The occupation of Zululand in January 1879 seemed a straightforward mission for Captain Lord Chelmsford. But the invasion went catastrophically wrong on the 22nd of January when a Zulu force of roughly 20,000 warriors completely overwhelmed the main British camp at Isandlwana, wiping out more than 1,300 men, including nearly 700 soldiers of the 24th Regiment of Foot. Not a single white soldier on foot escaped the disaster alive. At a small supply depot and hospital at Rorke’s Drift, on the British side of the Buffalo River, the news of the catastrophe brought only a short warning before the enemy arrived.
A reserve force of about 4,000 Zulu warriors crossed the river and attacked the station late that same afternoon. Inside the mission buildings and hastily built barricades of mealie bags and biscuit boxes stood fewer than 150 British soldiers, most of them from B Company of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot. Every fighting man in the garrison understood that virtually no reinforcements were available. They could only stand where they were.
For nearly twelve hours, throughout the entire night, the small garrison endured repeated attacks from the Zulu force. The hospital became the scene of some of the most desperate fighting, as Zulu warriors broke into the building while soldiers inside dug passageways through the walls with their bayonets, moving the patients from room to room while the roof burned above them. As dawn broke on the 23rd of January 1879, the Zulus withdrew across the Buffalo River. Over 500 of their warriors lay dead or wounded.
The British defenders lost just 17 men killed. When the fighting was over, eleven Victoria Crosses, the highest award for gallantry, were conferred upon the defenders of Rorke’s Drift. Colour Sergeant Frank Bourne, the senior non-commissioned officer at the garrison, was not among them. This omission has puzzled many people ever since, particularly those familiar with the 1964 film “Zulu,” in which Bourne was portrayed by the actor Nigel Green as a huge, steely veteran who embodied the finest qualities of a Victorian soldier.
In one memorable scene, when a young soldier asks why the tiny garrison is facing the Zulu army, Bourne replies that they are there because nobody else is. The character has become the backbone of the defence in popular memory. The real Frank Bourne was a rather different figure. He was born in Balcombe, Sussex in 1854, the fifth son among eight children of a labourer.
At the age of eighteen, in 1872, he enlisted in the 2nd Battalion of the 24th Regiment of Foot, earning six pennies a day from which over half was deducted for mess and washing bills. His enlistment Colour Sergeant placed him in A Company, which was reserved for the tallest recruits. Bourne was not tall. He stood precisely 5 feet 3 inches, a fact he later recalled with amusement, noting that the Colour Sergeant must have had a sense of humour.
Promotion came quickly. Within three years Bourne became a corporal, and within another three years a sergeant. In 1878 the battalion arrived in South Africa to take part in the campaign against the Xhosa tribes in the eastern part of the country, a conflict the British called the Kaffir War. After that campaign was concluded, the 2nd Battalion joined the 1st Battalion of the 24th in Natal to take part in Chelmsford’s planned invasion of Zululand.
Bourne, now promoted once more, became Colour Sergeant of B Company at just 24 years old, the youngest Colour Sergeant in the British Army. He earned the nickname “The Kid. ” He later admitted to feeling nervous and sensitive, and he was afraid of the responsibilities of his new position. As a popular non-commissioned officer, he also served as an unofficial secretary for the men in B Company who could not read or write, conveying messages from their families back in Britain and writing out their replies from South Africa.
When the invasion of Zululand began in January 1879, B Company was left behind at Rorke’s Drift to guard the supply depot on the British side of the Buffalo River. Bourne recalled his bitter disappointment as an infantryman at seeing his comrades march off toward battle while his company was stuck on guard duty. That disappointment did not last. The Victoria Cross is awarded for conspicuous bravery, valour, self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty.
No survivor of Rorke’s Drift mentioned Bourne’s actions in any of these categories in their citations or reports. His role as the backbone of B Company was precisely the job description of a Colour Sergeant, and fulfilling one’s duties well, however effectively, was not by itself grounds for the VC. Bourne was, however, one of four defenders to be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, at that time Britain’s second-highest military award for gallantry. Along with the medal, he received an annuity of £10 per year, the same amount given to Victoria Cross holders.
According to Bourne’s own later account, he was also offered either a Victoria Cross or a commission as an officer. He refused the commission. As the eighth son of a labourer, he recalled, the family exchequer was empty, and he could not afford to accept it. He chose the Distinguished Conduct Medal instead.
He remained in the army and in 1882, in Bombay, married Eliza Mary Fincham. The couple had two sons born in India, Percy in 1883 and Sydney in 1885, followed by three daughters in later years. Meanwhile, Bourne returned to active service, participating in the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885, when the South Wales Borderers, as the 24th had been renamed, formed part of a force of over 9,000 British and Indian troops who were carried up the Irrawaddy River to attack the Burmese capital. That operation was later immortalised by Rudyard Kipling in his poem “Mandalay.
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In 1890, eleven years after it was first offered, Bourne finally took his commission. By now a Quartermaster Sergeant, he was appointed adjutant at the School of Musketry at Hythe in Kent in 1893. He retired from the army after 35 years of service in 1907 as a Captain and moved to Beckenham in Kent, where he became assistant secretary of the National Miniature Rifle Club. The club had been established by Field Marshal Lord Roberts after the Boer War to train a reserve of skilled marksmen who could be called upon in time of need.
That time of need arrived in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War. At sixty years old, Bourne attempted to re-enlist for active service but was judged too old. His experience, however, was considered too valuable to waste. He was appointed adjutant at the School of Musketry in Dublin, promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and over the course of the four-year war, he was responsible for training something like 10,000 British and Irish marksmen.
When peace was restored, he retired for a second time, having been awarded the Order of the British Empire in addition to his Distinguished Conduct Medal. After the death of his wife in 1931, Bourne moved in with his eldest daughter, Beatrice. He lived to the age of 91, passing away on the 9th of May 1945, the day after Victory in Europe Day. He was the last surviving defender of Rorke’s Drift.
In 1936, Bourne had been interviewed for BBC Radio, recalling the events of the battle 57 years earlier. He expressed surprise that the Zulus had not simply used their assegais to slit the mealie bags and collapse the barricades. He shared his admiration for the Zulu warriors, and noted that had the enemy been better trained in the use of rifles, British casualties would have been considerably higher. Asked about the men of B Company, Bourne was generous in his praise, saying that he moved among them throughout the night and not for one moment did they flinch.
He called their courage and bravery beyond words and said they were an example from his soldiering days. Remarkably, someone at the BBC later discarded the recording of that 1936 interview, believing it held no historical value. The transcript published in the BBC magazine “The Listener” survived, preserving the voice of the man nicknamed “The Kid,” who at 24 years old and 5 feet 3 inches tall, had been the senior non-commissioned officer at the most famous defensive engagement in the history of the Victorian British Army.