“It makes no sense,” Swan replied.
“What part of it?”
“The whole thing,” Swan said. “The risky daylight bank job.
The raid to get their men out. The gunfight in the street.” Morris stared at him blankly. “I don’t follow you.” “Look around,” Swan suggested. “Judging by the storm of
burnt cash raining down on us, these thugs were sitting on a
small fortune.”
“Yes,” Morris agreed. “So what?”
“So why rob a heavily defended bank in broad daylight if
you’re already loaded to the gills with cash? Why risk shooting
up Durban to get your mates out only to gun them down back
here?”
Morris stared at Swan for a long moment before nodding his agreement. “I have no idea,” he said. “But you’re right. It makes no sense at all.”
The fire continued to burn well into the morning hours, only dying when the farmhouse was consumed. The operation ended without casualties among the police, and the Klaar River Gang was never heard from again.
Most considered it a stroke of good fortune, but Swan was never convinced. He and Morris would discuss the events of that evening for years, well into their retirement. Despite many theories and guesses as to what really went on, it was a question they would never be able to answer.
July 27, 1909
170 miles West-Southwest of Durban
The SS Waratah plowed through the waves on a voyage from Durban to Cape Town, rolling noticeably with the growing swells. Dark smoke from coal-fired boilers spilled from her single funnel and was driven in the opposite direction by a contrary wind.
Sitting alone in the main lounge of the five-hundred-foot steamship, fifty-one-year-old Gavin Brèvard felt the vessel roll ponderously to starboard. He watched the cup and saucer in fr
ont of him slide toward the edge of the table, slowly at first, and then picking up speed as the angle of the ship’s roll increased. At the last second, he grabbed for the cup, preventing it from sliding off the edge and clattering to the floor.
The Waratah remained at a sharp pitch, taking a full two minutes to right herself, and Brèvard began to worry about the vessel he’d booked passage on.
In a prior life, he’d spent ten years at sea aboard various steamers. On those ships the recoil was quicker, the keel more adept at righting itself. This ship felt top-heavy to him. It made him wonder if something was wrong.
“More tea, sir?”
Deep in thought, Brèvard barely noticed the waiter in the uniform of the Blue Anchor Line.
He held out the cup he’d saved from destruction. “Merci.”
The waiter topped it off and moved on. As he left, a new figure came into the room, a broad-shouldered man of perhaps thirty, with reddish hair and a ruddy face. He made a direct line for Brèvard, taking a seat in the chair opposite.
“Johannes,” Brèvard said in greeting. “Glad to see you’re not trapped in your cabin like the others.”
Johannes looked a little green, but he seemed to be holding up. “Why have you called me here?”
Brèvard took a sip of the tea. “I’ve been thinking. And I’ve decided something important.”
“And what might that be?”
“We’re far from safe.”