One of the casualties of Surprise Hill was a black man, probably a voorloper or other Boer camp follower. Bella Craw, a young nurse in Ladysmith evidently picked up a rather garbled story from one of the wounded in hospital: “One of the officers leading one of the Companies did so with a broom-stick. Being attacked by the Boers he hit a Boer over the head breaking the stick. The Boer fired but missed. The captain chased him down the hill belabouring him with this broken broomstick until two of his men came up and bayoneted him. When they turned him over they found he was a black man.” It seems that one of the Rifles officers was using a broom stick as an alpenstock to aid in climbing the hill. The broomstick came in handy when someone charged him in the dark. Whether the black man was killed or
wounded is unknown but he could take no further part in the action on the hilltop.
wounded is unknown but he could take no further part in the action on the hilltop.
