At the Fireside--Volume 1 Read online

  Today the sole reminder of this bloody massacre is the town of Schweizer-Reneke. The name commemorates two of the Transvaal Boers who lost their lives in that battle, Captain C A Schweizer and Veldkomet G N Reneke. Maybe it is time we looked at this place name again and, in the interests of reconciliation, take the other side into consideration.

  As for Scotty, the fall of Goshen and Stellaland made very little difference to his life. He remained a law unto himself – nobody could prevent him from going where he wanted to and doing exactly as he pleased.

  During Sir Charles Warren’s expedition to annex southern Bechuanaland, Scotty was hired as a guide. Shortly after this Scotty purchased a farm and a store in the Kheis area on the Orange, now Senqui, River. But he did no actual farming there. This was merely a cover and a convenient hiding place for stolen stock, before they were re-branded and prepared for market. He acquired a second farm just outside of Amalia village, not very far from Schweizer-Reneke, which he also used for grazing and fattening his purloined cattle. This area is still known as Diewedraai.

  A gunrunning exploit of his, into Basutoland, is well worth the telling. In 1871 this country, at the request of King Moshweshwe, had been taken under the protection of the British Crown. But the proud Basuto people had in no sense been conquered. They were still ruled by their King and almost every man possessed a rifle. In 1880, after the Zulu War, the Cape Government, fearing this large force of armed tribesmen, tried to disarm them and many rose in rebellion. The so-called Gun War ensued and, after three years and an expenditure of £4 500 000, it reached an inconclusive end. The rebels were ‘defeated’, but allowed to retain their weapons, with a strict embargo on new importations. Inevitably, it became the ambition of every Basuto to possess an illicit firearm. They were all prepared to pay a premium and this set of circumstances was just right for our man.

  Having secured a large number of Snider rifles, muzzle-loaders and soft-nosed bullets, along with a quantity of powder, Scotty trekked across the Free State, to Ficksburg, near the Basutoland border. He hid his wagons in the bushes close to the road and boldly rode up to the frontier alone. The Veldkornet guarding the border with a handful of men hospitably offered him a cup of coffee. After gaining the man’s confidence, Scotty said, ‘Look, Meneer. I have some very important information for you. I know that there is a lot of gunrunning taking place, and I have found out that Scotty Smith is the main culprit. What’s more, I will show you how he does it! As a matter of fact, I have had a tip that he has just run a cargo into Basutoland, and they have not yet been collected. He’s hiding them in a drift on the Caledon River and they are to be collected tonight.’

  The officer became very excited. ‘Can you show me the place?’

  ‘Yes’, Scotty replied. ‘It’s about twenty kilometres south of here. I don’t know if Scotty will still be there, but you had better take all the men you can, as he’s a pretty desperate fellow.’

  The officer was greatly impressed with the charm of the genial stranger and decided to take no chances. He ordered all his men to mount their horses and, leaving the post to its own devices, they rode hard for a couple of hours to the south. When they came to a drift Scotty and the Veldkornet dismounted and reconnoitred the area. They found no one and the officer ordered the men to picket their horses. They followed Scotty on foot to a bend.

  ‘There!’ cried Scotty. ‘That’s where they are hidden.’

  ‘But surely the powder will spoil in the water?’ said the officer.

  ‘Scotty’s a sly one’, came the reply. ‘The boxes will be watertight.’

  The men began probing the water and, sure enough, they found one box, then another, then another, but they were too heavy to lift and the entire patrol came to assist. Scotty wandered casually away until he was around the bend, and then ran swiftly to the picketed horses. After setting them loose and stampeding them, he mounted his own steed and galloped back to the border post where he had left his wagons. He quickly inspanned and drove the wagons safely past the deserted border post to the rendezvous deep inside Basutoland.

  Meanwhile, the Veldkornet and his men had managed to get some of the enormously heavy boxes to the bank and had prised the lids open, only to find them filled with river boulders. When they looked around for the stranger he had disappeared and so had their horses. They had a long and weary walk back to their post.

  Another of his favourite stories concerned an encounter with the Jewish diamond thief. Scotty was transport riding at the time when he happened upon a pedlar walking along the road and offered him a lift. He noticed that the man appeared to be highly agitated and kept glancing over his shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Scotty. ‘Is something troubling you?’ ‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing’, the pedlar muttered. They were nearing the border when the man let out a yell.

  ‘The police, the police! They are after me!’ Scotty turned his head and saw a small posse in the distance.

  ‘Hide me, hide me!’ cried the stricken passenger. He flung himself flat on the bed of the wagon and Scotty quickly threw a sail over him and piled some boxes and packages on top.

  The police rode up and immediately asked Scotty if he had passed anybody on the road.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Scotty, ‘I saw a pedlar some way back, if that’s the fellow you are after. He’s a small man dressed in a dirty corduroy suit and wearing a slouch hat.’

  ‘That’s him’, cried the Sergeant, ‘that’s our man alright’.

  ‘What’s he done?’ asked Scotty.

  ‘Stealing diamonds’, came the reply. ‘He’s got quite a packet on him.’

  ‘Well, if you want to capture him you’ll have to retrace your steps. As soon as he saw me coming, he branched off into the veld.’

  “Where was that?’ the sergeant enquired.

  ‘About four kilometres back there is an ironstone koppie with a small dried-up vlei next to it. That was where I saw him turn off’

  ‘Thanks!’ shouted the Sergeant. ‘We’ll get him alright. Goodbye!’ And he and his men thundered back the way they had come.

  At that moment Scotty stuck his hand in his pocket and felt a hard package. A slow grin spread over his face and, stooping down, he whispered to the pedlar, ‘I’ve put the police off the scent, but you had better stay hidden for a while longer.’ He opened the parcel and, seeing a number of fairly large diamonds inside, he placed it in one of the wagon boxes. ‘It’s alright, you can come out now’, he called.

  The man got out and said, ‘Please give me the packet I slipped into your pocket when I thought the police might find me.’

  ‘What packet?’ asked Scotty. ‘I don’t know anything about a packet. You must be making a mistake – look for yourself’ The pedlar ran his hands over Scotty’s person but found nothing and, in spite of the man’s protestations, he denied all knowledge of the stones. The pedlar kept on wailing, moaning and threatening, until at last Scotty could take no more. He grabbed the man by the shoulders and shouted, ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense, I hid you from the police and that’s all the thanks I get. You accuse me of being a thief! Clear out of here or I’ll put a bullet through you, as sure as my name is Scotty Smith!’

  A look of horror and fear appeared on the man’s face when he realised to whom he had entrusted his precious diamonds and, jumping off the wagon, he ran off across the veld.

  Many are the recorded stories of our hero and villain, but there was a side to this cattle thief that touched many hearts, especially women’s, in those very harsh times.

  During a certain Bloemfontein court case, which Scotty attended – not so much for the court proceedings as for the general information he could pick up from the farmers – he noticed that the Landdrost possessed a particularly fine horse. That evening he slipped into the Landdrost’s stables and led the horse out without anybody noticing a thing. He hadn’t gone far out of town when it started raining and, soaked to the bone, he knocked on the door of a rather run-down homestea
d. A woman opened it rather hesitantly.

  ‘Can you put me up for the night?’ Scotty enquired.

  ‘I would like to, but my husband isn’t here and he made me promise not to admit any strangers while he is away and now I hear that Scotty Smith is in the neighbourhood.’

  The older generation, from whom these stories were learnt, told me that when they were children, their parents always used Scotty’s name to make them behave. ‘If you don’t stop that I’ll tell Scotty Smith to put you on his saddle and ride away, and you’ll never see your poor mommy again!’, or words to that effect.

  However, on this occasion, Scotty just laughed. ‘You have nothing to be afraid of’, he said, ‘That scoundrel won’t show his face while I am here. As a matter of fact, I am after Scotty myself, and the local Landdrost has lent me his personal horse. Don’t you recognise it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the woman, ‘I know this animal well! I’ll give you a room for the night. Take the horse around to the stables whilst I make some supper.’

  After they had finished eating they sat and talked for a while and Scotty noticed that his hostess was somewhat sad and distracted.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. At first she would not say, but later the story came out.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. I told my husband not to do it, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He backed a bond for a friend for £200, and now the man has cleared out, and we can’t find him anywhere.’

  ‘Don’t worry’, Scotty comforted her, ‘and don’t sit up for me either. As soon as the weather clears I’ll be off on Scotty’s trail.’

  He thanked her for her hospitality, paid her, and she retired. Sometime later the storm passed and Scotty got up and rode off into the night. In the morning his hostess rose and went through to the kitchen and there, under a plate on the table, was £200 in bills with a note: ‘Best wishes from Scotty Smith.’

  Of course the old freebooter did not usually have so much money at his disposal, but he always kept his promises. If he promised a certain farm in the area that their stock would be safe, it was never touched and if he said he would pay for what he called ‘borrowed’ horses, he always did so, without fail.

  Mr David Cowan, a well-known citizen of Victoria West in days gone by, was away on a visit to Beaufort West. A stranger turned up at his house asking for accommodation for the night. His wife was dubious about taking him in, for the usual reasons. But when she confided her fears to the stranger, he laughed. ‘You needn’t be afraid of Scotty Smith’, he said. ‘He has never been known to harm a woman.’ Mrs Cowan was still rather doubtful but eventually took him in, gave him an outside room and took him his supper. The next morning she sent him some coffee. The maid brought it back. ‘The man has gone,’ she said, ‘but he left a letter on the bed.’

  ‘Thank you for the room and food’, it read. ‘I am sorry I have had to borrow two of your horses. When your husband returns, tell him to go to the Beaufort West Hotel in ten days time, and he will find them there.’

  Mr Cowan did this and found the horses waiting for him at the Hotel.

  But it was when it came to befriending the poor and lonely widows in distress that Scotty was in his element. There seems to have been a plentiful supply of poor, lonely and distressed widows in the Orange Free State and western Transvaal at that time. As always, Scotty arrived, looking for a place to sleep and, with his usual tact, had very little difficulty in discoveiing what the widow’s problems were. The farm was bonded and the bondholder was foreclosing the following day. ‘How much is the bond?’ Scotty asked. ‘1400’ was the reply. Without any hesitation, he dug his hand into his pocket, extracted a thick wad of notes and counted off £400. ‘Now, when the man comes tomorrow, you must pay him in full and demand a receipt – that is very important.’

  At first the widow demurred and would not accept the money. ‘It is quite all right,’ said Scotty, ‘I will not lose on the deal. You can be sure of that.’ She did not understand, but eventually gave way and agreed to do as he said.

  The following morning, the bondholder arrived and found, to his great annoyance, that the widow had the money. However, there was nothing he could do about it but give her a receipt and ride away. He had not gone far when, from out of the bushes, appeared a man holding a pistol, who robbed him of all the money he had just received, took his horse from him and galloped away. The following day Scotty visited the farm. The widow was very grateful and asked for his address so that she could eventually repay him. ‘Don’t worry, the debt has already been settled in full’, said the stranger. ‘You don’t owe me a penny. Goodbye.’ And he rode away.

  When the First World War broke out in 1914, Scotty Smith was one of the first to offer his services to the Union authorities and was attached to Military Intelligence with the rank of Warrant Officer. Dressed in khaki slacks and shirt, he wandered about, spying on the rebels and reporting their movements and activities to Headquarters.

  Soon after war was declared, some of the men who had been Boer leaders during the Anglo-Boer War thought that they now had an opportunity to overthrow British rule in South Africa, and went into open rebellion. Among them were Commandant General C F Beyers, one of the renowned bittereinders, along with General Christian de Wet, whose original farm Roodepoort is now a suburb on the West Rand of Gauteng. His farmhouse, by the way, was the first one burnt in the Transvaal by the British. I have no doubt that General Koos de la Rey would also have joined these rebels, but he had been tragically shot in a roadblock incident in the Johannesburg suburb of Booysens. But that’s another story.

  In South West Africa, the Germans had concentrated powerful units at Nakop and Raman’s Drift, while across the border at Upington and Kakamas were large detachments of the Union Defence Force, under the command of General Manie Maritz, another Anglo-Boer War hero. In October 1914 there was a sensational development. General Maritz deserted to the enemy, taking a large number of men with him. This might have proved a very serious matter, but for some reason, the rebels received very little support from their countrymen. The rising had to be suppressed, however, before Louis Botha could invade South West Africa.

  Scotty took part in the invasion of South West Africa, and this story was related by Mr Greeff, who at fifteen had joined the 20th Mounted Rifles (later known as Breytenbach’s Light Horse). The campaign took place in the middle of summer, and the sun beat down mercilessly on them. It was not too long before the water carts were empty and, to make matters worse, the commissariat department had broken down and there was no immediate prospect of obtaining fresh supplies.

  The position grew more and more critical. In order to spare the horses, the men dismounted and led them. Fortunately, they knew they were near Lutzputs where there were wells of drinking water, and this thought alone kept them going. However, they arrived only to find, to their horror, that one of the wells had dried up and the retiring enemy had polluted the other. A fight had taken place between the rebels and the 8th Mounted, in which the latter had been defeated. The enemy had collected some of the bodies and thrown them into the well before they withdrew. Many of the soldiers were in a state of collapse and the horses were in an even worse plight. The stench from the well was so terrible that the animals refused to drink. One of the men then had a brainwave.

  He smeared axle grease up some of the horses’ nostrils and in this way gained some relief for the animals, but quite a few actually died of thirst. The officer in charge was desperate and began sending heliograph messages appealing urgently for help.

  ‘Luckily for us’, he reported, ‘Scotty Smith was in the area and came to our assistance. He arrived at midnight, and we were told to fall in. With Scotty at our head, we set out, leading what remained of the horses, staggering and stumbling through the desert. Fortunately we did not have far to go. Scotty led us straight to the dry bed of the Molopo River. He quickly chose a spot and told us first to picket the horses, then to dig. We had no entrenching tools, so we began excavating a
fairly large hole with our hands. The men formed a line and the sand was stuffed into nosebags, and passed along. The sand was soft and before long we were down about a dozen feet. Suddenly one of the men let out a hoarse yell. In a parched, croaking voice he shouted, “Water, boys! Water!” And there, seeping up between the smooth, round river stones, was a thin clear trickle of fresh water. Thank goodness Scotty had had the foresight to picket the horses, otherwise there would have been a stampede.’

  True to the tradition of a crack Imperial Cavalry Regiment, these irregular volunteer Union troops looked after the needs of their horses first, before relieving their own thirst.

  The year 1919 was a black one for Scotty’s admirers all over South Africa. The old veteran contracted influenza and was confined to bed. He became weak but refused to give in. Every now and again a faint smile would cross his lips, as he remembered perhaps something of the full life he had led. Just before his death, he sent a Bushman to call his friend, the priest but, alas, by the time the priest had arrived, Scotty was no longer in need of human sympathy and comfort.

  Scotty Smith was buried in the Upington cemetery and a simple metal plaque was erected over his grave. It reads:

  George St Leger Gordon Lennox.

  Gone but not forgotten. Never will his memory fade.

  Wife and Children.

  And so South Africa lost one of its folk heroes. Scotty had said to a friend over a fire one night: ‘I was born two hunderd years too late. You see, my weakness is that, when I see a bunch of good cattle, I want to own them. In modern times this is looked upon as stealing. Two hundred years ago taking other people’s cattle in Scotland was knows as rieving, and a successful riever was a highly honoured member of his family group. And if the cattle had been rieved from south of the border, the riever was acclaimed a Scottish hero.’

  Maybe he had a point.