At Rorke’s Drift, where 150 British and colonial troops used their Martini-Henry rifles to hold off thousands of Zulus, some of the bullet wounds were very curious.
One man’s head was split open, exactly as if done with an axe. Another had been hit just between the eyes, the bullet carrying away the whole of the back of his head, leaving his face perfect, as though it were a mask, only disfigured by the small hole made by the bullet passing through. One of the wretches we found, one hand grasping a bench that had been dragged from the hospital, and sustained thus in the position we found him in, while in the other hand he still clutched the knife with which he had mutilated one of our poor fellows, over whom he was still leaning.
I used to work on a farm in Australia that had a couple of Martini-Henrys on the wall. For farm tasks I stuck to the .223, but maybe this would have been a little more interesting to use.