All countries have their share of scallywags and scoundrels. Lucky us for we had Scotty Smith. A tall Scotsman of well heeled family, he came to South Africa to serve in a regiment based in the Eastern Cape. At the time, and here we are referring to the 1870's, the frontier wars of the Eastern Cape were slowly coming to an end. In 1877, Scotty was stationed in Kokstad, his commission - Military Farrier. His regiment - the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police.
A few years later, and after the ninth frontier war, Scotty was stationed in King William's Town where his formal military career came to a halt. Possibly bored by inactivity, Scotty absconded with two of the best Police horses. This was to be a repeated preference of his, clearly showing his love of healthy horses. Slipping away from King William's Town, he based himself in Fort Beaufort - not terribly far away from his regiment and possible disciplinary repercussions. With his charm and good manners, Scotty quickly found a well-paying job as an assistant foreman to a construction company tasked with the building of roads around Fort Beaufort.
As was often the case, the road would pass homesteads where the construction crews were billeted. In one instance, Scotty found himself staying with a rich old couple, hospitable they were as was the custom in those days. During his stay, the old man died of causes unknown. The widow was shocked to discover that in a fit of magnanimity, the entire estate was left to the lawyer who was managing the old couple's affairs. In lightning haste an auction was convened and the estate was wound up for a discounted 10,000 pounds - a substantial sum in those days. The payment was duly deposited in the lawyers account at the local bank. When Scotty heard of this he considered the affair to be very suspect. Applying his charm, he managed to obtain a copy of the will and discovered, as suspected, it to be a forgery. With attention to detail, Scotty outlined his hypothesis to the bank manager who agreed that the will was indeed a forgery.
The lawyer was found wanting, possibly punished and the authorities agreed to return the substantial sum to the old widow. In the meantime, Scotty, possibly not certain that the money would in fact be returned to the widow took the matter into his own hands. On a suitable night, he broke into the bank and made off with the widow's money. The following day, the town was in a flurry of excitement. This sort of drama did not happen every day. Scotty was not in anyway deeded suspect.
As was the custom, a reward was offered for information leading to the arrest of the bank thieves. And here we meet the Scotty of legend. His co-foreman and close friend, name alas unknown to us today, was labouring with financial difficulties, debts accumulated for specialist medical attention administered to his very sick wife. Seeing an opportunity, Scotty managed to convince his friend to arrest him for the bank heist. As brazen as this may seem, Scotty was arrested, the reward money was handed to his friend, the old couple's estate money returned to the bank and ultimately to the old widow. Scotty languished in jail, a prisoner by choice - but not for long. Within a short week, Scotty slipped out of jail and put some many miles between himself and Fort Beaufort.
One cannot resist to ask - why did he do it? That is knowledge Scotty took to the grave. What we do know is that Scotty repeated this sort of combination of chivalry and chicanery for the rest of his days.
