They then moved some 300 yards back down the mountain in an attempt to find some open soil, but digging the grave in the hard ground was a laborious task. The British had reached a depth of only four feet when they were alarmed to see a party of 300 Zulus coming to attack. The bodies were quickly lowered into the grave, but to Wood’s consternation the cavity was not long enough. Despite the fact that they were under fire again, he had the bodies removed and the grave lengthened. When the burial was completed to his satisfaction, he read the burial service from the prayer book.

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His party was then assisted by Colonel Redvers Buller’s cavalrymen, who had seen Wood’s predicament and directed their fire at the Zulus, checking their approach. With scores of Buller’s men cut off and killed on Hlobane, Wood withdrew his force from the mountain and retired to Khambula Hill to await the real onslaught. On March 29, 1879, some 23,000 warriors assembled for an attack.

Wood called in the troops that had been sent out of the laager to cut wood. He then made sure his men had a hasty dinner, secure in the knowledge that his troops could be in position in the laager within 70 seconds of the ‘alert’ signal.

At 1:30 p.m., Buller led his horsemen out and harried the Zulu right horn (one of two flanking forces in the standard Zulu attack formation), goading the enemy into a premature attack. His action is considered a partial cause of their eventual failure to overrun the camp. Had the three Zulu sections made a concerted attack, the result might well have been different.

During the action, Wood shot three leaders of the iNgobamakhosi Zulu Regiment with five rounds, then coolly advised the soldier from whom he had borrowed the rifle that the sights were set some 60 yards high. The Zulus pressed home their attack and at one stage held covered ground in a small ravine near the British laager, from which point their rifle fire was causing serious casualties among Wood’s command. A bayonet charge led by Major Robert Hackett and Lieutenant Arthur Bright cleared out the Zulus, but both British officers were fatally wounded in the action.

For four hours Zulus armed with assegais and cowhide shields mounted attack after attack against murderous fire from the British laager. At 5:30 p.m., with the vigor of the Zulu attacks lessening, two further bayonet charges (one led by Wood) started a Zulu withdrawal. At that point Wood released his cavalry, and from then until dark, Buller and his horsemen pursued and killed the natives. Some 800 Zulus died within 300 yards of the laager.

Khambula Hill was perhaps the highlight of Wood’s fighting career, a textbook demonstration of the correct way to laager and fight in an enemy territory. At night in Africa, incidentally, Wood used to make the rounds of the outposts alone. Walking through high grass, he would get soaking wet, and because the men had to sleep in their clothes, he tried to spare his subordinate officers the discomfort — and the health hazard — that attended this duty. However, he was often secretly followed by his own men. The officers were worried that Wood, who was losing his hearing, might not hear a challenge from one of their own sentries and might be shot.

In the final invasion of Zululand, Wood had command again of No. 4 Column, now named the Flying Column. He led the advance on the Zulu royal kraal at Ulundi and held the right side of the square in Lord Chelmsford’s eventual victory there. The volley fire of the British square was augmented by artillery pieces and Gatling guns — there could be only one outcome. The initial action lasted approximately 30 minutes before the British cavalry was let loose to pursue and rout.

Chelmsford wrote of Wood that ‘although suffering at times severely in bodily heath [he] has never spared himself but has laboured incessantly night and day to overcome the innumerable difficulties.’

Wood now returned to England, where he was feted as a hero and assigned to further administrative duties. He briefly returned to Africa in 1880 in charge of a visit being made by Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Eugènie, who desired to see the place where her son the Prince Imperial Louis (Napoleon III was his father) had fallen during the Zulu War.

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