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It was known as 'Bill Harris' by Tommies in WW1.

Nobody seems to have noticed my error in my original post. Charles’ S African service actually ended 3 months after the Boer War ended so he would have complied with my perceived requirement at the time for a volunteer not to spend more than a year in a theatre of war.

I have also come across an article in The Scotsman of June 1905 referring to a report by the Army Medical Board on the state of health of home serving troops in 1903. At one point it says some hospital admissions were due to previous service abroad quoting 855 cases of malaria and 69 cases of bilharzia haematobia – the latter it says were all from men who had served in South Africa.