The Witch's Head

by H. Rider Haggard

CHAPTER XIX.
ISANDHLWANA

Midnight came, and the camp was sunk in sleep. Up to the sky, whither it was decreed their spirits should pass before the dark closed in again and hid their mangled corpses, floated the faint breath of some fourteen hundred men. There they lay, sleeping the healthy sleep of vigorous manhood, their brains busy with the fantastic madness of a hundred dreams, and little recking of the inevitable morrow. There, in his sleep, the white man saw his native village, with its tall, wind-swayed elms, and the gray old church that for centuries had watched the last slumber of his race; the Kafir, the sunny slope of fair Natal, with the bright light dancing on his cattle’s horns, and the green of the gardens, where, for his well-being, his wives and children toiled. To some that night came dreams of high ambition, of brave adventure, crowned with the perfect triumph we never reach; to some, visions of beloved faces, long since passed away; to some, the reflected light of a far-off home, and echoes of the happy laughter of little children. And so their lamps wavered hither and thither in the spiritual breath of sleep, flickering wildly, ere they went out for ever. The night-wind swept in sad gusts across Isandhlwana’s plain, tossing the green grass, which to-morrow would be red. It moaned against Inhlazatye’s Mountain and died upon Upindo, fanning the dark faces of a host of warriors who rested there upon their spears, sharpened for the coming slaughter. And as it breathed upon them, they turned, those brave soldiers of U’Cetywayo—“born to be killed,” as their saying runs, at Cetywayo’s bidding—and, grasping their assegais, raised themselves to listen. It was nothing, death was not yet; death for the morrow, sleep for the night.

A little after one o’clock on the morning of the 22nd of January, Ernest was roused by the sound of a horse’s hoofs and the harsh challenge of the sentries. “Despatch from Major Dartnell,” was the answer, and the messenger passed on. Half an hour more and the reveille was sounded, and the camp hummed in the darkness like a hive of bees making ready for the dawn.

Soon it was known that the General and Colonel Glynn were about to move out to the support of Major Dartnell, who reported a large force of the enemy in front of him, with six companies of the second battalion of the 24th Regiment, four guns, and the mounted infantry.

At dawn they left.

At eight o’clock a report arrived from a picket, stationed about a mile away on a hill to the north of the camp, that a body of Zulus was approaching from the north-east.

At nine o’clock the enemy showed over the crest of the hills for a few minutes, and then disappeared.

At ten o’clock Colonel Durnford arrived from Rorke’s Drift with a rocket battery and two hundred and fifty mounted native soldiers, and took over the command of the camp from Colonel Pulleine. As he came up he stopped for a minute to speak to Alston, whom he knew, and Ernest noticed him. He was a handsome, soldier-like man, with his arm in a sling, a long, fair moustache, and restless, anxious expression of face.

At 10.30, Colonel Durnford’s force, divided into two portions, was, with the rocket battery, pushed some miles forwards to ascertain the enemy’s movements, and a company of the 24th was directed to take up a position on the hill about a mile to the north of the camp. Meanwhile, the enemy, which they afterwards heard consisted of the Undi Corps, the Nokenke and Umcitu Regiments, and the Nkobamakosi and Imbonambi Regiments, in all about twenty thousand men, were resting about two miles from Isandhlwana, with no intention of attacking that day. They had not yet been “moutied” (doctored), and the condition of the moon was not propitious.

Unfortunately, however, Colonel Durnford’s mounted Basutos, in pushing forwards, came upon a portion of the Umcitu Regiment, and fired on it; whereupon the Umcitu came into action, driving Durnford’s Horse before them, and then engaged the company of the 24th, which had been stationed on the hill to the north of the camp, and, after a stubborn resistance, annihilating it. It was followed by the Nokenke, Imbonambi, and Nkobamakosi Regiments, who executed a flanking movement, and threatened the front of the camp. For awhile the Undi Corps, which formed the chest of the army, held its ground. Then it marched off to the right, and directed its course to the north of Isandhlwana Mountain, with the object of turning the position.