moved forward to Isandlwana, at 8.00 a.m. that very morning. It was now Wednesday 22 January 1879, a date destined to be immortalised by British historians and Zulu storytellers alike.

Chard had passed Durnford

Reviews for Like Wolves on the Fold

[pierthinker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The defense of Rorke’s Drift by not more than 100 men against a Zulu army of several thousand warriors is a touchstone event in English history. It displays all the traits the English want to be seen to have: brave, calm underdogs using superior discipline and military know-how to defeat a much bigger enemy. A hit film in the 1960’s featuring a new young star straight from Swinging London, Michael Caine, didn’t hurt either.Snook has written a purely military history of the action and focuses on the single day and night of the battle. A brief preamble describes the lead-in to the battle following the major British defeat at Isandlwana. For all the flat reconstruction of the facts of the battle Snook has produced a very readable narrative that maintains the excitement and tension of the action very well. As a serving soldier Snook is very well able through his own admiration of what these soldiers did to show us that real military action, and real bravery, is nothing like the movies.If you want a book that explores a wider perspective than the specific action on the day of battle, or that takes an interest in the personalities, characters and their thoughts then avoid this. There is very little reported speech nor much blood-curdling description of how men fought and died.This is a book that provides excitement and tension through a matter-of-fact style that does describe one of the great heroic feats of modern warfare. Read it if only to learn how men react in the face of certain death and rejoice in how they become selfless brothers and quiet heroes.

[poleaxe_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

To begin with let me say that this book is written about one of my favorite all-time subjects, the defence of Rourke's Drift during the Zulu War. With this knowledge I knew I would derive some enjoyment from the book. I would recommend 4 stars for the book if it were for a casual reader who was not that particularly interested in military history. But to the student, I can only muster up 3. It is a workable piece on the battle, but I've read a few others that were much more informative and engaging. Mr. Snook is an ex-military man, as am I, and I can recognize his approach and style to recounting the event. That particular style never lends itself to very enjoyable reading. Why is it that professional soldiers never make great authors?There is the perception that Mr. Snook considers his work as the "definitive" piece on the subject. He discredits other books, and even some of the contemporary sources, on the battle without really any explaination as to why they are wrong and he is right. I got the sense that he would be happy if we all threw our other books on the battle away and coronated his as the Bible of the battle. Any teacher, student, professional, or amatuer historian knows better. The more sources the better, this being just another source.