Recently, my research brought me to South Africa and, in particular, to the defence of the Mission Station at Rorke’s Drift in Natal Province in 1879. And to the story of Dick the dog!
For those of you who don’t know the background, in January,1879, the British mounted a major invasion of the lands of the Zulu Empire with a view to opening up the area for colonisation. On 22 January, a portion of this invasion force was disasterously defeated at the Battle of Isandlwana; the worst reverse on record for a modern European army at the hands of an indigenous enemy armed only with traditional weapons. The Regular troops forming the core of the British force, 6 Companies of the 1st Battalion and a single Company of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot (2nd Warwickshire), were wiped out.
The British force had crossed the Buffalo River, forming the border between Natal and Zululand, on 11 January. The small Mission Station of Rorke’s Drift lay on this crossing point and it was taken over by the British as a supply depot and hospital. Its defence was entrusted to the men of B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot (2nd Warwickshire) who were detached from the main force for the purpose. This small garrison received word of the catastrophic defeat at Isandlwana from mounted survivors streaming back into Natal and so had time to carefully erect defences that allowed their modern rifles to be used to the best effect. As a result, when the Station came under attack from a portion of the Zulu army over 22-23 January, they were able to hold it off.
Eleven of the defenders of Rorke’s Drift were awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) for their service; the most awarded for any single action in the medal’s history. One of these was Surgeon James Henry Reynolds of the Army Medical Department. Reynolds had been appointed to run the hospital at the Station and I became fascinated by a story regarding him having a fox-terrier named Dick who had, by all accounts, remained loyally by his side throughout the action. The two are even depicted together in a celebrated painting of Rorke’s Drift by Alphonse de Neuville (1880).
However, Dick’s story is a salutary reminder of how nothing should be taken at face value without proof from the official record or contemporary accounts. For a start, Dick (or sometimes ‘Jack’) was not Reynolds’ dog. He belonged to another Officer of the 24th Foot, but had been left behind at the Mission when his owner – variously Lt. Charles D'Aguilar Pope of G Company, 2nd Battalion or Lt. Edgar Oliphant Antsey of the 1st Battalion - marched on to meet their fate at Isandlwana. Secondly, Dick was not a fox terrier. De Neuville, who created his painting from the accounts of survivors of the battle, later admitted that he had only been told that Dick was a white terrier. In fact, various members of B Company later recalled that Dick had actually been a bull terrier.
Thereafter Dick’s story takes on an on-line life of its own. He had been so brave that he had been mentioned in Reynolds’ VC commendation. No he wasn’t. He had been awarded the Dickin Medal; the animal VC. The Dickin Medal wasn’t instituted until 1943. During the battle he had ranged along the Mission’s barricades, giving warning of the approach of another Zulu attack. Or attacked any Zulu’s who got a little too close to the wounded being tended by Reynolds. The confusion over the dog’s name comes from the fact that he was a jack-russell called Dick. And on and on with no sources quoted and no provenance.
Woe to the unwary!