Zelamir

Young Black Master

Wikipedia entry for Kukuama Land

Kukuama (more properly the Democratic Republic of Kukuama) is a land locked country in Eastern North Africa. Its exact boundaries are in many instances open to dispute. Its neighbouring states are the Southern and Northern Sudan to the East, Chad to the North, Nigeria and Cameroon to the West and the Central African Republic to the South.

It's early history is shrouded in mystery but there are extensive archaeological remains including mine workings and an ancient communications network that suggest the existence of a sophisticated civilization. Rock carvings have been interpreted as suggesting a strong Egyptian influence and there is a lingering local tradition that connects the mine workings with the fabled wealth of the Biblical Queen of Sheba. Kukuama is still a large scale producer of gold and diamonds.

The Kukuama are an African people related but separate from the Zulus. Tradition, which is the only guide to their early history, suggests that they arrived in the territory they currently inhabit sometime in the Fifteenth Century arriving from the North. Finding the country fertile and their route to the South blocked by the Sulimen Berg Mountains and the extensive waterless desert to the South of those mountains they began to form permanent settlements.

At the time the Kukuama arrived in the area the only inhabitants were people of Negroid stock practicing a simple form of mixed agriculture. These they dispossessed and enslaved. Known as Ngeni (literally translated "others") they now form a considerable but subordinate part of the population.

The Kukuama were insulated from outside interference to the South and East by Mountain ranges and deserts and to the West by areas of tropical jungle. The only challenge to their hegemony came from the North but being a very warlike people they had no difficulty in repelling all attacks.

The first recorded contact with Europeans occurred in the late Nineteenth Century when a small expedition led by the British Explorer Allan Quartermain (later Sir Allan Quartermain) managed after considerable suffering to traverse the Southern Desert and to penetrate the Sulimen Berg Mountains to the fertile plains beyond. (See Sir Allan Quartermain's account of this expedition in the book King Solomon's Mines" edited by H.Rider Haggard) They made no attempt to colonize the area but news soon leaked out of the rich lands and the gold and diamonds to be found there.

This precipitated a series of invasions from the North of rival African tribes supported increasingly by bands of European adventurers. The Kukuama resisted initially with considerable success. However the British fearing that the near anarchy in the area threatened the stability of the Sudan and in the longer term Egypt decided to take what was intended as a limited police action to stabilize the area. The Kukuama resisted fiercely but their impalas armed with assegai and throwing knifes could not stand against troops equipped with modern artillery, repeating rifles, and Gatling Guns. Desultory resistance continued however with occasional acts of banditry on the one side being countered by savage reprisals on the other. It was not until the British forces embarked on a campaign of systematic pacification involving the concentration of the native population into special camps where many perished of hunger and disease, that the King of the Kikuana (Twala the Third) sued for peace. Under the Treaty of Loue in return for the payment of £500000 he ceded the Southern and most fertile area of the land together with the gold and diamond fields to the occupying power. Leaving his people to their fate he left to enjoy a luxurious exile in Europe.

The European colonization of the territory then took place. The new colonial administration divided the land ceded to it into large allotments which it then sold to European, mainly British settlers. Joint stock companies in the City of London were formed to exploit the known gold and diamond fields while large numbers of individual prospectors and adventurers arrived in the territory hoping to make their fortunes.

The Kikuana found themselves reduced to the level of the Ngeni and conscripted to labour in the farms and mines.

The sullen acceptance of defeat that followed King Twala the Third's surrender to the British soon gave way to isolated acts of rebellion which were invariably savagely repressed.

The somewhat anomalous constitutional position of Kikuana Land (originally a dependency of the Sudan itself a joint condominium of Egypt and the United Kingdom) resulted in a lack of political direction at the very top which allowed the local power structures dominated by the White settler class to maintain themselves in power long after "the wind of change" had swept away other relics of white supremacy in neighbouring countries. The isolated acts of rebellion referred to above became more frequent until a state of almost open war existed between Kikuana and the white settlers aided by native auxiliaries drawn from the ranks of the Ngeni who found the rule of the settlers less oppressive than that of their old native masters.

In 1975 the Kikuana rose en masse and openly challenged the settler forces. This proved a grave error of judgement, regular British army units together with elements of the Royal Air Force were rushed to the territory and the insurgents dispersed. Regular and settler forces harried the rebels and drove the surviving remnants into the bush. For a time it seemed likely that the rebellion would be finally suppressed but it endured and eventually regrouped under a charismatic young leader Peter Obutu.

Exhausted by years of struggle and conscious that Britain no longer had the means or the will to offer them assistance the settlers eventually ceded authority to the insurgents.

The post conflict settlement was, considering the length and bitterness of the War of National Liberation, moderate. The Ngeni who had supported the settlers were proscribed, deprived of civil rights and subjected to control under a system of Indentured labour. The white settlers were given the choice of becoming citizens of the Democratic Republic or of accepting compensation fixed by an independent arbitration committee for their land holdings and leaving the country.

A liberal democratic constitution was promulgated with a President and Parliament elected by universal adult male suffrage

It is a measure of the innate conservatism of the Kikuana that the first President was General Peter Obutu a member of the Tajula tribe from which the Kings of the Kikuana were drawn and that he remains President to this day.

The settlement has worked reasonably well. The Democratic Republic appears to be a stable and generally efficiently, if not wholly democratically, governed.

The vast majority of settlers have chosen to renounce their citizenship of the Democratic Republic and take the compensation offered. Allegations have been made that the sums offered to settlers by the arbitration committee were unrealistically low. The Government of the Republic has countered by claiming that the payments are if anything over generous taking into account that the settler's title to the land is based on a sale by an individual (King Twala III) whose title was itself doubtful.

The Ngeni, proscribed and disenfranchised, have been the losers in the post- independence settlement but they are no worse off than they were in the past and there has been very little reported by way of the bloody reprisals initially forecast on them by the Kikuana for their perceived disloyalty during the War of Liberation in supporting the settlers.

Chapter 1

"I think between us we got the bloody niggers on the run now," the commandant of the holding and rehabilitation centre said with satisfaction. "You regulars do what you are good at chasing the black buggers and handing the ones you catch alive to us. And we colonials. who know our niggers, hang the worst of them and give the remainder a bit of vigorous 're-habitation' before sending them back to the farms where they belong."

"The controlled strategic village program certainly seems to be working," the young man sporting the single pips of a second lieutenant on his shoulders spoke with ill concealed distaste.

He disliked the country he had been sent to serve in. Hot, dirty and backward, he thought summed it up although he accepted that there were the occasional areas of dramatic and staggering beauty. He disliked the work he had been sent to do which was more appropriate in his opinion to a colonial policeman than a Regular Officer in the British Army.

Above all he disliked the short burly man lounging behind the desk opposite him. He disliked the way he spoke, with that ugly colonial accent typical of the settler population of the country, half nasal twang, half whine with a suggestion of menace and contempt, he dislike the way he looked, wearing an ill pressed khaki drill uniform with patches of damp sweat showing under his armpits.

"By isolating the guerrillas and cutting them off from their supporters in the country side we are depriving them of food and intelligence," he continued quoting the official line, "and forcing them to expose themselves in the search for supplies. It's a war of attrition that we are winning."

"Too bloody right," the Commandant replied, "and now have a drink before you get back to chasing niggers."

Without giving a chance for this offer to be refused the Commandant through back his head and roared "boy" at the top of his voice.

"Boy," he yelled again. "Where the hell are you misshapen lump of nigger shit... Boy."

There was the soft pad of bare feet running and a black boy about, by the look of him, twelve years old, appeared in the room. A sturdy, strongly built lad for his age dressed in a spotlessly clean and freshly ironed pair of khaki drill shorts, he stood just inside the door to the commandant's office his bare chest heaving with pants.

"Boss?" he said enquiringly.

"Come here boy," the Commandant ordered turning himself round in his seat as the boy approached reluctantly.

"Come round here – this side of the desk – stand there.in front of me," the man commanded pointing to the ground between his spread knees.

"Look at the little brute," the commandant said addressing the soldier and running his hand up the back of one bare ebony thigh, "shows how well a nigger however apparently hopeless responds to firm handling provided they are caught early."

"This one here typical of the worst type of uppity young black, first name Peter that means he's a Christian and therefore a mission boy, can probably can read and write."

"Can you read and write boy?"

"Yes Boss."

"God what a waste… what's a nigger boy like you got to do with reading and writing."

"Anyway he was brought in just three weeks ago, the youngest of a dozen black boys one of your patrols picked up in the bush. So we interrogated them soon as we had 'em and identified the ringleaders without much difficulty including this boy's Dad and elder brother. Had 'em hanged the same afternoon."

"Stand still boy."

"No point on wasting rations feeding a Nigger that's going to be killed anyway. This one just howled and screamed at first and refused all food. Chief Warder just wanted to knock it on the head and have done with it. No shortage of nigger boy's he said. But I said he was a good strong lad with maybe thirty years of work in it if he was handled right. So I gave him a good whipping and went on from there. Now look at him obedient biddable little animal."

"Doesn't alter the fact though he took his time coming when I called him."

Suddenly the Commandant grabbed the Peter between the legs and squeezed hard. The Negro boy doubled up screaming his hands flying to protect his crutch.

"Get your hands down by your sides you black cunt," the man rasped squeezing and twisting the boy's balls.

"Why weren't you here when I called you filth."

"Please Boss, please," the boy moaned.

"'Please, please,"', the man sneered squeezing the boy's testicles even harder. Then he suddenly released his hold of the boy's crutch and back handed him viciously across the face. The boy staggered back and loosing his balance fell back on his bottom. The man heaved himself to his feet with surprising speed for one of his bulk and kicked the boy in the crutch.

"Bottle of whiskey, jug of cold water and two tumblers. Quick boy, jig jig, don't keep me waiting."

The boy scrambled hastily to his feet. As he turned to head from the room the Commandant rising from his chair drove a hefty kick into his backside.

"Got to keep on top of the black bastards," he remarked.

The Commandant settled back in his chair and proceeded to give his visitor the benefit of his opinions, which were not high ones, on the African mind and African morals.

The boy was soon back and placed a tray with a bottle of Mackay's, a jug of water beaded with condensation with ice clinking inside it and two empty tumblers. He placed the tray on the desk at the Commandant's elbow and began to back away. The Commandant restrained him with one hairy hand gripping the back of a smooth black thigh.

"I'll leave you to add water if you want," he remarked pouring a good three fingers of neat spirits into a tumbler and pushing it across to the soldier.

He poured a similar quantity of whiskey into the second glass.

"Well cheers," he said and put the drink away in one, shuddered, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and poured himself a second drink. The soldier not wanting to be out done emulated him and reached for the bottle to refill his glass.

"I expect you had plenty of pretty little blond boys in whatever posh boarding school you went to?" the commandant asked matter of factly in the harsh colonial accent he used.

"Not so posh," the soldier replied with a laugh. In normal circumstances he would have resented the question and would have denied vehemently any interest in boys blond or otherwise. The shock of the alcohol taken early on an empty stomach in the heat of the African day loosened inhibitions that would usually have restrained him and reawakened not so very distant memories of certain very enjoyable incidents at his old school. His initial dislike of the Commandant had vanished in an alcohol induced haze. The man he thought was perhaps a bit on the rough side but quite a decent sort. The whisky mellowed and softened his view of things. Even the black boy was not without his attractions

"You were lucky all we can get here are ugly black animals like this little whore. Still better than nothing I suppose and who looks at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire and you can do what the hell you want to them, nobody'll care a shit about such brutes."

"Come on Nigger," the Commandant snapped abandoning his grip of the boy's thigh, "drop your shorts."

Peter hesitated and the commandant rising to his feet punched him hard in the guts. The boy doubled over and the man grabbing him by the back of the neck forced him face down across the desk. He held the boy pinned to the desk with one hand while yanking at the waist band of his shorts with the other.

Peter screamed and thrashed about trying to escape from the man's grasp. The man pulled the boy's head back and then slammed it down hard on the wooden desk top. There was a dull thud and the crunch of breaking bone. A pool of blood began to form under the boy's dark head. Peter's screams sank to a low hopeless sobbing.

The man jerked hard at the waist band of the boy's shorts. There was a ripping sound as he pulled them down over the brat's bottom letting them tumble to the floor about his ankles. The boy had not been allowed under-pants.

"Come round here and hold the little bastard down for me," the Commandant demanded.

The young soldier didn't hesitate. He jumped from his seat and went to stand by the desk at the boy's head. He pinned the little Negro down on the desk with his hands on the lad's bare shoulders. He felt no particular guilt in coming to the Commandant's assistance. The whole thing was not very different from certain occasions in the past when back at school he had assisted in initiating a less than willing junior boy in the often painful pleasures of sex.

The Commandant hurriedly unbuttoned his shorts (back in those days buttons not zips were used) and pulled them and his underpants down. His swollen cock jutted out in front of him a nine inch [23 cm] long pallid column of gristle and flesh ribbed with knotted blue and purple veins. He spat on his hand and liberally smeared it with saliva. Digging his thumbs into the cleft of the boy's bottom he pulled the lips of his anus apart. He carefully aligned the tip of his penis with the boy's hole and drove forward.

The soldier swore as he fought to hold the boy down as the Commandant hammered his iron hard prick into his guts. Peter writhed and screamed under the assault his bare feet beating a frenzied tattoo of pain on the board floor.

"Stop that stupid noise and lie still you black cunt," the Commandant shouted clouting the boy hard across the back of his head.

The soldier excited by the brat's sufferings, pinning him down with a hand on the back of his neck used his free hand to unbutton his flies and free his cock from the restraints of his shorts. Gripping the boy by the ears he forced his head back. The sight of the brat's face contorted with pain and smeared with blood that still seeped from his nose and mouth excited him further. He probed the boy's lips with the tip of his erect prick. Peter kept his mouth firmly closed and struggled to turn his head away.

Telling himself he would not accept such nonsense from a nigger boy the soldier tightened his grip on the brat's ears and smashed his face down once again on the already blood stained desk top. Fresh blood gushed from the boy's nose and mouth. The soldier pulled the boy's head back again and smashed it down a second time.

"Open your fucking mouth and fucking suck," the soldier snarled.

A second later the soldier's cock was lodged deep in the boy's gullet. Gripping Peter's ears the soldier brutally pumped the boy's throat with his cock while the commandant pounded away at his bottom. It was all over in a few minutes. The two men stepped back from the boy leaving him lying across the desk his face and chin smeared with cum. A foul mixture of blood, cum and shit welled from his arse hole and trickling down the inside of his thighs.

"Christ," the commandant explained, "get the filthy little turd out of here before he messes the place up."

He grabbed the naked boy by an arm and pulled him from the desk. Turning Peter to face the door he sent him staggering towards it with a boot up his arse. The boy staggered towards the door, banged into it and slid to the ground.

With two strides the commandant was at the door.

"Get out," he screamed at the boy huddled on the floor aiming two heavy kicks into his ribcage.

Peter tried to get to his feet, failed to do so and fell back onto his hands and knees. He crawled through the door onto the open veranda that ran round the guard room urged on by the commandant with a series of further hefty kicks up his bum.

The two men picked the boy and threw him off the veranda. Peter landed in a jumble of bare limbs on the bare earth and lay still.

"May as well wash some of the filth off the slut," the Commandant said with a grin.

He unbuttoned his shorts, pulled his prick out and standing on the edge of the veranda directed an amber stream of pee down onto the naked boy. Laughing the soldier joined him.

"Let's finish the bottle," the Commandant said buttoning his shorts.

It was well into the afternoon when the soldier eventually staggered unsteadily out of the guardroom. The Bedford truck and the escort of native troops with which he had come to the camp were waiting for him. He clambered into the passenger seat and promptly fell asleep. He was still asleep when a party of insurgents ambushed the truck exploding a mine placed in a culvert as it was passing. The rear of the lorry in which the escort was travelling took the main force of the explosion, killing or fatally wounding the troops. The driver and the soldier were not so lucky. The rebels mutilated them as was their custom with prisoners before leaving them to bleed to death.

The Medical Officer who carried out the autopsy on the soldier's body remarked he had had so much to drink that he probably did not feel very much when they cut his testicles off.

***

Thunder grumbled in the distance. On the Northern horizon the dark clouds that had been thickening all day about the high peaks of the Dragonschwartz Mountains were riven with brilliant flashes of lightening.

It looked Simon thought that the nine month long drought was about to come to an end. Even here on the plain away from the mountains the air had a cooler fresher feel. In the mountains the rain would be falling already. Soon, long before the rain reached them, the dry river bed by which he was standing would fill with water and the land would begin to recover from the long months of pitiless sunshine. He felt a lifting of his spirits as he thought of this, the sun burnt land returning to life, water back in the river again with the sound of running water and the occasional fish splashing in the long slow glides, even though he knew it would come too late to save their farm.

That anyway was a long term saga of continuing and accelerating decline. For as long as he could remember they had been struggling. The long drought was just the final fatal disaster in a long series. First before he had even been born there was the struggle for independence and the forced dispossession of white farmers that followed it.

If only his Dad had been content, like most of his fellows to accept the inevitable, to sell his land at a fraction of its true worth to one of the new political elite and to get out of Africa and return to the 'old country', Then he would at least have had a chance of starting all over again and at the worst could have settled down to a life of genteel poverty living on his own meagre savings and various welfare hand outs.

But that was not Dad's way. He had stuck it out in the big house, Simba Lodge, even as the tide of lawlessness swept across the country and the local police deserted their posts. When bands of youthful 'veterans' began to burn out those settlers who had shown an initial reluctance to flee he hunkered down there with his wife and Simon, then four years old, with a small armoury of hunting rifles and hand guns ready to withstand a formal siege.

He would have done so and probably perished in the flames of his burning house with his wife and child had not Major-General Peter Obutu Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Kikuama (DRK) taken a fancy to the big house for himself. Even Dad had to accept defeat when General Obutu parked a couple of armoured cars on the lawns of the place.

One of Simon's earliest memories was walking hand in hand with his mother following Dad, his prized Purdey Express couched in the crook of his arm, out of the dark hall of the big house into the bright sunlight, with General Obutu, a big man in khaki drill uniform with plenty of gold braid and a swagger stick standing in front of the two armoured cars, watching with a small black boy perhaps a year or two older than Simon standing beside him. Then the long walk down the drive past the lines of silent soldiers to the old farm manager's bungalow.

Then began a period, a very short period that Simon would remember as the happiest time of his boyhood. The days seem to have been filled with sunlight. His parents buoyed up with hope and optimism were happy and united. All right they had less money than before and less servants but this was all temporary. The court case they had started to recover their house and farm was going well. Soon they would have their property returned to them and they would be able to return to their old leisured and luxurious way of life. Meanwhile the minor privations and inconveniences they experienced were, being temporary, more of a joke than anything else. They had less servants and farm hands than before but it wasn't as if they had to do the house-work or dig in the fields themselves.

Temporally unable to afford to send Simon away to school his mother volunteered to give the boy a grounding in letters and arithmetic. His father meanwhile personally undertook the management of the farm a task that he had before delegated to a manager. As this appeared chiefly to involve riding round the meagre thirty acres that went with the bungalow in the cool of the morning enjoining the native field hands to work harder. This left him with a great deal of free time and as the constant social round of lunches, tennis parties, polo matches, big game shooting, dinners and dances had been brought to a more or less abrupt end by the triumph of the insurgent forces he and indeed his wife also, had little choice to spend the greater part of the time at home. Thus Simon, who had been looked after by coloured maids and only saw his parents if they had visitors and he was brought to the drawing room to be shown off, suddenly found himself the centre of their attention.

His mother with very little else to do lavished attention on the boy reading him stories, joining in his childish games, taking real pleasure in his company and trying to teach him the elements of reading and writing.. Simon responding to the kindness and interest shown in him was a cheerful and outgoing little boy who did his best at his lessons without if the truth be known making much progress.

In those days the bungalow, despite its shabby and rundown condition was a pleasant and cheerful place. So pleasant and cheerful that Simon's father equally at a loose end once he had done his round of the small holding would spend much of his day there, whiling away his time chatting to his wife and playing with Simon.

But all too soon money problems began to sour the atmosphere.

Simon's father had launched a series of legal claims to evict the General and recover his property. At first he was confident and full of hope. The lawyers were optimistic and the judges, so far as he could tell, sympathetic.

Of course they had to cut back a bit but once the Courts had given a judgement in their favour they would be fine. Till then they had to economise but not too much, there was nothing wrong in the present circumstances in meeting some moderate and essential revenue costs out of capital. The cook and the house boy's wages came under that heading and the groom to look after his horse and the vet's fees and the feed bills, after all he needed the horse to get round the farm.

And the lawyers were right to have been optimistic. Simon remembered for a long time the day when the news came through that the High Court had found in their favour. His father, already slightly tipsy, opening a bottle of champagne specially saved for that day, his mother crying and laughing at the same time and talking of moving back into Simba Lodge.

Then the General appealed. The lawyers were once again proved to be right and the Court of Appeal found in their favour. Again the General appealed this time to the Supreme Court. In the fullness of time and it was quite a long time, the Supreme Court found in their favour.

The General ignored the judgement of the Supreme Court. They requested the police to enforce that judgement. The police ignored their request so they got an order from the Court requiring the police to enforce the Court's judgement. That order in turn was ignored.

Court Cases and Court Orders did not come cheap. Certainly the Courts often awarded them costs but the General never paid them and then there was the expense of getting further Court Orders, that were of course in their turn ignored, to enforce the original Orders. And so the merry-go-round revolved, so the costs and expenses rose and money got tighter and tighter.

Their capital reserves never very extensive dwindled away. They began to sell things. The thorough bred horse was sold and the groom dismissed, the Purdey Express and then item by item his Mother's jewels, the pearl necklace, the diamond ear rings, and last of all the simple gold band that was her wedding ring.

Long before that was sold poverty had poisoned and embittered the small family community in the bungalow. Simon's mother who was perhaps more intelligent and certainly less stubborn than her husband, began to suspect early in their via dolorosa through the law courts that the whole thing was ultimately pointless and argued strongly that they should cut their losses, accept the inevitable, take the admittedly paltry compensation on offer and start all over again back in England. Her husband though would not listen to her. He still put his trust in the Law Courts and legal processes. He was not going to give up, the land was his and after him their son's. In his bitterness he saw her suggestion as a betrayal of their son and told her so.

Simon's mother however clung to her point and lost no opportunity to reopen the argument pointing out, with monotonous regularity, that things were developing in exactly the way she had forecast. There is nothing more irritating to a man who is beginning to recognize that he has made a ghastly error than the phrase "I told you so" and these words she could not resist using over and over again as the tragedy unfolded.

Simon reacting to the misery and bitterness about him became withdrawn and surly. The simple lessons that they had previously both enjoyed became ill tempered occasions when he sulked and his mother shouted.

Simon's father driven out of the house by his wife's recriminations laboured in the fields trying to ring a meagre sustenance from the parched ground. Simon to escape the poisoned atmosphere of the Bungalow joined him there bringing his boy's strength to the unequal struggle against arid soil and the unforgiving African sun.

Not that Simon gained much from his father's company. Mr. Robarts rendered bitter by poverty and disappointment withdrew into himself and worked with a grim silent fury that repelled any attempts to offer affection or sympathy. Inwardly he raged against the injustices inflicted on him while maintaining an outwardly cold indifference. Mr. Robarts' misery was increased by his living within sight of his old home at Simla Lodge. The contrast between the small run down bungalow in which he now lived and the big house was a constant reminder of how far he had fallen and how unjustly he had been treated.

His resentment was further fed by the behaviour of the General himself who seemed to derive satisfaction from annoying and humiliating his less fortunate neighbour. The thorough bred horse, the Purdey rifle were all acquired by him, even Mrs Robarts's pearl necklace somehow turned up in his hands to be flaunted before their previous owners. A worse blow to Mr. Robarts than even the appearance of the pearls strikingly displayed against the dusky skin of a young Negress was the news that the General had obtained a place at the same ancient and exclusive British Public school that he had been sent to as a boy for the General's son Mark. He looked at Simon dressed only in a pair of outsize ragged shorts labouring bare footed in the field beside him knowing that they could not even afford the very moderate fees required to send him to the local secondary school and raged inwardly.

Mrs. Robarts meanwhile sulked in the bungalow seething with resentment. Having driven her husband out to escape her increasingly shrill recriminations she could not bring herself to let the subject drop but in his absence made Simon the audience for her bitter complaints. At first these focused on his father's shortfalls, his stubbornness, his stupidity, his frittering away of the family resources on a hopeless cause. Simon confused by seeing his mother and father previously so happy and united at loggerheads ceased to be a bright outgoing little boy becoming sulky and withdrawn. This made him increasingly a target of the anger and complaints that initially had been directed exclusively at his father. Simon reacted by becoming increasingly sullen and uncooperative and his mother who when they had first come to live at the bungalow found pleasure in his company, came to resent his presence and the time and effort she had to spend looking after him.

Simon sought refuge from his mother's ill-temper and complaints with his father in the fields but found only cold indifference. His father's grim silence though was easier to bare than the constant criticisms and whining he had to endure from his mother. While Mrs Robarts lurking alone in the bungalow, teetering on the edge of rationality, seeing them working together in the fields, suspected them of ganging up against her and hated them.

The Foreman's bungalow came with a holding of thirty acres of land and the General seemed content to let them use it. Soon they were reduced to trying to live off its produce. They shortly became indistinguishable, apart from their colour, from the few other peasant farmers in the area scratching meagre livings from isolated patches of land that had somehow survived the twin disasters, so far as the peasants were concerned, of colonialism and liberation.

The bungalow was not in a good condition when they moved into it. As time passed and money got scarcer it got worse and worse. Its roof, inexpertly patched with sheets of rusting corrugated iron leaked, the doors hung loose from broken hinges and chickens ran freely in and out of the house. The glass in the windows got broken and was not replaced.

And then the drought came. If they could have irrigated their land they might have managed better but Simba Lodge, stood up-stream of them and the General had built a damn. At first he simply took most of the water from the river then, when the drought became serious, the General had the sluice gates on the damn closed and took it all. The river dried up, the sun burnt the grass and killed the crops and they were finished.

Chapter 2

Five days ago Dad had at last given up and went up to Simba Lodge to say he would sign the papers surrendering all legal title to the land in return for the meagre compensation originally offered him.

The interview could not have gone well. He had returned to the bungalow haggard and ashen faced. Lay down on the rickety old bed in the old sitting room, the only room they now used, turned his face to the wall and neither spoke nor ate from that day forward. Except maybe on that first night when Simon woke and thought he heard his parents talking quietly together. When he sat up and looked around there was silence so maybe he was mistaken.

For the last two days they had simply been waiting for him to die. Mum had said it would not be long now. Today or tomorrow he would cease to breath. They would carry the lifeless body out of the all but derelict bungalow put it in the shallow grave that they dug ready to receive it and pile rocks over it to stop the hyenas digging it up.

And then… Simon did not know what then. They certainly could not continue at the bungalow. There was simply was no food for them.

"Simon," his mother called to him from the bungalow porch. He could tell from the tone of her voice that it was all over for his father.

She turned and went back into the house. Simon followed. In the gloom it was difficult to see the double bed set against the far wall and the figure lying on it. To Simon the room seemed very still and silent.

"You take his ankles Simon. Come on. We must be quick once it starts raining the grave will be flooded in minutes and then God knows what we will do."

Between them they carried the corpse outside to the grave they had dug in preparation for this moment. When they got to the grave they were faced with the problem of getting the body into it. First they tried to lower it in holding it by the ankles and wrists but the trench was too deep.

"We'll just have to drop him the rest of the way," Mum said as she and Simon knelt at either end of the grave reaching down as far as they could. They let go and the corpse fell to the bottom of the grave with a dull thump.

Digging a trench is hard work so they had made the trench to be just large enough to hold the body with its legs stretched straight out and its arms down by its sides. Looking down into the grave Simon saw that it was a very tight squeeze indeed and that the body had fallen awkwardly with one arm propped up against the side of the grave as if reaching up to the surface.

The first rain drops began to fall.

"We can't leave it like that. The hyenas will smell it and dig it up. You will have to get in the grave and sort it out. "

Simon hesitated but he knew someone would have to do it. Reluctantly he sat down on the edge of the grave his feet hanging down into the trench. He pushed himself forward sliding down into the grave trying without success, to do his best not to step on his father's body.

He felt the body soft under his bare feet. He looked down to find himself looking into his father's dead face. Horrified he cried out. Wrenching his eyes away from the face, once so familiar to him but now changed into an object of terror and disgust, he grabbed the thing's raised arm and eased it down beside the corpse. Rigor mortis had not yet set in so it went down easily.

It was raining hard. The clothes of the body felt wet under Simon's bare feet. Water was beginning to accumulate at the bottom of the trench. His mother had already started shoveling earth back into the open grave, fearful no doubt that it would fill with water. Placing his two hands on the edge of the trench he heaved himself out of it scraping his chest and the front of his thighs against the bare earth.

"Hurry Simon," his mother said urgently a hint of panic in her voice," throw some rocks in there to weigh it down or it'll float before I can fill the grave with earth."

Simon hurried over to the pile of rocks that they had collected as his father lay dying to form a carn over his grave to keep the wild animals from digging him up. Picking one up he hurried back to the grave, staggering under its weight the warm rain coursing down his bare shoulders and chest giving a silver sheen to his deeply tanned skin. Closing his eyes to avoid seeing the rock strike his father's body he half threw, half dropped it into the grave. Closing his eyes did not prevent him from hearing the heavy sickening thud as the rock landed.

"Come on Simon," his mother shouted, raising her voice to be heard over the noise of the thunder storm that was now almost directly overhead.

Simon turned back to his task. As he laboured carrying the rocks to the trench the storm increased in intensity and the day grew ever darker. The gloom was only relieved by occasional flashes of lightening that illuminated the scene with a brief but brilliant light while thunder growled and rumbled overhead.

Soon the grave was filled and rocks heaped upon it to make sure neither jackals nor any other beasts would violate it.

Simon paused and wiping the rain water from his eyes spread the mud that liberally caked his shins and forearms in a broad streak across his face.

"I have to go to the Lodge and you must come with me."

"What now?" Simon protested, "can't we wait until the storm stops and clean ourselves up a bit?"

"Dad said that straight away after he died we should bury his body and then go to tell the General that he had gone."

Simon did not argue. Dad was not someone to be argued with and even dead and buried he retained his authority so far as the boy was concerned.

"Maybe he'll give us some money for this place so we can get away from here. Anyway there's food up at the Lodge and we haven't got any here."

It seemed that Mrs. Robarts for some reason thought she had to offer an explanation for the General's behaviour to her son although Simon had not demanded one.

Together the two of them set off through the rain soaked landscape towards Simba Lodge. The first part of the walk was the most difficult. Stumbling and slipping on its heavily rutted surface, in places having to wade knee deep through streams that a couple of hours ago had not existed, sometimes struggling through soft mud that seemed to tug at their ankles, they slowly made their way down the rough track. Once they reached the main road the going became considerably easier. It had been surfaced the year that General Obutu had been elected President and had been immaculately maintained since then.

Keeping well to the side of the road for though traffic was sparse in the extreme it was driven as was usual in the Democratic Republic with complete disregard for the safety of other road users, Mrs Robarts and Simon plodded wearily through the rain.

To their left was the high stone wall that formed the boundary of the grounds of the big house now supplemented by an even taller chain link fence topped with strands of razor wire.

It took them just under the hour to cover the three miles [4½ km] to where a substantial red and white pole with hinged vertical bars hanging from it marked the turning off the main road to Simla Lodge. The pole was the sort of thing you see outside custom posts and military bases and was designed to be raised and lowered, aided by a counter weight at one end, to allow vehicles and pedestrians past. A bored looking coloured soldier sat on a stool sheltering from the driving rain in a wooden sentinel box, his automatic rifle propped against the wall beside him.

Beyond the sentry box was a broad area of tarmac glistening wetly in the rain and beyond that a substantial whitewashed building with a wooden veranda. The door of the building stood open and through it they could hear the roar of a crowd and the excited voice of a football commentator. A couple of land rovers and an open backed Suzuki truck with a heavy machine gun mounted behind the driver's seat were neatly parked in front of the building.

Mrs Robarts stood on the main road side of the striped pole waiting to be noticed. The soldier glanced at her and clearly deciding she was of no importance looked away. It was clear he did not want to be bothered and hoped if he ignored her she would give up and go away. She continued to stand patiently waiting in the rain.

The man stirred uneasily and then giving up his attempt to ignore her started suddenly and proceeded to act out a rather overstated pretense of just noticing her.

"Go away woman and take that half drowned little runt with you," he shouted brutally.

The use of this language and tone of voice to his mother came as a shock to Simon. He had not had much contact in recent years with outsiders, his parents preferring to hide themselves and their increasingly desperate poverty away from prying eyes. Generally what little contact they did have with local people at least was marked with a certain residual deference stemming from memories of the time when the whites owned and ruled the land. Now all that respect had gone and she was being spoken to as if she was just another village woman.

His mother's reaction to being addressed in this way surprised him even more. Instead of blasting the soldier with her rage and contempt she replied in the mildest and humblest manner. He did not understand that over the years as they sank further and further into destitution she had had more experience than himself of the harsh arrogance of black authority and officialdom when dealing with the poor and powerless. While her husband stubbornly continued his hopeless fight for what he regarded as his rights she had learnt to humble herself and accept the harsh reality that he in his foolish pride refused to recognise.

"Please Sir," she managed somehow both to whine and at the same time to shout so that she could be heard over the fury of the storm, "I need to speak to the General. He said I had to tell him as soon as my husband died."

"Go away," the soldier said again, "as if an important busy man like the General would bother himself about the death of filth like you and your sort."

He reached for his rifle and ostentatiously cocked it.

"Please Sir the General did say I was to come and see him. He will be angry if he hears you stopped me. Please I can see you have a telephone there ring the house and ask if you don't believe me Sir."

To Simon's amazement his mother sank to her knees on the wet road and held out her arms in supplication to the man.

Simon uneasily noticed how the flimsy material of his mother's dress, soaked by the pouring rain, stuck to her body as she knelt on the wet Tarmac. Hard work and want had kept her lithe and slim. There was something about the sight of the woman kneeling on the road her arms stretched out in supplication her thin dress doing nothing to hide the swell of her breasts or the curve of her buttocks that aroused those strange but delicious feelings of excitement that he had been experiencing more and more frequently recently but which he instinctively felt he should not feel about his mother.

"And have the General thank me very much for disturbing him about a poor white bitch like you?"

The soldier spoke contemptuously but Simon thought he could detect a hint of unease in his voice. A hint that his mother also appeared to pick up for she returned to the attack.

"Get your Sergeant to wring Sir. Telephone the guardroom and tell him Mrs. Robarts accompanied by a young boy is asking to speak to the General and ask him what to do. He won't want to risk upsetting the General Obutu."

The soldier tipped himself back on his stool and reaching behind himself picked up the telephone from a small table. He spoke into it briefly before replacing it. Minutes dragged by as Simon and Mrs Robarts waited in the pouring tropical rain and the soldier lounged comfortably in the shelter of the sentry box.

Then the telephone rang. The soldier answered it, listened, said a few inaudible words and replaced the receiver. He got reluctantly off his stool and slowly pulled a waterproof cape over his shoulders before venturing out into the rain.

He lifted the barrier fractionally.

"Come on, I'm getting wet standing here waiting for you, get a move on," he snapped impatiently.

Mrs Robarts led the way past the barrier her profuse thanks ignored by the soldier who slammed the bar back down across the road.

"For God's sake shut up woman," the soldier interrupted her impatiently, "I'm getting wet standing here listening to your shit. Get the fuck on up to the big house and ask for the General, apparently he'll see you sometime."

Simon followed his mother across the parade ground towards where the drive way leading to the big house began.

It was late afternoon but with the heavily overcast sky and the torrential rain the light was already failing. It was so dark that the switch that controlled the lamps lining either side of the drive was tripped illuminating the raised asphalt road with a double line of bright light.

"Stop," the soldier shouted behind them, "where the fuck do you think you two are going?

"To see the General," Mrs Robarts replied mildly, "you said that we could."

"I didn't say you could walk up the main drive way to the front door just like you were a friend of the General or a Government Minister or someone important. Shit like you use the back drive to the rear of the house."

Mrs Robarts did not argue or complain about the man's insolence. She meekly turned away from the well lit and well surfaced road and set off down an unsurfaced track that led off to the left. Simon, hungry and very tired stumbled along behind her.

The low growing scrubby trees pressed in on them from either side, branches meeting over their heads, the thick foliage blocking such light as remained, plunging the track into a deeper gloom.

Simon quickened his pace to try to keep up with his mother his eyes searching the surrounding fores, his ears straining for signs of movement. The country round about although generally fertile and cultivated had extensive patches of scrubland where jackals and the occasional hyena lurked while from time to time a pride of lions from the wilder country to the North would venture down onto the plain. All together it was not a place where you wanted to be out in the gathering dark without a gun or anything else to with which to defend yourself.

At last dimly through the trees ahead Simon saw pin pricks of lights glimmering through the rising mist. Then suddenly they were clear of the trees and Simon could make out the bulk of a big house outlined against the darkening sky.

They hurried on towards it. The nearer they got the more details he could make out. The path swept round to the right and then headed directly towards an open archway set in the centre of a range of low outbuildings. Beyond lay a courtyard illuminated by the merciless white glare of banks of security lights. It was not however the flag-stoned courtyard deserted now in the heavy rain that caught Simon's attention. Immediately ahead of him spanning the road so that anyone approaching the house would have to pass underneath it was a tall two legged gibbet. Suspended from its cross bar were six dark vaguely human shapes. Outlined against the glare of the security lights in the courtyard beyond them Simon could at first make out nothing beyond their mere presence and general shape.

Simon came to a sharp halt. His mother with more knowledge of and more accustomed to the workings of the local law grabbed the boy by his arm and began to drag him forward.

"Mum," Simon whimpered, "why don't we go back? Please Mum. We don't have to see the General. He probably won't do anything for us and we could come and see him tomorrow anyway when it'll be light and probably not raining… Let's go back Mum," and he stopped and turned round ready to retrace his footsteps.

"Don't be stupid Simon. Where are we to go to? What are we to do? We have nothing to eat and no money to buy anything with."

"It's all Dad's fault," she continued bitterly, "he insisted on staying on here fighting his stupid law cases that everybody said he would never win and then when all our money has been spent he goes and dies. Our only hope now is the General. He said we had to tell him once Dad was dead and I am not going to go deliberately upsetting the only person who can and might be willing to help us."

"But Mum," Simon said still hanging back, "why should he help us? He hates us whites, Dad always said so. He said the General was in one of our holding camps when he was a boy before escaping to the bush to fight."

"Well despite all that he's tried to help us in the past only I had to keep it from your Dad. He sent us food from time to time and you would be running about stark naked like one of his farm boys if he hadn't sent me some of his own son's cast offs. Those shorts you are wearing now were Mark Obutu's before he grew out of them. So we can only hope he will help us again because if he won't no one else will."

"We could sell the bungalow and the land Mum," Simon felt that the occasional gift of an bag of mealy flour and a pair of thread bare shorts was a poor foundation on which to base hopes of considerably more substantial aid.

"Don't be stupid Simon," his mother snapped angrily, "if he wants the place he will take it and nobody can stop him. I just wonder why he didn't take it many years ago. Your Dad couldn't have stopped him. He drove out every other settler in the area."

While they were talking Mrs Robarts had continued to urge her son forward. Now they were almost directly under the gallows. Simon could see that hanging from the gallows by their necks were the naked carcasses of six black youths in varying stages of decay. A couple of the bodies looked mint fresh and the boys could have been hanged that day. Three of the six had clearly been up there considerably longer and were showing signs of extensive decay with empty eye sockets and gaping holes in the flesh where the birds had feasted. To complete the horror Simon noticed that part of the arm of one body was missing having been severed at the elbow.

The rain beat down forming rivulets of water that flowed down the rotting corpses and splashed onto the track below. Simon began to fight violently against his mother's grip. The thought of that water tainted by corruption on his own body disgusted him. The sickly smell of rotting flesh hung heavy in the still warm air and filled his nostrils.

"I won't, I won't, let me go," he screamed on the verge of hysteria.

Mrs. Robarts' temper snapped. She slapped the screaming boy as hard as she could across the side of his face. Simon staggered under the weight of the blow and was suddenly quiet. It was not so much the pain of the blow, although it hurt quite a lot, that tamed Simon but its sheer unexpectedness. His mother had hit him before in the past but not since he was about five years old and then not with such venom and not across the face but across that traditional site of juvenile correction, the bottom.

"I don't know what you are making such a fuss about," she said as she led the now docile boy forward, "they are only Ngeni [outsiders the word used to describe members of the proscribed tribes] caught outside their designated settlements."

Simon shuddered at passing under the gallows cross bar, the contaminated water smelling of death and corruption cascading from the Ngenis' carcasses baptised his head and bare shoulders.

"For heaven's sake," Mrs Robarts expostulated angrily, "what a fuss. The rain will wash the smell off you fast enough."

They passed through the archway. The yard, usually a place of bustle and activity was under the heavy rain deserted and empty. Mrs Robarts led Simon by the hand across the wet flagstones to the back door of the house which stood inhospitably closed presenting a blank wooden face to the world embellished with a heavy brass knocker in the form of a lion's head.

She hesitated and then taking a firm grip of the lion's head rapped loudly with it on the door. Simon could hear the sound echoing emptily within the house beyond. There was a period of silence that lengthened and grew as the woman and the boy stood waiting in the pouring rain.

Mrs Robarts was reaching out to the knocker for a second time when there was the sound of approaching footsteps from within the house. Then bolts were pulled back and the door swung open.

A tall heavily built black man dressed in khaki fatigues stood just inside the door. If he was surprised to see a white woman wearing a shabby dress accompanied by a bare foot white boy wearing only an oversized pair of shorts secured round his narrow waist by a length of roughly knotted sisal he did not show it.

"What do you want?" he demanded roughly.

"I am Mrs. Robarts and this is my son Simon and the General is expecting us," Mrs. Robarts replied with as much dignity as she could muster.

"I am sure the General has been counting the seconds until such important guests arrived," the man replied sarcastically. "You wait there while I ask him if he wants to see you."

Not waiting for a reply he slammed the door shut leaving Mrs Robarts and Simon alone once again in the pouring rain.

Minutes crept by and lengthened into quarter hours and half hours. Simon, hungry and exhausted sat on the ground his back resting against the house wall, rain running in glittering streams over his bare shoulders and chest. The short tropical dusk grew quickly to a close and away from the artificial light of the yard darkness enveloped the surrounding world.

The rain at last eased but with that the temperature dropped and a chill mist began to rise from the soaked ground.

As time passed Simon's mood changed and darkened. At first he had been so disorientated by the shock of being hit and hit so hard by his mother that he had felt simply dull acquiescence and guilt. He must he assumed have done something very wrong for her to have done that to him. What exactly his offence had been he was not sure but adult minds seemed often to move in ways that he could not fully understand. Then bit by bit as he thought over the circumstances acquiescence came to be replaced by resentment.

What was the point in Mum dragging them through the rain and gathering darkness to try to see the General? Why couldn't they have waited till, the next morning when maybe the rain might have stopped and it would be fully light? All right they had nothing to eat in the broken down old bungalow in which they lived but he was used to hunger and another night of it would not make much difference. And he betted he could find something if he scavenged about a bit just something to stave off the pangs it was surprising what you could eat when you were really hungry.

And then why should the General give them any food? Maybe he had given them things in the past but his gifts seemed to Simon to have often been double edged that had humiliated more than helped. Take these shorts he was wearing now that Mum had mentioned. All right they were better than being reduced to running around naked like the farm boys but the General's son Mark was just two years older than him though bigger and more heavily built. He never seemed to lack for anything, clothes, toys, dogs, ponies, pets. He must have dozens of pairs of shorts that he grew out of on a regular basis. He surely had something for him to wear better than these over large threadbare shorts that were he thought little better than a badge of poverty and dependence.

Anyway did anything in their reception today suggest that they were welcome or that the General had the slightest intention of helping them? They had only reluctantly been allowed through the entrance gate by the sentry, forbidden to use the front drive, forced to take the unsurfaced, unlit back road to the lodge with its gallows and the rotting corpses that dripped filth and corruption on them as they passed.

And General Obutu was a Tajulu, a tribe with a fearsome reputation as brave warriors and merciless enemies and a reputation too for darker things at least in the past. Things that nowadays when the Tajulu were once again paramount in the land, were only hinted at behind closed doors, slave trading, witchcraft, cannibalism. Was it likely that such a man coming from such a people would be kind to them.

He remembered the sight of the naked bodies strung up from the gallows and left to rot, the sweet cloying smell of putrefaction and knew with utter certainty that he could expect no kindness or help in that place whatever Mum said.

And then another question struck him. Why had Mum insisted on his coming with her to see the General? If it was simply a question of striking a deal with him for the sale of the bungalow and the patch of arid land that went with it then Mum could do that perfectly well by herself. She didn't need him with her. Indeed she would probably manage better if he was not there.

Fear and worse suspicions and doubts filled his mind as the old comfortable certainties were undermined by hunger and insecurity. Of one thing only he was now certain, he had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Lifting his head from his knees where he had been resting it he looked around. The yard was as deserted as ever. Mum, who he was sure would stop him if she could was standing, a gaunt figure in her soaking dress, scorning to compromise the fragile remains of her dignity by sitting on the ground, staring out through the archway into the darkness beyond.

Trying not to attract his mother's attention, he got his feet underneath him and prepared himself to make a dash for the archway and the country beyond. What he was going to do if he made it he did not know, a twelve year old boy alone in the African bush, he only knew he had to get away from there and the doubtful kindness of a man who strung boys up by their necks and left their bodies to rot.

Mrs. Robarts during the long wait had kept herself fully alert. Too much depended on what happened in the immediate future to do otherwise. She had noticed her son's initial apathy but she also noticed small but clear signs as time passed of a change of mood, a tensing of the muscles, an increased awareness and interest in his surroundings. By these and many other minuscule signs that would not have been visible to other people but were obvious to her, the boy's mother, she sensed Simon's increasing unease and prepared herself to thwart any attempt on his part to upset her plans.

So when Simon got his feet under him and made a sudden dash for the archway and freedom he found her blocking his path. He tried to dodge past her but was not quite quick enough. He almost made it but at the last moment he found his wrist caught in a vice like grip.

He pulled, he twisted, he screamed and yelled at his mother to let him go. He even in his desperation hit her but Mrs Robarts was a strong woman and Simon, a slightly built twelve year old boy did not have a chance of breaking her hold.

The door to the lodge swung open. The big black man in the tan uniform stood in the doorway quietly taking in the scene as the women grimly maintained her grip on the wrist of the wildly struggling boy. Simon froze and then resumed his efforts to escape from his mother's hold with redoubled energy.

The man paused a moment calmly observing the scene before moving out of the doorway towards them. Simon saw in the dangling from the man's left hand a short length of chain to which was attached a pair of handcuffs.

Chapter 3

"Let me go… Let me go…, Mum please let me go…," he screamed as he frenziedly fought to break free from his mother's hold.

The man drew back his right hand clenched it and deliberately struck the boy a heavy blow on the side of the head. Simon staggered under the weight of the blow and losing his balance collapsed on his hands and knees. He felt the man pull his wrists up from the ground and the bite of cold metal round them as the handcuffs were locked in place, securing his wrists in front of him. He was pulled roughly to his feet and dragged across to the door way. There he was forced back to his knees and the cuffs secured by the length of chain to a stout metal ring set in the wall of the house some two feet [60 cm] from the ground.

Simon pulled and tugged at his bonds, frantically trying to free his wrists. The Negro grabbed hold of the length of sisal that served the boy as a belt. He gave it a savage tug pulling Simon's shorts down over his hips to tumble on the ground about his ankles. Without underpants the boy was naked.

"Stop the bloody nonsense now," the Negro ordered and cracked the back of his hand as hard as he could across Simon's bare rump.

Simon yelled but continued to struggle.

"Stop it boy," the man repeated and grabbing Simon by the back of his neck he rammed his face against the bungalow wall.

"Don't mark his face," Mrs Robarts cried out urgently.

The fight went out of Simon. He collapsed on his knees sobbing quietly. His mother crouched beside him and pulled his head back. Blood streaming from his nose masked the lower part of his face and oozed from a deep graze on his forehead.

"You stupid nigger," she berated the coloured man in her distress reverting to the vocabulary of the colonial past, "the General said to bring him up here for him to have a look at and now look what a state he's in."

"He had to be stopped. He couldn't be allowed to go on like that. The stupid little whore would have skinned his wrists, might even have broken them, throwing himself about like that."

"So you broke his face instead. The General won't want him in his current condition. I don't envy you when I tell him that you're responsible for the damage."

"It looks worse than it is," the man said defensively clearly shaken by the women's attack. "I'll get a bowl of water and you can clean the blood off him. He won't look anywhere so bad."

The man hurried into the house leaving Mrs Robarts kneeling on the damp paving stones beside her whimpering son. Gingerly she prodded the broken skin on the boy's forehead probing the injury with her fingertips. Simon jerked his head away from her.

"Come on Simmy," she said, deliberately calling the boy by his pet name, a name reserved for moments of great affection or intimacy, and which had not been used for many years, "come on, it's not so bad, there's nothing broken, it will heal love."

"Go away, leave me alone," Simon muttered sulkily, sensing the falseness in his mother's voice.

He pulled away from his mother turning his head away from her. With his wrists tethered to the ring set in the building's wall he could not escape from his mother but he could clearly show her that he would like to.

"Don't be a silly boy now Simmy," the woman's voice was as soft and as sweet as honey, "of course you're upset with what has happened. I am too but there's no choice for either of us."

"We're destitute, broke. We have nothing. Dad ruined us and having ruined us he took the easy way out and died."

"He was stubborn and he was stupid. When the UK government betrayed us and handed the country over to the niggers instead of making the best of things, taking the compensation offered him for the farm and getting out like the other settlers he refused to move. When the niggers took the farm anyway he sued to get it back. Then he tried to get orders to make the police to enforce the court's decision."

"And while he was frittering away money on pointless court cases he was losing more of it trying to farm. He had managed well enough when he had a big farm with a land agent to tell him what to do and a foreman to see the niggers did as they were told. But he had no idea how to manage on the few acres of land the niggers left us when they confiscated the farm."

"Then the drought came and the General damned the stream above us and took all the water for his fields. And there was no money left to sue him and the cattle died and the crops withered and at last your father accepted defeat and went to see the General and told him that he was ready at last to accept defeat. He would sign the papers that would make the General the legal owner of the land and accept the original compensation that had been offered to him so many years before."

"The general laughed at him of course. He had no intention of paying for something he already possessed and said that the only thing your father now possessed that he wanted was you. He said he would pay 500 dollars for you that would be enough to get us out of the country and to a British High Commission Office that would maybe help us to get to the U.K."

"Well you know Dad," the woman's voice took on a bitter, complaining tone, "stubborn and stupid, he refused. We had no money and no food and the fool refused the only offer of help we were likely to receive."

"He told the General that he would starve to death rather than do it and the General replied he could do what he liked but to tell me I was to bring you to him as soon as he was dead and the General gave him 10 dollars for us to buy food while we waited."

"Your Dad came home, told me all this and then took to his bed and neither ate nor spoke till he died."

"And he took a long time about that too," she added resentfully, "the General's ten dollars had all gone before he finally got round to doing it"

She paused and reached out to her son again. It was so clear to her that she had pursued the only practical course of action and had acted in the best interests of the boy throughout that she could not believe that he would not see that, that was so and forget his stupid resentment and indeed would be grateful. True she would benefit too but that she told herself was only a fortunate side result of the efforts she had made on behalf of the boy. Simon however far from displaying any gratitude cowered away from her. The boy's stupidity and ingratitude enraged her. He was, she told herself, as stubborn and as stupid as his father with whom he had sided against her. She remembered the long miserable days alone in the dingy bungalow while the man and the boy worked together in the bright sunlight. Resentment boiled up within her.

She stood up and after planting a heavy kick up Simon's bum moved away from him. She would clean the boy up a bit she told herself when the nigger returned with the bowl of warm water that he had promised but that would be the end of it. She wasn't going to waste any further time and effort on the stupid little brute.

It was a pity that he was being so unreasonable about being sold to the General. A more willing and co-operative attitude on his part might have led to an improved offer. She was sure she could have persuaded the boy to have changed his attitude given time, patience and a few vigorous beatings.

She vented her frustration with a series of sharp kicks into the side of the kneeling boy's head. Simon naked with his wrists secured to the ring set in the wall above his head could do nothing to evade or defend himself from his mother's assault. He could only hang there, sobbing wildly, as his mother's foot slammed into the side of his head.

The Negro came out of the house carrying a bucket of steaming water. He placed it on the ground and Mrs Robarts, slightly out of breath, resumed her place kneeling beside her whimpering son. Gripping Simon by the chin with one hand she forced his head round so that he was facing her. Taking a soaking rag from the steaming bucket she began to sponge the blood from his face. Water tinged red with blood coursed down Simon's face and chest to form a pool on the paving stones about his knees.

"I told you he'd look better once you got his face cleaned up," the coloured man remarked. "You may as well clean the rest of him before he's taken into the house for the General to look at."

"I can't be bothered," Mrs Robarts replied, "bloody ungrateful little brute. You do it if you want."

"Come on, up on your feet boy," the man commanded, slipping his hand between Simon's legs and lifting when the boy was slow to respond.

With his wrists tethered to the ring set in the bungalow wall at about waste height Simon was forced to stand bent almost double with his bottom sticking out. Rivulets of warm soapy water flowed down the boy's shins as the man sponged the mud away. The boy stirred uneasily and gasped as the water stung the open cuts where his bare legs had been torn by thorns. The growing pool of water forming on the paving stones about Simon's feet began to assume a reddish tinge. Squatting on the ground beside the boy the man began to whistle softly through his teeth as he worked away with the sponge in much the same way as if he was grooming a pony.

The mud and dirt was not confined to the boy's feet and shins. The track through the scrub to the house had been dark and rough and Simon had stumbled more than once as he had hurried to keep up with his mother.

Simon stirred uneasily as the man began to swab the dirt from the back of his thighs.

"Steady," the man commanded standing and resting his left hand on Simon's back as he sponged between the boy's legs.

Simon gasped as the damp sponge was pressed into his crack Again he shifted and pulled at the chain binding his wrists, wriggling his bottom in his rising excitement as the man used the sponge to pry apart the lips of his anus.

"You like it don't you whore?" the man remarked from behind, laughing and administering a hard open handed slap on the boy's raised rump.

"Got a hard on has he?" Simon heard his Mother ask from somewhere close behind him.

The boy's face burnt as he flushed with embarrassment and shame. He had been having erections for some time now, often at the most embarrassing and inappropriate moments, but he had succeeded at keeping them a closely guarded secret. Now there was no chance of hiding it and worst of all hiding it from his mother.

Simon felt a touch on the back of his thighs as the man thrust his hand between his legs. He moaned with excitement as the man's fingers explored his crutch toying with his balls and already throbbing cock.

"Has he had his first wet orgasm yet?" the man asked.

"I don't know. Probably, there's been an almost permanent bulge in the front of his shorts the last few weeks."

"We'll soon know for certain," the man remarked cheerfully.

"Stop please stop," Simon tried to say the words but rising excitement reduced them to a low lust driven whimper as the man's fingers toyed with his balls and cock.

"There's not much down there but what there is gives him great pleasure," the man remarked coolly as he ran his thumbnail along the sensitive length of flesh immediately behind the boy's hairless testicles.

Simon tried to escape the man's probing thumb but bent forward and tethered by his wrists to the ring set in the wall he could not. His protests and pleas to be left alone choked in his throat. Despite himself he arched his back and thrusting his rump up into the air opened his bottom to the man's probing thumb. Simon cried out with added urgency as the man taking full advantage of the opportunity offered him thrust the tip of his thumb between his anus lips. Blood roared in his head, He felt someone grip him by the chin and force his head back. Through the swirling darkness that seemed to be flooding his mind he saw his mother's disembodied face staring down in to his with a look of amused contempt. Then the roaring in his ears reached a crescendo, the blood in his loins leapt and for a moment a great blackness enveloped him.

It was only for the briefest of moments and then he was back kneeling on the ground his arms secured by the wrists above his bowed head, drained of energy, feeling humiliated and ashamed.

"Well I don't know if that was the first time but that slut of yours can certainly shoot boy juice," the black man said, "I got a good helping of it over the palm of my hand."

Simon felt the man wipe his hand slowly across his face smearing a metallic smelling warm stickiness across his mouth and chin

"He's certainly a hot little bitch." Simon's mother replied and laughed briefly.

"Do you know his father wanted us all to starve to death so as to safe the whore from having his bottom fucked by your boss. By his current performance he seems ideally suited for that job."

"Though," she continued speaking to the coloured man with whom she appeared to have struck up an unlikely rapprochement since he had intervened to help subdue her son, "I am a little surprised that the General fancies him at all. I haven't seen an awful lot of him but he never struck me as the sort of man who likes boys."

"I'm not sure a fondness for boys is confined to any particular sort of man but I have been with him since he joined the struggle for liberation and he hasn't shown much signs of being that way inclined. He used boys a few times when he was in the bush but we all did then. We didn't have much choice."

Simon heard the soft pad of someone approaching on bare feet.

"Yes? What is it? What do you want boy?" the man spoke roughly with more than a hint of impatience in his voice.

"Please Sir General say see boy now Sir," a young boy's voice said speaking in the abbreviated patois of the Ngeni.

Simon glanced up from where he huddled on the floor and saw they had been joined by a black boy perhaps a year younger than himself whose oiled and glistening ebony skin contrasted dramatically with very white, very brief, very tight shorts that were his only clothing. A stout chain locked round the boy's neck and the metal disk attached to it identified him as Ngeni and indentured to the General.

The Negro unlocked the chain securing Simon's wrists to the wall and handed it to Mrs. Robarts

"Keep a tight hold of this, you don't want the brat making a run for it. The boy will take you to the General."

"Come on Simon," his mother said giving the chain a sharp pull. Helped by a hefty kick up his bum from the Negro the boy stumbled to his feet.

The young Negro led the way into the house and along a dimly lit passage with a dark red tiled floor. In the gloom the boy's brilliant white shorts caught and held Simon's attention. Trotting along his mother he found it hard to take his eyes off the younger boy's round bottom that stretched the brilliant white material of his shorts so tightly that every wriggle or undulation of the brat's firm flesh was clearly visible. In time Simon would learn that the tight white shorts that so provocatively hugged the boy's round little rump was the uniform of the native boys privileged to serve in the General's own household Now though despite being tired hungry and very scared he found them unusual and strangely exciting.

A quiet susurration, a low murmur of juvenile distress, a soft sound somewhere between a whine and a moan filled the corridor and grew in volume as they went further along it. The way in front of them was blocked by a stout wooden door. Just before they reached it the passageway abruptly widened to form a sort of open annex which had been hidden from their view by the angle of the wall.

Simon caught sight of its contents and felt physically sick. Set along its wall at what would have been waste height for a fully grown adult were a dozen or so evenly spaced stout iron rings. Six naked black youths, sturdy, well grown, fifteen or sixteen year olds, knelt facing the wall, strung up by their wrists, two to a ring, blood welling from the livid stripes that liberally ribbed their shoulders and rumps. Wet blood gave a dark sheen to their coal black flesh as it trickled down their backs and thighs to form glistening puddles on the red tile floor.

A Negro in a smart tan uniform lounged at his ease on a long legged stool a heavy riding crop resting across his knees. The Negro's eyes widened in surprise as he caught sight of the white woman and boy. Then looking at Simon he grinned and slashed his crop at random across the already bleeding bottom of one of the black youths ringing a shrill scream from the brat.

The small black boy who had been their guide up to this point opened the door and stood to one side to let them enter the room beyond.

Simon felt his stomach lurch as he took stock of his new surroundings. It was a large room, perhaps originally two separate rooms that had been knocked into one. And yet although it was a single room it was very definitely divided into two parts.

The larger part immediately inside the door through which they had just passed was purely functional and its sparse furnishings left little doubt as to the nature of that function.

It was a white walled and brightly lit area whose tiled floor, the same dark red as that in the corridor they had just traversed, was liberally sprinkled with sawdust. The only furniture was a large wooden Saint Andrew's cross bolted to the wall immediately to the left of the door its arms liberally provided with lengths of chain and manacles. The sawdust immediately round the base of the cross was damp and stained. There was nothing else, no chairs, no table, just the wooden cross with its iron restraints and the blood soiled sawdust.

The opposite end of the room was furnished as a conventional, if luxurious, study. A large mahogany desk stood facing towards him flanked by a couple of capacious leather armchairs and low occasional tables.

Behind the desk sat the General, a massively built black man running somewhat to fat with a scarred and battered face. He lounged in his chair staring coldly out of blood shot eyes at the naked white boy and the white woman in the bedraggled dress. His broken and misshapen hands played constantly with a lash fashioned from a single strip of thick dark hide. A tapered tube of rhinoceros hide, perhaps five feet long [1½ m] and an inch [2½ cm] thick at its base and half that at its tip, he fingered it lovingly a slight cruel smile curling his lips. Simon recognized it as a sjambok, the traditional whip of that part of Africa. They had had one on their farm and he was familiar with it from herding the few cattle they once possessed. From the state of the Negro youth's shoulders and bottoms that he had seen outside in the corridor and the dark red stains around the base of the Saint Andrews cross he was sure that the whip the General was fingering had been used for other purposes than cattle herding.

On either side of the desk, standing unobtrusively in the shadows were two large black men dressed in khaki fatigues.

The little black boy who had guided them to the General closed the door behind them and began to sidle as unobtrusively as he could to take up a station behind and to one side of the desk. The General sat quietly watching him. All of a sudden he exploded into action. The sjambok hissed through the air and landed with an explosive crack across the boy's shoulders splitting his skin, scoring a scarlet furrow across his ebony flesh.

The boy screamed and went down on one knee. The General raised the whip to strike again and the boy suddenly galvanized into action by the fear of the lash dragged himself to his feet staggered a few paces further and then turned and faced the room his hands down by his sides fighting back his sobs.

The general caught Simon's eye and smiled. Unable to restrain himself the boy began to cry quietly. A slight smile curled the General's lips.

"So," the General said his voice deep and gravelly, "your poor stupid husband is dead?"

"Yes," replied Mrs. Robarts making no attempt to refute this description of her dead husband, "he died this afternoon and I brought the boy straight up here as you said."

She hesitated, paused and then added a reluctant 'sir', an unwilling acknowledgement of the General's power and status. After all she told herself you had to be realistic and accept the world as it is although it stuck in her white settler's gullet to call a nigger that.

Another wintry smile briefly flitted across then General's face. Sensing how reluctantly the honorific was granted him he relished it all the more.

"A stupid man and a stubborn one," the General spoke again his underlying contempt clear in his voice. "Back at the beginning I offered him money for that measly holding – not much but enough to get you back to England where you belong and where at least you wouldn't starve. He refused it and it amused me to watch him ruin himself."

"I am prepared to sell the farm now," Mrs Robarts paused but found it was simply not in her to offer a second 'sir'. "There's thirty acres [12 hectares] of good land once we can irrigate again."

"Thirty acres of useless brush more like. The only thing I want off you is that boy of yours and I won't pay over the odds for him either."

"He's a good boy, Sir," somehow the word came out easier this time. "Healthy, hasn't had a day of illness since he started to walk. Obedient and a virgin but ready to be used. Shot his first load just now Sir when your man was cleaning him up before bringing him to you. You can see the boy juice on the little whore's face where your man wiped his hand."

Simon listening to this extolling of his qualities actual and potential sidled sideways trying to hide himself behind his mother. He had not yet become so inured to the routine humiliations of servitude and dependence to lose all sense of shame. There would come a time, not in fact all that distant, when he could be brought to stand naked in a room full of clothed people to be discussed and examined like an animal brought to market but that moment had not yet come.

"I am sure the brat's all you say he is but I'd still like to check him out for myself," the General said taking a key from a drawer in his desk and standing up.

He came round to the front of the desk and beckoned Simon to him. Reluctantly the boy moved out from the admittedly doubtful shelter of his mother's body. The few feet that he had to cross to reach where the General appeared to stretch before him endlessly as he stumbled forward on legs that seemed to have lost all strength and coordination. At last he was standing close in front of the man, naked, head bowed, his hands manacled in front of him.

The General using the key he had taken from his desk unlocked the steel bands around his wrists. Simon instinctively moved his freed hands to cover his genitals.

"Get your hands by your sides boy," the General snarled knocking Simon's hands apart.

"Modest little turd isn't he," the General remarked to Mrs. Robarts, adding, "never mind, we'll soon get that knocked out of him."

"Stand still," he snapped as he embarked upon a detailed examination of the boy's body that certainly made no concessions to any feelings of modesty that Simon might still harbour. Indeed Simon had not yet learnt to accept the humiliations that are the inescapable accompaniments to servitude and he was trembling and near to tears when the general ended his inspection with a resounding open handed slap on his bare rump.

"Well," the General said, standing his right hand needing the back of Simon's neck as he spoke to Mrs Robarts, "He's a pretty miserable specimen for a white boy. If it wasn't for his colour he could be a half starved brat from some Ngeni village but he'll do well enough for my purposes. I'll give you five hundred dollars and a one way flight to the UK but for that you will have to sign a declaration renouncing on his behalf any claim that he may have to British citizenship so the five hundred is not for the brat because he's not worth it, or a fraction of it for that matter. I could pick up a dozen boys with far more work in them than this skinny little runt and pay less than a fifth of that for the lot of them."

"The five hundred is for his British citizenship. Deprived of that he will become fully liable to our code and as the son of a white settler whose father fought against the army of liberation he will be in one of the proscribed categories deprived of all civil rights."

"Do you accept my offer then?" he asked Mrs Robarts sharply.

"Five hundreds not much for the boy Sir and there's the bungalow and the land…"

"Five hundred is a great deal more than that boy is worth and the land is valueless now it's without water. I am not bargaining with you woman. It is take it or leave it."

"Take it you get 500 hundred dollars and a flight back to England and your brat at least gets fed and housed, refuse and you both starve out here. You have no money and no food and no one to help you and what is more no one will help you because I will tell them not to. The pair of you will starve to death in that broken down old bungalow. You won't be the first nor the last to die of hunger out here though maybe you will be an unusual colour for that."

Chapter 4

Mrs Robarts hesitated and then, taking a deep breath began to speak.

"All right I don't see that I have any choice in the matter. I accept your offer although…"

"There's no although about it," the General interrupted sharply. I have the declaration of renouncement of UK citizenship for you to sign on his behalf, do that and I will give you the 500 dollars and the flight ticket to London."

"Do you know," the General continued speaking quietly but with a gathering edge of anger in his voice, "I was about the same age as this slut when I was taken from our village to be the servant of a settler's son. Imagine a boy who had the blood of warriors running in his veins being expected to polish the boots of a stupid arrogant white lout of a farmer. I hated it and I hated him. And I swore to myself that one day when things had been set right in the world I would have a white boy for my servant and every humiliation and insult that was inflicted on me I would repay in kind."

"Well it took me longer than I thought it would back then to set the world right and it won't be me who will have the white servant boy but my son and this little slut will be that servant boy."

"Now I'll just get the turd ready for his new life so we can get rid of him to the brats' barracks and then we will do the paper work and you'll get your money and your ticket to England."

"Collar."

One of the orderlies hurried forward with a heavy iron collar formed of a single broad band of grey metal with four equally spaced rings giving it added weight and providing a means of securing its wearer if required.

The General tipped Simon's head back with a thumb under the boy's chin and clamped the collar in place. Simon feeling the cold iron ring about his neck raised his hands to ease its weight. A heavy blow to the side of his head sent him staggering.

"Don't touch it boy," the General snarled at him.

"Its weight bothers you does it?" the General asked with pretended solicitude, "don't worry boy you have a life time to get used to it. Though it maybe not a very long life time," he added with a chuckle.

Simon gave up the struggle to fight back his tears and began to sob openly.

"Butt plug and cock ring," the general ordered raising his voice to be heard over Simons whimpers.

"I'll fasten this," the General said taking the cock ring from the orderly. "You grease up the butt plug."

"Good God," he exclaimed, "they were hardly as large as a couple of olives but now they seem to have disappeared inside him. Come on out you come."

The General dug into the boy's groin, finding his balls he gripped them firmly between his finger tips and pulled them clear of his body. Simon gasped as the man forced them one by one through the narrow metal ring and then yelped sharply as the General used his index finger to force his penis though after them.

"Butt plug."

The orderly held out a carrot shaped black plastic object some six inches [15 cm] or so long, its smooth well greased contours clearly designed to fill and stretch a boy's tight hole. About three inches [7½ cm] in circumference at its broadest it then narrowed abruptly before widening again even more abruptly to end in a thick circle of dark plastic in which was set a shiny metal disk with a short length of fine metal chain.

It would Simon realized with a feeling of rising panic as he looked at it nestling in the palm of the General's strangely misshapen hand take some force to insert its full length in his body, furthermore once lodged there his body would close about it making it difficult to extract.

"Turn round and bend over," the General ordered brusquely.

The General rested one hand on the small of the boy's back steadying him. Holding the plug in his free hand he rested its tip against the entry to the boy's hole. Simon stirred uneasily.

"Stand still boy," the General said, "now make this easier on yourself, relax your bottom, push out like you're trying to shit. Come on boy."

The orderly moved forward and took a firm grip of Simon's shoulders. He had obviously assisted at many similar occasions and didn't need to be told what to do.

"There we are, good boy."

The General spotting a slight slackening of the lips of the boy's anus pressed the plug more firmly into the boy stretching forcing his sphincter apart. To Simon it felt as though his bottom was being split open and he screamed, bucking and twisting, as he fought to break free of the orderly's grip. The pain tore through him as the General forced the plug ever deeper into his body.

"It's all right Sir, I've got the little turd," the orderly assured the General.

The General paused and eased the plug back a fraction giving Simon a slight reprieve from the tearing pain. He bent forward to check how deeply the boy had been penetrated. He saw with satisfaction that there was only about half an inch [1½ cm] to go before the widest part of the plug would be firmly lodged inside the boy. He gave Simon a couple of seconds rest while he admired the contrast between the glistening black plug and the rounded white flesh of the boy's bottom that it so cruelly violated.

"Watch out," he warned the orderly and thrust the hard into the boy twisting the plug as he drove it into the lad's bottom.

Simon howled and jerked convulsively in the orderly's grip. The General watched as the plug slowly slid deeper into the boy. All at once the fattest part of the thing was inside the boy. Then abruptly resistance ceased as the boy's anus, contracting as it closed about the abruptly narrowing body of the plug, drew it into him. Simon ceased to scream, moaned softly and fell silent.

"Better make sure the thing is secure," the General said.

Placing one hand flat against the curve of Simon's bum he took a firm grip with the other hand of the ring set in the base of the plug and jerked it vigorously extorting another shrill cry of protest from the boy.

"Seems safe enough," he remarked, "but I'll just make sure nothing can go wrong."

He reached forward between Simon's legs and found the end of the short length of chain hanging down from the back of the boy's cock ring. He drew it back and threaded it through the butt plug ring. He gave the chain a sharp tug, once against extorting a sharp gasp of pain from the boy, to make sure it was drawn tight before locking it in place.

He looked down at the back of his left hand resting on Simon's bare bottom and smiled.

"What a contrast," he said speaking half to himself, "one so black the other so white."

He clenched his hand digging his fingers hard into the boy's firm flesh.

"I think maybe I'll put a little colour in them before I send you to your compound. The sooner you are taught to fear the whip the better."

He reached behind himself and picked up the sjambok that lay curled on the desk top. Stepping back from the boy he raised his right hand back over his shoulder, paused for a brief second to allow the heavy lash to straighten so the boy would feel its full weight and then brought it hissing down across the Simon's bare rump. The boy alerted by the whistle of the descending lash had just time to turn his head to see the danger he was in and his face to register an almost comical expression of fear before the whip struck. The sharp crack of the heavy strip of rhinoceros hide striking bare boy's flesh was followed by a micro second of total silence as the pain emptied the boy's lungs of air and Simon fought for breath. Then he screamed loudly. Simon's shrill howl of agony was followed almost immediately by a second explosive crack as the General cut again at the boy, this time bringing the lash down across the front of his thighs.

Howling with fear and pain Simon turned and ran wildly for the door. The second African orderly moved quickly to block his way. Grinning broadly he grabbed the boy by his wrist and threw him spinning back towards where the General stood waiting for him. A heavy blow across the front of his chest brought the boy's wild career to an abrupt halt. Loosing his balance he tumbled to the floor. Twisting as he fell he was up in a second, doubled up and running his bare bottom offering a tempting target. The General lashed out again raising a second livid stripe across the smooth white flesh of the boy's rump.

"Grab him women," the General yelled at Mrs. Robarts as her naked son ran blindly towards her.

"Grab him if you want your ticket to London."

"That's better now turn him round so his back's towards me and hold him while I finish the job off."

Pleading hysterically to be let go Simon struggled desperately to break from his mother's grip but his strength was no match for that of the fully grown woman.

The general saw with satisfaction that the heavy lash had split Simon's skin scoring livid stripes across the boy's back. Glistening beads of scarlet blood welled from the open cuts ribbing his shoulders and bottom. The traditional rhinoceros hide lash was so much more effective than any of the new tangled modern substitutes he thought with satisfaction. A plastic sjambok of the sort issued to the South African apartheid police would not have cut anywhere near so deeply. Of course some credit must be given to his own strength and skill honed over years of flogging boys into submission.

Once again he swung the heavy lash back behind his right shoulder. Simon sensing the flogging was about to recommence turned his head and screamed.

"Please… please," the boy's desperate pleas were cut short by the lash ripping down across his naked shoulders.

Then the General set to work with the sjambok in earnest. The room was filled with the sounds of a boy being savagely flogged; the deep sinister hiss of the descending lash, the sharp explosive report of leather striking boy's flesh, Simon's shrill screams, the laboured breathing of his mother struggling to hold him still as he capered and writhed under the lash. The whip raked the boy's shoulders and buttocks, tearing and cutting the skin, reducing them to a shambles of raw and bleeding flesh.

It was near time the General thought to bring the entertainment to an end. However much he was enjoying himself he didn't want to cripple the boy. He would have one last piece of fun before he stopped.

"Let's see how high he can jump," he said laughing grimly.

"Let him go."

"Boy, turn round and face me."

Simon, almost fainting from pain and exhaustion, stood unsteadily, sobbing bitterly, totally confused, unable to make sense of the General's words. His mother grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him to face the man.

"Now let's see how high he can jump," the General said with a grim laugh cutting across the front of the boy's shins with the lash.

"Come on boy, jump, jump..."

The whip snapped and bit at the boy's bare legs.

"Higher, faster, faster," the General shouted as he remorselessly drove Simon on to greater efforts.

Breath tore in Simon's chest, his legs ached, the walls of the room seemed to dissolve and waver about him, the floor shifted under his feet. He stumbled, lost his balance and went down on his hand and knees.

The General raised the whip over his head and brought it down across the boy's already well bloodied shoulders, the force of the blow smashing the brat face down onto the floor.

"Take him out of here and place him in a porterage gang. I want him back here in four weeks time so he can be cleaned up ready for my son when he gets back from school."

One of the orderlies grabbed Simon by the arm and pulled him to his feet.

"Go on get him out of here I don't want him bleeding all over the place."

"And now," the General said turning to Mrs Robarts, "I'll settle up with you."

***

Term was over. Mark Obutu had to stay a further day at the school in order to catch a scheduled flight to Nairobi and Bobby had persuaded his parents that he should stay on to keep him company. The two boys had been set to share a study together and had become close friends. Mark had spent the short Easter holidays at Bobby's parents' house and had made a favourable impression on them.

After some soul searching and hesitation they had agreed Bobby should spend part of the summer holidays with Mark at his home in Africa. They had insisted though that the boys' original plan, that they should fly out together and Bobby spend the whole holiday out there, should be amended so that Bobby would spend the first fortnight of the long summer holiday with them.

The two boys had cycled from the school to the long beach of golden sand backed by jumble of sand dunes that formed the Northern end of the tidal island off the coast of Northumbria on which some sort of school had stood from the time when many centuries ago a few wild eyed Irish monks had established themselves there and began the task of converting the heathen.

The early afternoon sun blazed down from an almost cloudless sky. The sea agitated by some disturbance far from land, most of its energy long since spent, broke gently on the long strand of golden sand. The beach and the dunes behind it shimmered in the hot summer sun. Somewhere in the brilliant blue sky a lark rose and fell, its shrill song clear above the sound of the gentle lapping of the waves.

Mark Obutu standing on the edge of the sea, the water warmed by the sun lapping over his toes, hefted the Frisbee in his hand.

"Are you ready Bobby?" He asked the fair headed boy crouched in the sprinting start position at his feet.

"Right, one two, three, go." and he sent the disc sailing out over the water.

At the moment the Frisbee left the other boy's hand Bobby digging his bare feet into the sand shot off after it, bent low the spray flying up around him as he hurtled through the deepening water in desperate pursuit. The disc skimmed through the air and as is the way of such things seemed to hesitate hovered for a moment, lost momentum and curving back towards the shore splashed down into the sea. Bobby now knee deep in water threw himself forward in a headlong dive reaching out ahead of him in a desperate attempt to reach the disc before it sank. His body cleaved the water, an outstretched hand touched and then gripped the Frisbee. Holding it and grinning with triumph his feet sought the bottom. Finding he was out of his depth he turned and struck out for shore grinning triumphantly the Frisbee firmly held in one hand.

When he felt the bottom under his feet he stood up and found the water was only knee deep. As he ran splashing through the shallow water back to where Mark stood he saw the beach was apart from the two of them deserted and an idea came to him. One of those strangely exciting ideas that seemed to come to him so frequently and so easily when he was with Mark.

He ran to where the older boy stood and dropping to his knees held the Frisbee out to him.

Mark looked down at the boy kneeling at his feet, the beads of sea water running down his bare body glistening in the sun and felt a strange but intensely exciting mixture of emotions, a fondness for the boy, a desire to dominate and at the same time a softness, a need to protect and to nurture. To dominate and to nurture he thought, these were not necessarily contradictory. He didn't want to hurt him, not much anyway, just enough to show him who was boss and to have the pleasure of comforting him afterwards.

And what was strange and very fortunate was that was exactly what Bobby wanted him to do. This current situation was typical, it was Bobby, who had produced the Frisbee from his bike's saddle-bag, Bobby who had wondered aloud if he was fast enough to retrieve it if he, Mark, threw it as hard as he could out to sea, Bobby who had unbidden dropped to his knees to hand the recovered Frisbee back to him and who was now kneeling in the shallow water looking up at him.

And it had been like that from almost the very moment they had first met in the study they were to share for the whole of the first year they were to be together at St. Aidan's. A casual word of complaint on his own part at having to polish his own shoes followed by a watered down description of the arrangement of such matters at Simba Lodge under questioning by Bobby, watered down because he had been warned that the British were odd about slavery, though that struck him as a bit rich considering his father's accounts, often repeated, of some of their labour practices in the old colonial days.

He had most certainly not suggested that Bobby should take over the role of houseboy but that was what he tried to do.

Absently he took the proffered Frisbee from the kneeling boy. Bobby instantly spun round back into a sprinting start position. He teased the boy into a couple of false starts with a number of pretend throws before sending the Frisbee once again sailing out over the glittering waves with Bobby scampering after it.

Not that Mark reflected, as his eyes dwelt on the younger boy's seductively rounded little backside decently if exiguously covered by the tightly stretched material of his dark red swimming trunks, that the Master and slave games that they played together bore any comparison to the harsh realities of his home land. But then it was only a game, a pretense, something to take up and put down at will. Bobby was not a slave but a friend and that set limits on the tasks or services that could be demanded and the punishments inflicted.

But not he thought, slipping his hand down the front of his bathing trunks and easing his swollen cock upright, not on the imagination.

If they were in Africa and the boy were a slave then it would all have been straight forward and easy, easy for him anyway, perhaps not so easy for the boy. Bobby would have had no choice but to satisfy his lust. But they were not in Africa and Bobby was not a slave. He was protected both by the ridiculous laws of the country in which he lived and by the traditions and customs of Mark's own people that were, at least so far as Mark was concerned, more powerful and more binding than any law. Those decreed that to have another man's seed in your body was degrading and shameful and one of the badges of servitude.

The sound of the chapel bell tolling the hour sounded in the distance.

"Time to be getting back Bobby," Mark called out to the boy and turned to walk up the beach towards the rock on the edge of the dunes by which they had parked their bikes.

He could hear the thump of Bobby's bare feet on the sand as he raced up the beach after him.

Bobby as always when he played this game with Mark felt excited and just a little bit frightened. Excited because it was exciting being completely in the other boy's power not knowing what next might be required of you, frightened because Mark could turn quite nasty if you got something wrong. Though being put across his knee and having your bare bottom spanked or being made to drop your trousers and bend for the strap was itself exciting although at the same time somewhat painful. Not that Mark's beatings ever hurt so very much. Just enough to make him catch his breath when the blows landed and to leave his bottom burning for an hour or two after the beating was over.

There was another sensation too, that Bobby found more difficult to identity and much more difficult to explain than the excitement and fear. This was a feeling that he would have described of liberation of being in some way free if only these were not ridiculous emotions for a slave, even a pretend slave like himself to feel. Yet he did feel it but because he could neither explain nor identify it he kept it to himself. (Bobby did not know this but this is a feeling that distinguishes those of a truly servile nature. It is indeed a feeling of liberation and is experienced when such a person accepts his servile status thus releasing the slave nature that he has previously denied and kept hidden and freeing him from the responsibilities, rules and conventions that society and the law impose. The slave in other words exchanges the complex but uncertain tyranny of twenty first century life for the simple rule of a single master.)

Mark his body and swimming trunks more or less dried by the sun pulled on his shirt and then peeled off his still slightly damp swimming trunks. His shirt tails hanging loose about his thickly muscled thighs he seated himself on the rock and spread his legs intending to clean the sand from his feet.

Bobby arriving at the stone caught a glimpse of his friend's crutch and wondered yet again at the size of his testicles and the presence of the dark forest of pubic hair shielding them. He knew that Mark was almost two years older than him (the age difference being rendered possible although they were in the same 'year' at school due to the vagaries of the entry criteria to British Public Schools [confusingly Public Schools in Britain are private fee paying schools often solely or partly boarding schools] and his own disgusting cleverness that made him 'a year ahead') but the age difference still understated the difference in physical development, for Mark was a young man while he was still just a boy.

Mark's manhood was made all the more impressive on this occasion because his penis was standing erect, it's pink head at the end of the swollen black prick jutting aggressively clear of his foreskin. Bobby felt a certain unease. He knew from past experience that in this excited condition Mark was liable to be more demanding and if frustrated more violent.

He glanced uneasily around, the beach shimmered in the heat of the midday sun, the sky lark still trilled its song as it rose and fell in the brilliant blue sky and there was no sign of any other person apart from Mark and himself.

Mark was now sitting on the rock still wearing only his shirt trying to clean the sand from his feet with his damp swimming trunks.

Bobby found as so often was the case when being slave to Mark's master that he knew instinctively what he had to do. Quickly he pulled his own much wetter trunks off and kneeling, now quite naked. on the ground, took over the task of sponging the sand from Mark's feet. He worked carefully at his task his fair head bowed over Mark's feet, their colour varying from darkest brown almost black on their backs to a lightish pink between the toes and on their soles.

Bobby knelt naked at his master's feet the sun warm on his bare back. It was a moment he felt when everything was right, that the world was as it should be. A few grains of white sand remained lodged between Mark's toes and in the creases of pink skin at their joints. Again instinct, the instinct of a slave, took over. He bent his head and used the tip of his tongue to clean these last stubborn grains from between the black boy's feet Mark's skin he noticed had a distinctly salty taste.

Certain that he had cleaned the last few lingering grains of sand away from between Mark's toes he shuffled round on his knees and turned his head so that he could perform the same service for the soles of his feet. Now as he picked the last grains of sand out of the creases in the undersides of Mark's toes he could see directly up the inside of his thighs. His eyes were drawn to the black youth's swollen cock grown now into a thick pulsating column of black demanding flesh.

"Stop that now Bobby," Mark ordered his voice hoarse with passion.

"Bring the towel," he ordered and set off up the beach into the dunes incidentally undoing all Bobby's painstaking work licking his feet clean of sand.

,Bobby followed Mark the tussocks of spiky aren grass pricking his bare legs as the two boys made their way ever deeper into the dunes. In the narrow valleys carved by the wind in the heaped sand the heat under the blazing sun was intense. They came to a place where some freak of the wind had swept a small area clear of sand, a saucer shaped hollow with steep sandy sides surrounding an undulating area of close cropped grass dotted with the occasional low growing thorn tree.

"Here," Mark ordered stopping in the shade of one of the tallest bushes and pointing to the ground

Bobby knelt, feeling the bigger boy's eyes on him as he spread the towel at his feet. He stole a glance at Mark standing over him. He seemed even bigger and blacker than usual his swollen cock standing rigid and proud a symbol of his power and authority.

Mark stretched himself out on the towel and reaching out drew the kneeling boy to him

This was the part of the game that Bobby had at first found the most difficult to accept. There was something girlish about kissing anyway and the way Mark wanted to do it seemed distinctly unhygienic. He remembered how startled he was and indeed disgusted, the first time Mark kissed him on the lips and how when he had opened his mouth to protest he had found the older boy's tongue halfway down his throat. But Mark had persuaded him back, partly with pleas that it just wasn't fair to get him all excited and then to leave him hanging in the air, partly through threats that if he didn't come back he would cease being his friend but mainly because Bobby could see that Mark was laughing at him and he couldn't bear to be laughed at. That initial reaction had long gone and now he went to Mark eagerly enough and returned his embraces with enthusiasm.

Indeed destruction of innocence was the almost inevitable consequence of arrival at boarding school for those few boys who had not already been instructed in the rudiments of sex in their junior schools. It was certainly the case with Bobby who went from almost total ignorance to being a compendium of curious and it must be said largely erroneous knowledge on sexual matters in less than a week. Although even if his knowledge was largely based on hearsay and was noticeable more for its imaginative content than its accuracy it was enough for him to suspect that there were more ways of getting and giving sexual pleasure than the various forms of mutual masturbation practiced by Mark and himself. Mark however refused even to discuss this and guarded Bobby from the attention of others with a fierce jealousy that deterred even the most ardent of boy lovers among the older pupils. Thus Bobby though he enjoyed and looked forward eagerly to the moments of sexual intimacy that he experienced with the older boy was left increasingly feeling there was something missing. Mark with much greater practical experience knew very well that that was so but bound by the customs and believes of his people would not go beyond what was held by them to be permissible between free boys.

The two boys lay together kissing each other fiercely on the lips their tongues probing each others mouths and darting snake like into the back of their throats. Mark's hands roamed freely over young Bobby's naked body caressing the sweet curves of his tight little rump exploring the most intimate recesses of his bottom While Bobby his arms locked tight about Mark's neck moaned writhing in excitement. Mark pushed Bobby away from him and Bobby knowing what was required of him rolled onto his belly. He felt Mark's body pressing down on him, the hardness of his swollen cock lying along the cleft of his bottom. Mark began to pump his cock along the cleft, the tempo of his thrusting quickening as his excitement increased. Bobby excited by the feel of the hard pulsating rod of swollen boy flesh pressing against his bottom began to hump the towel on which he was lying. The shrill piping of the sky lark overhead, the murmur of the sea against the sun baked sand, Mark's and his own excited pants merged and were drowned in a rushing darkness and then he was back lying on his face on the ground, Mark's body heavy on top of him, a warm dampness covering the small of his back.

Mark rolled off Bobby's naked body. Sitting on the ground beside his friend he wiped away with the palm of his hand the generous smear of boy cum that he just deposited on the small of the other boy's back.

"That's the last time you have to do that for me Bobby this holidays," he remarked wiping his hand clean on the short grass beside where he was sitting, "at home we'll have the pick of the house boy's to choose from and no need for half measures either.

"I don't mind doing it with you Mark," Bobby said rolling on to his back and sitting up.

He knew that was an understatement. He found having Mark on top of him intensely exciting, feeling his hardness pressing against his bottom, then the rising excitement as Mark worked his body against his and he responded in kind until, in a moment of mutual ecstasy, they reached the point of ejaculation.

"And," he added taking his courage in both hands because he had made the suggestion before and been roundly admonished for doing so, "you know you can do anything you want with me. There's no need for you to be content with half 'measures'."

"No Bobby," Mark replied firmly, "you and I are friends and because we are friends there are things we cannot do to each other. We have to treat each other with respect. Now let's get dressed and back to the college. Your Dad will be along soon in the car to fetch you and the embassy car will be coming to collect me soon."

***

"Dad's coming now." Bobby, who had been leaning half way out of their study's window ever since lunch looking out for his father's arrival, shouted excitedly.

He got himself back into the room and pulling on his socks and trainers ran down the stairs to the courtyard at the back of the old college buildings. Mark, who had spent his time since lunch lounging in a chair enjoying the view of Bobby's bottom under his tightly stretched trousers that his posture, kneeling on a chair by an open window leaning as far out as he possibly could, afforded. and day dreaming, followed his young friend at a more sober pace.

Bobby reached the courtyard to see his mother getting out of the passenger door of the family Volvo. Forgetting in his excitement the obligation that good form imposed on him to avoid any outward signs of emotion he ran to her and throwing his arms round her hugged her tight. Then, belatedly remembering himself, pulled away from her his face burning in embarrassment.

"How are you Bobby," his Father said gruffly from behind him and he turned and took his outstretched hand. Trust Dad he thought gratefully to know the right way of doing things.

"And Mark," his father continued turning and sticking his hand out to the coloured boy who had joined them lugging Bobby's case that they had carried down to the hall earlier and that Bobby in his eagerness to greet his parents had run straight past.

"I wish you could spare us a few days before you go back home. We could do with you in our village team. You could sharpen up our fielding. They're still talking of that throw of yours."

Bobby's father was referring to an incident in a match at the end of the Easter Holidays when Mark had been co-opted onto the village team which had been denuded of regular players by an outbreak of flue to make numbers up. His knowledge of the game being at that time confined to a hurried and rather muddled exposition of its rules delivered over breakfast by Bobby he had been banished to the boundary where it was thought he would do least damage. The star batsman in the opening team having got his eye in began to knock the ball about. Mark running flat out to stop what appeared to be a certain four, gathered the ball on the run and in a single movement spun round and ignoring the yells of the wicket keeper for the ball, sent it with a sizzling throw towards the wicket at the opposite end of the pitch. The ball seemed to Bobby, who watched open mouthed. to travel about two foot above the grass the whole length of Mark's throw before shattering the wicket catching the batsman a good yard outside his crease.

"And he's much steadier batting now too Dad," Bobby intervened referring to Mark's less than impressive performance with the bat on that occasion, "he usually goes in second wicket down now for the school's under sixteen team and he scored fifty last match."

"I'd like to come and stay Sir but my Dad hasn't seen me since the Christmas holidays and he wants me back home now. And Mrs Simpson," he continued speaking to Bobby's mother, "he told me specially to say we are very grateful for you allowing Bobby to come and stay and we will look after him and see he comes to no harm."

"It is very kind of your Father to have him and for so long a time."

Mr Simpson spoke quickly deliberately cutting short his wife who remained very doubtful about the wisdom of allowing the visit at all as indeed he had been when it had been first proposed. The war of liberation had been a savage affair with reported atrocities and killings by the anti-colonial forces that Mark's father had commanded. In addition, although the Republic attracted very little media attention there appeared to be no doubt that it was a dictatorship with Mark's father the dictator.

On the other hand he didn't want to disappoint Bobby who was excited at the prospect of going and in addition he liked Mark who had made a good impression on him even before his remarkable throw at the cricket match. Before the match he had described Mark "as a pleasant manly lad with excellent manners" after he added the words "and a natural athlete." Privately he couldn't think there was much wrong in the home life of a boy who could throw a cricket ball that far and that accurately.

As for the War of Liberation, it was a long time ago and by all accounts, the Colonial Administration had dispensed some pretty tough justice itself and conditions in the detention camps, in one of which he understood from Mark, his father as a boy spent some time, were said to be very bad indeed.

In the end he sought advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This rather to his surprise resulted in a visit from a very well-spoken and smartly dressed young man who confirmed that the Republic was safe to visit but seemed more interested in stressing that General Obutu was regarded by "H.M's Government" as a friend and as a force for good in that part of Africa.

So still rather hesitantly he had given his agreement.

"It won't seem a long time Sir there's plenty to do and to see."

Mark helped to heave Bobby's case into the back of the Volvo.

Having waved Bobby and his parents off he strolled slowly back into the school buildings to wait for the arrival of the embassy car.

He walked with his head down thinking, wondering how Bobby would react to the realities of life in the Republic.

The rains, once they had come had stayed. Sometimes it rained a lot, sometimes it rained a little but it always rained.

It had been raining when Simon, bruised and sore from his beating at the hands of General Obutu, was dragged from the holding cage he had been lodged in overnight to the yard at the rear of Simla Lodge. The drops of rain water filtering through the thatched roof of the lean-to-shed protecting the fire pit hissed as they fell onto the white hot charcoal. They pricked Simon's bare skin as he waited whimpering with fear, pinned face down over the wooden block, for the glowing tip of the branding iron to be pressed into his tender flesh marking him for life as owned, a chattel and a slave.

It was still raining when squatting outside the guardhouse at the entrance to Simla Lodge he heard the soft pad of approaching bare feet, punctuated by the occasional sharp crack of the whip and shrill squeal of pain that signalled the approach of the column of naked black youths chained together by their necks on the way to Kobura Shima (the Great Pit).

It rained throughout the whole of that long march. Simon was the only white boy among an ever swelling number of black ones that grew ever more numerous as every Ngewni village they passed yielded its quota brats for service there. Not that he stood out. Unlike the Kukuana who prided themselves on the purity of their bloodlines, the size and stature of their bodies and the jet like blackness of their skins the Ngeni were a mongrel race. They varied in colour from darkest ebony to the lightest brown, though in size and build they were generally smaller, lighter and weaker than the Kukuana (1). Simon his flaxen hair shaved, his golden brown body caked with dirt, was indistinguishable from the other boys in the all but endless column that trotted wearily forward towards the horror that was the Great Pit.

Simon smelt it long before he saw it, the stench of decay and human excrement hanging heavily in the warm damp air.. He was not alone in scenting it. A low wail of protest and despair rose from the long caravan of naked slaves. The column faltered and almost came to a halt. The guards swore cracking their whips raising deep scarlet weals across narrow boy shoulders. The ululations of the frenzied crowd of Ngeni women that had followed the caravan mourning their children as if they were already dead rose to a fresh crescendo. Reluctantly the column moved forward up the final steep slope towards the narrow gap in the towering wall of roughhewn rocks that surrounded the pit.

As they drew nearer the wall a squad of soldiers armed with long lathes filed out from the dark shadows of the gate and drew up in three closely packed ranks across the track. They parted to let the column of boy slaves through before closing up behind them stopping the women from following their sons and brothers any further. As Simon passed from the light into the deep shadow of the enclosing walls he heard behind him a series of shouted orders, followed by the heavy thud of soldiers' boots as they charged and then the shrill screams of the women.

The walls towered high, pressing in on either side, as the naked boys were driven forward the women's screams growing fainter behind them.

Then they were brought to a halt just clear of the wall standing on the edge of a giant circular depression perhaps 200 acres [80 hectares] in extent. The land sloped gently away from them for two or three hundred yards [150 metres] before plunging downwards into unseen depths.

Here there were more soldiers, some behind sand bagged machine gun emplacements, some lounging with automatic rifles at the ready. There were more guards too. These, like those who had been in charge of the caravan of slaves on its journey to the great pit, wore very little indeed beyond a pair of flimsy shorts but who were distinguished from the slaves they were herding by their size, the darkness of their skin and the heavy rhinoceros hide sjamboks they all carried.

Guards moved quickly down the column of boy's unlocking the short lengths of chain linking their slave collars together. It was clear their long march was over. Simon stood quietly looking about himself wondering what the future held for him.

A constant stream of naked clay caked figures, bent double under the weight of wicker panniers filled with spoil that they carried slung from their shoulders, appeared scrambling painfully out of the great hole. Urged on by the guards with curses and frequent cuts of the lash, they staggered under the weight of their burdens up a deeply warn track to a broad ramp ending in a rampart at the top of the wall where two guards loomed menacingly. There, in turn, each boy would halt, slip his pannier from his shoulders and struggle to lift it so that he could empty its contents over the rampart. If he succeeded he would quickly shrug the pannier straps back over his shoulders and turning trot down the ramp back towards the pit from which he had only a few minutes before emerged.

The panniers were large and heavy, the boy's young, weak from lack of food and exhausted by constant hard labour. It was surprising how many managed, with the overseers whips raking their bare shoulders, to summon the strength to lift and empty the panniers.

One emaciated brat stumbling uncertainly up the ramp on thin mud caked legs lost his balance just short of the rampart and fell to his knees. The nearest guard was on to him in the moment, screaming at him to get up, landing a hefty kick up his bottom that lifted him bodily from the ground.. The boy tried to get up onto his feet but his strength failed him. He began to crawl up the slope, the guard screaming abuse at him and driving him forward with repeated kicks. The boy dragged himself to the base of the rampart. Still on his knees he slipped the pannier straps from his shoulders. Freed of its weight he managed to stand up. He turned to lift the pannier but lacked the strength to do so. The guard stepped back and brought his sjambok into play landing lash after lash across the boy's back as he struggled in vain to summon sufficient strength to complete his task. The thick rhinoceros hide strap ripped scarlet furrows across the ebony skinned boy's back. He was driven down to his knees.. Simon watched the guard's arm rise and fall as he rained blows down on the screaming boy. The boy ceased to try to lift his load or get to his feet. He just knelt there as the sjambok tore the skin from his back. He fell sideways to the ground and ceased to scream. The guard picked up the pannier and emptied it over the rampart. Then, almost casually, he bent, and gripping the boy by an ankle tossed his bleeding body over the rampart after the contents of the pannier..

The pannier he tossed over the edge of the ramp to another guard who caught it and carried it over to where the fresh draft of terrified slave boys stood.

He hesitated a moment casting a cold eye over the naked brats.

"You'll do," he said grabbing Simon by the arm and pulling him roughly out of the crowd, "good strong lad. I'd say there's a good couple months of work in you before you're sent to the King's Mills," and he laughed grimly.

"Let's get this on you," he said turning Simon so he faced away from him and heaving the wicker pannier onto the boy's shoulders.

"Right that's it get moving," and he sent Simon staggering forward with a heavy kick up the bottom to take his place as one of the naked slaves in the seemingly never ending chain of boys carrying spoil from the Great Pit.

"Hoja, hoja" (move, move) another guard shouted cutting Simon across the back of his thighs with his sjambok. Simon cried out at the sudden excruciating pain and stumbled forward bumping into the boy in front of him. He stopped abruptly and was banged into by the boy following him.

"Hoja, hoja," the guard shouted again and the lash snapped at his shins.

Matching his pace with the column as a whole Simon set off at a steady trot concentrating on keeping as close as he could to the boy immediately in front of him. Suddenly the boy wasn't there and Simon found himself standing at the top of a long ladder gazing down into the depths of the great pit. The ground plunged sharply downwards in a series of regular tiers, steep perpendicular drops interspersed with equally regular narrow terraces cut into the cliff side. These terraces were connected by dozens of long wooden ladders, like the one at his feet that bent and swayed under the weight of unending streams of hundreds of boys either struggling upwards under panniers filled to the brim with spoil from the base of the pit or descending with empty panniers to have them refilled and to begin again the punishing, strength sapping climb to the surface. Stationed at the foot and head of each ladder stood men with short heavy whips which they used together with their feet and fists to keep the boys constantly moving. Far below from where he stood he could see the base of the pit covered by a swarming mass of tiny dark figures ant like in their numbers and frenetic energy.

Simon stopped dead, the boy behind him bumped into him forcing him a half step closer to the very edge of the pit. He started back only to receive another stronger push from behind.

A guard grabbed him by the arm and turned him round so that he was standing with his back to the pit. The man forced him to take a step backwards into space. Simon had no choice, his foot searched and found a ladder rung. He felt the long ladder flex under his weight and froze.

"Hoja, hoja," the guard screamed at him and cut him across the chest with his whip. The lash split the tightly drawn skin of his ribcage. Simon howled in pain and almost fell. He saw the guard draw back his arm to strike again and, his fear of the lash overcoming his fear of the height,s began to scramble down the ladder as fast as he could. Even so he felt the draft of the lash as the Guard cracked it just inches away from his cheek as he got his head below the cliff top in the nick of time.

Safe from the overseers lash he paused a moment only to have the boy following him down the ladder start stamping on his head and shoulders desperate in his turn to get out of reach of the guard's lash.

Another guard was waiting at the bottom of the ladder. Simon found himself spun round and sent scampering across the terrace to the top of the next ladder leading down into the bowels of the pit with a hefty kick up the arse to help him on his way. By the fifth ladder Simon had learnt his lesson dropping the last five rungs of the ladder and dashing across the terrace to resume his descent trying, without uniform success, to be too quick for the guards.

Simon was at the very bottom of the pit, knee deep in the foul smelling glutinous mud that gripped his legs and made every step a test of strength and endurance. He was one of a long line of boys snaking back across the base of the Pit with empty panniers on their backs waiting their turn to have them filled and then to undertake the long exhausting hazardous climb. He did not know how many times he had climbed up the tiers of ladders to the surface, his wicker pannier heavy with spoil dragging on his shoulders, or how often he had made the journey back down jumping and sliding in a desperate attempt to escape the overseers lash. He did not even know how many days and how many nights he had been in the Great Pit.

He had tried to keep count not least because he remembered the General after his whipping was over ordering that he should be set to work as a porter for four weeks and then be brought back to be trained as his son's boy. He had, he told himself when he first arrived at the Great Pit, only to last four weeks and he would be set free of the hellish place. But he quickly realized that there was no 'only' about it. To last just one day let alone a week was a considerable achievement. Hour ran into hour, day into day, exhaustion and famine and fear of the lash dulled his perceptions, his body ached with fatigue and hunger. The straps on his pannier had bitten deep into his shoulders scoring deep red sores into his bare flesh. The backs of his thighs and shins were covered in sores where they had been torn by the lash and then infected by the mud and filth that caked his body.

He had no idea how long he had been labouring in the Pit. A week? Four weeks? It could have been either all he knew was his strength was draining away from him. Sometime, soon, it would fail him altogether. He would lose his hold of a ladder and crash hundreds of feet to the floor of the great Pit. Or his strength would fail him, like it did the brat on the day he arrived at the Pit, and he would be hurled, worm out and useless, over the parapet to be crushed by King Solomon's slowly turning mill stones.

Maybe he thought, as he shuffled forward, it would happen down here in the mud and filth at the bottom of the Pit. The moment of maximum danger so far as this was concerned was approaching. If a boy went down in that mud with a full pannier he would never get up.

The boy in front of him had reached the point where the mining team was working, four men, wielding mattocks and shovels hacking away at the steeply sloping side of the pit, loosening the hard almost rock like clay into lumps. Two of the men grabbed him by his arms and forced him to his knees. They piled clay into his pannier and then hauling him to his feet sent him staggering under its weight to join the queue of brats at the foot of the first ladder of the series that he would have to climb with it on his back.

Then it was Simon's turn. He felt the sods thumping into the pannier, the straps biting onto his already sore shoulders as its weight grew. Urged to his feet he stumbled forward knowing that delay would inevitably earn him a cut from the lash.

Two guards stood at the bottom of the ladder, one marshalling the boy's, pulling each boy in turn forward to start his long climb, the other standing a little way back, plying the whip vigorously to exact the last fragments of strength and effort from his exhausted and starving charges.

Simon was almost at the foot of the ladder. The boy in front of him missed his footing, stumbled and went down on his knees in the mud. He struggled to get back on his feet but the weight of his load was too heavy for him. The Guard grabbed him by the arm and thrust him forward. He grabbed the ladder with his hands above his head and getting a foot on its lowest rung strained to lift himself from the ground. Simon could see the boy's whole body taught and straining as he fought to get clear of the mud. The guard lashed at him with his sjambok raising yet another lived weld across the back of his thighs. The boy almost managed to straighten his leg but at the last moment his strength failed him. He fell back down the ladder finishing on his knees at its foot. He grabbed at a rung trying desperately to pull himself back on his feet.

The guard lashed at the boy as he struggled in the cloying mud.

Then losing his patience he abandoned his attempt to get the boy back on his feet.

"Hoja, hoja," he screamed and Simon felt the sjambok bight into his thighs.

There was only one way forward and that was over the body of the boy in front of him who was now just keeping his head clear of mud by hanging onto one of the lowest rungs of the ladder. He hesitated, holding back, reluctant to trample the boy under his feet.

The guard using the whip would have none of it.

"Hoja, hoja," he yelled plying the lash with all the vigour and strength he could muster.

Simon was grabbed by the arm and pulled forward by the guard at the bottom of the ladder. He felt the boy's body collapse under his feet, he saw his head disappear below the surface of the mud, his hand losing its grip on the ladder rung. The hand reappeared briefly making a last desperate grab for the rung. It missed and fell back to be swallowed by the mud.

Now began the long exhausting climb up the seeming never ending succession of long wooden ladders that bent and wobbled precariously under the weight of the heavily burdened climbing boys. Long climbs interspersed with short dashes across the narrow terraces that formed tiers around the side of the great pit desperate to escape the whips of the overseers. A climb that tested every muscle in Simon's body, that made his arms and legs ache with fatigue, that made his chest heave as he fought for air to fill his lungs, every breath tearing at his throat as he struggled upwards the weight of the pannier on his back dragging him down, its leather straps biting into his shoulders. Then the last stumbling run up the gently sloping ground at the top of the pit and the final steep ascent to the top of the ramp, guards cursing and swearing, boots and fists thudding into bare flesh, the constant crack of the overseers' whips. The struggle to lift the pannier off his aching shoulders and tip its contents over the parapet down into the silo feeding the King's Mills. The sudden access of strength that came with a fierce slash across his bare bottom from the overseer's whip that allowed him to heave the pannier level with the top of the parapet. The brief glimpse of the world outside the big pit; in the distance the great wooden water wheel turning slowly powering the stone rollers and the giant mechanical rakes of the King's Mills, crushing and sifting the spoil in search of the small fragments of carbon that when cut and polished will justify, in market terms at least, the horrors of the Big Pit.

Not that Simon his head swimming from exhaustion saw much at all beyond the base of the great silo many feet below him and the massed dark shapes of the vultures creeping beetle like over the surface of the spoil in search of carrion.

Then the stumbling run down the ramp, the empty pannier light on his shoulders back towards the lip of the Great Pit, a cycle of drudgery and suffering that would end when exhaustion and famine finally took their toll.

An open backed Land Rover stood at the base of the ramp beside the track leading from the ramp to the edge of the Great Pit. Beside the Land Rover, a spotless white handkerchief pressed to his nose, stood a young black man in a smart khaki drill uniform with the two pips of a second lieutenant up on his shoulders. By his side stood an older more heavily built man, also in uniform of a sort, but altogether shabbier and less pristine in appearance.

"This maybe the one we've been sent to get Sir," the older man said as Simon staggered down the ramp towards them.

"God knows how you can tell Corporal." The lieutenant replied removing the handkerchief from his nose to speak before hastily replacing it to muffle the stink of the Great Pit, "the one we are looking for maybe the only white boy working here but everyone of the little brutes is so caked with filth It's difficult to tell what colour it is under all the dirt. Can't even properly go by his hair, such there is of it after having his head shaved."

"Grab him and check his brand so we can be sure. We don't want to make a mistake with the President involved."

The Corporal stepped smartly forward and grabbed Simon, the man's large hand with its stubby fingers gripping the boy by his arm, match stick thin from days and weeks of famine. The man pulled Simon out of the line of exhausted boys and twisted him round to try to read the brand burnt into his left hip.

"So filthy dirty I can't even read it," he exclaimed in disgust.

He spat on the palm of his left hand and wiped it across the mark. With an expression of intense distaste he bent down and peered closely at it while Simon stood still, trembling slightly, too exhausted and frightened to offer any resistance or to make any attempt to escape.

"BH 6573," he announced eventually.

"That's it," the lieutenant said consulting a foolscap sheet of paper he was holding. "Shove the little brute in the back of the Land Rover and let's get out of here before I choke to death on the stench."

"See he's chained securely too we don't want to go losing the turd before we get him to the President, although it doesn't look as though he would go far even if he was given the chance."

The Corporal wiped the palm of his left hand on a tussock of grass before taking a grip of Simon by the scruff of his neck and marching him round to the rear of the Land Rover.

"Get up," he ordered driving the boy forward with a knee up his bum.

Bending he grabbed Simon by the ankles and tipped him bodily over the tailgate into the back of the vehicle. He vaulted in after the boy and clamping a heavy metal fetter round his ankle secured him by a length of chain to a bracket in the floor of the 4x4.

Leaving Simon tumbled naked on the bare metal floor the man jumped back to the ground and ran round to the driver's door.

"Get to hell pit of here," the Lieutenant ordered as he settled himself in the passenger seat, "the place stinks of death."

Night was falling, the short abrupt dusk of the near Tropics. By the time they were clear of the King's Mill complex it was dark, the veld stretched away on either side of the road, black and menacing, without the occasional pinprick of light that would betray a human habitation. Every now and again their headlights would catch a fleeting movement just at the range of their vision. A movement that reminded them that for all its apparent emptiness the dark veld was full of life and menace.

Sitting in the passenger seat the Lieutenant dozed quietly as the Land Rover ate up the miles. Utterly exhausted Simon lying naked on the bare metal floor of the truck slept, despite his hunger and despite the occasional violent bucking of the vehicle when they struck a stretch of the road where the potholes came too fast and frequently for the Corporal to avoid.

Simon lay in the back of the 4x4 gazing up into the night sky. Every now and again a deep pothole would test the suspension of the 4x4 and his naked body would slide and bounce on the bare metal floor. He had no idea where he was being taken or what was going to be done to him. He felt strangely detached. He supposed he should be frightened but he was just too tired and too hungry to be concerned about anything else but these two immediate animal needs. Above all he was utterly exhausted. It seemed to him gazing up into the velvet black of the night sky that the few meagre stars of the Southern Hemisphere were wheeling and turning in the sky as they drifted ever further away. Despite the discomfort, the fear and the hunger he slept.

After driving for some hours they came to a village, a single street of miserable tin shacks strung out along the side of the road, the dull glimmer of the occasional oil lamp showing at a window or an open door the only sign of life.

Ahead of them the night sky was lit by the glow of electric light. A single street lamp, the only one in the whole village, stood outside a large corrugated iron bungalow. From its open windows and doors came snatches of song interspersed with loud laughter and shouts. The deep steady thump of a diesel generator throbbed away in the background. A television being played at full volume added to the general cacophony and gave a blueish tinge to the light from one of the bungalow's open windows.

The Corporal drew the van to a halt by the base of the steps leading up to bungalow's veranda. The Lieutenant who had been quietly dozing stirred and opened his eyes.

"A drink and a bite to eat Sir?" The Corporal suggested quietly.

"Why not?"

The Lieutenant opened the passenger door and swung himself to the ground.

"Better check on our passenger," he said peering into the open back of the Land Rover.

After the almost total dark of the sub-tropical night the light of the street lamp dim though it was combined with the noise from the bar was enough to rouse Simon into a state of semi-consciousness. From his place lying huddled on the floor of the Land Rover, his cheek resting on the cold metal, he stared up at the two men standing at the vehicle's tailgate.

"Well he's still there Sir but then he'd hardly go anywhere with his ankle chained to the van," the older of the two men said and laughed.

"Yes, but do you think he'll last the night Corporal. He looks in a pretty bad way."

"Dunno, touch an' go I'd say Sir."

"Well it doesn't matter much, my orders from the President were to collect him from the Great Pit and take him to Gagool's Kraal. Didn't say anything about keeping him alive. If he goes and dies on us it's not our fault. Brat's do from time to time."

"What do you reckon they want him for Sir."

"God knows. The President didn't tell me. He just said do it so here we are doing it. Probably with Gagool involved muti (magic) or something. A white boy would make strong muti, Remember that albino boy we took to Gagool. She was really excited to get him and a white boy would be even more powerful."

"Of course she would prefer to get him alive Sir and take her time over cutting him up like she did with the Albino. Like they say the greater the pain the stronger the magic."

"The other thing they may want with Gagool involved is to get him patched up for some reason or another but that seems unlikely. It wouldn't come cheap and there are plenty of other boys about. Either way he'll suffer. Gagool enjoys inflicting pain." …

"Well maybe the brat will get lucky Corporal and die before she gets her hands on him."

They both laughed.

"Anyway let's have a beer and see if they have something to eat here, If the brat dies in the night he dies. Nothing we can do about it."

The two men turned away and together mounted the steps to the open door of the bar.

Simon lay still, drifting in and out of consciousness. Every now and again men and the very occasional woman, climbed the steps to the bar. The sound of singing, laughter and loud voices spilled out into the night air.

A group of men came out of the bar and stood unsteadily on the veranda arguing loudly. Still arguing they began to descend the steps to the street and then caught sight of Simon huddled naked on the floor at the back of the Land Rover.

Whooping and laughing they tumbled down the steps and stood crowded round the vehicle.

"What have we got here?"

"A runaway Ngeni brat."

"Those two soldiers in the bar must have brought him."

"Taking him to be hanged."

"Or have a hand chopped off."

"Probably both. First lop off the hand and then string the little sod up by the neck."

"After giving him a good fucking."

"I wouldn't fancy fucking that one. He's filthy. Probably catch some nasty disease."

"Perhaps he's already dead. He looks pretty miserable."

"No, look at his eyes. See, they moved. Hang on pass me the broom from the corner of the veranda. Thanks – look."

The man taking the broom reversed it and poked the end of the handle hard into Simon's crutch. Simon cringed back against the side of Land Rover but the broom handle was long enough for the man to easily reach him. All Simon could do was to roll himself into a ball and clasp his hands to his balls in an attempt to protect himself while the man entertained himself tormenting him with the broom handle.

"Hang on boys," a new voice joined in the fun, "The little turd looks in a bad way. Maybe we should give him something to eat. Look boy something nice for you to eat."

Simon found himself looking at a chunk of flat bread caked with some sort of stew. He didn't have much strength left to him but hunger spurred him on. He reached out to take the proffered food only to find it snatched away from him.

"Now, now boy,' the man's voice mocked him, "where's your manners? Didn't your Mummy teach you not to snatch and to say please and thank you. Say please boy."

The lump of bread was held out again, tantalisingly close to where he lay in the centre of a circle of mocking grinning faces.

"Please , please Sir," he begged his voice hardly more than a whisper.

"Come on boy," the voice crowed as the audience of half drunk men giggled at the fun, "you'll have to do better that that if you are to convince me you really want the food. Get up on your knees and beg for it. Come on boy."

Once again the scrap of bread was offered.

"Give the brat another good hard poke with the broom handle would you? Perhaps that would encourage him up onto his knees."

Whether It was the broom handle thudding into his ribs or just the sight of the bread and the smell of the stew in which it had been soaked that excited the starving boy, Simon seemed to receive a sudden access of energy. Suddenly he was up on his knees not begging but grabbing at the food, snatching it out of his tormentor's hand.

"Fucking thieving little bastard," the man exclaimed as Simon scuttled into the furthest corner of the Land Rover cramming the bread into his mouth as the watching men hooted with laughter.

"What's this? What's going on out here?"

The two soldiers had come out of the bar and were standing on the veranda looking down at the scene.

"The little turd's got the remains of my fucking supper… Snatched it out of my fucking hand…"

"I'll sort this out Sir," the Corporal interrupted the man's complaints.

He ran down the veranda steps and vaulted into the back of the Land Rover. Simon crouched on the floor, cowered away from him, using both hands to stuff as much of the remains of the loaf of bread into his mouth as he could.

"Give me that you thieving little turd," the man growled wrestling the chunk of bread from his hands and hurling it to the ground, stamping on it with his foot when Simon made a grab to retrieve it.

Towering over the cowering boy the Corporal unbuckled his webbing belt and doubled it in his hands. Simon knowing what was coming next threw up an arm in a pathetic attempt to ward off the coming blow.

"I'll teach you to steal filth," the man shouted striking down with all the strength he could muster. The heavy blow knocked the boy's arm aside, the small metal buckles at the back of the belt cracking down on the top of the brat's head and splitting his scalp.

Standing over the screaming boy the man rained blow after blow down on his head while the watching men laughed and cheered him on. Simon collapsed sideways onto the floor. The Corporal continued to ply his belt with undiminished vigour but aiming his blows indiscriminatingly at the boy's naked body which jerked and writhed under the impact of the heavy belt.

At last the Corporal stopped. The watching men fell silent, Simon's howls had long ago fallen to a low sobbing, the man's laboured breathing as he fought for breath was clearly audible. He directed a final savage kick at the boy's bleeding carcass and vaulted heavily back onto the road.

Silently he walked round to the front of the Land Rover and climbed into the driver's seat. The Lieutenant joined him in the passenger's seat. He put the vehicle into gear and drove off.

At the rear of the Land Rover Simon lay whimpering on the bare metal floor. At last his sobs quietened. He stretched a hand out searching in the darkness for the crushed remains of the hunk of bread that the man had snatched from him and stamped on. Finding it he scraped it from the floor with his finger tips and crammed it into his mouth.

The Corporal drove through the night. Just before dawn he turned off the main surfaced road onto a rough country track. He drove the Land Rover along this as the light strengthened and the sun climbed higher in the sky. On either side a featureless expanse of boulder strewn scrub stretched as far as the eye could see.

A low hill appeared off to the right. At the top of this the circular thatched roofs of a cluster of Kukuama huts were just visible above a tall thickly planted thorn hedge. The Corporal turned off the track and drove through a narrow gap in the hedge. A dozen or so huts of various sizes stood around a wide flat area of beaten earth. He pulled up outside the largest of the huts and switched the Land Rover's engine off. It was strangely silent and deserted. No dog barked, no children shouted.

"Sound the horn," the lieutenant ordered but he sounded strangely uncertain and did not repeat the order when the driver ignored it.

Instead he got out of the vehicle and stood there hesitantly looking uneasy.

"What were your orders Sir," the driver asked from behind the wheel.

"Just to deliver the brat to Gagool."

"Well this'll be her hut Sir. It is the largest. Why don't you go and see if she is inside it.?"

The Lieutenant made no reply to this suggestion but just glared at the man.

He turned and stared into the back of the Land Rover where Simon lay filthy, stained with blood and almost comatose.

"Come out here and unlock the brat. We'll get him out of the van and leave him. He's not going anywhere."

The driver got somewhat reluctantly out of the vehicle and clambering into its back unlocked the chain securing Simon's ankle to the Land Rover.

"Come on get out of here," he ordered driving the boy towards the vehicle's tailgate with a series of heavy kicks. Reaching over he unlocked the tailgate and with a final kick tumbled Simon out of the Land Rover onto the ground on his hands and knees..

"What have you brought old Gagool," a shrill wavering voice demanded.

The two men spun round towards the noise as if someone had fired a shot.

Advancing slowly towards them from the open door of the nearest hut was a tiny bent figure, supporting itself on a short stick, its ragged clothes surmounted by a wrinkled monkey like face with deep set eyes that gleamed malevolently. She was followed by a large ebony skinned black man naked apart from a short apron about his waste his oiled well muscled body glistening in the sun.

"I have orders from General Obutu to deliver this boy to you Mother," the Lieutenant said sidling away from her towards the Land Rover's passenger door.

"The General sent me word he was sending me a boy. 'Cure him, make him whole, he is a present for my eldest son' he said. Look at it lying there bloody and broken. It will be a hard task even for Old Gagool and a far harder journey for the boy."

"Otumba pick up the boy and carry him into the hut," she commanded.

The black man stepped forward and lifted Simon from the floor. He turned and carried the young boy towards the open door of the hut the old woman hobbling behind him.

He reached the door and suddenly Simon, seeing into the hut's interior, came alive. He screamed and began to struggle wildly. Gagool cackled with laughter. Otumba said nothing but with no apparent difficulty carried the screaming boy into the hut.

The two soldiers jumped hastily into the Land Rover. Dust flew as the driver made a frantic three point turn and accelerated down the hill away from the village.

The paraffin lamp hissed quietly, filling the hut with a faint smell of hot oil and creating a pool of surprisingly bright light around the low table on which it stood. Gagool's bent figure threw strangely distorted shadows as she moved round the black cast iron metal pot balanced on three stones above the glowing embers of the open fire, her voice raised in a discordant chant. She threw a handful of herbs on the fire that briefly flared, filling the room with a strange bitter sweet pungent scent. The fire light played on the dark face of a burly Kikuana man dressed in a strangely incongruous business suit seated on a stool facing the fire, his expression fascinated, excited and fearful.

Simon lying in his cage in the shadows at the back of the hut felt the smoke catch in his throat. He fought back against the urge to cough.

His father, in the time before poverty and disappointment had turned him into a silent withdrawn presence had told Simon many stories about the courage of the Kikyuna and but he had also spoken of them having another darker side. He had told him stories about witch doctors, magic, the casting of spells, even of human sacrifice. These had been set largely in the old days before the coming of the Europeans, the introduction of Christianity and the establishment of the rule of law. Largely but not wholly, there were also stories from much more recently, from the struggle for independence and its aftermath, of the atrocities committed by the freedom fighters in order to terrorise their own people and to drive out the white settlers. Now listening to Gagool's shrill chanting and watching the grotesque gyrations of her dance, distorted and exaggerated by the flickering shadows cast by her on the wall of the hut, terror gripped him.

Nor did the hut itself do anything to calm those terrors. The human skulls around the base of the walls with candles gleaming through their open eye sockets, the body parts hanging drying over the fire, all added to the horrors of the place.

He felt perhaps if he just kept quiet people would forget he was there and he would be left alone.

After all he was not the only boy there. He knew there was at least one other for he had caught a glimpse of him when he arrived and was led past his cage to where Gagool crouched by the lamp in the middle of the hut. He was a surprisingly pale skinned boy, (1) about the same age as himself, neatly dressed in shirt and tan shorts with trainers on his feet. He was being led by the hand by a black man dressed in an immaculate white shirt, neatly pressed grey trousers and a pair of somewhat dusty but, under the dust, highly polished black shoes. The boy was clearly uneasy, protesting, questioning, beginning to hold back but not actively resisting. It was only when he was opposite the cage door and caught sight of the hunched figure of Gagool shrouded in a grey blanket only her face visible, dry and wrinkled with age, the gleam of saliva around her toothless mouth, the only living thing about her, her eyes glittering in her corpse like face, that he screamed and began to struggle in earnest. His screams redoubled in volume when her lips curled in a toothless smile and lifting a claw like hand she beckoned him to come to her.

Otumba was on him as soon as he had started to struggle, grabbing him by the back of the neck and dragging him forward to where Gagool stood cackling with excitement and pleasure. The giant Negro with no apparent effort one handed held the boy suspended in the air. At first the boy kicked and screamed but the Negro quieted him with a heavy clout to the side of his head with his free hand. There after the boy hung quiescent in the man's grasp while the hag slowly stripped him naked tormenting him as she did so with a multitude of pinches and tweaks and prods that extorted a series of squeals and cries of protest from the helpless boy as she probed the most tender and delicate parts of his body.

Meanwhile the man who had led the boy by the hand into the hut occupied himself in collecting the lad's clothes from the floor of the hut where Gagool threw them, folding them neatly and tucking them carefully under his arm. It seemed clear to Simon and probably to the crying pale skinned boy, that he had decided the boy would have no future use for them and he wasn't going to let them go to waste.

The boy stripped and Gagool's examination of her catch completed Otumba had carried him away from the pool of light in the centre of the hut to a cage whose outline Simon could just make out in the shadows and comparative darkness opposite his. Otumba threw him in the cage and locked the door on him. The boy began to sob loudly and hopelessly only breaking off to cry "Mwans, Mwana," (2) as the man, who had led him into the hut walked past his cage, head bowed counting the wad of money Gagool had given him, ignoring his cries.

Simon had again drifted off to sleep, for sleep somehow seemed to come very easily to him

When the business man arrived, he was woken by him being ushered past his cage by Otumba, the contrast between the formal business suit of the visitor and the glistening black bulk of his all but naked guide was extreme. The man was clearly nervous and he spoke little and when he did so in a hushed whisper. Otumba led him to the centre of the hut and got him seated on a stool by the fire. He then withdrew into the shadows. There was a lengthy pause, so long that the business man began to fidget uneasily.

Suddenly Gagool was standing before him. She stood motionless. She was shrouded in a long cloak of some dark material with the hood drawn up over her head, a small bent malevolent figure. Then she threw the hood back and let the cloak drop to the ground. A tiny twisted figure dressed in an amorphous assemblage of rags, her presence dominated the room. Simon could see the burly man shrink into himself as he felt the impact of her presence. It was not her deformed figure, gaudy clothes or the corpse like pallor of her face but the black eyes set deep in her almost fleshless skull burning with energy and evil that dominated her surroundings.

Then she began to chant and dance. It was hard to believe that a creature so old, so deformed, so apparently decrepit could be suddenly imbued with such frenetic energy. At first her movements were slow, almost tentative as she swayed and shuffled her feet in time to her own shrill chanting. But soon her dance became wilder and more frantic. With her bent form, stick like limbs and ragged clothes it was as if she was a puppet imbued with energy by some outside power. Her chanting deepened and increased in volume sounding more like some night animal crying for flesh.

Simon found he was unable to take his eyes off her prancing figure or close his ears to her weird chant. Her movements reached new heights of frenzy then suddenly she threw a bundle of herbs on the fire that flared up briefly illuminating the darkest recesses of the hut. Gagool lifting both her hands over her head gave out an unearthly scream. A steel blade flashed in her right hand. She turned to face down the hut towards Simon's cage and beckoned urgently with her left hand a ghastly smile parting her bloodless lips.

Simon found himself tugging at his cage's locked door. He was terrified, he certainly did not want to go to the possessed woman with the glittering knife in her hand but he was nevertheless drawn to her by an apparently irresistible force.

Otumba walked slowly down the hut towards Simon but then turned away and disappeared into the deep shadows that shrouded the more distant parts of the hut. Simon heard the sound of a lock being turned and he realised that Gagool had been summoning not him but the other boy, the light skinned Negro. The boy appeared stepping out of the gloom into the half-light cast by the paraffin lamp. Behind his slight pale figure loomed Otumba''s massive bulk, clad only in a white loin cloth, his jet black heavily muscled body glistening richly in the lamp light. He was not touching the boy but he was staying very close to him.

Making no attempt to hide the keen bladed knife that she held in her right hand Gagool again beckoned the boy to her. Slowly he moved forward, stiff legged, his eyes glazed with terror.

He was within arms-length of her. The knife flashed in her right hand as with a shriek of maniacal laughter she slashed downwards. The boy screamed and began to fall but Otumba caught him and dragged him away. Simon saw blood gushing from a great gash in his crutch before he was dragged out of sight into the shadows.

Gagool turned to face the Negro man. Simon could see the metal blade of the knife glinting in her right hand. He could not see what she was carrying in her left hand but blood dribbled from between her half closed fingers and splashed on the floor. The man cowered away from her. She held out her left hand to him opening her clasped fist so he could see what she was holding. Shock and disgust registered on his face. Gagool screeched with laughter and rubbed the thing she was holding across the man's face leaving a damp stain on his dark skin. Then she moved back to the fire and dropped the fragment of pale bloody skin and flesh into the bubbling pot. Crooning quietly to herself she squatted beside the fire slowly stirring the pot with the long wooden spoon, A few times she lent forward and spat into the pot. Picking up a round bottomed two handled metal bowl she dipped it into the cauldron. Two handed she offered the steaming bowl to the seated Negro. He lent forward and Gagool lifted it to his lips and tilted it while the man swallowed hard. He lent forward grasping his stomach and gagging while Gagool with a final wild laugh disappeared into the gloom of the hut behind the fire.

A second later Otumba was back. He touched the Negro man on the shoulder and gestured to him to follow him. The Negro stood up and allowed himself to be led out of the hut.

Apart from the sound of quiet sobs coming out of the gloom from where the pale skinned boy was housed the hut was silent. Simon retreated to the darkest corner of his cage and huddled there terrified. This time it had been the turn of the other boy to have Gagool take the knife to him, next time it could easily be his and if not next time then the time after that or the time after that.

Time passed – absolutely nothing happened. There was no sign of Gagool or of Otumba. It was dark and warm in the hut and Simon was still exhausted from his sufferings at the Great Pit. Indeed he wondered if he would ever be anything else than exhausted, a dull numbing fatigue that killed his senses and sapped the will. Despite his fear of Gagool and her sharp knife, weird incantations, strange dances and gigantic Negro servant waves of darkness washed over him and Simon slept once more.

Indeed over the next few days Simon spent most of his time asleep. His days, his nights also, for in the darkness of the hut there was nothing to distinguish day from night, were punctuated by regular visits from Otumba carrying bowls of mealy porridge laced with vegetables or even at times chunks of bush meat. More rarely Gagool would accompany the giant Negro and while the man stood ready to quell any resistance on Simon's part, not that there ever was any for he was much too frightened of her to do anything else but stand and shiver at her touch, she would prod his thighs and bottom and take experimental pinches of the tightly drawn flesh of his ribcage. She would cackle and giggle to herself as she did so making muttered comments about tumlili nyama (monkey meat) and Otumba would chortle and lick his lips in apparent anticipation of the feast to come.

Yet the feast did not come and Simon was allowed to survive and surviving with many hours of sleep and with a belly full of mealy porridge he began to recover some of the condition lost in the famine stricken circumstances of the Great Pit. His legs and arms grew less stick like, his rump more rounded and less sunken, the skin of his ribcage less tightly stretched.

As Simon recovered from the ordeal of the Great Pit he became aware of other changes to his body accompanied by the return of urges that privation had for the time destroyed. For the first couple of days after he had joined the column of naked brats destined to work in the Pit he, as were the other brats, was in a state of almost constant sexual arousement. Hunger and exhaustion though soon combined to banish this. The urges disappeared and in time his balls, never very prominent or large, shrank back into his crutch while his prick shrivelled to hang flaccid and wrinkled.

Gagool had from her first examination of Simon on his arrival at her kraal taken a particular interest in his genitals, pulling and twitching and teasing them. This interest, initially simply embarrassing, that is to say once Simon had recovered sufficiently to feel anything in particular, had taken on a more frightening aspect after he had witnessed the castration of the albino boy. If the pale skinned boy's prick and balls were powerful mutti (magic) so no doubt were his and Simon was just as terrified of being shorn of his genitals as having his throat slit and being butchered for the pot.

As he regained his strength and increasingly with his strength his sexual drive, he began to think it would be better to be butchered for the table than to be allowed to live emasculated. His only escape from the terrors of the hut and the only true pleasure that remained his to command was achieved through orgasm. Deprived of that he would be deprived of any relief from the horrors and hopelessness of his life. Fortunately though Gagool's apparent fascination with Simon's tiny but very active prick persisted she made no attempt to shear it from his body or indeed to restrict the growing frequency of his orgasms.

However to Simon the danger was ever present and he lived in a state of constant anxiety. Here was nothing so far as he could see to protect him. Whenever Gagool approached his cage he feared that she was coming for his life or his balls or to harvest some other part of his body for use in her sorcery.

There were occasions when he thought that that moment had indeed arrived.

What made it worse was that it was initially at least, a re-enactment of what had happened to the fair skinned Negro. Otumba rattling the door of his cage, silently ordering him out with a jerk of his head. Gagool standing in the circle of bright light thrown by the paraffin lamp, a steel blade glittering in her hand, beckoning him to her. The light skinned boy, gripping the bars to his cage the dark scar where his balls had been disfiguring his crutch and two bloody stumps instead of fingers showing the harvesting of organs was a continuing process. The apparently never ending walk, stiff legged and clumsy with fear from the cage to where Gagool waited for him cruelly smiling. Simon expecting at any moment to feel the pain as the sharp steel harvested his genitals.

That did not happen. What did was probably just as painful but less permanent. Simon was forced to lie face down stretched out along a low wooden bench. Otumba secured the boy's ankles and wrists to the bench. Stripping off his loin cloth, Otumba stood, naked and sporting a massive erection, at Simon's head gripping him by his shoulder, his bulging prick head, beaded with precum, wobbling just inches from the boy's mouth.

Simon heard Gagool moving behind him and heard her crooning to herself. He felt her hands on his body, bony and claw like; then a sharp burst of pain as steel sliced deep into his flesh. He screamed and fought against his bonds while Gagool cackled with manic laughter.

"Howl my pretty, howl," Gagool crowed as the boy screamed and writhed and she used the knife to re-open the scars on his shoulders. "It hurts poor little whore I know it does and there's plenty more pain and suffering for you before I am finished with you. But I am going to get the last fragment of dirt out of those cuts and then they will heal leaving your skin smooth and unmarked to delight your Master's eye and touch."

As she spoke she worked cutting down into scars that ribbed Simon's back and shoulders using the point of the knife to clean out the open wounds. Screaming and fighting Simon descended into a dark place of intense and mounting pain. He lost all track of time or sense of place. He was trapped in a place of torment and pain.

Eventually the darkness began to clear from his eyes. His shoulders were very sore and he still hurt but the pain was not so intense or as overwhelming. As if emerging from a deep pool of pain and darkness he became increasingly aware of what was going on around him; Otumba pulling back his head and trying to force his swollen cock head between his lips; Gagool still crooning to herself swabbing his back with some astringent smelling liquid that stung fiercely in the open cuts.

"Leave him Otumba," Gagool ordered sharply, "he's destined for the enjoyment of someone far above you. Take that swollen cock of yours to the white nigger slut and get him to suck it dry. Now go on, go."

Gagool watched as the Negro shambled sulkily off into the shadows. Then she returned to the task of bathing Simon's back while from out of the obscurity of the interior of the hut came a mixture of strange animal type sounds.

Simon lost count over the next few days of the number of times he was summoned from his cage for Gagool to work opening and cleaning the scars disfiguring his body. She seemed to take special pleasure in making him come to her, jeering at him as he stumbled unwillingly forward, his knees weak with fear, tears streaming down his face, in expectation of the agony to come. She made it clear that she found Simon's fear and suffering amusing. She also made it clear that the fear and suffering was inflicted for a purpose; to prepare Simon for his master's use and to enhance the pleasure to be got from his body.

In the end the job was completed, the cuts were healed, and Simon was turned out to work in the yard his body oiled and scented his fare hair trimmed and neatly brushed. It was inevitable that Simon should spend much of his time wondering about the Master for whose future pleasure he had been forced to suffer so much and that those speculations should have been accompanied by an almost constant erection.

***

"Bobby" Mark called softly and then again more urgently when he did not hear the patter of the younger boy's bare feet on the linoleum floor as he came running to join him in bed, "Bobby!"

Still there was no response and Mark sat up in his bed puzzled. Bobby was usually across the room and snuggling up close to him without the need of a second summons.

For a moment Mark was disorientated, things seemed so unfamiliar and then he heard the deep booming sound of the nungu (bittern) coming from its lurking place in the reed beds by the river and remembered that he was back in Africa at Simla Lodge for his Summer holidays.

He looked round contrasting the spacious room, the luxurious double bed, the thickly carpeted floor, the ceiling high windows with the thick drapes through which the sunlight barely filtered with the considerably more Spartan conditions he had had to endure at St Aidan's The only thing that was missing that St Aidan had and Simla Lodge did not, for the moment at least, was Bobby but he would be out there with him before the week was up. He felt his prick harden. Thinking of Bobby as was so often the case had given him an erection.

"Noah," he shouted fiercely, "Noah you useless lazy little turd where the hell are you boy.?"

Something stirred under a thin blanket tumbled on the floor at the foot of the bed. A young black face with white teeth glistening in a broad grin and a head of short closely curling dark hair appeared.

"Yes Boss, here boss." The boy did not sound very frightened.

"Come here Noah you idle brute. I'm back and your holiday is over. Quickly whore or I'll be warming your arse up with the strap."

Noah scrambled to his feet showing himself to be a nicely made little twelve year old, with a pretty round bottom, his only clothing a diminutive pair of brilliant white shorts that contrasted dramatically with his oiled and glistening coal black body.

Swinging his legs out of the bed Mark lent forward and grabbing hold of the waist band of Noah's shorts with both hands pulled them down over the boy's hips.

"For God's sake you stupid boy how the hell can I fuck your arse with those on you?" he snapped.

The lad's cock previously a mere bulge in the front of his shorts snapped to attention its swollen pink cap almost level with his belly button. Mark flicked it with his thumb nail.

"Been a bit of growth there Noah," he said quietly, "looks like you've been playing with yourself – filthy bitch.

"Come on – down over my knee," Mark continued parting his legs and incidentally affording a clear view of his crutch, the dark column of swollen flesh with its pink cap and the burgeoning forest of dark cubic hair out of which it rose.

"You've grown too boss," Noah remarked glancing down at these as he moved to stand between Mark's knees just a hint of trepidation in his voice.

Mark said nothing but laughed and patted his right knee and the younger boy obediently lowered himself into position.

"Get your bum up in the air," Mark ordered gripping the little Negro on either side of his hips and easing his bottom upwards.

Satisfied that Noah was correctly positioned Mark landed a resounding open handed smack on the boy's attractively displayed bare rump. Noah's squeal was one of excitement rather than pain.

Smiling to himself Mark reached out for the jar of lubricant that had been placed ready for his use on his bedside table. Dipping his index finger in the clear jelly he ran the tip of his finger along the cleft of the boy's bottom. Noah responding to the coolness of the cream and the gentle pressure of Mark's finger against the entrance to his hole wriggled and murmured in excitement.

Mark smiled and landed a second explosive slap on the boy's bare bottom. Dipping his finger once again in the jelly he increased the pressure on Noah's anus. The boy like the willing and well trained little whore he was spread his legs and pushed backwards against the intruding finger relaxing his bottom. Mark pushed down prying the boy's anus lips apart and twisting his finger as he forced it deeper into the boy's bottom. Noah moaned softly, his breath quickened and the muscles in his bottom quivered in excitement. Mark reached under the boy with his free hand and gripping him by the balls steadied him.

His index finger was now buried knuckle deep in the other boy's guts. He crooked and twisted his finger while Noah moaned and writhed in excitement. He forced a second and then a third finger into the boy's bottom as the animal sounds coming from the little tart grew in urgency and volume.

Then releasing his hold of Noah's testicles and withdrawing the fingers of his other hand from the boy's guts he clouted the little whore hard across his quivering bottom. Noah twisted round and fell to his knees between his young master's legs.

Leaning forward he buried his head in Mark's crutch licking and sucking at the youth's swollen rod. Mark waited until he felt Noah's soft lips close around his cock head and then taking a firm grip of the boy's ears he brutally pumped the little Negro's mouth. Mark thrust down deep into the brat's throat as he fought and gagged on the pulsating rod.

Then the blood roared in Mark's ears. In one violent movement he pulled Noah's head away from his crutch and rising to his feet hurled the boy face down across the side of his bed. Noah had hardly time to spread his legs and lift his bum in response to this brutal assault before Mark was on him hammering his swollen prick into his boy hole.

The sound of Mark's harsh panting mingled with the creaking of the bed springs and Noah's whimpers and lust induced moans filled the spacious bedroom.

"No please Master no please," Noah howled throwing his head back his hands and bare feet beating a desperate tattoo of pain as Mark thrust ever deeper and harder until his cock's full length was sheathed in the sobbing boy. Mark's fierce downward thrusts were punctuated with the sound of the slap of bare flesh as his hips bounced against the firm curves of the smaller boy's bottom.

Noa,h twisting round so that he finished up facing Mark, collapsed on his knees between the older boy's legs. For a moment there was silence apart from the soft liquid sounds coming from Mark's crutch as Noah licked and sucked the filth from the older boy's cock. That task completed he lifted himself half onto the bed and gently taking hold of the other boy's right hand and set about licking the dirt from his own bottom from Mark's fingers.

That job completed Noah trotted off into the bathroom from where shortly afterwards came the sound of running water as he prepared Mark's morning shower.

Half an hour later Mark freshly showered and dressed in the informal uniform of the prosperous middle class youth of Nike trainers, shorts that hung loose to below his knees, and a, in his case Chelsea, football shirt burst into the dining room.

"Ah you have got here Mark," General Obutu remarked rather sourly looking up from the bowl of fresh fruit with which he always started the day, "I thought, judging from the noise coming from your room when I passed it that it might be a good bit longer before you remembered about breakfast."

"Sorry Dad," Mark replied contritely although privately he thought he had nothing to be sorry about. He was surely perfectly justified in being a few minutes late for breakfast on his first day back at home and anyway what were Ngeni houseboys for? Wisely though he kept these thoughts to himself as he helped himself to a bowl of cereal from the side board.

"Anyway," General Obutu said speaking in milder tones, "I'm glad you're here. There's some unrest on the Northern frontier, the Bedouin raiding for cattle and slaves again. I'll have to go up there for a couple of weeks or so until they've been chased out and enough of them killed to make them think twice before they have another go."

"That means I'll be away when your English friend arrives here. Make my apologies to him and explain what has happened. You will be in charge here and I am sure you will find plenty to do to entertain yourselves."

"I'm sure we will Dad. I thought we might call out the Cadets and make a sweep of a few Ngeni villages. It would be good fun and I'm sure Bobby will enjoy it."

"That's fine Mark and there's one other thing I have to do before I head north. You remember Simon, a white boy about two years younger than you. He lived next door to here with his mother and father in that broken down old bungalow back off the main road? You'd see him running about sometimes bare footed and dressed in a ragged pair of old shorts. Quite a nice looking brat but a bit on the skinny side. Probably half starved."

"Yes I remember him well Dad. He looks rather like my friend Bobby who's coming over here."

"Yes, well and you know how I when I was a couple of years younger than you are now I was made to work as a houseboy…"

Mark stopped listening. He had heard this weary tale so often that he almost knew it by heart. How his father had been made to work as a native boy servant for some loutish planter's son, how he had been humiliated and beaten and eventually, pushed too far, had beaten the white boy almost to death with his fists before taking off to the bush and the freedom fighters. And how he had promised himself that one day he would have a white boy as his servant. That has not happened but he hoped now that Mark would take his place and have a white boy to serve him.

Mark loved and respected his father. He knew he had done great things in the bush during the struggle for freedom, some great things and it was whispered some very cruel things too. Like a good loyal son he was proud of the great things and was certain that the cruelty was exaggerated and to the extent it took place at all was dictated and justified by circumstances. But, and in such things there was always a but, he could not follow his father's obsession with having a white servant. Perhaps his father had problems with the race thing, he most certainly did not. He knew he was as good as any other boy of his age and size in most things, especially a scrap, and if anybody thought they were better than him they were welcome to come and try their luck. It didn't matter if they were white, brown, yellow or indeed piebald. And the same applied to house boy's. It didn't matter to him, he told himself, what colour they were be provided they were obedient and did their work well enough.

But he knew that was not wholly true. He had thought rather a lot about having a white boy. .A boy a bit like Bobby, fair haired and fair skinned with blue eyes and soft red lips. Not Bobby though, he hastened to tell himself. Bobby was a friend and therefore out of bounds for such treatment. And not, unlike his father, to make a point about race or to avenge past humiliations. But simply because such a boy would make a change from the more dusky attractions of boys such as Noah and his kind.

"Mark," his father's voice irritated and peremptory cut into his thoughts. His father was staring at him

"You're not listening to a word I have been saying."

"Oh yes I have Dad you were saying about since you couldn't have a white boy for a servant yourself you had hoped that I would have one but the English don't have boy servants like us…"

"What do you mean? You told me that you had such a servant but British law prevented you taking the brat out of the country."

Mark cursed himself for not paying attention. It was easier to manage Dad telling fibs if it was necessary to do so but if you did that you needed to stay alert and have a good memory.

"Yes Dad, that's what I meant, of course they have boys to buy and sell but unlike us they've got laws preventing their being taken out of the country without a special permit."

Not bad Mark thought for a spur of the moment effort.

"Bloody silly I think. In my book If you buy something you buy it belongs to you. That's how it works here. Anyway it doesn't matter. I've got a white boy for you. You remember the brat who lived next door to this place in the broken down farm manager's bungalow? A year or two younger than you. His father owned the lodge before I took it off him. You'll probably have seen the boy about from time to time, barefooted and wearing just a pair of ragged shorts a size or two too big for him. Bit on the skinny side. Probably didn't have enough to eat. They were as poor as church mice."

"I remember him Dad. Mum passed some of my cast offs onto him when I'd grown out of them. I tried to talk to him a couple of time. Thought he was a bit on the sulky side and not at all grateful."

"Well he'd better not have the sulks now if he knows what good for him."

"Old Richard Robarts his father died and his mother sold the boy to me for a good deal more than the brat was worth. A few hundred quid and a one way ticked to the UK for herself. It was either that or both of them starving to death. They were completely broke."

"Where is he now Dad. Let's have a look at him."

"That's what we'll do after breakfast. I sent him to work down the Great Pit for a few weeks, quickest way to break the brat I thought and now he's with that evil old hag Gagool being patched up."

"Lucky he survived the Pit Dad. He could easily have died there."

"Wouldn't matter much if he did. Didn't pay much for him though a good deal more than he's worth. Anyway a healthy Ngeni brat of his age and weight lasts about eight weeks once he's set to work there and if he couldn't take a mere six weeks there I wouldn't lumber you with such a weakling. First good thrashing you give the brat and he'll go and die on you."

"Anyway when you've finished breakfast send that boy of yours down to the kitchen to fetch the picnic lunch they're getting ready for us. It's a longish trip to Gagool's kraal and I don't want to be away too long. There's plenty to arrange before I set off for the North."

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