We were charging now--and oh! the awful and glorious excitement of that
charge! Oh, the rush of the bending plumes and the dull thudding of
eight thousand feet! The Usutu came up the slope to meet us. In silence
we went, and in silence they came. We drew near to each other. Now we
could see their faces peering over the tops of their mottled shields,
and now we could see their fierce and rolling eyes.
Then a roar--a rolling roar such as at that time I had never heard:
the thunder of the roar of the meeting shields--and a flash--a swift,
simultaneous flash, the flash of the lightning of the stabbing spears.
Up went the cry of: "Kill, Amawombe, kill!" answered by another cry of: "Toss, Usutu, toss!"
After that, what happened? Heaven knows alone--or at least I do not.
But in later years Mr. Osborn, afterwards the resident magistrate at
Newcastle, in Natal, who, being young and foolish in those days, had
swum his horse over the Tugela and hidden in a little kopje quite near
to us in order to see the battle, told me that it looked as though
some huge breaker--that breaker being the splendid Amawombe--rolling in
towards the shore with the weight of the ocean behind it, had suddenly
struck a ridge of rock and, rearing itself up, submerged and hidden it.
At least, within three minutes that Usutu regiment was no more. We
had killed them every one, and from all along our lines rose a fierce
hissing sound of "S'gee, S'gee" ("Zhi" in the Zulu) uttered as the
spears went home in the bodies of the conquered.
That regiment had gone, taking nearly a third of our number with it, for
in such a battle as this the wounded were as good as dead. Practically
our first line had vanished in a fray that did not last more than a few
minutes. Before it was well over the second Usutu regiment sprang up and
charged. With a yell of victory we rushed down the slope towards them.
Again there was the roar of the meeting shields, but this time the fight
was more prolonged, and, being in the front rank now, I had my share of
it. I remember shooting two Usutu who stabbed at me, after which my gun
was wrenched from my hand. I remember the mêlée swinging backwards and
forwards, the groans of the wounded, the shouts of victory and despair,
and then Scowl's voice saying: "We have beat them, Baas, but here come the others."
The third regiment was on our shattered lines. We closed up, we fought
like devils, even the bearer boys rushed into the fray. From all sides
they poured down upon us, for we had made a ring; every minute men died
by hundreds, and, though their numbers grew few, not one of the Amawombe
yielded. I was fighting with a spear now, though how it came into my
hand I cannot remember for certain. I think, however, I wrenched it from
a man who rushed at me and was stabbed before he could strike. I killed
a captain with this spear, for as he fell I recognised his face. It was
that of one of Cetewayo's companions to whom I had sold some cloth at
Nodwengu. The fallen were piled up quite thick around me--we were using
them as a breastwork, friend and foe together. I saw Scowl's horse rear
into the air and fall. He slipped over its tail, and next instant was
fighting at my side, also with a spear, muttering Dutch and English
oaths as he struck.