Editing Battle of Rorke's Drift (section)

=== Defensive preparations ===
Once the British officers decided to stay, Chard and Bromhead directed their men to make preparations to defend the station. With the garrison's 400-odd men<ref>Knight 1996, p. 28, "With 400 men to build them&nbsp;..."</ref> working diligently a defensive perimeter was quickly constructed out of [[mealie]] bags, biscuit boxes and crates of tinned meat.<ref name="Army Museum - Rorke's Drift">{{cite web|url=https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/defence-rorkes-drift|title=Defence of Rorke's Drift|publisher=National Army Museum|access-date=22 January 2024}}</ref> This perimeter incorporated the storehouse, the hospital, and a stout stone [[kraal]]. The buildings were fortified, with [[Loophole (firearm)|loopholes]] (firing holes) knocked through the external walls and the external doors barricaded with furniture.

At about 3:30&nbsp;p.m., a mixed troop of about 100 [[Natal Native Contingent#Natal Native Horse|Natal Native Horse]] (NNH) under Lieutenant Alfred Henderson arrived at the station after having retreated in good order from Isandlwana. They volunteered to picket the far side of the [[Oscarberg]] (''Shiyane''), the large hill that overlooked the station and from behind which the Zulus were expected to approach.<ref>[[Ian Knight (historian)|Knight]] 1996, p. 36.</ref>

[[File:Dabulamanzi.jpg|thumb|upright|Prince [[Dabulamanzi kaMpande]]]]
With the defences nearing completion and battle approaching, Chard had several hundred men available to him: Bromhead's B Company, Stevenson's large NNC company, Henderson's NNH troop, and various others (most of them hospital patients, but 'walking wounded') drawn from various British and colonial units. Adendorff also stayed, while the trooper who had ridden in with him galloped on to warn the garrison at Helpmekaar.<ref name="autogenerated401">Morris 1998, p. 401</ref>

The force was sufficient, in Chard's estimation, to fend off the Zulus. Chard posted the British soldiers around the perimeter, adding some of the more able patients, the 'casuals' and civilians, and those of the NNC who possessed firearms along the barricade. The rest of the NNC, armed only with spears, were posted outside the mealie bag and biscuit box barricade within the stone-walled cattle kraal.<ref name="autogenerated401"/>

The approaching Zulu force was vastly larger; the uDloko, uThulwana, and inDlondo {{lang|zu|amabutho}} (regiments) of married men aged in their 30s and 40s and the inDlu-yengwe {{lang|zu|ibutho}} of young unmarried men mustered 3,000 to 4,000 warriors, none of them engaged during the battle at Isandlwana.<ref>Morris 1998, p. 370, "played no part in the battle"</ref> This Zulu force was the 'loins' or reserve of the army at Isandlwana and is often referred to as the Undi Corps. It was directed to swing wide of the British left flank and pass west and south of Isandlwana hill itself, in order to position itself across the [[line of communication]] and retreat of the British and their colonial allies in order to prevent their escape back into Natal by way of the Buffalo River ford leading to Rorke's Drift.

By the time the Undi Corps reached Rorke's Drift at 4:30&nbsp;p.m., they had fast-marched some {{convert|20|mi|km|-1|order=flip}} from the morning encampment they had left at around 8 a.m., then to spend some 11.5 hours continuously storming the British fortifications at Rorke's Drift.

[[File:ZuluWarriors adj.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.5|Historical picture of Zulu warriors from about the same time as the events at Rorke's Drift]]Most Zulu warriors were armed with an {{lang|zu|[[assegai]]}} (short spear) and a ''[[nguni shield]]'' made of cowhide.<ref>Archer, Christon I. [https://books.google.com/books?id=bfcfOrihAvAC&dq=zulu+rifles&pg=PA462 ''World History of Warfare'']{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} University of Nebraska Press, 2002, {{ISBN|0-8032-1941-5}}, p. 462 "They had a national army of twenty-five thousand men equipped with cowhide shields, assegais and clubs." Lock and Quantrill 2005, p. 62: John Shepstone, Acting Secretary for Native Affairs at the time, on the Zulu army – "Equipment: Each man carries his shield and assegais, and a kaross or blanket if he possesses one, he may also have a war dress of monkey skins or ox tails, this is all."</ref> The Zulu army drilled in the personal and tactical use and coordination of this weapon. Some Zulus also had old muskets, antiquated rifles, and some captured [[Martini-Henry]]s as used by the defenders, though their marksmanship training was poor, and the supply of powder and shot was low, and of poor quality.<ref>Knight 1996, pp. 33, 38, 39.</ref>

The Zulu attitude towards firearms was that: "The generality of Zulu warriors, however, would not have firearms – the arms of a coward, as they said, for they enable the [[wikt:poltroon|poltroon]] to kill the brave without awaiting his attack."<ref>Bourquin, S. Military History Journal, V. 4, No. 4, ''The Zulu military organization and the challenge of 1879'', South African Military History Society, {{ISSN|0026-4016}}, Dec. 1978.</ref> Even though their fire was not accurate, it was responsible for five of the 17 British deaths at Rorke's Drift.<ref>Bourquin, S. section 'War of 1879', subsection 'Weapons'</ref><ref>Knight 1996, p. 38, "Although the Zulu position was a commanding one – a squad of good shots armed with efficient rifles could have made Chard's position untenable within minutes – the Zulus were neither good shots, nor well armed."</ref>

While the Undi Corps had been led by {{lang|zu|inkhosi}} kaMapitha at the Isandlwana battle, the command of the Undi Corps passed to Prince [[Dabulamanzi kaMpande]] (half-brother of [[Cetshwayo kaMpande]], the Zulu king) when kaMapitha was wounded during the pursuit of British survivors from Isandlwana. Prince Dabulamanzi was considered rash and aggressive, and this characterisation was borne out by his violation of King Cetshwayo's order to act only in defence of Zululand against the invading British soldiers and not carry the war over the border into enemy territory.<ref>Knight 2003, p. 33.</ref> The Rorke's Drift attack was an unplanned raid rather than any organised counter-invasion, with many of the Undi Corps Zulus breaking off to raid other African kraals and homesteads while the main body advanced on Rorke's Drift.

At about 4:00&nbsp;p.m., [[James Henry Reynolds|Surgeon James Reynolds]], Otto Witt – the Swedish [[missionary]] who ran the mission at Rorke's Drift – and army chaplain [[George Smith (chaplain)|Reverend George Smith]] came down from the Oscarberg hillside with the news that a body of Zulus was fording the river to the southeast and was "no more than five minutes away". At this point, Witt decided to depart the station, as his family lived in an isolated farmhouse about {{convert|30|km|mi|sigfig=1}} away, and he wanted to be with them. Witt's native servant, Umkwelnantaba, left with him; so too did one of the hospital patients, Lieutenant Thomas Purvis of the 1st/3rd NNC.