The Image:

This is detail of an image published in the Illustrated London News, on 7 March, 1879,

The Words:

Soldiers were charging with their bayonets held before them skewering the nearest Zulu through the throat or chest. But, taking up the bodies of their dead comrades, the Zulu warriors were hurling them forward upon the points of British bayonets, bearing their victims down and then deliberately stabbing their way through the dwindling ranks. Tasting excess and consumed with the crazed exhilaration of violent conflict, the Zulus were slashing, smashing, and lunging upward with their stomach-ripping assegais and the harassment of battle was rising as the carnage spread thicker and denser where the slaughter was achieving its most savage concentration. Without doubt, the redcoats were being ‘eaten up’. The sky, the sun, the stars, the very world had ceased to be.

Extract from The Zulu Kings: At Bay by Penny Howcroft.  Posted by Captain Kirk