Once African Boys

Once African Boys - An African Adventure

by Graham Day

Story Code/s: B/b b/b b/g (gay and bisexual Youngfriends/outdoors/interracial)

Comments/suggestions to: g_day@hotmail.com

NOTES & WARNINGS:

• This story may contain descriptions of sexual acts between boys, boys and girls and/or men and boys. If this is not to your tastes, please leave now. If you are under 18, or if it is illegal in your state or country to read or possess material like this then it is in your own interest's to leave now.

• This work is pure erotic fantasy and the writer neither participates in, nor encourages others to attempt many of the acts in this story. This story is fiction. Any resemblance to any individual, real or fictional, living or dead is purely coincidental.

• The story is copyrighted by the author. A single copy has been placed in the Nifty archives for your enjoyment. Please do not distribute it to any news groups and/or other web-sites without permission of the author. You may, however, send it to your friends as long as payment is neither requested or received.

• If you have any feedback you can e-mail your constructive comments to me at g_day@hotmail.com

******************* Once African Boys - An African Adventure by Graham Day *******************

Part 3

Sections 21 to 35

21

Becoming used to the Tswana way of life, was an ordeal for all of them. They would drive into one of the small shanty towns and someone would come out of his home, unlock the tip-up garage-door and reveal a shop inside, where they could purchase cool-drinks or ice cold beer at any time of the day. Themba was, of course, familiar with the Spaza shops of Soweto, unlicensed businesses, hidden behind the walls of a home, set up in defiance of government regulations that tried to protect trade of sell-out black businessmen - but here, there was no need for this form of commercial defiance, here it was merely the easy-going norm for thing.

The shebeen, in a small town near Maun, was in a garage with a large hand painted Coke-a-Cola's sign on the tip-up metal door. It was eight in the morning when the jovial owner unlatches the door and opened it, ushered in his guests, to quench their thirst. He produced a brown quart bottle of Castle Larger and opened it, handing out glasses from a shelf neatly lined with newspaper; a lace-like pattern cut on its edge. A toothless old lady entered, smiled and greeted the boys.

"Hello Mama how are you?" Cronje asked. The old woman took her time to greet Themba slowly and graciously in Setswana, her own tongue, then in Sesotho. She spoke slowly, gradually working out his place as a Zulu in the constellation of tribes. Then, satisfied she knew whom she was dealing with; she called for some food for these guests. She bustled about and put on a scratchy long-playing record of the Mahatela Queens, and swayed gently to the tinny music.

Campbell declined the proffered glass of beer - eight in the morning was foolishly early, for beer, even if he was feeling good about the night before. The Mama brought him a chipped enamelled-tin mug of strong, very-sweet tea. Thick-cut sandwiches with Blackcat peanut butter and a few packets of Simba chips where placed before the guests.

Campbell was amazed at the ease of the encounter. In Cape Town the only contacts he had ever had with black people had been uncomfortable occasions in which roles where clearly understood and immutable. In a single conversation with some black man at the Embassy, the man had managed to call the consult son "Sir" seven times in a two minute conversation - "I'm not from here," he had wanted to say, "you don't need to sir me to death."

The longer they stayed, the more comfortable they felt in these surroundings. Benji started playing with a few curious young boys, who had come to see the white guests that the shebeen was entertaining at eight in the morning. By eleven, some of the regulars came in for a long-run session. One of the men tried to cadge drinks off them, but they were brushed away by the tavern-keeper, who understood the novelty value of these visitors was good for business.

"Do you have childrens Morena, Cronje." The old lady laughed, every one had children and this blond man must have many girlfriends with whom he must have made many children.

"No mama, but if you are willing, I am happy to start my Setswanas family right now." The crone grinned, toothless, at the attentive audience slapped their thighs in approval of the Boer flirting with the mama.

Most whites who made the excursion to this shebeen where there exclusively for a quickie with the black girls before returning, chastened by transgressing the laws of their own making, to wives and girlfriends - this group seemed willing to linger in the African way. Cavendish Square and Sandton City, the luxury shopping malls, with their Gucci, Lanvin and Dunhill shops, were a million miles from this place among its homely squalor.

A man swaggered by, talking to someone you could only see if you had indulged as deeply as he had, in the home brewed skokiaan.

Themba had met a buxom sweetheart, about twenty so, they were dancing rhythmically to the cheerful township music. Beauty Khama, a distant relation of the well-known family, liked this charming young Zulu with his white friends. White men usually meant money: perhaps some of it had rubbed off on the youngster.

"African girls are real women: look at that ass." Temba's words sounded like Affaleekan gels.

Pap-and-stew or pap-and-chicken where offered for lunch.

"Shall we stay for lunch?" Asked Cronje after his fourth quart bottle of Lion Larger, shared with Nathan.

"Whatever." He glanced nervously at Campbell expecting him to behave like the prudish maiden aunt he seemed to have become.

Campbell was more encouraging: "Yes I really think we should, Themba is really enjoying himself."

"That's right, Campbell, you know you really are very thoughtful sometimes." He was slurring his words.

"Serves the big fucker right if his black boyfriend finds himself a girl." Campbell whispered to Nathan Kramer who was shocked to hear such language from his prudish school friend.

Things were going along well. The locals were charming and friendly, the food was good and the repetitive African rhythm on the loudspeakers was soothing. Then Campbell noticed that Themba was no were to be seen he mentioned it in a deliberate but casual manner and then he noticed a slight change in Cronje.

"I suppose he's in the back fucking her senseless." He said between gritted teeth.

Rosie Rametlabama had an iron shack in the back of the Shabeen where for a modest fee she would entertain the patrons of her father's business. She found this strange group of white boys and their Zulu boy friend enchanting and irresistible. She would gladly have entertained all of them, after all, most of the white men that came there came especially to see Rosie uncover her huge black breasts and then plough their white cocks between her ample black thighs for a few Rand, but this group seemed more intent on the experience of being there. They were almost African in their approach to life.

Rosie led Temba by the hand as one would a small child from the cheerful barroom babble across the red earth year to her shack. I side it was neat and clean. The iron pates were painted bright blue and old news papers had been cut in ornate patterns to line the shelves the proudly displayed Rosie's treasure of pots pans and bric-a-brac.

"Hello my daleeng." She said in English, taking his slight form into her strong aroma. "Now what can mama do for you?"

The rich aroma from her thighs and the thought of sex with a real woman filled his head and he could not trust his mouth to form the words. In answer his eager hand reached out a gripped he soft large breast.

She giggled like a schoolgirl and slips his trembling boys hand under her top and clamped it on to her tit. He buried his face in the cleft and she stripped of her top and he found him sucking on the large cup sized nipples.

His trembling hands striped off his tight Levi's that Cronje had bought him and she viewed his beautiful young cock.

"You going to fuck me your black cock." She cooed "Fuck me hard like my husband does." The air was charged with excitement but the mention of a husband made Themba jump. "Don't worry," she laughed, "he is Johannesburg."

He groaned like a disappointed child as she gently disengaged his thick black lips from her nipple. She undressed him like child and folded his clothes neatly on a chair, all the time flaunting her huge chest the trembled and quaked ominously. She then striped of her clothing leaving only an aged white slip which she flapped playfully giving the boy a glimpse of dark treasures at the top of her legs.

She lay him down on the metal bed which groaned under the weight as she joined him and she tool his boys dick in her mouth. Her expert tongue lapped his black headed snake, as it worked its way down her throat. With one hand she was caressed his tight black testicles and she worked a finger into his ass, rubbing his prostate, as Cronje has so often done before.

Themba let a hand run down her legs and moved under he slip and started to finger her pussy. "Looks, like you've already got that pussy ready for this black cock."

She just groaned; "My darling, shove that cock into me. "

22 Benji

I soon tired of the local childrens game with oxen made of the vertebrae of an ox and sat at the panellite table and up-dated my diary, then I asked Campbell, with a wink, to look after it.

Campbell read: "Fuckity-fuck! I had a great cum last night. I really want to learn about a B.J. Maybe be The Hand will teach me. Wait till I show the guys next year, all this lekker stuff I'm learning."

Chicken fried in pot and mealie-meal - the maize-based staple food of Africa, was put before us. Campbell and I had never seen Cronje drink before. He and Nathan were indulging deeply.

"So, where do you think we will sleep tonight?" I asked Campbell. I was slightly drunk from half of one of Nathan's beers and I was horny.

"I don't think we are going to get much further, judging by the way they are drinking."

"Well, I wasn't them I was thinking about." I pressed my young erection against Campbell's leg "I was wondering if you have got what I have got and if there is anything we can do about it?"

"Well we could go out to the truck, I suppose. They are so drunk, they wouldn't notice." This, we did. Towels were snagged in the windows to provide some modesty as we settled in the back seat of the cab. Forgetting any erstwhile modesty, I slipped off his red underpants and allowed Campbell to have free access to my squirmy bottom.

"I do feel a bit drunk," I said, "so you can do anything you like to me and I couldn't stop you, not even if I wanted too."

"Suck my cock." Campbell instructed. I looked at it in awe as it emerged gleaming wet from his open fly.

"But, it's all wet."

"That's only precum. Suck it anyway,"

"Well I guess I can try, if you say is all right." I said hesitantly, allowing only the very tip to pass my lips. Delicately I slurped up the drip of precum.

"Umm," I said, "that wasn't half bad."

I lowered his head and worked his tongue into Campbell's crotch, licked up the precum from the head, sucking it and twisting the cock with my young mouth, till at last a great gob of semen spurted into my prepubescent mouth. I failed in my efforts to keep it in; coughing and spluttering it burst out, splattering everywhere.

Later on my diary entry read: "Fuckity-fuck! My fuck is to fuck Campbell!"

23 Benji

Nathan arranged that when he was home he would baby sit for her parents and in that way organise that Sarah and I could see each other. We were forbidden to see each other unless Nathan was present. Little did our parent know or suspect the pleasure this little arrangement gave all three of us.

He would sit on the couch and let us kids stretch on the floor in front of the T.V. in the dimly lit room. Sarah would reach over and slide her hand under me where I lay belly down. She would take hold of my little cock. Nathan's own cock would instantly get rock hard. He watched - he waited. I would hump the girls stroking hand, and Nathan watched my little butt move up and down as I fucked her hand. He knew that left alone for a few minutes I would be eating her pussy or she would be licking my circumcised penis, so he would make a big show of "going to his room for a while". We knew he would be hiding the shadows of the jerking his teen cock till it erupted and he shot his cum in his own pants.

It was about a year later that Nathan became actively involved in our little games. Sarah and I had planned it. I arranged for her to play "the please look at what is wrong with my pussy" game that had proved so successful with me.

"It looks perfect to me, honey." He said squeezing his rock hard cock in his jeans. He ran his fingers over her vagina; slowly he stroked back and forth. It was very warm.

'Oh I like to be touched there. ' She sighed. Nathan's penis was about to burst out of his metal fly on his jeans. I striped of my clothed and walked towards them my throbbing 11-year-old boner going before me.

Nathan began massaging the soft folds of skin covering her pussy the absence of any hair made her pussy so smooth. I could see a little bit of pink inside between the lips as my brother's fingers parted them. She began to twitter like a bird as Nathan's massaging of her little girl's cunt. I reach out and unzipped my bothers fly and slipped his hard six inch cock out of it and rhythmically went to work on it, licking and sucking as I had been doing regularly for the past year.

Sarah gasped and covered her mouth when see saw Nathan's erect cock. Her eyes were wide as she reached out and touched it very tentatively. I moved my mouth off it leaving it glistening with my spit while she stroked it a cooed with pleasure.

"Now you suck on Benji's thingy," she directed Nathan to my hard penis while she statrted rubbing her expert finger over her Labia. I was cooing with pleasure as my brother sucked me off.

Then I knelt on her bed and rubbed the head of my cock up and down her pussy spreading the labia open. I pressed my short hairless cock into her and fucked her rhythmically until she was screaming and moaning and arching her back. Then a spasm ruptured through her little body and shook with her orgasm. I could feel her heart pounding in her chest as I knelt above her.

The pressure that had been building up inside Nathan's nuts as he watched and wanked off. Then he had an idea. "Sarah, Benji, get on your knees in front of me, and open your mouths. I want to shoot." We kids giggled and did as he asked. In only seconds, he was covering our tongues with his cum. Nathan fell back on the couch exhausted.

24

A partridge, turtledove or two and a few thrushes in the English hedgerows, had not prepared Campbell for the bird life that Kramer showed him in Africa. The variety became richer and more varied after they reached Maun. Kramer had ample choice to study, which ranged from the large, flightless, Ostrich down to tiny, waxbilled, long-beaked, Sunbirds.

Red-billed Helmet-shrikes; Marico Sunbirds; diminutive yellow White-eyes; and black and white masked face rare Ross's Lourie. They found red-billed Buffalo-Weavers nesting in Baobabs trees - trees with greyish, fluted, pillar-like, fat, trunks - which stood like anachronistic sentinels and could easily be 4000 years old.

Campbell had plenty of time to reflect on birdlife as progress, the next morning, was really very slow. They had to take a route of about two hundred and sixty miles, skirting the former lake Ngami that had either dried-up or disappeared.

The atmosphere was uneasy. Themba had disappeared with the fat bottomed girl for an hour; Campbell and Benji had spent a few hours undertaking advanced biological experimentation; and the maudlin Cronje and Nathan become deeply aquatinted with Castle Larger and brandy-and-Coke. Cronje drove silently. Campbell beamed inwardly. Themba was asleep on the backseat, having given up his front seat to Nathan, who complained that a lion had deposited its mane on his tongue. Cronje asked Campbell to drive for a few hours, he being the only totally sober, member of the group.

The cumulous clouds began to stack up on the southern horizon shortly after they set out that morning. They travelled along the sandy Taokhe River passing Tsau to the area they were to come to know as Botletele. Before noon, the clouds had blackened out the sun, and Cronje switched on the headlights, as the first throaty rumbling of thunder was heard. Flashes of lightning gave the world an eerie, theatrical aspect. When the rain came, it fell, at first, in fat large drops that made holes as thick as a thumb in the white sand. Cronje informed them they would have to stop until it was over.

"But it is only rain..."

"Man, you have never seen rain like this."

When the rains came it was a storm of old-testament proportions. For three solid hours they sat trapped in the cab and watched abstract patterns - form, break-up and reform - as the torrents poured from the skies, as if the very bottom of the heavens had fallen out, under the weight of water.

Thunder percussioned; lightning danced. All effort at conversation was abandoned - it was impossible to make yourself heard above the din on the roof. They slept or pretended to sleep. They tried reading - but that anxious sense of the fear, one only knows when confronted with the awesome power of nature, settled on them. They sat, watchful - as if collective concentration was the only thing that would save them.

Then it stopped, as abruptly as it started. They watched the storm pursue it relentless course northwards, leaving a drowned world - the roads and sandy veld rutted by deep run-off channels. The earth smelt alive and chastened by such a storm, which seldom visited this barren desert. They got out of the 'Rover and stretched their legs.

"We will have to sleep next to the river - we can never cross it."

Cronje's words proved to be true. The flash floods were severe. The Taokhe River was in full spate - a vast expanse of water. On the opposite bank a large, mixed heard of the skittish zebras and the clown-like wildebeest moved, nervously, along the banks of the river. This was Africa! This was the adventure they had come for!

They stopped on high ground and decided to spend an uncomfortable, but safe night, in the Land Rover, not wishing to risk a sudden and unexpected further rise in the water level or more rain.

By morning, the water had subsided somewhat and by the time they reached the ford in the once sandy Taokhe River; it looked as if it might just be possible to ford the river.

"I think I can wade across."

"Cronje..."

"Yes?"

"Please be careful." Campbell hated himself for saying it, but he knew he meant it at that moment. Cronje attached the steel cable from the winch at the front of the Land Rover to his leather army-belt, as a precaution

The raging water was waist deep. When he reached the other side, he secured the lead to a stout tree. The boys on the opposite bank, piled into the cab, Campbell at the wheel. Benji hung his arms around Campbell's neck and risked a peck, for luck, on his ear. He shouted instructions to Campbell and the Land Rover lurched forward - crossing the river, with Cronje, wait-deep, walking along side it. There was little risk in crossing the river in a vehicle build for just this form of activity, but it was an exciting emergency. Once safely across they piled out the cab and stopped in a self-congratulatory mood.

"Awesome." Said Benji.

The rush of water seemed to have an effect on the boys' bladders. Nathan Kramer and Themba were already pissing in silence on the rock near the water's edge when Campbell joined them.

"How's the head Themba?"

"The head is okay, it's my cock that is still raw." He looked ruefully at the fairly substantial black penis lolling in his hand. One of the rocks that Nathan was pissing against suddenly got up and walked off - a tortoise.

The three boys started howling with laughter.

"Your piss is so vile that the rocks walk off in disgust." The mood had improved. Some time later a sleek blue Jaguar drew up at the opposite riverbank.

"Did you make it across?" Asked an Asian man in a suit. He and the car seemed so in congruous here in the desert.

"Yes, but I wouldn't try it in that car."

"I must. We are doctors and we have an emergency back in Tsau."

"I can't see you doing it." Cronje shook his head ruefully. The Doctor's companion - a young-looking white woman, not unattractive, in an Indian print skirt - climbed out from the passenger side of the car.

"Please, can you gentlemen help us, it really is an emergency." Female charm was always a reliable fallback. The group consulted, then agreed a plan.

"We'll do it this way. I'll wade across and attach the winch-line. Then you start car and we win winch you across, just in case your car cuts out." Cronje took charge - the low had passed.

The plan worked until the Jaguar reached half way across the river. The empty boot providing buoyancy, vehicle lifted off the ground and started drifting down the river, panic registering on the faces of the doctors. Cronje rushed into the torrent once more and floated the car towards the path again, while Campbell geared up the winch rate. After a breathless few moments, the car touched ground once more and was draw out of the river.

"Oh thank you. Thank you! You have saved more than one life here today." Said the relieved looking woman.

"Where are you off to?" Asked the man, who had introduced himself as Dr. Bamjee. Cronje told them. "Well, you won't make Botletele tonight. Why don't you stop over in Tsau and have dinner with my wife and I and spend the night."

"Have you got a shower?" Benji asked ruefully.

"Three and a bath. Why do you need one?" The women said catching her nose between a mocking finger and thumb.

They accepted. Cronje was told to ask anyone for the doctor's house. Once the doctors had set off on their emergency call, he striped off his wet jeans and underpants. Campbell passed by on his way to the cab and an arm arrested him:

"Aeneas, I just wanted to say thanks, you were a star."

"You were the hero" The boy shrugged. It was the first time he had seen the familiar blond legs, thighs and genitals since school. A strange longing passed through Campbell. He shuddered as if someone had walked over his grave. Cronje was still irritably attractive. The large cock swung loose as he dragged on a dry pair of jeans.

"Aeneas,"

"Yes?"

"I'm glad you came."

"Yes," he admitted, "so am I." He resisted the temptation to fall to his knees, as he had so often done a few short years ago and gently lap at the cock, until it was erect and angry - even if it was for old-times-sake.

They continued their way to Botletele, along the sandy Taokhe River reaching Tsau at about five in the afternoon.

Tsau was like any of the frontier-town in Africa, Australia or America. At one end of town stood a group of shops. The signs read: Patel's Hardware, Dadoo & Moonsammy Ladies Smart Outfitters. A large black face smiled down from a gigantic billboard imparting the joys of Lion Larger.

On the street there was a native market: women had spread newspaper on the sandy street and offered roots, herbs and bones for sale as muti. Further along dried Mopani worms were offered for sale. A young woman, packing up her roadside-stall for the day, directed them to the doctors' home behind the supermarket. A little way farther up the street a larger store was labelled in neat hand-painted letters: Khan & Sons - Bargain Bazaar. White cards pasted in the shop windows promised specials' prices on Reg-U-Letts; Brookelax; deWittes powders; and Grand-Pa headache powders. Large coloured billboards showed a black couple, happy with what Day-Glo hair products had done for them and Lion matches made a sportsman grin at the tired group of white youths.

The Bamjees had lived in the sprawling house, which also served as a consulting room for their practice, behind the Bazaar since then had left the prejudice against a mixed couple in South Africa. They married in London, but missed Africa. Then, an uncle of his, who traded in wedding jewellery in Leister, had told them of cousins in Botswana. They arrived with their diplomas, instruments and 100-00 in old notes from the Uncle.

Their house was large and comfortable. The doctors were not yet back from the call. An old woman in a sari, who could not have known of their coming but seemed pleased to see them anyway, ushered them into a large room, with a large picture of the Taj Mahal and plastic carnations on the sideboard. A huddle of some seven or eight children peered around the doorway and ran off giggling whenever one of the white boys caught them spying.

An hour and two cups of tea later, Dr Bamjee bustled in shouting greetings to all in the house.

"Showers first, I think." Mrs Bamjee, who called herself Dr. Sharon Goldberg, bustled them to the four bathrooms, ensured they had towels, soap and whatever they needed. They ambled back to the large room, truly clean for the first time in days, and dressed in fresh cloths. There were family and friend coming in and out, wishing to hear the tale, and meet the adventurous boys from the Cape and their black friend - such an unusual mixture after all.

"This is Mohammed Ebrahim. He is a lawyer with a farm here. You are practically neighbours." Said Dr Bamjee. Dr Goldstein had surrendered all domestic duties to old Mrs Bamjee and Mrs Pahad, an aunt in a yellow sari and high-heeled western shoes. There were six Bamjee and Pahad children living in the home - three of them are boys.

"If you had not saved us, we would have had them all going hungry." Bamjee laughed.

"Whatever." Said Nathan.

25

It must have been after midnight that Benji needed to go to the lavatory. Perhaps it was the ample curry dinner they had enjoyed, or perhaps it was simply the novelty of being able to sit on porcelain again. Stepping over Themba and Campbell, that had drawn places on the floor, he slipped out of the room the five boys shared. He padded his way down the linoleum-lined corridor, through the sleeping house and found the bathroom. The generator had been turned off much earlier and the light of a candle flickered in the intensely pink bathroom. The boy settled down to the luxury of cold porcelain on his neat white bum. A Casper, the friendly ghosts, comic book lay next to the toilet and he paged through it - an old one that he knew. He was wiping his ass with the pink toilet paper, when the door that he had forgotten to lock, opened silently and Yusuf, one of the Eurasian boys, son of the two doctors, came in.

"Hey I'm still busy. I haven't finished my crap!" Benji protested, but Yusuf showed he should be quiet.

"I just want to take a pee, man." He said opening the gap front of his stripes short cotton pyjamas he produced his brown circumcised cock - too big for a boy his age, thought Benji, after the brief glimpse he had of it.

"Wow, watch your poop go."

Benji peered into the bowl - the brown stool twirled in the strong rush of urine produced by the Indian boy. Benji threw the paper in the bowl.

"Piss it away. Yeah there it goes!!" He draped his arm over Yusuf's shoulder - the camaraderie of naughty boys established - and made a noise like thunderous applause with his mouth. Both boys giggled. From here he got a good look at the boys cock. It was big as big as Nathan's, with big balls and a lush patch of black pubic hair.

"Wow you have a big, one!"

"And you have a pretty little one." Benji noticed he had not pulled up his underpants and both boys noticed that Benji's young noodle was no longer entirely soft.

"Your cock looks just like my brothers cock - only browner."

"Do you like a brown one?"

He thought long and hard. "I've never seen one up close like this"

"I've never seen a white boy's before. It's nice. When do you get more hair?"

"Oh it should have been very hairy by now, but Nathan say I'm a late developer." Yusuf had stopped pissing. He farted gently - both boys giggled.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything." He was taking a very long time shaking the last drops off his cock.

"Well, okay. Do Indian boys spunk white as well?"

"Do you want to see?" He nodded, and he enthusiastically set to with his left fist.

"Why don't you use your right hand?"

"It is forbidden."

He watched as Yusuf took his hardening cock in his hand and started to wank. The boys fell into each other's arms, Benji like the spicy smell on the boy's skin. They rubbed off comfortably against each other's - there and when he was ready to shoot, they parted. Yusuf lifted Benji's hand, palm up and spunked into it.

Benji wanked off with spunk and the reached a leg-shivering climax. The trouble with being really naughty is that it is difficult to stop once you have started.

Yusuf said: "Do you want to see my collection"

"What do you collect: Stamps? Coins? Duck eggs?"

"No. Come and see..." Taking an EverReady torch in his hand, he lead Benji into the other Indian boys' room. They crept around from bed to bed, Yusuf threw back the covers, and uncovered his treasures, shinning the torch on each boy's cock in turn.

"Wow, they are all nice. Can I touch this one?"

"Yes."

Benji helped himself to a handful of a twelve-year-old Asian prick. "Can we go see your friends? I want to see my cock's white twin."

"Okay." They went in to the friends' room silently. Cronje was, disappointingly in his jeans. Themba was of little interest to Yusuf because he had seen and played with dozens of black boys, or so he said. They stopped at Nathan's side and Benji opened wide his brother's underwear. Yusuf sighed in narcissistic pleasure. The half-caste-Indian boy produced his own seven-inch prick from inside his pyjamas again for comparison - the wonderful head was much bigger than the girth of the cock itself, - a perfect matched pair. He started to toss off again.

The two went to Campbell's bed.

"This is my favourite one." Benji whispered.

Campbell, always a light sleeper, also notices the similarity to his beloved's penis. He stretched out his hand and took the milk-chocolate cock in his mouth and sucked him off. How beautiful this boy is, he thought, licking the lumps where his circumcision scars had healed. He had dark hairy legs for one so young. Campbell's hands caressed the boy's hard bum and felt the delicate black fur that covered it. His mouth moved lower kissing the boy's perineum below the furry balls, and turning him around.

His tongue entered the boys warm butt as he drank in the rich oriental aroma of boy, and the pungent spices that permeated his delicate brown skin. His tired mouth went to back to working on the purple head of the cock until it favoured whim with a rich load of fragrant cum.

Campbell kissed Yusuf, the Moslem boy, on the forehead, the Hindu holy spot.

"Sweet boy" he said feeling the long black lashed sweeping his cheek. He kissed the boy on the nipples - small erect black beauties on his Eurasian golden skin. He licked his dark plum lips and his own cock snaked into view.

Benji rubbed off on Campbell's leg and tossed his hero off.

Fuckity-fuck! Wow you won't believe what happened last night. This Indian kid tossed off with me then we went to see his brothers' and cousins' cocks and then we went to our room there we looked at Nathan's cock but The Hand caught us and he gave Yusuf a B.J. and must have swallow like all his cum! Wow! I had another good cum on his leg. This is the fucking life - I hope he wants to give me a B.J. tonight. I've been hard the whole morning.

26

Then they reached the trivial, man-made intrusion in paradise that was Cronjes' Camp. The unfenced Camp consisted of three traditional round huts, earth-floored and thatched, known as Rondavals. A thatched, open-sided kitchen held a large cast-iron range-stove that must have been transported by ox-wagon.

As they emerged from the Land Rover, a medium-sized grey bird landed clumsily on the top of the tree above. It teetered back and forth, fanned out a crest on its head, and utters a raucous cry: Kweh-h-h Kweh-h-h Kweh-h-h "Go'way, go'way...." - the grey Lourie - the self-appointed sentry to all the animals that warned of impending danger, above all the presence of man, the hunter.

Cronje had carefully planed alterations to the Camp. Out of site of the old camp, and about a half mile away, construction had started on a luxurious air-conditioned main block that would house catering and administration areas and had yet to be thatched. An entertainment annexe would lead out onto a very large veranda that overhung the river below, from which guests would view game, while sipping expensive drinks. Eight new luxury Rondavals with en-suite bathrooms were planned as well as tented accommodation units for affluent Germans that truly wanted to feel out in Africa.

Awaiting them with a warm welcome was old Joshias Moreke. The aggregated Moreke family and hangers-on had been living on the property since the time of Cronje's grandfather. The many members of the family had a ready greeting in Setswana whenever they encountered one of the boys. Some amateur enthusiast had planted sword ferns in old car-battery cases and rows of impala lilies in rusted paint drums. Bauhinia Galpini, with its great clusters of salmon to rich red flowers and Bougainvillaea had been allowed to ramble up the trunks of the trees and over the buildings. Flowering frangipani trees planted long ago by the Cronje's perfumed the evenings.

There were no fences between the Cronje reserve, the Moremi and Chobe parks and the Okavango swamp. Large breeding herds of elephants could move freely throughout the area and many had chosen the rugged landscape of the area around the Cronjes' Camp as their home. Buffalo herds could be seen in the Mopane-veld some way further off and the lion population was substantial. In all, Cronje was well established to become rich on big-five based ecology-tourism.

Ouma Cronje had trained the staff to cook typically Afrikaans dishes that he would submit as African to visitors - koeksusters, babotie and venison stews. The Moreke's in turn, introduced dishes like Mopani-worms to the menu. The boys, by now accustomed to beans and canned sausage, found themselves in a gastronomic wonderland.

The river ran at the foot of the Camp. Thrilled, Benjamin rushed to get the folding fishing rod and expensive tackle he had brought from the Cape, but the smiling headman explained that there was a far better fishing spot about a mile up-stream. That afternoon Cronje organised their first expedition on the river by mokoro - a hollowed tree trunk, punted along by a black man, looking for all the world like a semi-naked gondolier, uprooted from a Venetian canal. The five boys distributed themselves over four fragile looking craft and watched Terrapins swimming lazily at the side of their mokoros.

The larger pools held the gregarious, but dangerous Hippopotamus - a tubby bushveld submariner, that spent the day in the pool blowing and splattering. They left the water at night to crop the grass with huge tusk-like canines and incisors as long as twelve inches from the gum. At close quarters, from the mokoro they would sometimes see its smooth hairless and very sensitive skin, secrete a thick red fluid, which gave the appearance of sweating blood.

The Nile crocodile would bask dead still on the sandbanks at the river's edge. One day a small crocodile, no more than a foot long, with more greed than sense, seized the snout of a large drinking giraffe and found himself lifted high in the air and shaken until it let go and dropped with an embarrassed splash in the waters below. Cronje told them the reptiles could grow to more than 16 feet in length.

Handsome grey-crested birds called Hoopoes and starlings kept them amused back in the Camp. The Hoopoes were the size of a large dove, boldly barred black, cream and white with odd, punk-like spikes, on their heads. They uttered a mellow hop-hoop call. Metallic-coloured glossy starlings were frequent visitors. Themba knew them by their Zulu name iKhwezi. Kramer was transported the day a magenta, malachite and electric-blue pied Burchell's starling arrived at the Camp and frolicked among the equally good-looking long-tailed starlings.

The bird that remained in their collective memory was the beautiful African fish-eagle, undoubtedly the most famous of the African raptors. Its wingspan of nearly two meters and standing twenty-eight inches high, loud, ringing, call - WHOW-kayow-kwow - then, two off them in duet, was one of the most haunting sounds in nature anywhere in the world. The boys would pass them in the Mokoros as they sat sentry - perching for hours on a dead tree trunk; their long-sighted hooded-eyes had a hazel-coloured iris - watchful - body and wings dark; contrasting with its white head; black hooked-bill. From its perch, the eagle would hunt - fish, up to eight pounds in weight - grabbing them in its feet without checking his fight and planing them over the water's surface.

The narcotic effect of nature passed and like a numb arm prickling back to life, he remembered where he was and with whom.

Always good-looking, Cronje was now a young God, his golden-blond hair hung on his shoulders. He was dressed in a khaki bush jacket, shorts and high-laced boots; a sheathed Knife and Ruger 0,375 revolver hung from a leather belt.

They were now on Cronje's territory. Campbell thought: Any moment now the old Cronje will reappear he'll goose poor young Benji slap, my ass and say - 'what about that five handed spunk show'.

It did not happen. He had to determine what Cronje was up to.

27 Themba

We had argued, at first, about the foolishness of doing women's work. What else was a woman for but to pleasure a man and care for him? Wherever we went, there were always women enough, black and white, who sought to serve him in any way he might choose. I wanted him to choose one to travel with us and take care of our needs. He would have none of it.

"You are a stupid Bantu, Daniel Nxumalo." He would tease me, sounding like a Boer. But it was more than a month before I found out that he had little taste for women.

It was soon clear to me that my brother Cronje had been very afraid of growing old. His fear of ageing was what kept him needing the company of their boys' years younger than himself. That, and the sex.

He never once forced himself on me, nor did he ever ask for my love. Once I knew, or suspected, what it was that kept him from accepting the favours of even the most beautiful of women, it was normal for me to pleasure him once in a while. I was grateful and I had very little with which to show my gratitude. So it was, that first night, back in the camp and alone together in our Rondaval.

Night was a time for intruders: at night owls and bats inhabited the Camp; at night the Geckos, with their splayed little five-toed feet, would carry them upside-down on the ceiling, to feast on the insects, unwise enough to enter the room. At night Chacma baboons were to be seen everywhere captivating us boys with their antics. At night monkeys that live in the bush at the verges of the Camp would sneak in and raid the dustbins and steel from our provisions at night. Sometimes, we would find love invading our Rondaval.

God knows what we had been doing: I think we had been embracing and kissing nude on his bed. This was our normal practice. He was, after all firstly an Afrikaner: for him the black body was an unexplored mystery; forbidden territory. He would stroke my velvety back skin for hours on end fingering the darker reaches of my nipples , lifting my arms and nuzzling his face in the hairless pits of my arms. He would trace a fascinated finger over my full Negroid lips and gently kisses the flat expanse of my nose. I need to convey to your the absolute gentleness the complete lack of demand in our love making. He knew, after all, where my preferences lay, but, in truth, it was a kind of therapy for us both: The hunter and the hunted; the master and the slave; finding reconciliation in each other's presence. Then when he knew that I was ready for it and sticky joy was leaking from my penis and running onto my hairless boy's belly, he would take me in his hand and bring me gently to a splashing climax.

I had learned to know his white-man's body; the golden hair on his breast; the powerful limbs; and his white-man smell, strongly pungent under his thick foreskin.

That night he went further than this usual child-play he took my erection, ample for a boy of thirteen - so it's true what they say about your black boys - in his mouth. Then he would press down to my soft black belly were a few tiny early plugs of spring black hairs were sprouting. He sighed deeply and contentedly when he bent over and said: "I want you to fuck me, baba."

I had had women of course, who at my age had not, but anal penetration was new to me. His giant's boy way in front of me he hooked his powerful arms under his knees and drew them to his chest, exposing the thicket of dark golden hair around his hole. With a finger he greased up his hole and instructed me to do likewise to my seven inches of firmness.

I remember hearing Hyenas, slouching near the camp, laughing maniacally in the night. Was this madness transferring itself to him?

I moaned as my cock pressed against the entry of Cronje's pulsing rectum. He was very tight; my record of good fucking experience with women helped and I pressed beyond the sphincter and he let me in. I had to stretch his anal channel on my way in; I could tell from the small jolts of pain that he gave from time-to-time, that he was not experienced at this. Then he rubbed Vaseline on my boy's prick - a new and shockingly pleasurable sensation. Below me, I thought I heard him say the single word: "Campbell", but I might have been wrong as I heard mostly the pounding blood in my ears we were both sweating profusely. As I thrust into him, the fucking assumed a regular rhythm. He contracted his anal muscles and gripped my cock then he shot his man's load onto and his backdoor muscles contracted in innocent pleasure. In a blinding climax of pleasure, I discarded in his warm depths.

That was when the nose disturbed us. A short startled cry. We thought it came from the Boma nearby, which had been completed and was in full use. It was basically a round clearing, a reed walled providing protection from uninvited visitor and wind, but at night it seemed to attract jackals and baboons keen to clean up any traces of the evening meal.

Then it came again. It was human!

Cronje leapt from the bed and rushed to the window. What he saw had him grasp his Ruger 0,375 revolver and rushed, naked, from the Rondaval into the African night.

Two shots had rung out by the time I joined him outside. Cronje stood, naked in the moonlight, over the form of a dead hyena bitch and her pup, a bit farther up I saw the cowering, whimpering figure that had raised the alarm. I watched the last jerking movements of the expiring cub, and saw the blood spreading from the mother's powerful jaws, which could sever a man's arm or leg in one swift action. Cronje would never have killed the nursing hyena and her pup, but the trespasser must have represented a danger to the cub and the mother had charged.

Cronje drew the figure from the ground: in the moonlight I could see the dark stains on his jeans where he had urinated. Cronje held the trembling boy firmly to his naked body.

"I am sorry," Campbell choked out his justification, "I just had to know..."

28

Early in the morning they would get up around sunrise and go game viewing. They would seek out lion, cheetah and leopard - that they found so easily with Cronje, who knew were to look in the dappled shade of the trees. The leopard, he told them was one of the most dangerous antagonists in Africa - a killing machine of awesome power. The cheetah was the most graceful of all the big African cats.

They would return in time for breakfast - then mooch around the Camp in the midday-heat - too slothful to fight it. Benji might fish at the spot up river. Nathan would be busy with the Birdlife while Cronje was busy around the construction site of the new Camp, or going out with Themba on poacher control trips.

He wondered: Has something changed? Had Cronje grown weary of being the heartless bastard - did he, indeed, want to establish some form of new relationship?

The days passed into weeks and he found himself spending time doing strange things: helping fix thing in and around the kitchen, the mother would feed the child on her naked breast and the baby got to like the short white young man. He learned things from the woman, for example, about the Marula tree, with its attractive shape and rich green: the fruit could be used to make beer or tart jams, which give a zest to venison.

He would sit on the veranda of the kitchen block playing with the baby, studiously trying to avoid the harsh African sun. He found there was more to see and appreciate than merely the big five mammals: scarab beetles, rolling a fresh ball of rhino dung; scorpions; kaleidoscopic bugs and spiders; and striking butterflies. In the afternoons they would seek out the cooling water in the reservoir, avoiding the perils of the open natural water.

He waited in vane for Cronje to come to him and demand and explanation of the events of the night before - why he had defied the night-time curfew, imposed for reasons of safety and crept to their window to spy on them. Cronje's friendly silence was more unendurable than the public humiliation, he waited for, but never came.

The feeling of other worldliness was even stronger here than even on the moon-landscape of the Magadigadi. The lush green; the clear unpolluted waters of the swamp channels; the blue water lilies; abundant wildlife, who often seemed impervious to man's presence - a sort of Eden, where Campbell, as Adam, awaited a fearful serpent and was both disappointed and relieved, when he did not come.

What kept the area unique, was the custodian Ttsetse fly. Large as stable flies, but slim and streamed-lined, they had faces like death's-heads and could bite straight through the denim of their thickest jeans. The only refuge from them was in the heat of the sun at midday. They also caused sleeping sickness or Trypanosomiasis. - the curse of this paradise.

The ablution facilities had been primitive. A deep, vile smelling pit had recently been filled in and the French drain had recently been commissioned, on trial for the new complex. The shower was an odd, round, grassed-off circle, from which a huge round showerhead dispensed cold water, pumped up by a creaking, metal windmill. Showers were a communal affair - the water soothed the mosquitoes' bites and the gnat irritations. The boys made frequent use of the showers as the river, with its hippopotamuses and crocodiles, was unsafe for swimming.

The water in the round concrete reservoir was bilharzia free and, therefore, safe. It was, also, in the full sun and the water was tepid soon after sunrise. Cronje was often with them in the shower, washing off cement tracks on his arms or just cooling off. Cronje's wet curls dripped water onto his body - a twenty-year-old god's body, turned to the boys, available to worship or to be worshipped.

He was magnificent. On several occasions he noted, jealously, Benji with a full erection, admiring the bronzed body.

At night they would congregate around the roaring fire in the boma, eating well and listening to Cronje's yarns. There was a gradual, almost imperceptible, shift in the balance of relationships taking place: Themba, who once was inseparable from Cronje by day and night, now preferred to spend time with the younger boys; Nathan seemed to have found a serious drinking partner in Cronje. The two would drink freely: pint after pint of beer, then switch to brandy and coke, until late into the night. One night Galahad, stumbled from boy to boy and placed a frangipani flower behind each of their ears.

"A beautiful flower for an angelic boy." He faltered, close to inebriated tears. He and Nathan lingered very late that night.

"You've got him all wrong." Nathan slurred, returning to his bed late that night, and finding Campbell waiting up for him. "He is a wonderful kind man."

"Great, I hope the two of you are very happy together."

"Whatever."

The diary read: Fuckity-fuck! My fuck is to fuck girls! I had along talk with The Hand about it and he agrees. I'm not really gay. He says one day soon I'll grow out of this phase and go back to Becky and her panties and making babies, knowing how all these things work. I kinda think of it like school. You gotta so do Maths and geography but you not going to do that the rest of your life, unless you become a teacher. Maybe that's what The Hand is - a teacher well I'm glad I got him. Wonder what Cronje is like? Benji said he is a bumhole bandit and I better watch out. I've never had anything up the old poop-shoot, so....

29 Themba

Perhaps I should speak of the things we discussed in the early days. The change in my brother, Cronje, had started before I met him.

He had joined the Army straight from school, not wishing to waste time at university. His mother was the daughter of a Cabinet Minister and his father was a hugely successful industrialist, who had grown up in the bosom of apartheid and prospered from it. Cronje had crossed the boarder an ardent Nationalist, but he returned someone his family no longer recognised. He questioned what they were doing in other countries. He had long and bitter arguments with the father - to whom he always previously deferred - about the justice of their society.

Cronje told me how, one day, with Russian RPG 7 fire thundering around them, he had found two Cuban soldiers in each other's arms, as if they were sleeping together. They were not. The blood that blackened their shirts and the stench of death told him that much. They were young, no older than he was himself. This was the enemy. Then there were the simple likeable boys in his troop. Three of them, one not yet 17, had been killed. Where, he asked, was the justice in a society that sent boys, not yet old enough to vote for the politicians that determine their fates, to be killed in some foreign country.

I believe my brother, Cronje, was already coming to terms with his own homosexuality, at the time, and the attitudes of his own people, toward the matter, pained him.

"Where is the justice in politicians playing with the lives of children and then convicting men for having sex with an fifteen-year-old boy? Who are the real child abusers in the world?" He would ask me. I was thirteen - I knew no answers - but I let him speak.

"By their standards, I should be in prison now for all I did during my years at school." He would say, and I do not believe it was guilt speaking. Cronje was an honourable human being. He felt if he bought into their system, he would have to live by all their rules - all their rules - not merely those that suited him.

He knew he no longer respected anything he had previously believed but he had no real idea of what he wanted. He had moved to Botswana to find a new purpose in life. At first he thought this goal was commercial, but it had taken that fight with me, for him to come to terms with the world. By the time he had 'moered' me into submission, there was no longer any trace left of his former self.

He would say: "It took a lonely, frightened, but astonishingly brave, thirteen-year-old boy who had run away from my people, for me to get a new perspective on life."

There was shame and rage in him for the systematic abuse of the children in the townships. Once, he was ashamed to admit, he had been part of upholding the divide between black and white - now all that had changed. It seemed his principal reason for living was to defend the right to love an individual, irrespective of any colour, race or other issues. This doctrine was incontrovertible and he would brook no criticism of it.

He could not free the black people from white supremacy - but he could live a different life.

The only thing he lacked, in his prefect scheme of things, was a partner that shared his ideas, and his sexuality. Cronje only ever loved one person, and that person, even to a thirteen-year-old, proved a totally unsuitable match. He went to great lengths to win his love, but the partner was already spoken for - by ambition and a misplaced sense of guilt.

30 Themba

The Moreke family lived in a little fenced off village nearby. They were really several families, as sons grew-up, they would find a wife from a neighbouring village, and return to start their own generation of the Moreke dynasty. The white boys were fascinated by the names they had chosen for the boys - biblical names like Jeremiah; Habakkuk; Zephaniah and Deuteronomy.

The day, we met up with the goatherds, Campbell, Benji and I had been out walking. Red Bishop birds - handsome scarlet and black birds - flew from a clump of the yellow and red Mopane trees.

We found one of the Moreke lads pissing on the feet of one of his young associates. The boys, dirty and dusty as the chickens in the run in the village, moaned, fought and scrambled about to avoid the golden stream emanating from a thickening black-sausage with a luxuriant foreskin.

"Dumela Morena." Lamentation, a grinning nineteen-year-old, who was doing the pissing, greeted the Campbell the eldest in our group. Neither he, nor his cousins, whom we call brothers -Ezra, thirteen, and Ezekiel about thirteen - had any English between.

"Dumelang, boetie." I greeted them in Sesotho. The grinning Lamentation was shaking off the last drops of urine form his prick, working the long foreskin back and forth rhythmically.

"That's quite some cock for a young guy." Benji indicated to me to translate.

The black penis seemed to respond to my translation of the flattery and jerked upward into a semi-erection. Both the cousins giggled rudely and made vulgar masturbatory gestures. Lamentation could recognise an appreciative audience when he saw one and took the advice his cousins offered - he started wanking openly. His juvenile cock was now totally stiff - an attractive four inches. Benji started feeling himself.

"Horny as usual." Campbell said. The Tswana boys whispered among themselves.

I laughed: "You boys should hear what they are saying. Ha ha! They are wondering what the strange white-boys have in their pants."

"Shall we do it too, Aeneas?" Benji asked feeling the front of Campbell's shorts - it was obvious that he shared Benji's interest.

"Themba, this is all a bit embarrassing..."

"Hey, don't mind me." I said I had no interest in kid's stuff. "You guys want to play around - go for it." A few swift questions from myself and he could inform them that the herd's boys were prepared to negotiate a price, in kind, to satisfy their curiosity. "You can play with them, if they can play with you."

"You won't go telling Cronje, will you?"

"My lips, like my asshole, are sealed." I settled under a thorn tree to enjoy the show.

Campbell felt inside Eziekle's dirty brown shorts - no underwear. The three herd boys were soon stripped down to their dusty ebony skins; three firm manly black pairs of jut-out bums to caress; six round testicles; three ample sacs, varying in size and design; and three delightful handsome erections with which to toy. They jostled each other out of the way to be first in the queue for Campbell's attention. He grasped Eziekle and sank to his knees while Benji wanked Lamentation.

"What we going to do with them?"

"Let me suck this one off and then we'll see." The fifteen-year-old boy thrilled, thrust his prick forward and grinned.

"Oh cool" Benji watched the head of the boy's six incher slip effortlessly into Campbell's mouth. He worked his own finger under the ample foreskin of Lamentation's rather thick four-inch sausage and felt the sticky wetness. Benji when down on Lamentation, took the head in his mouth and looking up he saw the smile give the lie to the name Lamentation.

"Look, Aeneas, when you suck it a bit, it's even blacker under the dust."

"This one tastes keen. How does yours taste?"

"Great, bring that one closer, I want to do both cocks - you can suck their balls." Benji drew the longer and shorter pricks together massaging a handful of hairless testicles and Campbell strained his mouth wide and took both at once.

"They smell different, but they taste crazy. Hey, is that nice?" Benji asked Lamentation. The black boys were muttering among themselves.

"They want you guys to get you clothes off." I advised from his vantagepoint. The suck session was interrupted long enough for the white boys to strip. The boys murmured their approval and touched the white skin and marvelled at the blond hair around Campbell's cock.

I decided to join the child's play after all. I yanked out my own seven incher and approached the group.

"Oh my God it's a black mamba!" Called Benji in mock terror and grasped his hand to hid trough at and pretended to die. "It's a black mamba! A bum biting mamba!"

Benji went back to giving Ezekiel's balls a good wash, when the older boy said something to his bothers, and they laughed in unison.

"What are they saying?"

"They ask why don't you lie down so they can play with white cocks. They say they could have got a baby goat to suck them off it that was all they wanted."

Campbell stretched out on the dusty ground, Benji at his side. The three black boys swarmed over their bodies, squirming like playful sleek-bodied puppies, busy fingers grabbing at penises; mouths pressed to the blond ball-hair and the red-freckled skin; stroking Campbell's cock until he shot his cum.

The seven-year-old had his bum towards Campbell, who pressed his face between the firm small buttocks and licked at the dusty aperture.

"I want cock. Oh God, I need cock!" He arched his back from the dirt and slid a finger vigorously up his ass. I knew, intuitively, that he craved what he had seen me doing to my brother. He begged me: a look of utterly forlorn lust. I was convinced: I lubricated my cock with saliva and rammed my black cock into the hollow.

"Fill me up! I want a bum-full today." He gasped out between mouthfuls of Lamination's creaming cock. Instead of satisfying him, my rough fucking seemed to send him into a frenzy of debauchery. Down on all fours, he yanking at all available cocks; his teeth grazing a sensitive young glans; his finger thrust viciously up virgin orifices, hurting the heard boy's in his desperate grasping. If I must tell the truth, he frightened us all with his depravity.

Ezra started to piss himself from fear: this seemed to thrill Campbell even more; he reached up and eagerly drank the boy's piss.

31

The richness in wildlife was astounding and one did not always need to leave the encampment in the Land Rover to see them. An elegant Kudu, with magnificent dappled coat and splendid spiralled horns, that usually favoured the thicker bush, visited the unfenced camp in the early morning, when there was little activity.

One morning, breakfast was postponed by two elephants, casually drifting through the camp, on their way to the water's edge. The Elephant, which seemed such a gentle giant, could turn in an instant into a destructive behemoth of bones and muscles. Cronje knew he had no need to run for the high powered rifle - that morning all they did was kick up clouds of dust in their wake, that seasoned the eggs and bacon, and reminding them that here, they were the intruders.

It was at breakfast, that he saw the first signs: Cronje tossed back his curls, and laughed a little too hard at Nathan's jokes. Then, he took just too long serving up Nathan's scrambled eggs: the manner they touched hands was a dead give away. When Nathan turned to Cronje, and gave him his left-hand-side-of-the-face smile that had melted Campbell's heart, he knew they were having it off. He understood that they were becoming closer: they were drinking buddies in the evening; it was Nathan, not Themba, he now asked to go out on poacher patrol. God, was nothing sacred to Cronje?

Any thought of reconciliation was now destroyed.

His suspicions ranged like a pack of huge-eared wild dogs, loping through the grass.

Aeneas Campbell, firm in his conviction of his own, and everyone else's, state of original sin, had hewn guilt to perfection. Now, he added to it an absolute conviction in the perfection of his own judgement. The two perspectives combined to form an attitude, which would have done credit to the Spanish inquisition.

He was set upon retribution and he knew just the organ for his justice.

That night, voices roused Nathan from his sleep. When he looked over at Campbell's bed, he saw, to his amazement, his best friend, lying prone on the bed, his young brother squatting over his cock and lowering himself onto it. Campbell's erection disappeared into the boy's petite ass. Benji, a grimace of pain on his face, began to move up and down on the big boy's cock, riding while he masturbated himself disconsolately. Campbell spasms, as he shot into the depths of his brother's ass and they felt the warm seed trickle down creamy boy's buttocks onto his scrotum. The young guy quivered - experiencing his nearly orgasm. He parted his butt cheeks; Campbell's jism running out of the hole; Campbell lowering his eager tongue to clean the cum, oozing from the crack.

"Well, Benji, you're no long a virgin - how do you feel about it?" He asked certain that Nathan could hear them.

"Was that was okay for you," Benji sighed unhappily. "You can put it back in, if you want."

"Whatever." From the other bed.

The diary read: Fuckity-fuck! I didn't want to do it but The Hand insisted. I don't mean putting his willy up my poop-shoot, that hurt, but it went over. No, I am worried about doing it in the room with Nathan last night. I'd better watch out, when we get home, I am sure Nathan is going to tell. He is so cross he won't speak to Campbell or me. He is moving into the same room as Cronje and Themba is coming to sleep with us. I thought that The Hand would be happy after last night but he is in a real mean mood.

32 Themba

I was on a business trip in London, in 1994, when I first saw him do his turn on television on a Sunday BBC religious program.

It went like this: Happy smiling faces - English faces. Sound of the roar of the crowd. Cut too the famous century at Sydney cricket ground - Campbell raises his bat in acknowledgement of the cheers of the crowd. Cut to the West-Indies tour - Campbell's carried on the shoulders of happy brown boys. More cheers - his face in profile; right; left; full on: smiling, triumphant! Fade in (white letters): Aeneas Campbell OBE for the KIC campaign. Cut to country school. The camera runs through the front doors of the school; along the corridors; out the back door; onto the playing fields. Bird song. Camera runs to the cricket nets: pretty, healthy, country boys in cricket-whites, practising. Campbell is couching: a hand steadies a bowler; he raises a boy's elbow at the crease, to improve his stroke; hand in the small of the back of an angelic looking Asian boy; he guide him through a fast bowing technique; sound of willow of leather; subdued, boyish, enthusiasm.

Voice over by Campbell: Cricket has been good to me. It gave purpose and meaning to my life when I needed it most. It has helped me lead a clean and good life. These young men are growing up in an age when there is more temptation around than ever before. More drugs; more crime; more liberal sexuality - but also more dangers. It is more important than ever, that they learn to say - no! No, to drugs. No, to drink and cigarettes. No, to casual sex.

Cut to the classic good-looking features- But, there are other forms of abuse, than drugs and alcohol. I'm talking of sex! In this age of AIDS; hepatitis B and C; venereal disease - it is more important than ever, for right thinking boys to understand traditional values and to appreciate that the proper place for sex is in the matrimonial bedroom. When I grew up, I was taught that masturbation would turn you blind. I noticed that friends of mine retained their twenty-twenty vision, but, it has taken me until now to understand that the Victorians were right, and that it does turned you blind. A sort of moral blindness, that descends into the slippery slope of homosexual experimentation; free-love; partner swapping; teenage pregnancy; prostitution and a bisexual purgatory. There lads from the Whitebottom Grammar School, have made a promise to keep themselves for the woman they love. You can too! Behind the voice, a choir sounds - Blake's Jerusalem - Keep it clean, lads. Keep it clean! It's sane; it's sanitary; it's safe.

Fade in (white letters): Aeneas Campbell OBE for the KIC campaign - of the Youth Council for the traditional value's office.

I remained frozen in front of the television screen for a long time. They repeated the insert on Blue Peter several times. Every time it had the same chilling effect on me. It was, as if all the guilt had colluded to turn him into an avenging angel, out to get any other sinner. All I could see I'm my minds eye was that day in Africa: Campbell, this latter-day Anita Bryant, slobbering over the sex organs of Lamentation Morake and the other young herd boys craving more cock.

33 Themba

I take a long draft from the crystal port decanter that is passed from hand to hand.

Campbell says: "South Africa should have been Belgium and Belfast and Beirut all mixed into one lethal cocktail but some how it wasn't."

"It is uBantu - the spirit of humanity and mutual respect." I say. He looks confused perhaps he is having difficulty in conceiving of a society where concern for another individuals well being might be more important than your own self interest.

Benji says: "They put me under an analyst straight away. I thought at first they blamed me and were using this shrink to get me to confess to having set up the whole thing. But I realised that a shrink in Americas is part of the normal heath-care program like the dentist and the podiatrist. Anyway, my shrink is from the Woody Allen school and...."

"Huh!" Campbell snorted, "A man who molests children."

"Whatever." After all the years Campbell still flinches at the word, but only briefly.

"Only in America could they take a paedophile, and make him a buy word for mental health."

"That stuff hadn't happened back then, and you are spoiling my story. My shrink said, that Woody said, that it was all about love and death. That it is always about love and death."

"It was never about love. It was about corruption of minors. Cronje seduced us all. Raped, if you like, all of us"

"He never laid a hand on me. You, on the other hand, did." The gloves came off.

"That was all his fault! Victims become perpetrators. It has been proven time and again. Any little indiscretion I might've been guilty of, was beyond my control."

"Campbell, how long do you plan to hate?"

"Till hell freezes over."

"Your heart iced over long ago."

34

Benji Kramer would spend hours fishing at the lala-palm-lined riverside - with its rich, almost fluorescent, greens. Sometimes his brother would join him, silently admiring the Giant kingfisher, a large brown and black, speckled, bird or the beautiful pygmy kingfisher, that clung to the reeds, with its bright deep-blue wings and coral and chestnut-scarlet trimmings.

It was one of the indistinguishable days between Christmas '67 and New Year. Hoping to land a fighting tiger fish, young Benjamin had gone off earlier, walking the mile or so to the deep pool the river formed at that spot. He was fishing from a broad sun-baked promontory of flat rocks. The heat was oppressive. The rest of them relaxed around the Camp, but eventually, succumbed to hunger and went the mile down river to where the staff had set up a braaivleis beside the pool.

Stripping off their shirts, to soak up the sun, Kramer and Cronje waded out to the rock and, sipping beer, Cronje provided unwanted advice to Benji on his efforts. Themba laced his black fingers in Campbell's in an idle gesture of reconciliation - the atmosphere between the group was still oppressive - no one talked much - instead, they listened to the summer hum of insects, the call of the hoopoe and the kingfisher. When the cook called them to the bank to eat, the three paused in their fishing efforts and made their way to the bank, wading through the thigh-deep shallows: Cronje in front, followed by Benjamin, with his fishing tackle, and Kramer bringing up the rear. In an instant the water erupted behind them.

Cronje shouted "Fuck you Kramer, you shouldn't stuff around in the water."

Kramer was not clowning. A crocodile had torpedoed into him and clamped its powerful jaws on his lower leg and thrust across the shallows for the deep waters of the river. The sixteen-foot killer, strong enough to drown a fully grow buffalo, swam effortlessly away with its prey.

Campbell spun around on the bank, the expression on Kramer's face blistered itself onto his memory: shock, agony and utter helplessness.

"Cronje, Cronje it's a fucking crocodile!" Cronje acted with remarkable economy: he plunged into the boiling river after boy and captor.

In a manoeuvre reminiscent of his former glory, the former rugby hero, flung himself at the scaly crocodile and sank beneath it, trying to grab it between fore- and hind-legs. Its girth was too great - the rough knobbed hide rasped his skin. Bracing his feet against the river bed in the shallows, he frantically tried to slow the crocodile down or to redirect its attention, anything, to get it to released its vice-like grip on the boy. Campbell sprang into the water and physically threw the victim's shrieking brother into the waiting arms of Themba on the bank.

The crocodile surged forward, cleaving the water effortlessly like a powerboat, its jaws firmly clamped on the boy. Cronje hung on grimly, his head mostly submerged. The crocodile transferred its grip on the boy's leg to his thigh and Kramer's white face broke out of water, allowing him to gasp in air. He was silent - it was the piteous howl of his brother that wrenched the midday African quiet. Cronje held onto the reptile's jaws preventing its lashings from tearing Kramer's leg from his body. Summoning unknown reserves of energy from somewhere, he forced the animal towards the sandbank and away from the open water. Round one of the grizzly battle went to the boys.

Unaccountably, Cronje had left behind his sheath Knife and his Ruger 0,375 revolver. He was unarmed and it was a mile or more to the nearest weapon. Then he remembering the kitchen knife at the braai site.

"Campbell, there is a knife at the fire. Get it!" Aeneas flew to the picnic table, retrieved the knife, waded to the struggling group and handed it to the man. The whip-lashing beast struggled to rid itself of the assailant. Cronje stabbed the knife into the thick belly, trying to rip it open, or inflict as much pain as he could. The blade bent uselessly and with sinking heart, Campbell watched Cronje make to throw it away.

From the bank the rest watched the spectacle with horror. Most of the time all they could see were disturbed blue water lilies in the turbulent water, slowly reddening with Kramer's blood. Campbell saw the desperate pleading in this dearest of faces - he had to do something - weeping with utter frustration; spittle flying from his furious mouth, he dragged myself on top of the crocodile - there was ample room for two on the beast. Like Cronje he hammered at it with his bare fists, until the knuckles were raw. When Cronje surfaced once more, he saw the amazing sight of Aeneas riding on top of the reptile's back, as if it was one of the ponies they had ridden on the farm in Stellenbosch. Calmly and deliberately, the crocodile dragged all three boys under water with him.

A small group of monitor lizards watched impassively from the warm rocks at Themba's feet. He felt tears flowing for the quivering, screaming boy in his arms. Then Cronje had an idea - perhaps the bent knife could be forced in its eye. He held the knife out to Campbell.

"The eye - get his eye!" As Cronje, held the head of the beast momentarily still, Campbell dug the 14-inch blade deep into the left eye of the reptile, buckling the point on something hard deep inside. It wiped up its head in fury and shook Kramer as effortlessly as a playful dog shakes its blanket. The knife remained fully imbedded and resisted any effort to try to bring it out. Kramer let out a low, cry - a soft wail of pain.

"You can't give up, Kramer, you can't. I love you, you fool." Campbell shouted, not caring who heard it. Kramer's face spoke of total despair. He sank once more into the water, his frightened face heedless of anything but his own mortality.

With an effortless flick of its tail, the beast flung Campbell yards out to water, as if he were a gnat. Winded, stunned and out in the main stream of the river where ever present danger of additional crocs, Aeneas swam painfully for the shore and dragged himself to the bank where cook helped him in to safety. He then thought of a new tactic. He, Themba and the cook climbed out to the sand bank and held out a hand for Kramer to grab onto, then they gripped whatever part of the boy the could and tugged to inch him onto dry land. They realised by now that part of him was lost for good and tearing way his entire leg in the process. Themba had found a short spade - the toilet spade, which had caused such humour among the friends. He waded in and directed the spade to the other eye. The spade hit home time and again, but it mostly seemed to skim effortlessly off the surface of the shingled brute.

Then, for a split second, the monster let go of Kramer's thigh, to snap at the other offending persons. In the process, it punctured his skin on the remaining leg with another ugly row of perforations - each subsequent row lower down on the leg. Kramer's blood leaked into the water and shock and exhaustion had dulled his senses to beyond caring

"Right one more go at pulling!" Aeneas shouted, then the beast had only a foot left in its mouth - somehow this, mercifully, became severed. Kramer was free.

Abruptly, the crocodile caught all by surprise. Having lost Kramer, it went with demonic ferocity for Cronje. All Cronje could do was cross his arms in a vane attempt at protection. A split second later, the hellish creature grabbed his wrist, crushed it and the front teeth held on like a vice.

"Gooie God help my" He cried out in Afrikaans. Aeneas was at his side in seconds grabbing the shit shovel from his free hand and smashing wildly at the head of the monster.

"Die! Die, fuck you, die!" The great beast shuddered and let go of the limb, then slowly swam away, the knife sill deeply imbedded its left eye.

On the bank, Kramer had been drawn free and lay panting the arms of Benji, who was weeping tears of relief. The battle had been won; the war was yet to come. Campbell and Cronje, holding on to each other as they had not done since those far off days, took the longest walk of their lives - the 20 paces to a place on the bank, where they could draw their tired bodies to dry land and safety. Trembling uncontrollable, they made their way to the prone figure on the sandy bank.

Themba had torn a tourniquet from his shirt and stemmed the tidal wave of blood that seems to empty Kramer of life itself. The entire incident had take no more than 15 to 20 minuets but it felt like hours. Then, remembering the radio, Campbell loosed Cronje's grasp of his hand and ran the mile to the Camp, where he somehow operated the radio and called Dr Bamjee for the medical help that might save the life of his two friends.

When he returned, life had ebbed out of Kramer. Benji, his head covered in a blood stained handkerchief said Kadish, then Themba stood reciting:

Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages: Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

35 Themba

The doctors hoped his youth and constitution would carry him through, but about six o'clock in the evening his mind began to wander.

"I thought I could do it all - I thought I could make it right," said Galahad Cronje as his bodily powers gradually sank, till he quietly expired.

We buried him by a large baobab tree, there he rests still. Then the machinery of officialdom and family arrived.

Campbell was dealt with like an endangered member of the Royal family, and was whisked away by the British High Commission. He arrived in London the next day and never returned to Africa. After a few days the doctors, where he wept silently days on end, Benji was sent to the USA to join his green-card carrying family.

There was no room for me, his black boy, in the grief of Cronje's Afrikaner family, who arrived the next day. I, Themba Zuma, retraced my steps to Gabarone, was taken up by the refugee organisations and, in due course, joined the Umkhoto we Sizwe, as I had originally planned.

From the vantagepoint of my own origins, I have a perspective on these events, different from that created by Western more and values. We Zulu's don't speak of love and sex. We know that in the years that boys walk together, it happens. We say nothing of it. It is part of becoming a man. We don't put a label on a boy's neck and call this one normal man and that one some sort of outcast. In the natural order of things, we don't make rules that say you must be eighteen, or twelve, to listen to the call of an erection. No, these are the things we learned from foreign attitudes: judgmental approaches, imported by missionaries, to find sin where none was intended.

How do we create taboos? I believe that you, in the West, take a personal experience, romanticise or demonise it. Then, you take the resulting emotionally loaded message and accept it as gospel truth, to be used as a yardstick against which you measure yourself and everything around you.

The young woman who denies herself the right to love and life, to tend a sick father, creates a myth of this saintly person, willing to give up all, in the service of others. This is the worst form of self-indulgence. We would take care of the Father in the context of a loving home.

Campbell created this myth of himself as the abused youth - a Prometheus who had broken the chains and freed himself from his own black nature. In doing this, he really denied himself any prospect of happiness.

Our sympathies are drawn out towards hardy companions by a community of interests, and, it may be, of perils, which make us all friends.

A lion roars mightily. The fish-hawk utters his weird voice in the mornings, as if he lifted up to a friend at a great distance, in a sort of falsetto key....

• from the journals of Dr David Livingstone (1813-1873)

36 Themba

The cabby is far younger than most. He has his radio tuned to one of the many London pop stations. I hear of Campbell's news conference:

"In a press announcement, the former cricketing star, Aeneas Campbell, has today announced that he plans to take his "Keep It Clean" campaign to Australia. Yes, the boys in Oz will be encouraged to keep it clean, in thought, word and deed. So lay off the Fosters, the fags and the Sheila's lads. Aeneas Campbell, a sort of later day Mary Whitehouse, was speaking from the Adventurers' Club in London this afternoon. What do you make of that Frank?"

"Well, George, it think there are going to be a lot of very disappointed sheep in Australia. "

"And this is the sound of Michael Jackson's latest cut from his double CD."

37 Themba

Home is now a large ranch house on twenty acres in Kyalami, outside Johannesburg - odd that what was once the exclusive preserve of the white horse-set-elite, should have an African name.

On a Sunday, when we are lying in, we hear the German shepherds going crazy and we know that she is there again.

Beyond the stables is a little wooded koppie that once severed as the burial ground of the original black residents, before the white farmers cleared them off the land, and they in turn, made way for the mink-and-manure set.

Ute calls her the wahnsinnig Unbefugte, but she is neither crazy nor is she trespassing, - no, she is just a harmless old lady, trying to tend the graves of her ancestors. She leaves a little food behind for the ancestral spirits, that the dogs eat after she has gone, and she talks over her troubles with her family.

It is our custom. The dead remain accessible to us, in a way that is incomprehensible to the Westerner. I too, will go to visit my brother, Cronje's, grave under the Baobab tree. I did so when I asked him for his blessing on my marriage when I returned to South Africa. I will tell him about the reunion. I will tell him of Benji, with the twins named after him and Nathan. I will tell him the news of my family and I will tell him that Campbell is still so handsome and is now a successful and famous man.

I will tell him of the area where Campbell now lives- the Cornish cost that Ute and I got to know so well when we were students together. How he has converted an old iron works into a home. I know them well: they stand, like sturdy little castles, on the landscape - the smoke stacks now send out no plumes of smoke and they draw no water out of the ground - they stand strangely silent on the landscape -. redundant, beautiful and utterly isolated. I will tell him this and he will understand.