The above message is undoubtedly that mentioned by Captain Gardner as having been despatched from the camp at or soon after twelve o’clock. (P. P. [C. 2260] p. 81.) And there still remains the fact that, not only as regards Colonel Harness, does there appear to be an unaccountable omission in the “statement”[146] alluded to, but also we find mention of only _one_ message from the camp; whereas other messages are _known_ to have been received, and to have been in the possession of the Assistant Military Secretary. Here also we must allude to Sir Bartle Frere’s despatches of January 27th, and February 3rd and 12th. In the first he says: “In disregard of Lord Chelmsford’s instructions, the troops left to protect the camp were taken away from the defensive position they were in at the camp, with the shelter which the waggons, parked, would have afforded....” We know that the troops did the best they could, left as they were by their general in an open camp—we know they had no “defensive position”—and we know that the waggons were _not_ “parked,” but drawn up in rear of their own camps. Sir Bartle says, February 3rd: “It is only justice to the General to note that his orders were clearly not obeyed on that terrible day at Isandhlwana camp.” And on February 12th, he says: “It is impossible to shut one’s eyes to the fact that it was, in all human probability, mainly due to disregard of the General’s orders that so great a disaster occurred” (a little qualifying his sweeping assertion of February 3rd). But yet again Sir Bartle returns to the charge, and says, June 30th: “It is difficult to over-estimate the effect of such a disaster as that at Isandhlwana on both armies, but it was clearly due to breach of the General’s order, and to disregard of well-known maxims of military science.”—(P. P. [C. 2454] p. 138). On what grounds Sir Bartle Frere bases those assertions we know not—no known orders were disobeyed—and, in spite of the special pleading in these despatches, we must come to the conclusion that Sir Bartle Frere’s remarks were penned in utter ignorance of facts, and that the accusations concerning “disregard of well-known maxims of military science” should have been applied, _not_ to the soldiers who fell at Isandhlwana, but to those who placed them in that fatal position. CHAPTER XIV. RORKE’S DRIFT—HELPMAKAAR—COURT OF INQUIRY, ETC.