The column bivouacked that night at Dill’s Town, and reached Rorke’s Drift between three and four o’clock in the morning, and were there joined by the Natal Carabineers and Colonel Harness, R.A., with guns.
At daybreak on the 20th the reconnoitring force crossed the river. No signs of the enemy were seen until they neared Isandula; then signal-fires blazed up on the hills to the right, and spread quickly from hill to hill far into the interior. Pushing steadily on, the plain of Isandula was reached by ten o’clock. The whole scene of the conflict was overgrown with long grass, thickly intermixed with growing crops of oats and Indian corn. Lying thickly here, and scattered over a wide area, lay the corpses of the soldiers. The site of the camp itself was marked by the remains of the tents, intermingled with a mass of broken trunks, boxes, meat-tins, papers, books, and letters in wild disorder. The sole visible objects, however, rising above the grass, were the waggons, all more or less broken up.
The scouts were placed in all directions to give warning of the approach of any enemies. The Army Service Corps set to work to harness the seventy pairs of led horses they had brought with them to the best of the waggons, and the troops wandered over the scene of the engagement, and searched for and buried all the bodies they found, with the exception of those of the 24th Regiment, as these, Colonel Glyn had asked, should be left to be buried by their comrades. The bodies of the officers of Colonel Durnford’s corps were all found together, showing that when all hope of escape was gone they had formed in a group and defended themselves to the last. The men of the Royal Artillery buried all the bodies of their slain comrades who could be found, but the shortness of the time and the extent of the ground over which the fight had extended rendered anything like a thorough search impossible.
The object of the expedition was not to fight, and as at any moment the Zulus might appear in force upon the field, a start was made as soon as the waggons were ready. Forty of the best waggons were brought out, with some water-carts, a gun-limber and a rocket-battery cart. Twenty waggons in a disabled condition were left behind. Some seventy waggons were missing, these having been carried off by the Zulus, filled either with stores or with their own wounded. Having accomplished this work the cavalry rejoined headquarters at Landmann’s Drift.
On the 27th of May the column advanced, Newdigate’s division leading the way. By two o’clock in the afternoon the men had crossed the Buffalo and marched to Kopje-allein through a bare and treeless country. One of the most popular figures in the camp was the Prince Imperial of France, who, having received a military education at Woolwich, and being anxious to see service, had applied for and obtained leave to accompany the expedition. The young prince had been extremely popular at Woolwich, and was indeed an immense favourite with all who knew him—high-spirited and full of life, and yet singularly gentle and courteous in manner. He was by nature adapted to win the hearts of all who came in contact with him. His abilities too were of the very highest order, as was proved by the fact that, although suffering under the disadvantage of being a foreigner, he yet came out so high in the final examination at Woolwich as to be entitled to a commission in the Royal Engineers. When it is considered how keen is the competition to enter Woolwich, and that all the students there, having won their places by competitive examinations, may be said to be considerably above the average of ability, it will be seen that, for one who had previously gone through an entirely different course of education, and had now to study in a language that was not his own, to take rank among the foremost of these was a proof both of exceptional ability and industry.
A splendid career was open for the young prince, for there is little doubt that, had he lived, he would sooner or later have mounted the throne of his father, and there are few pages of history more sad than those which relate to his death in a paltry skirmish in a corner of Africa. To Englishmen the page is all the more sad, inasmuch as, had the men accompanying him acted with the coolness and calmness generally shown by Englishmen in a moment of danger, instead of being carried away by a cowardly panic, the Prince Imperial might yet be alive.
At Kopje-allein Newdigate’s column was joined by that of General Wood. Three days were spent in carefully exploring the country, and on the 1st of June the division, as nearly as possible 20,000 strong, with a baggage-train of 400 native waggons, moved forward and encamped near the Itelezi River. The flying column of General Wood went on one march ahead, and the country was carefully scouted by Buller’s horse for twenty miles round, and no Zulus were found.