In 1849, James and Sarah Rorke moved from an industrialising England to Zululand in what is now South Africa, a tribal chiefdom bordering the then-British colony of Natal. The Rorkes ran a trading store that became known as Rorkes’ Drift, above the nearby Buffalo river, and had (fortunately for them) good relations with the local Zulu clan. Relations between the couple, however, were apparently far less cordial, and in 1875 James Rorke committed suicide.
Some 114 years later, Nicky and David Rattray started a business a few valleys to the south of what had been the Rorkes’ store. It was a tourist lodge called Fugitives’ Drift. Within two decades, David – a bush and history enthusiast – was to become a leading authority on the Zulu war of 1879.
He had spent school holidays in this area, and was fascinated by key moments of the conflict that had been played out here, at the store at Rorkes’ Drift and at a river crossing, known as Fugitive’s Drift, near the Rattrays’ own home.
Tragedy struck early in 2007, however, when David was shot dead by an intruder at his home.
Rattray had a rare ability to bring to life the heroics and horrors of the Zulu war, and his legacy is today continued by the likes of George Irwin, a young Englishman who approaches his subject with the kind of vigour and enthusiasm for which Rattray became legendary.
‘Britain’s politicians wanted control of Africa’s wealth and the Zulus stood between the Empire and its expansion,’ Irwin says, as he walk across the quiet veldt that all those years ago would have been the scene of desperate conflict.
Expansionism led to an invasion of Zululand and, on 22 January 1879, to the most crushing defeat ever inflicted upon an Imperial British force. This began when the British commander, Lieutenant General Frederick Augustus Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford, made the classic mistake of splitting his forces. While he set off at the head of a reconnaissance party, he left around 1,300 regular British army troops, primarily from the 24th (Royal Warwickshire) regiment, and a force of local volunteers to defend the camp at Isandlwana.
Unknowingly, he had fallen into a Zulu trap – a trap that became all too clear later that day when a troop of locally recruited scouts known as Zikhali’s Horse, led by lieutenant Charles Raw, was sent out to reconnoitre the area surrounding the British camp.
Raw and his men soon encountered a group of Zulu foragers, who they chased into a ravine – only to their horror to discover a force of 24,000 warriors who immediately seized their weapons and pursued the terrified horsemen back towards the British lines.
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