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I've just realised that he was a lieutenant, so he wouldn't have received the Queen's chocolate box. Is that right?

Very interesting.....especially the part about them being for enlisted men only. If that was the case, then he wouldn't have officially been given one, unless they gave them to released POW's or something.
That leaves two possibilities. Either the provenance on the tin is false, or he obtained it unofficially.

Thanks for all the info Mike. The bit at the end is kind of like dessert after a good meal. I love it.

Yes, I wondered if they might have given any spare boxes to released POW officers. However many got sent out for non-coms and the rank and file, by the time the boxes arrived in South Africa some of the men would have been killed or have died, so there might have been some left over. Or maybe Martin was able to buy one; at the time they were being handed out they could be bought for £6, which is the equivalent of £185 / $245 now.

A box, sent or brought home, sold in Dundee, Scotland, for £11 in June 1900. Soldiers in South Africa were still receiving their boxes in July 1900, and others were complaining that they'd never received theirs. T. Sheard, a St John Ambulance man, returned to Blackpool in May 1900 with two boxes.