It was a hot day, it always was. My superior officer, Grand Scheme, had told us we were to move to Rorke's Drift to support the upcoming conflict against the Zulu. Only 160 of us could be located on the site. Myself, being the second in command, was chosen as the commanding officer. I was allowed to chose those who came with me to Rorke's Drift.
I chose my friends Gunpowder, Pike and Shot, and many others recommended for the position. Some names include, Solid Line, Heavy Flank and Great Coat. But their names don't matter, and do at the same time. Ponies will talk about the battle at large, but wont talk about the individual ponies sacrifice.
It is at noon we began to march to Rorke's Drift. We marched in three columns, I was at the front centre of the column as I was in command. Barking orders at the ponies behind me. It was 640 Miles, so we had a long way to go. If we were able to march at 10 miles a day we could reach Rorke's Drift in 64 Days. That was the plan, and luckily things almost went perfectly to plan.
By day 20 we were ahead of plan by 15 miles. The only problem was the sweltering heat. It seemed to get hotter and hotter, if that even was possible. We were running out of water more often it seemed to evaporate in front of our eyes. We were lucky that we were near a settlement with a big enough water reserve to supply our large company. The detour to this settlement however put us behind by 3 days so we had to march double time to catch up with our schedule.
It's dark,I don't know the time but I have to wake them up early if we are to make it to Rorke's Drift on time. This detour has gone on long enough, and if we stay for too long we will never leave. I can hear the complaints of the Rankers getting up from their tents on the outskirts of the settlement.
The settlement looks nice. A great place to stay and settle dow-. No no we've got to keep going, no matter how nice the ponies are her, we've gotta fight for our great empire, gotta show these savages the might of the British armed forces.
"Everypony up! Come on we're behind schedule." I shouted waking the rest up. Ponies complaining but at least they're still complying.
"Sir please it's too early," I hear from one of my Soldiers.
"I know, but as I said we're behind schedule, and I'd rather not disappoint the higher ups. Or would you like to tell them why we're not on time?" I asked. No-one responded, good I thought, we can get back on schedule.
We set off 30 minutes later to the ire of my company. I reasoned "When we get to Rorke's Drift you can all have a day off resting," no more complaints from my company tell me I had convinced them to continue their job.
There weren't any more problems on our march to Rorke's Drift, other than the heat. And when we entered the valley what we saw dumbfounded us. I just couldn't believe it, we had to get closer to be sure, but at the same time I think we all could understand what our situation was.