Rorke's Drift, 22nd to the 23rd January 1879
Major Reginald Reginald Fossy and Barbara Thomas-Moore
22nd January 1879
The most well known drift through the Buffalo River in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa is Rorke's Drift. It was named after James Rorke, a ferryman who drowned in its waters and whose remains lie buried at the foot of a nearby hillside.
On January 22nd 1879 it became immortalised in history!
Following the Constitution Act of 1867 for the federation of Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer Republics in South Africa. In 1874, Sir Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to affect such plans. Among the obstacles were the armed independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand.
After many years of posturing from all sides, tensions finally broke and on the 22nd January 1879, the day after expiration of the final British ultimatum to the Zulu Nation, a twenty-two thousand strong Zulu force massacred 1,300 British Army soldiers at the Battle of Isandlwana. With a strong thirst for blood now bubbling inside them, a large contingent of the Zulu Warrior force broke away and headed for Rorke’s Drift, twenty miles away, where just one hundred and fifty British soldiers manned a Mission Station.
One of those soldiers was a distinguished young officer, Major Reginald Reginald Fossy. Despite his relatively tender age of twenty-eight, Fossy was a career soldier who already had ten years of active service throughout the Empire tucked under his belt. It has been said that the role played by Michael Caine in the movie Zulu was based upon despatch narratives of Major Reginald Reginald.
Although his Officer duties at the station kept him busy for most of his waking hours, he found time to become extremely fond of a young Welsh girl called Barbara Thomas-Moore. A very pretty filly in her early-twenties, who’s role at the station was to provide, what Queen Victoria’s Government called, ‘Imperialistic Services’. These consisted mainly of assisting the Padre, and overseeing the station’s domestic aspects such as the cooking and cleaning facilities.
Barbara was very proud of the part she played in the overall effort, and was a popular member of the Company. The soldiers respected her and kept their distance, admiring her wholesome features and firm, tight little from afar.
All except Major Reginald Reginald Fossy, that was.
Major Fossy and young Barbara had hit it off from the start. Brief conversations around the fire at night had enabled them to discover their mutual heritage, both of their ancestors having family history across the ocean in Boston USA. In fact, Reginald Reginald knew that his tongue twister of a name had hailed from his family ‘US Side’.
Those fleeting moments by the blazing flames, quickly turned into stolen nights in Fossy’s tent, where Miss Moore’s tight little was exposed first hand to his inquisitive eyes and intrusive touch, enabling the Major to see just how tight and firm it was for himself. And though not a loose and immoral girl, unlike certain of her ancestors, Barbara delighted in showing herself off to the handsome Officer.
The station knew of their relationship, it was hard to hide anything in such a close-knit environment, but a blind eye was turned by one and all. Major Fossy was popular among his men and they actually felt comforted when they saw the two lovers together on their morning walk around the Mission, and all played along with their innocuous game of appearing innocent.
It was on such a morning walk, during the sunny start to January 22nd 1879, that their lives would be hit by a cowpat from the devil’s own herd!
“Morning Mister Bourne,” Barbara said in her saccharine sweet tones, as they passed the milking station.
“Good morning Miss Moore,” the Lieutenant replied whilst not breaking his udder movements for one second, even when his eyes strayed to her ample bosom which was still swollen under the thin cotton of her dress from her early morning work-out with the Major.
“Why are you doing the milking today Lieutenant Bourne, when there is a perfectly fit and able Private by your side?”
“Oh Sir,” The Private replied, “I spilled some of the milk earlier and the Lieutenant said I had the wit and intellect of a donkey.”
The Major laughed out loud, “Oh, what an absurd suggestion Private Williams … unless, of course it was a particularly stupid donkey.”
Barbara punched his arm lightly in mock admonition, as all four members of this pleasing vignette continued about their business.
It was in this vein that the rest of the day continued, until, around 3:30pm, when a dusty group of around a hundred riders from the Natal Native Horse rode frantically into the Mission. They had retreated in good order from Isandlwana, but it was upon their arrival that the small station force realised what a dire situation they were in!
Having organised the tethering of the newly arrived mounts and overseen the riders being fed and watered, Major Reginald Reginald found himself once more alone in his tent with Barbara.
“Oh Reginald,” she quietly fussed, “will we be alright?”
Fossy nodded and considered his response for a moment.
“Major Spalding …” who was the overall Officer in Charge, “… is certain that we have enough men and ammunition to fend of these tribesmen.”
“But what if we haven’t,” Barbara responded, her intonation now infused with more than a little concern. “What if they see me and take me …”
If the Major had one slight unvoiced gripe with his sweetheart, it was that with Barbara it was always about ‘me-me-me’.
“… and they strip me, exposing my tight little, and force me to my knees before their own mighty nakedness and then I’m forced to open wide my mouth and take them all one after the other, and …”
Barbara was breathless, and the thin fabric of her dress now showed just how pointedly erect her nipples had become.
“I said that we will be fine Barbara, and I sincerely believe that.”
There was a pause before Major Reginald Reginald Fossy delivered perhaps his most unhelpful line ever …
“And anyway, my darling, I am certain that if the worst comes to the worst, they won’t make you swallow …”
“Reginald!” Barbara exclaimed in outrage, before adding a second, “Reginald …” which diluted the whole effect of her indignance.
Back outside the defences were being prepared for what the mission now knew to be an imminent attack from a Zulu force fifty times the size of their own small Company of men. The Major had forced Barbara to remain inside his tent for her own safety, as he patrolled the sandbagged walls.
“Everything in order Private Hennessy?”
“Yes Sir.”
Then Fossy heard the Private positioned next to Hennessy, his bayonetted rifle also pointed out towards the bluffs ahead, as he laughed nervously and said, “I hear, with my little ear... something beginning with "Z".”
“Don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of this game,” Hennessy piped up. “It should be, I spy with …”
“Nope,” the man repeated, “I hear with my little ear something beginning with “Z”.”
“What?” Asked Major Fossy.
“Zulu’s Sir, fucking Zulu’s, thousands of them. Just listen!”
The Major stopped and listened, and sure enough the banging of spears on shields rose up louder and louder until every inch of the raised horizon was lined with painted Warriors.
“There’s a huge cloud covering the sky,” shouted one Private nervously, clearly now scared out of his wits.
“That, soldier, is the massing of the Zulu nation. Prepare to fight for your life.” Fossy responded stoically.
For the next eleven hours the tribesmen came in wave after wave of savage attacks, vicious war paint highlighting their menace. They fell in piles of death under the hail of bullets fired from the line of Martini-Henry rifles held firm by the British soldiers. But the pile of bodies only served as an easier platform to scale the small Mission walls for the many thousands of Warriors that still attacked.
By night fall, the station was shrouded in an eery silence. Redcoats and Zulu Warriors had fallen side by side. The Mission force had lost surprisingly few men and still held firm. However, they knew that come the dawn the attacks would be renewed with an ever-increasing intensity.
Once again Barbara Thomas-Moore and Major Reginald Reginald Fossy were alone in his tent. He had stripped naked to wash the blood and grime from the day just gone from his person, and, after enjoying one another’s bodies, it was in that state that he remained to address his sweetheart.
“You must stay here Barbara, safe inside the tent.”
“Nghhhhcuuksakefcccckggggggnghhhh” Barbara responded.
“Ooops, silly me,” Fossy reprimanded himself whilst removing the wooden bit gag from his lover’s mouth and untying her wrists. He had a penchant for bondage, and Barbara was gradually discovering what a delight submitting to his assertion was. However, it was at a time like this that the Major wished he had taken a billet in the main building, a room with four hard walls and a door that locked. But he liked his privacy and being out in the field tent allowed he and his lover to engage in their extra-curricular activities.
And so, it was naked in one another’s arms, Barbara’s tight little glowing red from a spanking, that they fell asleep that night of the 22nd.
6:30am Morning of 23rd January 1879
“Here they come again,” was the cry from the walls that began the day on the 23rd January. And, sure enough, Major Fossy could see the horizon fill once more with rows of Warriors. He knew that the Mission’s ammunition was running low, and that army issue bayonets were no match in numbers for the spears wielded by their enemy.
Today was the day he would die. But what about Barbara? She had no time to escape, nor anywhere to go. Fleetingly he envisioned swollen Zulu erections piercing the rose-like split of his sweetheart’s tight little, and he knew then what he had to do.
As the Major made his way back to the tent where Barbara was huddled, his heart was breaking. But to humanely end the life of his darling girl would be better than letting her into the terrible clutches of these savage Warriors, though right at that moment such a thought was very cold comfort.
But when he pulled back the tent flap, Barbara was nowhere to be seen!
He looked around the relatively small canvas dwelling with an ever growing sense of despondency. But his agitated search was cut short by a further shout of “All men to the walls”.
He rushed outside to see the Warriors high above them on the ridge of the bluff banging their spears on their shields.
“Why don’t they just attack and get it over with?” Private Hennessy said, and the Major had to admit that prolonging the inevitable was unbearable.
“They will Private, they will,” Fossy responded. But the truth was that they were not coming, they were standing still and banging louder and now they cheered.
Major Fossy’s addled mind slipped back to his darling girl. Where was Barbara, had she already been taken …?
Then his question was answered as a horse galloped out from the station and on it sat Barbara Thomas-Moore, alone and without a stitch of clothing on! And what’s more she rode with her wrists shackled before her body in the metal and leather prison cuffs that Fossy carried with him (for social and pleasure usage only), and about her neck was a metal collar and short chain that Barbara must have purloined from the Mission jail cells!
What was she trying to do?
“Barbara!” He shouted in blind panic, but his calls went unheeded. Every last man in that small Mission believed that he was about to witness an appallingly vicious and savage assault on their girl, their Barbara!
Major Reginald Reginald Fossy felt sick.
But then the loud cheering of the Warriors that had been prompted by the sight of a naked white girl riding towards them, turned to gasps and cries and then slowly but very surely, as Barbara rode near to their lines, the Warriors turned and headed back over the bluffs leaving only echoes of their loud chanting behind …
The Mission at Rorke’s Drift had been saved and it was all down to a slight, pretty girl called Barbara Thomas-Moore.
As the galloping horse brought its naked rider back into the safer boundaries of the Mission, Major Fossy all but dragged her from the mount and into his arms.
“What on earth …”
But Barbara was calm, her heart beat seeming relaxed as she smiled back at him.
“When my daily duties are done,” she began to tell the tale as a crowd of soldiers gathered around her slender naked frame, “I spend time reading and studying. I knew that the Zulu tribe dreads the ‘tokoloshe’ like nothing else.”
Every single man in attendance looked confused, transfixed but confused, and not one of them stared openly at her bound nudity, so spellbound were they.
“The tokoloshe …” Barbara continued, is a demon feared by all Zulus. It can come in the form of a slender naked sprite chained like a slave and brings with it disease and pestilence …”
The penny began to drop.
“So,” interjected Major Fossy, “They thought you, all slender, sprite-like, naked and chained, was a demon, a tokoloshe bringing the woe of the world to them?”
Barbara just laughed and nodded. “Right first time Major! Now will someone please get me out of these chains?”
But it was Fossy’s turn to grin as he took his brave, heroic sweetheart by the arm and led her back to his tent. It was clear from the glint in his eye that he had no intention of releasing his darling girl from the confines of her self-imposed bondage anytime soon!
Epilogue
The official story of Rorke’s Drift, as depicted in the movie “Zulu”, is that on the second day the exhausted Tribesmen arrived only to pay to tribute to their fellow Warriors, the ones in Redcoats that had held out so bravely, and against all the odds, the day before. But the truth was that the Zulus had every intention of attacking the Mission again until the timely intervention of a naked and nubile Miss Barbara Thomas-Moore.
There was a reported eleven Victoria Crosses awarded following the battle of Rorke’s Drift, indeed Major Reginald Reginald Fossy picked up one of those himself. But it was the twelfth unreported award, the one that now sits in the Moore Family Archives, wherever they might be, that truly saved the British Army on that fateful day!
FIN
