Lieutenant A. F. Henderson, Commanding the Hlubi Troop, Natal Native Horse.

"Above the House" = The B Company camp area, and Bromheads command tent.
Would it be feasible to say Bromhead had given orders/delegated and then gone to his HQ to issue more detailed orders and plan the defence? Nothing wrong with smoking while doing that, Caleb Wood mentions lighting a pipe during a lull in the fighting.
Seem to recall an American general that was rarely seen without his corn cob pipe.

Or was he being his usual diffident self? Would the defences have been built (or built in time) were it not for the rounding up of the NNC? Had Bromhead satisfied himself about that before he wandered off or a pipe. Had Chard, who we believe was the instigator of the defence plan, left instructions? Reading between the lines I think Hall is being somewhat critical of them.

Steve

I would be tempted to agree Steve.

I think Hall's comments are self-serving.

It is worth reading John Laband's comments about Hall's letter to the Natal Witness in his book "Kingdom and Colony at War" (posted by Xhosa above and also by Julian from his  "Studies in the Zulu War 1879 Vol 1". As Xhosa says, it is also re-produced in "Rorke's Drift by those who were there" by Lee Stevenson and Alan Baynham Jones. But only Laband gives an assessment.

The single document that all these books quote is in the Killie Campbell Africana Library and is in typescript - it is not an actual newspaper cutting. Laband says "It is hardly necessary to add that this document is extremely suspect". He says it has not been found as a published letter in that paper. He also says the problem is to date it (he suggests 1906) and also to identify Hall. Laband offers a delightful description of "Hall" from the chairman of the Dundee Museum - if this was the man, he was rather more than just a "contract butcher'. Laband published his book in 1990 but it is an excellent and informative piece of work, well worth searching out. I am even more impatient to see what further Julian will publish later.

Steve