The covenant - James A. Michener [364]
Inside, General Pretorius told his men, 'This may be the flood tide. Hold your fire.' So the riflemen waited while the gunners loaded Ou Grietjie with a murderous load of scrap and leaden slugs; and when these crack regiments had marched directly to the muzzles of these creaking guns, Pretorius gave the signal. Ou Grietjie and her three ugly sisters spewed out their lethal dose right into the faces of the Zulu, while riflemen from the flanks poured hot fire at them.
Not even the White Shields could absorb punishment like this, but they did not falter or run. They simply came on, and died.
Now Pretorius made an astounding decision: 'Mount your horses. We shall drive them from the field.' So about a hundred Voortrekkers leaped upon their steeds, waited till riflemen opened a gateway through the laager, and galloped out in a firing, slashing foray that startled the Zulu. Down one front the Voortrekkers rode, killing at a fantastic rate; then along another, cutting and firing; then deep into the heart of the enemy concentration, galloping like wild avengers; then back and forth three times, as if they were immortal.
After slaying hundreds of the enemy, they galloped back inside the laager; the only rider in this amazing sortie to suffer a wound was General Pretorius. He had his hand cut by an assegai.
Now Ou Grietjie was moved from her position along the wagon arc and dragged by hand to one of the corners, from which she could fire straight down the gully into which four hundred Zulu had crept, hoping in this way to cut in behind the wagons. Then the cannon was loaded with an assortment of nails and scrap, and pointed directly into the gully and discharged. It was loaded again, and fired. And before the hidden Zulu could clamber out, a third salvo hit, killing the remnants.
Still the amazing Zulu pressed on; the ground was littered with broken bodies, but on they marched, throwing themselves against the wagons, trying in vain to move close enough to use their stabbing assegais, and falling back only when they were dead.
At the end of two hours the black generals sought to rally their regiments by gathering in one spot all White Shield survivors and giving them the simple command: 'Break through and slay the wizards.' Without hesitation these splendid warriors adjusted the shields, borrowed extra assegais, and began a stately march right at the spot from which Ou Grietjie had been removed. They came in panoply, they fought in glory. Wave after wave marched almost to the wagons and fell to the blazing guns. Yet on they came, men trained all their lives to obey, but when the final ranks hit the wagons, they accomplished nothing. Silently the generals signaled retreat and the punished regiments withdrew, defeated but still obedient to command. A new power had replaced them in Zululand, and it had come to stay.
Before dusk the Voortrekkers came out of their laager to inspect the battlefield, on which they counted over three thousand dead. Another seven hundred died of wounds at a distance and could not be verified. Still others would die later.
What can be said of a battle in which the casualties were over four thousand dead on one side, a cut hand on the other? Not one man in the Voortrekker laager was killed; not one was seriously injured; counting even the scratches, only three were touched in this incredible battle. Four thousand-to-nothing, what kind of warfare is that? The answer would come years later from a troubled Dutch Reformed minister: 'It was not a battle. It was an execution.'
But Blood River, terrible though it was, must not be considered by itself; it was merely the culminating battle in the campaign that included