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I happened to see the meeting between Colonel Pulleine, a short, stout man who was then in command of the camp, and Colonel Durnford who, as his senior officer, took it over from him, and heard Colonel Pulleine say that his orders were "to defend the camp," but what else passed between them I do not know. Presently Colonel Durnford saw and recognized me.
The real blame for that disaster does not rest upon the shoulders of either Colonel Durnford or Colonel Pulleine. After this things grew very awful. Some fled, but the most stood and died where they were. Oddly enough during all this time I was never touched. Men fell to my right and left and in front of me; bullets and assegais whizzed past me, yet I remained quite unhurt.
Lieut.-Colonel Durnford, with his mounted natives and a rocket battery arriving from Rorke's Drift about 10 A.M., took over the command of the camp from Colonel Pulleine.
According to the evidence of Lieutenant Cochrane given at the court of inquiry, Colonel Pulleine thereupon stated to Colonel Durnford the orders that he had received, to 'defend the camp, and it would appear that either then or subsequently some altercation took place between these two officers.
Orders were given to Colonel Pulleine by the general that he was to 'defend' the camp. About ten o'clock that morning Colonel Durnford arrived at Isandhlwana and took over the command of the camp, which was then garrisoned by seven hundred and seventy-two European and eight hundred and fifty-one native troops, in all one thousand six hundred and twenty-three men, with two guns.
Among the dead were Colonel Durnford and Lieutenant Macdonald, Royal Engineers; Captain Russell and Captain Stewart Smith, Royal Artillery; Colonel Pulleine, Major White, Captains Degacher, Warden, Mostyn, and Younghusband; Lieutenants Hobson, Caveye, Atkinson, Davey, Anstie, Dyson, Porteous, Melville, Coghill; and Quartermaster Pullen of the 1st battalion 24th Regiment; and Lieutenants Pope, Austin, Dyer, Griffith, and Quartermaster Bloomfield, together with Surgeon Major Shepheard, of the 2nd battalion 24th Regiment.
This force, under the command of Colonel Glyn, and accompanied by Lord Chelmsford himself, left Isandhlwana at dawn on the 22nd, a despatch having first been sent to Lieut.-Colonel Durnford, R.E., who was in command of some five hundred friendly Natal Zulus, about half of whom were mounted and armed with breech-loaders, to move up from Rorke's Drift and strengthen the camp, which was now in charge of Lieut.-Colonel Pulleine of the 1st battalion 24th regiment.
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