This competition is now closed
Shortly before four o’clock in the sweltering hot afternoon of 22 January 1879, a small group of British and colonial troops, packed into a mission station on the border of Natal and the Zulu Kingdom, had the news they dreaded. Earlier that day, a British column, advancing into Zululand, had been annihilated at Isandlwana. Now there was nothing between the enraged Zulus and the little mission station at Rorke’s Drift, which had been turned into a makeshift hospital for the purposes of the war.
Advertisement
Some officers wanted to pull out and ride for safety, but Assistant Commissary James Dalton argued that they were bound to be slowed down by the wagons of sick and wounded, which meant the Zulus would inevitably overtake and destroy them. Instead, Dalton told his men to put up makeshift barricades of biscuit boxes and corn sacks. “Now,” he said grimly, “we must make a defence”.