The sortie had accomplished its objective–effectively destroying the impetus of the uMbonambi–but British casualties grew as troops of the 90th were caught in a deadly cross-fire from the cattle kraal and a small knoll to the southwest of the wagon laager, which the camp had used as a rubbish dump and was now occupied by the umCijo ibutho. Twenty-two-year-old Colour Sgt. Thomas McAllen, a promising young soldier, had already been shot once earlier in the engagement, but when he heard that his company was in the sortie, he hurriedly had his wound dressed and headed out to join his comrades–only to be shot in the head and killed. Wood could not allow his men to take such punishment and ordered them to retreat to the safety of the laager.

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At 4:30 p.m., the Zulu right horn, the inGobamakhosi, charged forward from their cover toward the rear face of the redoubt, hoping to belay any criticism of their earlier impetuousness. On they came, only to be met by rifle and artillery fire, which cut channels into the ranks. Disheartened, the inGobamakhosi withdrew, while the redoubt’s defenders cheered their success.

Raaff then led a sally out of the wagon laager and engaged the Zulu riflemen ensconced in the rubbish heaps. Almost simultaneously, Captain Joseph Henry Laye’s men charged down from the redoubt and opened a deadly fire on the warriors in the cattle kraal. On the right, Captain John Miller Elgee Waddy led his company of the 1/13 out of the wagon laager, while two cannons were manhandled down to provide support for his troops. Wood was regaining the upper hand–Waddy’s men lined the crest that Hackett had occupied, and now it was their turn to drive back the Zulus. All around the camp the Zulus slowly withdrew. A few warriors stubbornly held their position in the cattle kraal, only to be dispatched by the bayonets of Laye’s men.

Wood then dealt his coup de grâce, unleashing Buller and his mounted force to pursue the fleeing Zulus. Captain Henry Cecil Dudgeon D’Arcy of the Frontier Light Horse, his mind still fresh with the horrors of Hlobane, exhorted, No quarter boys, and remember yesterday! The Natal Native Horse, which had been outside the fortifications harassing the Zulu flanks, rejoined the fold, eager to avenge the losses suffered at Isandlwana and Hlobane. Some Zulus turned and offered resistance, while others, exhausted, merely accepted their fate. Other Zulus killed themselves rather than suffer the indignity of falling into the hands of the British.

Commandant Friedrich Schermbrucker of the Kaffrarian Rifles recounted: I took the extreme right, Colonel Buller led the center and Colonel Russell with the mounted infantry took the left. For seven miles I chased two columns of the enemy. They fairly ran like bucks, but I was after them like the whirlwind and shooting incessantly into the thick column, which could not have been less than 5,000 strong. They were exhausted, and shooting them down would have taken too much time; so we took the assegais from the dead men, and rushed among the living ones, stabbing them right and left with fearful revenge for the misfortunes of the 28th inst. No quarter was given.

It was later calculated that Schermbrucker’s men had killed at least 300 Zulus. Buller’s party had accounted for 500 warriors, while Russell’s mounted infantry and the Natal Native Horse had killed at least 200 Zulus. It was not this slaughter that incensed the anti-war lobby in Britain, but a letter written by Private John Snook of the 1/13 on April 3 to a friend, which was subsequently published in The North Devon Herald on May 29, 1879. Snook wrote, On March 30th, about eight miles from camp, we found about 500 wounded, most of them mortally, and begging us for mercy’s sake not to kill them; but they got no chance after what they had done to our comrades at Isandlwana.

That comment outraged the Aborigines’ Protection Society at its Exeter Hall headquarters, and the organization formally expressed their disgust to the War Office. When Wood was compelled to issue a statement refuting Snook’s allegation, he said that all of his infantrymen had been employed on March 30 in the burial of Zulu bodies, of which there were no less than 785 in the immediate vicinity of the camp.

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