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JOHANNESBURG - When David Rattray told a story, people listened. Whether around the roaring log fire of his South African lodge or out on a rocky outcrop in the majestic KwaZulu-Natal landscape, the historian was famous for keeping his audience spellbound.
Dubbed the "white Zulu" after the tribespeople
he championed, hero of reconciliation in a post-apartheid South Africa, friend of royalty and acclaimed author, Rattray was an impassioned expert in the history of his country and almost single-handedly preserved accounts of heroism on both sides of the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879.
On Saturday, in his beloved Fugitives' Drift Lodge he built with his wife Nicky, the 48-year-old father-of-three was murdered, shot three times by six intruders who fled empty-handed. Police said the motive for the attack was unclear.
Yesterday South Africans joined in a nationwide mourning. According to his wife, Rattray had pushed her out of the gunman's way before he was hit. The couple's three sons were at school and were yesterday on their way home to be with their mother.
Among Rattray's fans was the Prince of Wales, who was said to have been reduced to tears by Rattray's battlefield stories when he visited his lodge near the battlefield of Rorke's Drift with Prince Harry after Princess Diana's death in 1997.
The murder has thrown fuel on the already burning controversy in South Africa over raging crime rates, among the world's highest: there were 18,528 murders in South Africa last year alone, more than 50 a day.
President Thabo Mbeki is playing down the crime crisis as the country prepares to host the 2010 football World Cup, but government officials were outspoken in denouncing Rattray's killing.
Sibusiso Ndebele, Premier of KwaZulu-Natal province, said: "David Rattray was a huge asset to our country who helped develop cultural tourism to promote economic development and alleviate poverty. His murder will fill all peace-loving South Africans with disgust."
Ndebele said the South African Government would "see to it that those responsible for this vile murder are brought to justice".
Rattray was the pre-eminent historian of South Africa's Zulu kingdom. Fluent in the language, he had talked to hundreds of people and gathered the oral histories that chronicled the stunning 1879 military victory against the British Army at Isandlwana, immortalised in the film Zulu starring Michael Caine and Stanley Baker.
He is credited as the first to write the history from the Zulu point of view and to help restore the proud reputation of Zulus, South Africa's largest ethnic group.
Rattray developed a thriving tourism business at the battle sites of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift. He described the violence between the British and the Zulus as a senseless tragedy and worked through tourism to help communities. Rattray told "not only the history of his beloved South Africa but also about the miracle that he saw us living through today", said Nicky.
"This famous son of South Africa now joins the unacceptable list of citizens who have lost their lives to the senseless banditry that is engulfing this country."
Of his battle tales Rattray once said: "They excite within us emotions which many of us in this age try to suppress".
Speaking last week on radio, Rattray said: "Our history is inspiring and it is alive. Nothing is more exciting than what we are accomplishing in South Africa today."
Rattray's War
* On the plains of Isandlwana, Britain suffered the worst of its colonial defeats with the slaughter of 1200 men in one afternoon on January 22, 1879.
* At nearby Rorke's Drift soldiers fought one of the British Army's bravest battles when 120 troops held firm against 4000 Zulu warriors.
* Ordered to defend their supply base and its tiny hospital, the vastly outnumbered soldiers resisted wave after wave of warriors. By dawn the regiment's rifle barrels glowed red hot.
* 11 Victoria Crosses were won - the most awarded for a single battle.
* In 1999 a monument to the war - immortalised in the 1964 film Zulu starring Michael Caine - was put up. David Rattray moved soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Wales' 1st Battalion and Zulu soldiers from the 121 South African Infantry Battalion to tears as he told the story.
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