After, on the way out, there were more flashes. This time the Spice Girls weren’t there to deflect attention. It was just Pa and me.
I reached for him, grabbed his hand—hung on.
I recall, bright as the flashes: Loving him.
Needing him.
11.
T P and I went to a beautiful lodge on a snaky river.
KwaZulu-Natal. I knew about this place, where Redcoats and Zulu warriors clashed in the summer of 1879. I’d heard all the stories, legends, and I’d seen the movie Zulu countless times. But now I was going to become a bona fide expert, Pa said. He’d arranged for us to sit on camp chairs before a log fire and listen to a world-famous historian, David Rattray, re-create the battle.
It might’ve been the first lecture to which I ever really paid attention.
The men who fought on this ground, Mr. Rattray said, were heroes. On both sides—heroes. The Zulus were ferocious, utter wizards with a short spear known as the iklwa, which was named for the sucking sound it made when pulled from a victim’s chest. And yet a mere 150 British soldiers on hand managed to hold off four thousand Zulus, and that improbable stand, called Rorke’s Drift, instantly became part of British mythology. Eleven soldiers were awarded the Victoria Cross, the greatest number ever won in one battle by a single regiment. Another two soldiers, who held off the Zulus one day before Rorke’s Drift, became the first to win the Victoria Cross posthumously.
Posthumously, Pa?
Er, yes.
What does it mean?
After they, you know.
What?
Died, darling boy.
Though a source of pride for many Britons, Rorke’s Drift was the outgrowth of imperialism, colonialism, nationalism—in short, theft. Great Britain was
