It is early March 1879 in Zululand. It is the end of the rainy season and it is bucketting down on a daily basis on those men stationed at Fort Clery near the German Lutheran church and settlement at Luneberg, tucked away in the north west quadrant of Zululand about 6 miles from the Transvaal border. It is hot, sticky and sweaty in the intervals between showers. Roads dissolve into glutinous rivers of mud and the men are wet though and shivering most of the time. Shelter is, at best, corrugated iron or thatched lean-tos. Clothing just rots off the men, increasing their misery.
The mosquitoes, roused to breeding frenzy in the stagnant pools, make their lives a misery. Men are dropping like flies with enteric and dysentery. Dragged off to the makeshift hospital, they don’t fare very much better than those men still capable of remaining on their feet.
It has been a while since a convoy of supplies has come through from Derby in the Transvaal, and the men are living on boiled beef and weevily biscuits. Ugly, oozing veldt sores caused by bad nutrition burn incessantly. A combination of prickly heat and lice makes the men scratch constantly, turning the sores into gaping wounds.
Night after night they stare out over the parapets into the inky blackness, supposedly alert to the possibility of a Zulu attack. They are aware of what awaits them if it happens; torn-off lips, bellies slit open, private parts hacked off, but they are numbed by the...
