There were heart burnings among the Regulars that the colonial troops should have gone in front of them, so their martial jealousy was allayed three nights later by the same task being given to them.  Four companies of the 2nd Rifle Brigade were the troops chosen, with a few sappers and gunners, the whole under the command of Colonel Metcalfe of the same battalion.  A single gun, the 4.7 howitzer upon Surprise Hill, was the objective.  Again there was the stealthy advance through the darkness, again the support was left at the bottom of the hill, again the two companies carefully ascended, again there was the challenge, the rush, the flight, and the gun was in the hands of the stormers.

Here and only here the story varies.  For some reason the fuse used for the guncotton was defective, and half an hour elapsed before the explosion destroyed the howitzer.  When it came it came very thoroughly, but it was a weary time in coming.  Then our men descended the hill, but the Boers were already crowding in upon them from either side.  The English cries of the soldiers were answered in English by the Boers, and slouch hat or helmet dimly seen in the mirk was the only badge of friend or foe.  A singular letter is extant from young Reitz (the son of the Transvaal secretary), who was present.  According to his account there were but eight Boers present, but assertion or contradiction equally valueless in the darkness of such a night, and there are some obvious discrepancies in his statement.  ‘We fired among them,’ says Reitz.  ’They stopped and all cried out “Rifle Brigade.”  Then one of them said “Charge!” One officer, Captain Paley, advanced, though he had two bullet wounds already.  Joubert gave him another shot and he fell on the top of us.  Four Englishmen got hold of Jan Luttig and struck him on the head with their rifles and stabbed him in the stomach with a bayonet.  He seized two of them by the throat and shouted “Help, boys!” His two nearest comrades shot two of them, and the other two bolted.  Then the English came up in numbers, about eight hundred, along the footpath’ (there were two hundred on the hill, but the exaggeration is pardonable in the darkness), ’and we lay as quiet as mice along the bank.  Farther on the English killed three of our men with bayonets and wounded two.  In the morning we found Captain Paley and twenty-two of them killed and wounded.’  It seems evident that Reitz means that his own little party were eight men, and not that that represented the force which intercepted the retiring riflemen.  Within his own knowledge five of his countrymen were killed in the scuffle, so the total loss was probably considerable.  Our own casualties were eleven dead, forty-three wounded, and six prisoners, but the price was not excessive for the howitzer and for the morale which arises from such exploits.  Had it not been for that unfortunate fuse, the second success might have been as bloodless as the first.  ’I am sorry,’ said a sympathetic correspondent to the stricken Paley.  ‘But we got the gun,’ Paley whispered, and he spoke for the Brigade.