War And Warriors by Paul Curtis (short novels in english txt) 📕

were dotted
The eleventh day
Books were balanced
Of the butchers tally
The eleventh month
Seeds were sown
For the Second World War
By the French at Versailles

DEFENDERS OF THE DRIFT

In the month of January
Of the year eighteen seventy nine
Lord Chelmsford,
The General Officer Commanding the British forces
Without the sanction of the British Government
By crossing over the great Buffalo River
Invaded KwaZulu,
In Southern Africa
The British entered the Sovereign Kingdom
In response, the fiercely independent AmaZulu people
Mobilized their armies against the invaders
Chelmsford, ignoring intelligence received
Arrogantly committed a fatal error and split his force
With the result that on the 22nd of January
A British force, seventeen hundred strong,
Was attacked by King Cetshwayo’s Impi’s
At a place called Isandhlwana
An isolated hill in Zululand
The British force encamped at the foot of the hill was attacked
By an army of about 10,000 Zulus,
The flower of Cetshwayo’s warriors
And destroyed The British
Who were quickly overwhelmed and routed
In the mayhem the camp was lost
The British tried to hold together
But any kind of discipline among the British and colonial ranks
Was lost along with the camp
As the remnants retreated before the superior force
Lieutenant’s Melvill and Coghill
Tried in vain to save the queens color
But when there horses were shot from under them
They were hacked to death by their pursuers
The few hundred who survived the battle
Had to fight a running battle with the Zulu
Skirmishing for there lives with blood thirsty warriors
Who did not take prisoners
During the retreat Private Samuel Wassall,
Of the eightieth regiment
Stopped to save a drowning soldier from the Buffalo River
He dismounted his horse and left it on the Zulu side
And swam out to rescue his comrade
Dragging him to safety under a hail of gunfire
Thirteen hundred soldiers died
Both British and natal native contingent
Their corpses all mutilated by the victors
In the aftermath of their great victory
It was the heaviest defeat ever inflicted
By a native force on an organized army

Encouraged by the momentous events at Isandhlwana
Cetshwayo’s brother, Dabulamanzi took his impi
The four and a half thousand strong undi corps
Intending to cross the buffalo river
And take his warriors into natal
But first he wanted to crush the meager British force
That remained at the small supply post
Eight miles North West of Isandhlwana
Close to the buffalo river crossing
The post was known to the British as Rorke's Drift,
Which the AmaZulu called KwaJimu
The post had formally been a trading store and a mission station
This consisted of a house and a chapel
And some dilapidated out buildings
The house was being used as a field hospital
While the chapel was the quartermasters store
Not much of a target
Of such little value
Not much of a prize for the Zulu
Of no strategic value
Not much honor to be had
In crushing such a small force
Not much of a victory to be had
Outnumbering the British forty to one
Hardly a fair fight
Not much worthy of defending by the British
Why did they stand?
Not much of a command
Some one hundred and fifty men
Though only 104 men were fit enough to fight
The men at Rorke’s drift had been warned
By retreating survivors of Isandhlwana
That the Zulu were coming
But they stayed anyway
Only one survivor of the defeat at Isandhlwana
Stayed to help defend Rorke’s drift
A Lieutenant James Adendorff of the NNC

Left in overall command of the post
Was Lieutenant Chard of the Royal Engineers
And, commanding a company-strength
Was Lieutenant Bromhead of the 24th Regiment of foot
But it was a volunteer, acting assistant commissary
James Dalton, a former Staff Sergeant,
With some twenty two years military experience
Who took control of the defenses
He ordered the construction of barricades
Connecting the two buildings with sacks of corn,
And an inner barricade with biscuit boxes
And determined the position of a redoubt
Where they would make their final stand
Dalton kept the men well occupied
Giving them little time to dwell on the situation
Or contemplate the impending assault

They heard the approaching Impi’s
Long before they could see them
The sound was like that of distant thunder in the hills
Drawing ever close and louder
Then a brief silence, very brief
When the fearsome Zulus finally attacked,
Wielding their short stabbing assegais,
They were unable to reach the soldiers
Who from behind the barricades blasted the Zulu warriors
With rifle fire at point blank range
Undaunted the Zulu kept coming
Wave upon wave, Charge upon charge
Eventually by sheer weight of numbers
They began swarming up the barricades
But Most of those who did mount the breastwork
Were repulsed by the bayonets of the defenders
Many of the Zulus were armed with rifles,
Some Taken from the dead at Isandhlwana
But many were obtained from Boer traders
Although they were older than the army issue Henri-Martini
Rifles they were
And a bullet from an old weapon kills just as efficiently
As from a new one
They took advantage of the high ground
And were able to pin down the gallant defenders
Again Wave upon wave of warriors charged the defenses
And again and again they were repulsed
Then After numerous unsuccessful attacks
And with many Zulu dead the attackers withdrew
But only to regroup and not for long
There was barely time to repair the walls
And take a much needed drink when they came again
Each attack varied slightly concentrating on different points
Probing for weaknesses
But again the redcoats held firm
By late afternoon they turned there full attention on the hospital
Where with four other men the Privates, Robert and William Jones,
Defended with valor the hospital door at bayonet point
Unable to break though the redoubtable Privates defense
The attackers set fire to the hospital’s roof,
And broke in through the burning thatch
The savage warriors began to spear the patients,
Mercilessly killing the sick and the lame
A private named Alfred Hook,
A Gloucestershire man,
Kept them at bay with his bayonet while his comrade
Private John Williams hacked holes in the wall
That separated one room from another
Then he dragged the patients through one by one
Once they had made there escape to the adjoining room
Hook continued to fight off the Zulu’s
As the patients were bundled out the window
The last man had dislocated his knee.
Williams had to break the other one
To get him through the window
Before the burning roof finally fell in
Once through the window and into the yard
The barricades offered them some protection.

The Fighting went on all night in the fitful glare
From the blazing hospital
As the Zulus made charge after charge on the barricades.
Both sides fought with desperate courage.
A patient from the hospital,
A Swiss born adventurer Christian Schiess,
A corporal of the Natal Native Contingent
Stabbed three Zulus in quick succession after clambering over the breastwork
In the yard Surgeon General Reynolds
Tended to the wounded, seemingly oblivious
To the life and death struggle going on all around him
Those too badly hurt to shoot propped themselves up
And reloaded the guns for those who were still on their feet.
Private hitch and Corporal Allan although wounded
Dragged ammunition around to the men on the barricades
In between engagements work continued rebuilding barricades
And constructing the redoubt, for the final stand


When the time came to form up on the redoubt
Each row fired there volley in turn
Then reload and await the command to fire
Then each in there turns fired another volley
Then reload and await the command to fire
Then another and another
Then reload and await the command to fire
Volley after deafening volley
Until the Zulu stopped coming
When the last echo faded all around were Zulu dead
Heaped upon each other
When dawn came at last, the Zulus withdrew
Taking their wounded with them and leaving the dead where they fell
Around the barricades
Not because they could not crush the meager British resistance
The defenders were desperately short of ammunition
And exhausted from the long battle
They could not have held out much longer
Despite the heroic stand against overwhelming opposition
It was Lord Chelmsford’s arrival on the scene
With a fresh column of British Soldiers
That finally tipped the balance
In the aftermath of that January day
A terrible revenge was exacted against the Zulu nation
Chelmsford on the Mahlabatini plains
Comprehensively defeated Cetywayo’s
Twenty thousand strong Impi’s
Then after the battle Ulundi Cetywayo’s royal kraal was burned
The Zulu have never again been one nation
However for the defenders of the drift
The highest honors where bestowed
Gunner John Cantwell
Private William Roy
Colour-sergeant frank Bourne
Second corporal Francis Attwood
And Private Michael McMahon
All received Distinguished Conduct Medal’s
While Victoria crosses were awarded to
Lieutenant, John Rouse Merriott Chard
Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead
Acting assistant commissary James Langley Dalton
Corporal William Wilson Allen
Private Frederick Hitch
Private Alfred Henry hook
Private Robert Jones
Private William Jones
Surgeon General James Henry Reynolds
Corporal Ferdnand Christian Schiess
Private John Williams,
In addition for his gallantry at Isandhlwana
A VC for Private Samuel Wassall
For selflessly putting his life at risk to save a fallen comrade
At the time posthumous medals where not given
So it wasn’t until 1907
When for attempting to save the queens color
From the field at Isandhlwana
Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill
And Lieutenant Neville Josiah Aylmer Coghill
Were finally honored for their courageous act
When they were awarded the Victoria Cross
For valor

In these changing days
It not PC to have military heroes
You will be told of Rorke’s drift
How the honors were not earned
You will hear things belittling the efforts of the defenders
The medals were awarded only to save face
To put a positive spin on the days events
Don’t listen to them
Don’t let them blacken the memories of our heroes
They could have abandoned the post,
They chose to stand
They could have fled to natal
They chose to stay
A courageous act by courageous men
Remember them with pride


ON THE BATTLE GROUND

Soldiers stand in contemplation
Young faces etched in concentration
NCO’s keep them holding steady

A mounted officer comes prancing
Upon his steed nervously dancing
Then comes the order to be ready

Nervously awaiting engagement
Standing firm for the regiment
Then artillery is exchanged

Just stand fast and hold the line
Just do that lads and all is fine
Then the bugles tune is changed

The air fills with acrid smoke
And men must stand and choke
After the muskets flash


Across the open ground
The heavy horse’s pound
And then the sabres clash

The lancers Bodies tumble
As the legs of horses crumple
And lie on the battleground

Wounded cut and bleeding
Their Precious life receding
The lucky die without a sound

Remember the fallen brothers
Dying for you and others
Remember the forgotten

On foreign fields they lay
Buried deep beneath the clay
Remember the forgotten

Remember the forgotten
Beneath the earth and rotten
They’re heroes one and all

So tell the valiant story
Let us remember them in glory
For those who stand and fall

WAR BY GEORGE

David Lloyd George when in power
Got it wrong whence came the hour
He took the decision behind closed doors
And led us into the war to end all wars

SAVIORS

When soldiers stand neath flags unfurled