The Governor has received the following cablegram from Capetown, dated 5th January: — "Please inform Mrs. Hills, St. David-street, Dunedin, that her son, John William Hills, Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, died of enteric fever at Heilbron on 1st January." -Evening Post, 7/1/1902.
DEATHS.
HILLS. — On the 1st January, 1902 (on his twenty-fifth birthday), at Heilbron, South Africa, of enteric fever, Corporal James W. Hills, of 2nd Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, son of Henry M. and Isabella Hills, of St. David street, Dunedin. -Otago Daily Times, 10/1/1902.
Kitcheners Fighting Scouts was a highly mobile force of men who knew the country or had the skills to provide a rapid mounted response to a fast-moving enemy. The cause of James' death, enteric or typhoid fever, was the bane of armies in the field for centuries, caused by bad sanitation producing contaminated drinking water.
In James' Army record can be found a letter from his mother which is notable both for its dignified restraint and the underlying yearning of a mother to know how her son lived and died while away from the family home.
May 2nd, 1902
To Captain Joyce, Defence Department, Wellington
Dear sir,
Dr O'Neill, just returned from the Cape, informs me that several troopers of the irregular forces came over to Wellington with him. If by any chance there are some troopers belonging to Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, I should like to know their addresses.
My son, Corporal 3218 James W Hills, died recently in South Africa. He belonged to K Squadron, Kitcheners F. Scouts, and Dr O'Neill thinks that perhaps some of the men who came with him may have known my son. You can judge perhaps by his number, and if there should be such an one, you will be conferring a great favour on me by providing his present address.
Thanking you in anticipation,
I am, yours sincerely,
Isabella Hills.
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