38. Lt Col S.P.E. Trichardt and Gen Daniel Erasmus

After the Gun Hill attack, surprisingly, the Boers did not step up their watchfulness nor increase the number of men guarding their gun positions. Only on 10th December did Lieutenant Colonel S.P.E. Trichardt address a letter to General Daniel Erasmus remonstrating about the weak force guarding the howitzer on Vaalkop (Surprise Hill). He said that while there were 30 men in the guard detail, only 2 of them remained on guard while the rest went to sleep to the rear of the emplacement. Trichardt required Erasmus to urgently increase the guard to 50 so that at least 10 of these should remain awake and watchful. An extra picquet had been placed at the foot of Vaalkop under the command of Corporal Tossel, formerly a detective in the Z.A.R.P., but this was the only extra measure put in place by General Erasmus. It was too late – Metcalfe and his men were shortly to be on their way to attack the hill.

39. Corporal Frederick de Witt Tossel

Corporal Frederick de Witt Tossel was an interesting character. He arrived in Cape Town from Scotland in 1880 when he was 15 years of age. His real name was Llewellyn May. Tall and well-built, he became a security guard, at first in Cape Town docks and later in Kimberley. He taught himself Dutch and acquired a smattering of a number of the African languages. Wanting to advance his career, he went to Pretoria and quickly realized that his name might be a bar to joining the Z.A.R.P. He adopted the somewhat unusual name of Frederick de Witt Tossel and advanced
rapidly to the rank of Lieutenant and command of the Johannesburg detective department.