Daphne Boy

Zulu

The Seventh Tale of the Daphne Boy

by George Gauthier

Author's Note: This is a tale of a unusual young man and those he encounters in Argentina and later in southern Africa during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Although inspired by the fine war movie by the same name starring Stanley Baker and Michael Caine, my story does not take place at the Battle of Rorke's Drift.

This is another in a series of tales about an undying youth named Alexander, here also called Alex, Alejandro and Sandro in this story. The other stories in this series so far are 'Antebellum', set in the American South just before the Civil War, 'Daphne Boy', set in Roman Syria, 'El Dorado', about the Spanish conquistadors, 'The Erythraean Sea', set in Arabia just before the rise of Islam, 'Stupor Mundi', about the Sixth Crusade, and 'Ferghana', a tale of the Silk Road in Central Asia.

It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body and of consensual and non-consenual sexual activity between adult males, and considerable non-sexual violence in a battle scene. If any of this would offend a reader, read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever jurisdiction applies.

It is offered for entertainment. It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only minor poetic license. This story, after all, is fiction. It is not a historical monograph.

If it manages to both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its aim. The characters are not intended to resemble any person living or dead.

One correction: at the end of the last story, 'Ferghana', I misstated the provenance of the Granny Smith apple. It originated in Australia, not New Zealand. My apologies to any I may have offended or mislead.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Jungle Boy' series of tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the archive. See also 'Naked Prey' in the historical section, my new 'Mer Boy' series in Gay/Beginnings, and the 'Track and Field' series in Gay/College. For links to my stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Chapter 1. Buenos Aires, 1878

The sun slanting through the blinds awoke me early. Out of consideration for how late into the night Esteban and I had frolicked, I left him in bed to dream on and stepped onto the verandah of my seaside cottage. Situated on an isolated cove half a day's sail up the coast from the city of Buenos Aires it had a fine view of the River Plate in front and the grassy pampas in back. A few trees planted on the grounds gave welcome shade but otherwise there was only a sea of grass stretching out to the west as far as the eye could see. There was no staff except for a caretaker in a separate cottage hidden by a sand dune.

I went for my morning run along the beach. The morning sun felt good on my bare skin. As always I exercised in the nude. The occasional gaucho or fisherman that I encountered simply smiled and waved at the sight of a naked blond youth pounding up and down the strand. I had been renting this cottage for nearly a year so the sight of me out for a run in the nude no longer surprised anyone.

I loped along the beach for almost an hour. Quite aside from its utility for building endurance, I liked running because it is so intensely physical and uses the entire body. Running makes me feel strong and alive. It gives me a chance to exult in my strength and stamina as my feet fling back the sand. I love to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, the wind in my hair and on my face, to listen to the metronomic crunch of my feet on the ground. The exertion and the rhythmic breathing induce a state of euphoria that later generations called a runner's high. As a modern man might put it, endorphins are the drug of choice for the athlete.

I even like the way the sweat pours off me. For me it is less a bother than an expression of life and vitality, making my trim nude body virtually glow with good health. And yes, that is an indication of a streak of vanity on my part. I have a lithe body with a wiry build, slender yet muscular, and I very much like to show it off, spending more time than strictly necessary entirely naked whether at home or on one of my riverboats in the Argentine Mesopotamia.

I finished my run and plunged into the sea for a swim. As ever the smell of the sea reminded me of days when I sailed as a merchant on blue water rather than the brown waters my riverboats now negotiated. After my swim, I returned to the cottage. My lover slumbered on. I decided to practice sword fighting while I waited for him to wake up. Life experience has made me conscientious about maintaining my stamina and strength and my survival skills. True, the sword was no longer a primary weapon. Few gentlemen carried one these days, though the military still wore sabres. The thing I liked about a sword is that it was always ready to use. You never ran out of ammunition, unlike with guns or a bow. Reluctantly, I had given up the bow early in the nineteenth century. Now I practiced shooting with rifle and pistol instead of bow and arrow.

Combat with a sword is completely different than combat with firearms. With guns, you use only your arms and shoulders, ideally while stationary to acquire a good shot picture. A sword involves the whole body in a deadly dance against your foes, whirling, weaving, dodging, blocking, lunging, swinging, thrusting. A sword fight is an intimate and physical form of combat. You get close enough to your opponent to smell the fear on a man as he parries your blade, close enough to smell his bad breath, close enough to hear his labored breathing. It can be intoxicating in a fight against multiple opponents as your training and practice takes over while you do the dance of death, almost in a trance, blocking, slashing, thrusting, trying to stay alive as best you can.

Not that I ever went looking for trouble, you understand. If my long life has taught me anything, it is that the best way to deal with almost any kind of trouble is not to be there in when it happens. I am not belligerent by nature. Indeed, I am slow to anger. I would rather talk my way out of a tight spot or, failing that, try a bribe to to make a deal. As life would have it though, sometimes you have no choice such as when attacked by thugs, pirates, bandits, or enemy soldiers. Still as many times as I have had to fight, it was never by choice. For all my combat skills, I never went for a soldier, not as a trade to make a living. I have usually earned my living as a peaceable merchant though I have also worked as a scribe, an amanuensis, a dancer and especially as a pleasure boy. More than once I have worked in a boy brothel, entertaining clients.

I practiced my moves with my Japanese katana, one of several I had purchased on a recent trip to Japan. The new Meiji emperor had disarmed the samurai who no longer strutted around with their double swords. Japan had enjoyed internal peace for two and one half centuries, and the old samurai class had long since outlived its usefulness. I was able to buy several heirloom swords, the finest ever made by any civilization. Although I had always preferred straight blades, I did not mind the slight curve to the katana, the result of differential tempering of the hard cutting edge and the softer back of the blade which made for a sword that was sharp and hard yet flexible too. The shape of the edge let the sword cut through a human torso with a single blow, and a katana never needs sharpening.

"Hola, Alejandro!" Esteban called out from the cottage. "You should have awakened me. Seeing you dance with your blade is almost as exciting as making love to you! I love the way your small muscles ripple under your skin."

"Buenos Dias, mi amor." I said with a smile.

Esteban and I were a study in contrasts. My lover was a tall man, half a foot taller (15 cm) than I at six feet (183 cm) with broad shoulders and a powerful build. I am rather slight of build, with a wiry physique. He was raven-haired with dark eyes while I am blond and green eyed. He was exceedingly handsome in a very masculine way, while I could only be described as a slender pretty boy. An artist once described my features as mischievously angelic. Esteban was clean shaven but for a thin mustache. Although not a hairy man, he did have a dusting on his chest arms and calves while I was utterly hairless everywhere.

"I still find it hard to believe that you are twenty years of age, Alejandro. You are so slight of build and hairless everywhere. You seem no more than eighteen, if that much."

"You see me then as a boy rather than a man? I suppose a handful of years matters when a man is only twenty-three himself, but I do have my pride."

"Please, Sandro, I meant no offense. I love you just the way you are. You are utterly scrumptious: slender and boyish with narrow shoulders and well corrugated chest and belly. The tracery of veins on your forearms, calves, and belly shows how very little body fat you carry. I love your delicate, almost elfin features: a fine straight nose, large green eyes, and high cheekbones all topped by that blond thatch. I particularly love the way your skin is so deeply and evenly bronzed from the sun, the mark of a boy who surely must run around naked outdoors rather a lot. I wouldn't change a thing about you, little one. Indeed, I wish you could stay this way forever."

Actually I would stay as I was forever, seemingly a slender lad in his late teens. I had been born in the late second century BC. For reasons I have never understood, I had stopped growing and aging before my eighteenth birthday. No, there had been no encounter with a sorcerer nor a pact signed in blood with eldritch powers. It just happened that way. Now after a score of centuries, not a mere score of years, I still looked like a German boy in his late teens. I claimed a few more years than my apparent age so as to be taken seriously in commercial dealings.

The truth is that all my life I have been both blessed and cursed by a lovely form and face that inspire admiration and lust in the heart of any male who appreciates a beautiful boy. I am small and pretty and uniformly bronzed from habitual nudity looking entirely too obviously like someone's catamite or pleasure boy. With an almost fawn-like physique and a total lack of body hair, even at the fork of my legs, I often wasn't taken seriously as a male.

Consequently I have had much experience of rape and sexual servitude over the centuries, having spent my true youth as a rich man's catamite, a slave and a spoil of war. Then there were the gang rapes by bullies, soldiers, sailors, or bandits -- at least till I mastered the arts of unarmed and armed combat. I also worked voluntarily in boy brothels in ancient Alexandria and Antioch in the first century BC or as a houri boy in the Islamic lands.

In the early first century AD I spent a few years in ancient Antioch as a Daphne Boy, enslaved for debt as a temple prostitute. The cult of the nymph Daphne is allied to that of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Male acolytes, for that is what they called us, offered themselves to boy lovers. We were very popular because we were scrupulous about personal hygiene, trim and fit, and hand picked for our beauty of face and form. In some ways I still have fond memories of my time as a Daphne Boy, slave though I then was.

Other stints of sexual slavery were not so pleasant. I spent three years working at the dangerous trade of pearl diver in the Persian Gulf. I was kept perpetually nude, set to dangerous work, taken sexually by guards and fellow divers regardless of my wishes. Our masters were strict about segregation from females. It was 'common knowledge' at the time that sexual activity increased buoyancy, so we divers were prohibited any contact with women. Slave owners kept slaves in male-only quarters, with the inevitable result that same sex relations were nearly universal among slave pearl divers. Our masters punished us for fighting and would have punished me even worse if all I was fighting about was protecting my non-existent virtue.

I finished my sword practice only to find myself embraced by my powerful lover whose lust had been aroused watching my sword dance. He grabbed my hair and turned my face up as he kissed me hard and crushed my small bronzed body to his large pale one. I submitted to his wishes of course. I long ago realized that I was a sexual submissive, a male who was born to be fucked. It is in my nature to be a bottom boy. I am comfortable with my sexuality, with being what the modern age calls a twink or a pretty boy. So I let him take the lead. He pushed me to my knees and presented his manhood for worship, already erect with morning wood.

His cock was like a club, long and thick and laced with angry veins just under the skin. He liked me to start by licking the shaft of his cock, letting the tip of my tongue trace the veins from his groin to his cockhead. He liked me on my knees while he stood over me, clubbing my face with his massive member, making me reach for it, to kiss and smooch his purple helmet and lick around the flange. He told me how exciting it was for him to have a boy of such delicate beauty to play with.

"How pretty you look down there, Sandro, so small and submissive, with those pouty lips of yours around my cock, sucking and slurping. Yes, look into my eyes, little one, see the man who turns your mouth and throat into a quim. You belong like this, on your knees, naked and hairless as a girl, serving a real man, a macho man."

He added that he was glad I kept my golden locks long enough for a good grab so he could control the pace of the face fuck. The hair growing from my scalp, my eyebrows, and eyelashes were really the only hair growing on me.

As a lad, I had never had much body hair to begin with when I stopped aging. During my first century of life in ancient Alexandria I had taken up the Roman habit of having all my body hair, little as there was, plucked with tweezers. It finally stopped sprouting after several decades of plucking, rendering me completely and perpetually hairless. As for my face, my beard never came in before I stopped getting older so I was beardless as well.

He soon ordered me to turn my attention to the swollen glans, licking around the rim, poking the tip of my tongue into his piss slit. As my lips closed around the purple head, I sucked and licked both, then pushed my face forward to swallow his shaft. He loved being able to get it all down my throat and feel the warm wetness lock around his shaft. I massaged his cock with my throat muscles till he started cumming. He pulled out far enough so that just the head was in my mouth, letting me taste his gism and roll it around my mouth with my tongue before swallowing his gift.

He stood me up and kissed me, running his hands all over my body as he waited for his generative powers to revive. Finally he turned me to face a tree, making me bend over and brace myself so he could fuck me from behind. His hands always gripped my butt cheeks firmly, sometimes hard enough to leave bruises. More than once I had been embarrassed as I paraded nude around the deck of one of my riverboats with the marks of the man's hands imprinted on my ass. It made me wonder if the word 'embarrass' were related to 'bare ass'. (I looked it up; it's not.)

Esteban would hook his strong thumbs to either side of my hole and stretch me open, lubricating me with whatever was to hand, spit if necessary, olive oil preferably. I'll give him that. He knew how large his member was and always prepared me properly so we both could enjoy the penetration. Few have ever plumbed so deep into me, and he was thick in proportion. I loved every inch of it. A macho man indeed.

For all my wiry musculature, I was totally dominated by a powerful man like Esteban, becoming a virtual toy in his hands. A large man like him can almost engulf my small physique. I am after all only five and one half feet tall (165 cm), and my frame carries a mere 122 pounds (56 kg). Esteban was nearly 200 pounds (almost 90 kg). He covered me like a stallion does a filly, penetrating me, tugging and pinching my nipples and slapping my butt, turning it bright red from his repeated slaps. He liked to claim that a reddened ass showed that I too was aroused, though he could easily have verified that by grasping my erection.

He had complete access to every portion of my body. I wasn't going anywhere impaled on his manhood with his large hands gripping my hips as he thrust in and out, filling me, then leaving a distressing void as he withdrew. The truth was, I did not want to go anywhere. Esteban exercised a strong physical attraction over me. I liked nothing better than to be his filly, to let my Argentine stallion ride my ass as he pleasured both of us with his huge cock. We were matched perfectly. He had a cock that meant business; I had a talented and virtually bottomless boy hole that could take anything he could throw at it.

He could get carried away occasionally as he had in recent weeks. After fucking me to his second climax in an hour, he decided that while he recouped his energies he would resume my training in the corral. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was adamant. He was the stallion and I the filly. I soon found myself with my hands tied behind my back, my forearms forming an upward X with my wrists touching my shoulder blades. He put the loop of a lassoo around my neck and paid out the line so he could stand in the center of the corral while he put me through my paces.

I had to run in a circle, tethered by the rope while he flicked my back and my ass and my legs with a buggy whip. This was the type known as a lunge whip with a shaft about 4-5 feet long and a lash of equal length traditionally used to direct the horse as it is moved on a circle aroung the trainer standing in the centre. Although such whips are not much used with force against the horse, Esteban certainly used it that way with me.

"Move out smartly little one. Lift up those knees higher. Let's see those buttocks dimple and flex. Do it right or you will feel the sting of the whip on your delightful rump. Or maybe that is what you really want, to let the caress of the whip literally whip you into a sexual frenzy. You always look good with a few stripes on you to emphasize your nudity. A boy like you should be kept naked and put on display. Maybe I will exhibit you to my friends once we get your gait perfected."

"Esteban!" I protested.

Not only was the man was becoming entirely too possessive, his notions of parading me in an exhibition of equestrian dressage were outrageous. In recent weeks he had become much rougher and more assertive with me, inventing this pony training and other bondage games that appealed to his need for dominance and for inflicting humiliation and pain.

"Silence or I will harness you like a pony to the dog cart and make you pull me around the countryside and let your neighbors get a good look at you as a draft animal. I might use a gag bit to punish that disrespectful mouth of yours. That will tame you, my rebellious little filly."

Now he really was over the top with notions of harnessing me like a pony, controlling me with a punishment bit and reins. Just let him try it. This was something only a slave would ever put up with. I know. I had put up with much worse at times, even forced to play the fox in a hunt, but those days were over with. I was not so helpless as I seemed to be in my bonds, which is one reason I had allowed him to bind me in the first place. He had no idea how much training and practice I had in slipping bonds, picking locks, etc. My centuries have made me cautious about many things but especially about being rendered helpless. Hence the skills I had long ago acquired in escape and evasion.

"Yes, Sandro, I know that it is awkward to run with your arms bound behind you like that, but that posture makes your gait so intensely erotic, a slender lad, trotting around on a lead, naked as any head of livestock, butt cheeks dimpling and flexing as you move, your cock and balls bouncing all about and your pretty rump so vulnerable to this whip in my hand. I can see you are starting to sweat profusely, but I like to see the gleam of sweat on your flanks. I'll bet it stings those welt marks too."

With that he gave my butt a few more snaps with the whip which left red welts, as I saw afterwards. Sometimes he snapped the whip to my nipples, making a game of it, calling out which one he would flick the whip to next. He even snapped at the tip to my cockhead a few times, chuckling as the sudden pain at my groin made me lose my rhythm as I hissed at the pain. I could have fought back and escaped, but only at the cost of our relationship, one that I was not yet willing to throw over. So I let him treat me like a recalcitrant equine, continuing to run in a circle, submitting to the crack of the lash on my bare flesh and the humiliation of being kept on a lead, kicking up dust as I trotted which settled on my sweaty legs and flanks. I was hot, tired, dusty, and in some pain while Esteban smiled, actually enjoying my discomfort.

"Look at you lovely Sandro, running there with head up, chest thrown forward, shoulders back, your golden mane streaming in the wind. I am glad you have let it grow out this past year that we have been together. How marvelous it would be to let it grow down long enough to brush your ass, like a true mane. What a pretty little filly or pony that would make you!"

This sort of thing went on for over an hour, by which time I was pretty well wrung out from the heat, thirst, and my earlier strenuous exercise. He finally led me over to the horse trough and let me drink my fill. Then he put me belly down over a horse rail while he fucked my lustily. Even when he came up my ass, he kept his cock in me as we sat down on a bench with me in his lap and played with my body for a while, with particular attention to tormenting my tiny red nipples which he liked to pinch and bite enough to make me squirm. He told me that I even squirmed sexily, my small body engulfed in his large one, all the while impaled on his manhood, my own erection paralleling his larger one but straining upward on the outside of my belly wall. By this time both our stomachs started grumbling, so he finally released me, and we went inside for a meal.

I have ambivalent feelings about sexual bondage. I sometimes tolerate it with my lovers, but I certainly never seek it out. I have too many memories of real captivity with ropes and shackles and chains, and of brutes who liked to take a whip to my back or a cane to my ass before raping me. Sometimes it was for their sexual satisfaction, sometimes it was simply discipline for a captive or a slave. I have been enslaved many times over the centuries and only my few years as a Daphne boy were anything to look back fondly on.

True I could get aroused by the helplessness and humiliation of being put in bondage or accepting light pain from a stronger and larger male who wanted to make my body writhe erotically for his pleasure. What sexually submissive boy does not have such fantasies? And despite my years, I have the body and the strong drives of a very young man, a teenager really.

On the other hand, my centuries have made made me more cautious than any mortal, and more conscious of how quickly things can go wrong. A man who enjoys humiliating a lover and inflicting pain could easily go too far and become dangerous. Esteban's recent actions and his talk about dog carts and punishment bits and things of that stripe had made me wary. We had been together for a year of intense physical attraction and sex play, not that I was not really in love with Esteban. Not at all. My true loves have been few and far between, the latest twenty years earlier in America where my lovely Eduard De Lisle had been tricked into suicide in despair of our love. I had long since exacted my revenge for that injustice.

Chapter 2. Confrontation

It was the next day that my relationship with Esteban shattered completely from the way he treated me so contemptuously during our confrontation with his father.

We were in the corral again, with Esteban putting me through my paces. I had just about had it with the man. He laid into me with the whip harder than before, like he was punishing me for something. Suddenly we heard footsteps and several booted men strode onto the scene. All were armed with pistols, but these were not local gauchos. They wore city dress and had arrived by sail from down the coast.

"Father!" Esteban exclaimed.

For it was indeed Don Luis Somoza, his father, a wealthy shipowner, though he was in the transoceanic trade with Europe. I ran a flotilla of shallow draft riverboats on the Rivers Uruguay and Parana, supplying imports and taking exports from the region known as Mesopotamia, because it was the land between the two great rivers.

"So this is why you have not chosen a wife yet. You would frolic with this unnatural creature? Disgraceful."

Esteban was cool under fire. I will give him that. He simply laughed and spoke in a confident tone to the older man.

"Come, come father. Don't tell me you have never known the delights of a pretty boy on a long sea voyage. This lovely lad is a diversion, nothing more -- a physical indulgence. He is a real beauty, as you can see for yourself. Just look at those clean lines, the long blond mane, the fine withers and rump. I was just training him in dressage. He makes a pretty pony, don't you think? And a fine riding animal, if you take my meaning."

The older man colored at such blatant and unapologetic references to my nude physique and the uses that his son was putting it to.

"And anyway," Esteban added, "I don't intend to marry till I am nearly thirty, as you did yourself in your day, if I heard it right. So why not have some fun in the meanwhile. You cannot complain that I have been indiscreet, either, so there is no blot on the family honor."

With that he yanked on the rope and drew me to him and made me stand there while Don Luis and his friends looked me up and down, sneers on their faces. The older man took my chin in his hand and turned my face up toward his.

"Such a frail thing." The older man offered grudgingly. "I am surprised he can bear your weight. And why have you rendered him as hairless as a girl. Look at him, not a bit of fluff even at the fork of his legs. How old is he anyway."

"He has twenty years, father, or so he claims, though he looks more like sixteen or seventeen. And he came that way. He has neither beard nor body hair. Not much of an excuse for a male, I know, but his talented mouth and rump make up for his shortcomings."

They all chuckled. Soon they were all mocking me, turning me around, feeling me up, tweaking my nipples and weighing my manhood. One man named Gomez deliberately cracked my nuts just for the fun of it. I bent over with the pain, but Esteban pulled me back upright with the rope around me neck. I tried to protest but got buffeted in the face for my 'insolence'.

I knew that any resistance on my part might result in serious injury or even death to some of their party. Armed as they were, if I were to suddenly throw off my bonds and fight back, they could easily pull their guns. I could very likely handle that, and I am not squeamish about killing, not at all, not when it needs doing, but even this mistreatment did not call for any man's death. So I suffered their contempt and ill-treatment in silence, vowing to even the score in other ways, such as a financial attack.

I knew that they dared not damage me permanently. I was not some anonymous street boy but a man of means whose letters of credit on my London banks granted me an 'unlimited' credit ceiling. That was not meant literally, of course. It really meant that I commanded financial resources in Europe beyond the ability of any Argentine bank to match. They could risk lending to my shipping business knowing the loans would be repaid. Still Esteban had judged correctly that our relationship was nearing an end, hence his callous decision to throw me to the dogs to maintain his own macho status in society.

On that day Esteban really wanted to harness me to the dog cart harsh bit and all and have me pull him and his guests along the cart track. (A dog cart is a light two wheeled cart drawn by a horse, originally used to transport hunting dogs in a cage, hence the name.) The elder Somoza vetoed that as too extreme and too public so Esteban satisfied himself with displaying my gait to his friends and and striping my back and ass with the whip. He demonstrated the side swipe too that let the lash wrap completely around my sweaty torso to leave circular welts all up and down my injured hide.

I realized that his contemptuous treatment was misdirection on his part, to emphasize his own masculinity at the expense of mine. He cleverly used his father's contempt for me and my girlish physique to bond with the older man, to show that after all it was no reflection on a male who did the penetrating that his sex partner was a pretty boy instead of a girl.

Later Esteban put me belly down over the horse rail and also tied my ankles to the uprights. This time I was really helpless, bent over, legs spread apart, bare rump uppermost, 'just begging', as he put it, to be fucked. Gomez and one of the others joined Esteban in raping me, slapping my ass first to get it red, tugging my scrotum back between my legs, circling it with thumb and fingers then snapping their fingers at my tortured balls purely for the hell of it. They fucked me so hard they left bruises on my belly and on my ass cheeks from their strong grip. Another man, then Don Luis himself, went around in front and dragged my head up by my long locks and forced their way into my mouth, all the while mocking me for my small size, my hairless body, my complete submission to Esteban as a pony boy and sex toy. One of them pissed on me afterwards to show his contempt.

In the end, they left on their boat with Esteban, leaving me to lick my wounds as best I could. The parting look I gave to Esteban told him without words that he was not only no longer my lover but an enemy. I think I saw a flash of regret on his face, but his features quickly assumed a mask of unconcern and contempt like the others.

I spent another three days at the cottage, intending to return to Buenos Aires at the end of the week. However on my return from a morning run, at the bottom of the slope up to my cottage, I had another confrontation with an unexpected visitor.

My major domo Diego was waiting for me. I had left him in charge of my household in the city. This was no mere servant but a close friend and a man I trusted implicitly. I knew I could count on him. I had saved his life twice as he had saved mine at least once. After that awful business in Natchez Mississippi in the antebellum South it was Diego who nursed me back to health and liquidated my investments in steamboats on the river while I transferred my operations to New York, eventually aiding the Union during the American Civil War. He was one of the few mortals I had trusted with my secret, and one of only two such who had not been my lovers. Now in his mid forties, he was a powerfully built man who not only had good business sense but could be relied upon in a fight.

He forestalled my question by simply stating baldly: "Lydia Anders showed up in Buenos Aires looking for you, sir. I thought it best if you met someplace discreet like your cottage. I know Esteban came back to the city alone."

I could hear the implicit question in his voice, but was not inclined to tell him just then that that relationship was over with. With a nod toward the cottage, my friend indicated the cabin then remarked that he would like to stretch his legs a bit with a walk up the beach. The very soul of discretion. That was my friend Diego.

I walked up to the cottage. She was waiting for me, a tall beautiful redhead, looking me over appraisingly. I did not bother to dress. I am not body shy, not in the least, not after years at a time as a slave boy entirely nude.

As a Daphne boy, I would go around the city with my friend Kleo, both of us utterly naked and with the blue tattoos of a Daphne boy on shoulder and haunch that told one and all that the slightly built naked youths on display were sex slaves in the temple of the cult and were available for any male with coin who fancied a pretty youth. My first owner in Massalia had used me as a naked messenger boy, having me run between his country villa, the city, and nearby ports. In Alexandria I worked in a boy brothel, and even on my time off seldom bothered with even the cotton kilt favored by the Egyptians, happy to walk around the neighborhood entirely bare. After all, everyone knew what I did for a living. No, I had virtually no sense of modesty in public or in mixed company though I did not needlessly give offense.

"Lydia, as glad as I am to see you again, I hope this is not about your proposal. I still do not wish to father an immortal child."

Lydia Anders was another immortal, some six hundred years old at the time. She and I were two of only two dozen or so of our kind scattered around the world. I had found only one other myself, a man in Elizabethan England, who had told me that we do not breed true with mortals though we might with an immortal female. Lydia had found me in New York nearly twenty years ago, on a hunt for an immortal mate. She begged me to father a child on her. I had turned her down.

Understand that we immortals are not organized. We are not regularly in touch. We are certainly not a cabal of immortals controlling the world. Few of us are interested in power for fear of the prominence that would bring. In any event we don't have strange powers beyond our extraordinary vitality. We are otherwise normal men and women who don't die, except by violence or misadventure.

Our main advantages over mortals is that our centuries have endowed us with life experience. So we can usually find a way to avoid trouble as well as to succeed in business or socially. Our second main advantage is a set of survival skills honed to near perfection by centuries of training, practice, and experience: not only combat skills, but acting skills, languages, ability to forge documents and to detect forgeries, skills in escape and evasion, tracking, etc.

Along the way we master a variety of occupations. I was a sharp businessman, a talented joy boy, an experienced soldier, and I would have made a good assassin, though I never have done that for a living. I have on occasion taken life pre-emptively when my path crossed that of insufferable villains who preyed on others but were no threat to me personally. Their wealth and power gave them immunity to the law but not from my personal sense of justice. I did this as much from distaste as from philanthropy. Also, maybe as payment to the universe or whatever gods may exist for my unexplained immortality.

The third advantage we have is wealth, though it can be hard to hang on to. Landed wealth is of little use to immortals who cannot linger more than a score of years in any place before our unfailing youth betrays them. I have been plunged from wealth and comfort into poverty and slavery on several occasions. It was only since the sixteenth century that I could reliably transfer my growing wealth from one country to another. Now in the nineteenth century the telegraph let me manage investments on three continents.

"Alexander I know all your reasons, and I respect them. But that is beside the point now. The fact is that you do have a son. Our son. And he is in danger. You must save him."

At that news I sat down heavily on the bare ground, my legs unable to support me. "How?..."

She explained that in our time together in New York, when we had become good friends, she had taken advantage of me. She and one of my casual lovers had misappropriated my seed and impregnated her. Her resulting pregnancy was why she had left the city abruptly, lest I found out. I had wondered about her sudden leave taking and had missed her as a friend. I had hoped we could share our centuries as friends though not as lovers obviously. I have never felt the least attraction to the female of the species.

The saddest thing about never growing older is that you must eventually lose everyone you ever loved or befriended. Gods know many of them were more worthy of my gift than I was.

"Does he know?" I wasn't asking if he knew who his father was but what he was.

"No. Of course not. Think about it. How could you prove your were immortal yourself if put to it. As far as he knows, his mother is a well-preserved woman in her late thirties. He is eighteen or very nearly. He will find out for himself, but only if he lives that long. That is why I came to you Alexandre. my old friend."

"Yes, we are friends, but you deceived me. You used me, practically raped me." I said, grasping my genitals protectively. That brought an ironic smile and raised eyebrow that made me flush with embarrassment.

"What you said is true, but what I took did not really diminish you in any way, did it, Alexandre. It was seed you had already expelled from that crinkly sac between your legs there. I only regret that we could not make love together. You are the most beautiful and vital male I have ever encountered."

"You are not so bad looking yourself." I admitted, as a sign of truce between us.

Yes, she had taken my seed against my wishes. I could understand her desire for a child, someone who would never age like everyone else. She had twice given birth to children fathered by mortals and had to watch them die of old age, having long since cut herself off from their lives to protect her secret. It must be harder for a woman than a man to live without children. It was easier for me since I was never interested in a family or sex with females. Still I have been lonely much of the time myself. I have lost lovers and friends too.

The question of children aside I knew from Lydia how much more difficult it had been for a woman to survive as an immortal. Even in the late nineteenth century, women had less freedom legally and socially than males in Western societies, and things were much worse in the rest of the world. It had been difficult for her to travel freely, to establish her right to hold property, to earn an honest living. Sometimes she ran a shop. Sometimes she lived as a rich man's courtesan or passed a young widow. A woman alone was conspicuous, and one with wealth a target of opportunity. In many ways hers had been a harder lot than my own, though she had escaped being enslaved as I had been for sexual service.

Chapter 3. South Africa

"There it is Lydia. Table Mountain. I have seen it only twice before.

The City of Capetown lies in a natural amphitheater called the City Bowl formed by Table Mountain at the back plus Devil's Peak, Lion's Head, and Signal Hill to the sides. Table Bay is not a particularly good natural harbor but it had reliable sources of fresh water which is what recommended it to the Dutch.

"We will be docking at Capetown this afternoon."

"At last, Alex. I hope we are in time before war breaks out with the Zulus. Perhaps our son is still safely in winter quarters with his regiment."

"You forget that in this hemisphere it is high summer, although Christmas was only three weeks ago. And you must stop referring to David that way. He is your son, but I am only your rich cousin Alex Thal, which makes me his second cousin once removed and he mine."

"Ah, but the family resemblance is remarkable. You saw that in his photograph. I shall have him call you Uncle Alex."

"Don't you dare!"

She laughed, and I was glad to see her laugh. It wiped out the worry lines that were all that could diminish her feminine beauty. If I were not as a I was, I would have fallen in love with her. In the photograph the lad did look like he was my brother or how his father would have looked like at his age. The photo was black and white for color photography still lay in the future. I had to take her word for it that in our son the colors had merged to give him locks of strawberry blond with hazel eyes. Otherwise he could have been my double.

Except for the uniform of course. David served in the Second Battalion of the Staffordshire Volunteers, though not for long if I could help it. Lydia wanted her son out of the Army. It was up to me to find a way to make that happen. He had only joined up in disgrace for being rejected for admission to Sandhurst, the British military academy. He failed the entrance examination, but it was only on the first try. He could have crammed and taken the test later. That was no disgrace. It took Winston Chruchill three tries only a decade or so later. David had some schoolboy notion that glory in war would secure him a battlefield commission. We had bought out his enlistment, that part Lydia had done herself in London, but it still required both his own consent and that of his commanding officer, which might not be easy with a war in prospect.

We soon found out that his regiment had moved out under Colonel Wood. We sailed along the coast toward Durban the capital of Natal province where border clashes with the Zulus had touched off the trouble in the first place. Our ship sailed past the Cape of Good Hope which is not actually the southern tip of the African continent as commonly thought. That honor goes to Cape Agulhas (the Cape of Needles in Portuguese) which also marks the hydrographic dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. After inquiries in Durban, I insisted that Lydia stay behind at the hotel while I went off armed with a letter she had procured from the British High Commissioner Sir Bartle Frere giving me free passage and calling on the Army to assist me in my journey. An army camp was no place for a woman, even one so capable as Lydia.

Diego and I would make the journey upcountry and see what we might accomplish. Diego had insisted on coming along once I told him I was going after my son. Fortunately my business in Argentina was now well enough established that my absence for a month or even a season was not out of the question. My freight manager could handle the routine well enough, now that I had established the business. I had built my riverboats and arranged long term contracts with shippers and for docking, warehousing, and resupply operations. I could defer questions of capital investments, expansion, new contracts, and the like till I got back. In any event, the riverboat were hardly my major source of wealth. I was a very rich man with investments on three continents.

Meanwhile I had to put aside any thoughts of retaliation against the Somoza family. A financial attack has to be planned carefully to avoid hardship to the innocent investors and workers in their family enterprise. I could not simply ruin the Somozas and throw hundreds of out of work. Actually I could but I would not. Their workers were not at fault. I have always despised men of power who are so intent on settling their own differences they overlook the damage they do to those of humbler station, the little people who get trampled in the fracas. Most rulers and the aristocrats are like that. Look at their history of drafting peasant lads to fight their largely unnecessary wars.

While we were outfitting our party, we learned the news of the disastrous battle as Isandlwana where an entire British column was wiped out. The Zulu had really been forced into war by the High Commissioner's ultimatum without the consent of the British Government, and his confederate Lord Chelmsford, the local military commander, had attacked without authorization. They basically forced London's hand, convinced as they were that the Zulu military with its 40,000 trained and experienced warriors was a standing menace to the white settlements in Natal proper.

Ironically it was the disaster at Isandlwana that doomed the Zulu kingdom because it resolved the British government to press on to a military victory at all costs. London feared that the defeat could spark uprisings all over the empire, coming as it did only twenty years after the Great Indian Uprising or Sepoy Rebellion, which almost pushed the British out of India.

The small defensive victory at Rorke's Drift restored British pride, but Lord Chelmsford withdrew his army back to Natal province to regroup and await reinforcements. That was to our advantage in locating my son David because he would be in a base camp rather than out on campaign. After a month of inactivity on the part of the Zulu army which had no intention of invading Natal and with the British army between us and Zululand, we decided we could risk the journey northward. I took my leave of Lydia. The voyage across the South Atlantic and the month in Durban had given us a chance to fully renew our friendship. She is a fine lady.

Still, though Diego and I hoped to avoid trouble on our expedition, we prepared for it just in case. We hired two young Boers Dirk and Jan, blond haired brothers in their very early twenties, as guides and guards. We were quite well armed and mounted ourselves. All of us had spare horses as remounts as well as pack horses for supplies. If we ran into the Zulus, we would try to shoot our way into the clear and ride like hell.

"You outfit yourself like a cavalry soldier." Dirk remarked as I settled my weapons about me.

On my person I carried four Colt Peacemaker revolvers, two in shoulder holsters and two more around my hips, with two of the longer barreled cavalry model in saddle holsters. I also had a Winchester rifle in a holster under the flaps that held the stirrups to the saddle tree.

All guns used the same .45 caliber ammunition, of which we had a goodly supply split up so each pack horse carried some. I had long since learned the importance of packing supplies so that the loss of an animal or two would not deprive me of an entire class of supplies. Our gun belts held enough spare cartridges for two complete reloads. As long as I was mounted I did not see the weight as excessive though I would never try to march or run so encumbered.

Instead of a cavalry sabre, I carried a katana in a scabbard over my back with the handle ready to grasp over my right shoulder, a boot knife, and though the young Boer could not see it, a holdout derringer. Diego carried just two Colt pistols around his waist, two more in a saddle holster, plus a katana, for he had grown to like the blade during our sparring sessions.

Finally I had a small water bottle at my hip. In dry country you never want to get separated from your water. You never knew when the necessity of a quick dismount would separate you from the canteen hung over the pommel of the saddle or the water skins on a pack horse.

We traveled through country with a Mediterranean climate paralleling the Drakensberg Range or Dragon's Mountain in Dutch. The country was mostly low shrublands called fynbos or grasslands or heath with gallery forests. Our seat atop our horses gave us good visibility. I could appreciate why the Zulus hated cavalry. It left them at a huge disadvantage. Against their traditional native foes, their own stamina and fleetness of foot stood them in good stead, but this country was made for the horse.

At the base camp at Tinta's Kraal I met with Colonel Wood about getting David released from the Army. I was afraid he would be thrown into battle before too long. I knew from what Lydia had learned in Durban that Chelmsford, the British commander, feared being replaced before he could bring the war to a successful conclusion. Indeed a General Wolseley had been sent out for just that purpose.

Colonel Wood was sympathetic to my request but with the army in the field he would not release David. It would be a different story once the issue was settled. Wood even challenged me, betting that no red-blooded soldier would disgrace himself by taking the easy way out, with battle imminent. I went to find David at his regimental area.

"Private Anders!" I heard a loud voice call out, bristling with indignation. "What are you doing in that outfit. Civilian clothes are not allowed in camp and certainly not while a soldier is on campaign."

I was wearing dun colored jacket and trousers with brown leather boots as an early form of camouflage. I turned to confront a florid faced man considerably taller than I, a colour sergeant by his stripes. He was powerfully built and quite young for his rank, no more than thirty certainly. I was impressed. The rank of Colour Sergeant (later called Sergeant Major) was a prestigious one normally given to sergeants who had been courageous in battle. I knew that men of that rank were referred to and addressed as "Colour Sergeant" or "Colour" and never simply as "Sergeant". So I gave him that courtesy.

"Good morning Colour Sergeant, but I think you have me confused with my cousin Private David Anders, who I believe is in your battalion. You are in second battalion then?"

He was taken aback only a moment, as I told him my name and introduced him to Diego as my major domo. The two non-commissioned officers took each other's measure at a glance, clearly liking what they saw: two professionals whose job was to keep the wheels turning. I also saw Dunn looking at me closely, studying the differences between me and the soldier he knew.

"Well I'll be damned. No offense to you sir, Mr. Thal, but you could be his twin except his hair is strawberry blond and yours is corn yellow. And yes, I am in Second Battalion. I take it you are here to see him?"

"Indeed, but tell me something of yourself. You must have quite a record to be a colour sergeant already."

We talked as we walked over to the regimental area. It turned out that Colour Sergeant Dunn's rise in rank had started with service under Wolseley in the Third Ashanti War five years earlier. Dunn was twenty-seven though looking several years younger and was clean shaven. He carried a pistol on his hip and I was pleased to see that he had extra ammunition pouches on his belt. Not quite regulation, but eminently sensible in the face of the courage and ferocity of the Zulu impis.

I knew that in battle he would also have a Martini-Henry rifle to hand, though his main job in a fight was to steady the troops rather than shoot at the enemy himself. Officers lead the troops and make tactical decisions about movement and timing, but sergeants kept the firing line steady with their presence and example. I could tell instantly that this man was a good soldier and I was glad my son was not only in his battalion but in the same company.

"Private Anders, report!" Dunn called out in his parade ground voice.

A young soldier shouted out from the company area where he was in the process of taking a shower right out in the open. Of course, there is no privacy or modesty in a military camp, so it was not surprising that a soldier would strip to the buff right in the middle of everything and everyone and take a shower. The water rained down from a canvas bucket suspended from a beam onto the youth's slender body, rinsing the soap off his finely formed frame.

"I wish he did not have to do that, showering so openly." Dunn grumbled. "He sleeps bare arsed too. The boy has no modesty. It might give some of the older men unhealthy ideas."

I was close enough to David Anders to see that he could indeed give men ideas. He could have been my double, and I have been a pleasure boy or sex slave many times myself. Short, slightly built, virtually hairless, he looked just like me except for very small tufts of fluff at the fork of his legs and in his armpits. His small muscles bunched and moved under his flawless skin in quite an attractive way. I could appreciate the colour sergeant's concern about a possibly unheathly interest (from his point of view) that other males might take in David's splendid little physique.

"You have something against field hygiene then?" I teased. Diego just rolled his eyes.

"No, sir. Something against pretty soldier boys flashing their bare butts around too much. This isn't the bloody Navy after all. Still your cousin is a good lad, just don't tell him that I said so."

Diego and I chuckled. A colour sergeant had to maintain a tough demeanor with his young soldiers, even the ones he rather liked. Playing favorites undermined morale and unit cohesion. With a friendly nod the good colour sergeant left me to meet my son.

David Anders actually stood about an inch (3 cm) taller than I with much the same wiry build. With just a towel around his hips, he was hardly dressed so I could see all of him. He had my face except for his mother's eyes. His trim fawn-like build matched my own. There was an open intelligent expression on his face as he looked at me appraisingly.

"You must be my cousin Alex," he said. Mother wrote that you would bring her to Africa. I hope she is not with the column. We may go into combat at any day."

"No, she is safely in Durban. And yes, I know that the Zulus are nearby. That is why your colonel has given my party of civilians sanctuary in the camp. It is too dangerous for us to proceed on our own. For now we will travel with the column."

As we talked he became more comfortable in my presence, taking the towel from around his hips and using it to dry himself off, then sitting down on it while he air dried and caught some sun. I saw that he had a bit of color above the hips but was rather pasty white below, obviously because of the uniform he had to wear. It was not from any great sense of modesty, because David seemed unfazed by chatting with me while utterly nude. A chip off the old block then.

I had heard from Lydia that quite without any prompting on her part, he had developed a predilection for nudity whether sleeping in his bed or exercising outdoors during the warmer months swimming or running or collecting plants. He was a budding botanist, no pun intended. The staff was quite used now to seeing the youth out and about in the buff.

She had never sent David away to boarding school. That was for parents who did not want their children around. David went to the local school with the children from village where she lived in the countryside just outside of London, not wanting her son to come back from boarding school both a stranger and a snob. However, she made a point of not being overprotective, even if showed up with a cut lip or a black eye. Boys will be boys and had to fit in with their contemporaries, as she knew from centuries of life experience. She wanted her son to be as self-reliant and assertive as his father, thank you very much.

I gave him the letter his mother had sent with me and tried to talk him into accepting our buyout of his enlistment, but he countered earnestly that he could not just leave his unit with a battle in the offing. Not only would that make him the worst sort of coward but also the worst sort of friend, leaving his military comrades in the lurch. Actually he admitted that he had tired of the discipline and boredom of army life and the lack of ready access to books and intellectual stimulus. So he would not mind getting out, but he could not in good conscience do it just yet.

We both agreed that the Zulu War could not last more than a few months at most and that then he and his colonel would accept the early termination of his military service. I was very pleased with him at that first meeting even though I did not get my way. For someone barely eighteen he had a well calibrated moral compass.

That evening Diego and I brought him to our camp fire to meet the Boer brothers and shared a bit of liquid cheer. He sputtered a bit, not accustomed to strong drink. I am very moderate in my habits myself, so of course I approved. I found myself warming to the boy, in an avuncular if not exactly parental way. I could see that he was a good lad, and why not. He came from good stock on both sides. He was intelligent, thoughtful, chatty, and had a fine sense of humor. Afterwards I walked him back to the campfire with his unit.

As David unconcernedly stripped to the buff preparing for bed, a friend asked him for help in fixing the sights on his rifle. He had a reputation already among his fellows of someone who could fix things. I am an inveterate tinkerer myself and was pleased to see that the boy had inherited this aspect of my character. David got to work with his tools, not the least bit fazed that he was nude while everyone else was clothed.

I did notice a couple of lads eyeing him hungrily and wondered about his sexuality. His mother was unsure herself, though she suspected he favored his father in sexual orientation. He had been friendly with some of the village lasses but never sought out their company. As he crawled into his tent after wishing me good night I couldn't help but see how shapely his bum was. I would never touch him that way, but I wondered if any male had.

The next days later David came over to find me and Diego sparring with the Boer lads. They had procured Zulu shields and thrusting spears, wrapped to blunt their sharp point and edges, while Diego and I used our katanas scabbards and all. The Boer boys and I were stripped to the waist while Diego wore a loose fitting shirt. As lads, Jan and Dirk had played with Zulu boys from a nearby kraal and had picked up something of their techniques. So they were reasonably authentic opponents. Actually I wished they had carried authenticity further by sparring in just a loincloth, but you cannot have everything.

After my coaching and sparring over the years, Diego was an excellent swordsman and still young enough to handle the Boer lads. My own combat skills were superlative. It had been centuries since I had found anyone who could match me with a blade. My small size and nimble frame combined with centuries of training, practice, and experience in all kinds of fighting could never be matched by a mortal. Also my strange vitality and regular exercise gave me greater stamina than most.

"You are very good with a sword, Uncle Alex!" David opined with a mischievous look during a pause.

"Uncle Alex indeed! Lydia put you up to that in her letter, didn't she?"

He smiled for indeed that had been the case. From then on it was simply 'David' and 'Alex' between us.

Over the next few days I saw that he was on good terms with his mates even if they did kid him about not having to shave yet. He hadn't even shown any fuzz. I took that as a sign that he too had the gift that Lydia and I shared.

From the perspective of modern genetics it is evident that our immortality must be a recessive trait, inactive with only one immortal parent but active when both parents pass on the trait to their offspring. So the question was answered. Our kind did breed true with each other. Of course nothing was known of genetics in those days. The pioneering work of Gregor Mendel, published in an obscure journal in 1865, would not be rediscovered by science till several decades later.

I asked Colour Sergeant Dunn if I might check David out with a rifle. My whole party joined the non-com and David on the shooting range the next day. The infantry rifle in use then was the Martini-Henry breech-loader. A single shot lever activated weapon, it was the British Army's first true breech-loader that used metallic cartridges. As a non-com Dunn also carried a sword bayonet in a scabbard for close work while David's rifle took the standard socket bayonet. Dunn's bayonet, as its name implied, was a long bladed bayonet that doubled as a shortsword.

It did not surprise me to see that Dunn was an excellent shot. Even at the farthest target some four hundred yards off he had a tight grouping of his five shots. David was a fair shot, and I judged him good enough for what he probably needed to do in the forthcoming battle. As ever from caution I did not show just how good a shot I was. I like to keep something in reserve. Nevertheless everyone could see that I was much the best shot there. Diego was at Dunn's level. The Boer lads were somewhat better, not surprising really. The long vistas of that open country meant one might have to engage an enemy or shoot game from quite some distance.

I kept out of David's way during the daylight hours when he was on duty, but we got together each evening over the next ten days, gradually bonding as we got to know one another. I was no longer just his mother's cousin, someone he had heard about, but a real friend. Occasionally Dunn joined us too. He liked the blend that Diego used in his pipe, but had run out himself. I could see that David himself was becoming quite friendly with the Boer lads as well. They liked to sit shirtless around the fire, David squeezed between the two of them, the smell of wood smoke engulfing us all with its welcome and pleasant aroma.

They touched him often, stroking his ribs with their knuckles, tousling his hair, rubbing his back or just throwing a comradely arm across his shoulder. He seemed to accept these physical attentions as only his due. Was it just comradeship or mutual attraction, I wondered. They certainly made a lovely trio: three healthy youths, stripped to the waist, talking, joking, sometime wrestling. I supposed David had to be more reserved or discreet with his mates, but he was open and outgoing with Dirk and Jan who were soon on the friendliest of terms with David. Diego simply smiled at the half-naked trio then winked at me.

Chapter 4. Kambula

At the end of March, after a build-up of two months, the British Army was finally ready. The Army proceeding cautiously. Going on the strategic offensive did not mean they could not assume the tactical defensive at the same time. The idea was to push forward but entice the always aggressive Zulus to attack a well-defended position.

At a location called Kambula Colonel Wood built a laager of tightly locked together wagons just as the Boers had done on their Great Trek of the 1830s. Wood's laager was hexagonal, the shape of the regular polygon which encloses the largest area within the smallest perimeter. Trenches and earth parapets surrounded both sections. Firing points at the corners allowed enfilade fire along the straight sides. One side of the laager lay along the crest of a low ride with a stream in front running down a ravine.

The regiment sent out a small mounted probing force to Hlobane which got badly mauled. The next morning, scouts reported that the main enemy force was on the march (the run really) toward us. We could see the enemy coming at us from five miles away across the plain. It was a fearsome sight. The Zulu impis totaled 25,000, spreading out in their traditional formation resembling a charging ox: the horns to the sides, the head in the center, and the reserve, the 'loins' just behind. All told, with engineers, artillery, and infantry Colonel Wood commanded only 2,000 men, one-third cavalry. So we were outnumbered a dozen to one.

David's company was stationed at the critical point, where the attackers would try to force an opening between the crest of the rise and a stone cattle kraal also held by our side. Colonel Wood sent out his cavalry to sting the right horn into a premature attack without the support of the left horn. At noon, the horsemen got close to the Zulus, fired a single volley then turned around and galloped back to the laager. About 11,000 Zulus took the bait and went after the cavalry. As soon as the cavalry cleared the field, the artillery opened up with canister and the infantry with massed musketry.

It was just as the Boer lads had predicted. The Zulus had learned nothing in the forty years since their defeat by the Boers at Blood River. Instead of fighting a guerrilla war and hitting the vulnerable supply lines of their enemy, the impis still tried a direct attack. As always the aim was to envelop the enemy and press close enough to slaughter him with their short thrusting spears. Those tactics work against another force in the open but much less well against a prepared position, especially a well-chosen position held by men with guns. Forty years earlier, those guns had been muzzle loaders. The breech-loading Martin-Henry rifle, though only single shot, had a rate of fire of ten rounds a minute in sustained fire. Under the heavy fire, the Zulu right horn fell back in confusion.

The Zulus used not only their traditional thrusting spears but many had firearms taken from the British at Isandlwana and other battles. The natives did not make the best use of them because they had no regular system of resupply of ammunition. Also many Zulu warriors fired high, thinking that made the weapon more powerful. Of course it just wasted their fire and contributed to the cloud of gunsmoke that soon blew over the battlefield. This was twenty years before the invention of cordite or smokeless powder.

The left horn and the head and loins (the center) of the enemy force attacked about two o'clock in the afternoon. At one point the Zulus overran the stone cattle kraal. Seeing the danger, Wood sent Major Hackett with a reaction force that formed a line with bayonets fixed and charged across open ground to sweep the enemy back over the rim of the crest and into the ravine.

My party of civilians supported the reaction force. We had good cover behind some sandbags about forty yards back from the soldiers. I used our Winchester repeaters selectively to support the soldiers on the line. The Zulus knew that once a man fired, he no longer held a rifle in his hand, only a long spear. So they would try to close with him before he could reload. Whenever one got into trouble that way, sparring with a Zulu spear, I would pick off the Zulu that confronted him. I did not wait for a kill shot in that melee. Any hit, whether in the side or the leg or the shoulder, would incapacitate him long enough for the Tommy to put his bayonet through his gut, then reload ready for another Zulu. The Boer lads did the same. Diego reloaded our two Winchesters, so I never had to stop or miss a shot because I was loading. He had his two revolvers for protection if the line broke, and the two pair of horse pistols were close to hand for both of us to reach.

Suddenly disaster loomed as the Zulu right horn returned to the battle. Squeezed on both sides, our forces were hard pressed. The Zulus pushed their way right around the shoulders of David's company. I emptied my Winchester rapidly into the press of black warriors, working the lever rapidly, using the stud on the trigger guard to fire the weapon. Diego did the same with the other Winchester with the Boer youths firing into the warriors as well. The hail of bullets staggered the charge long enough for some Tommies from the reaction force to surge forward to block the Zulus' penetration.

British Tommy and Zulu warrior were too close, too intermingled for me to just pick them off from 50 or 100 yards away. I turned the Winchesters over to Diego. His job now was to watch my back while I closed with the enemy. Stripping off my jacket so my white shirt would mark me unmistakably to the the Tommies and taking up two of the long revolvers normally carried in saddle holsters I walked up to the melee shooting at black skin and black faces. Not every shot was fatal but all were effective. At that range I could not miss, though I seldom do at any range. I did not fire wildly but picked each shot. After emptying the two horse pistols I threw them behind me for the Boers to retrieve and pulled two smaller Colts out of the shoulder holsters, firing as before. By the time I got to the pistols I wore on my hips, the battle had turned with the enemy pushed back.

I retrieved all my pistols and cleaned them off even running a swab through their barrels. Just in time too for the enemy tried one last big push. This time the left side of the company was pushed back under pressure. That was where David was stationed. I wanted to go to him, but the pressure on the right was too great. Once again I had to advance with my pistols and shoot the enemy at point blank range. The Zulus were courageous, even magnificent as they closed with their enemy. What a waste of fine young men war so often is. I saw that once again on that day. Understand, though I was afraid for myself and for my son and my friends, I fought from necessity, not from personal or racial hatred. Whatever their motivation the Zulus fought like demons.

Well I can fight rather demonically myself when pressed, as I did that day. I had kept calm throughout the fighting, but then I saw David go down, stabbed by a Zulu in the side. I picked that man off but then had to turn my attention to my front. When I looked back I saw the Diego had rushed forward to cover David. He and Dunn were practically standing over the lad, fighting shoulder to shoulder, forming a knot around which resistance hardened.

Suddenly my last pair of revolvers ran out of ammunition. There was no time to reload. I was pressed too closely. That is when I drew the katana. Something came over me as I drew cold steel, a kind of controlled rage, if you will. Born of fear and of pain and especially of anger and grief for my fallen son, I fell into a killing frenzy. I am not sure whether 'berserker' is the right term for it, for I saw everything with utter clarity.

My two millennia of training and practice and combat experience took over. I slashed and thrust, all the while dancing the deadly dance of the sword, as I have so often had to do in the past. Despite their courage and ferocity the Zulus had no answer to my sword and my tactics. A katana is wielded two handed so it has a lot of power behind it, my small stature and slight build notwithstanding. I had little trouble parrying the thrusting spears which the Zulus held in the right hand only, the left bearing a rather useless cowhide shield. Neither spear nor shield stopped my blade. Certainly their flesh did not.

I did take a cut across the ribs and got stabbed in the right hip but I kept on, ignoring my wounds. This was the last time I ever went into battle with a sword. Never had I killed so many. I don't know how long the struggle lasted. Time has no meaning when you are in the grip of a killing frenzy.

Suddenly it was over. The enemy's morale and their commitment to the fight broke right at the point where I faced them. No Zulus willing to fight me were left standing. Those who had fought me were strewn on the ground. As so often happens in battle, defeat starts small as morale crumbles in one or two spots on the battle line. First hesitation then a sense of defeat communicate themselves rapidly to the entire attack force. On that day I was one of the catalysts of their defeat. I gather that the knot formed around Dunn and Diego had a similar effect. Suddenly the enemy were streaming away. I looked around and saw only men in British uniform still standing, all of them looking mightily relieved.

I cannot say I was proud of what I had done. It wasn't pride so much as satisfaction. Few things in my experience are as satisfying as knowing that you will live, after all, and that those who would have slain you have died at your hand.

The Tommies around me looked at me with awe and even fear as if I might turn my ferocity on them. It did not take a forensic scientist to tell which Zulus I had slain with my sword. Bayonets do not decapitate or sever limbs or, in at least two cases, cut a man entirely in half. Ignoring them I ran over to David.

His wound was not so bad as I had feared. David had gone down as much from the shock to his diaphragm as from the pain of his wound. Stunned by the thrust, he suddenly could not breathe. His wound was painful and he could not wield his bayonet effectively with broken ribs, so he kept shooting at the Zulus from a position with his back propped against a wagon wheel, the butt of his rifle braced on the ground, with the colour sergeant later sitting next to him. Dunn was in worse shape with a leg torn by both a bullet and a spear.

I thanked him for standing over David and keeping the Zulus off him. Characteristically the man was modest.

"T'were no more than my duty sir. Besides I had seen how well your Davy fought the enemy. He's a good lad, just don't tell him that I said so."

Of course David was right there, so we both smiled. This was a brave soldier trying to make light of his courage and his commitment to his men. We weren't fooled in the least.

Diego had taken minor wounds in four places. The Boer brothers Dirk and Jan were essentially unscathed. Diego and I sank to earth as medical teams tended the wounded. I let them treat Dunn first as his injuries were the worst. David came next. After Diego's wounds were bandaged he sighed wearily and said with perfect fervor.

"I am getting too old for this, my friend."

"Tell me about it!" I replied with equal feeling, alluding to my twenty centuries.

That puzzled the others, a much younger man using such a rejoinder to a man clearly more than twice his age. We both saw their puzzlement which suddenly struck us as absurdly funny and we broke into hysterical laughter, laughing so hard it threatened to tear our wounds open. I did promise David that I would explain some day. That only set Diego off again.

What can I say about the man. He had followed me to the ends of the earth and once again put himself on the line for me and then for my son. He did not have to. I had long since signed shares in my enterprises over to him, so he was wealthy in his own right. He once told me that he would probably die of boredom if he ever retired to a quiet life. Mind you, I normally lead the life of a businessman, not an adventurer, but I had seen my share of adventure and he with me. I loved the man and to this day honor his memory.

This battle was the turning point in the war. The Zulus lost about 2,000 killed, equivalent to our entire force. Many of them died during a relentless pursuit by our cavalry for seven miles. The horsemen took their savage revenge for their comrades killed at Hlobane the day before. Our own casualties were absurdly light but only because we had held the line. If they had gotten in among us, the slaughter would have been horrific. All around us was the stench of battle, the smell of gunpowder mixed with the smell of blood and shit and piss, for men often void themselves when they die and others had been disemboweled by bayonet or torn apart by cannon shot.

Epilogue

The war ended after the defeat of the Zulu at their capital Ulundi on July 4, 1879. Lord Chelmsford's five thousand men advanced in the form of a large hollow square, a kind of living laager with mounted troops covering the flanks and rear. The British wanted to prove they could beat the Zulus in the open and they did, destroying and dispersing the last Zulu army of some 15,000. The Zulus were cut down before they could close with the British lines. No Zulu got nearer than 30 yards against four ranks of riflemen supported by two Gatling guns and cannon firing canister shot at point blank range. The victorious British fired the Royal Kraal at Ulundi which burned for days.

It had taken a second invasion force of 16,000 European troops plus 7,000 Natal natives to bring the war to a close. The British lost 1700 lives, the Zulus at least 10,000. The Zulu threat to Natal was ended.

Sergeant Dunn was permanently injured and had to leave the Army. He had planned to marry his sweetheart back home and eventually open a pub near the base after he retired. The least I could do was start him up in business. I also provided him a permanent income with a generous annuity in place of his expected army pension.

David recovered completely but for him the war was over. He was glad of it too. The battle had cured him of any boyish notions about glory in war. Colonel Wood was happy to sign his papers after the battle. Not only had the lad proved himself, he had proved Wood right about his character. And the colonel knew the role that I and my party had played in holding the line at a critical point. A fine officer that Colonel Wood.

It took a while to convince David of his gift. Diego's testimony that he had worked for me for over twenty years and I had not aged a day carried a lot of weight, but what finally convinced him was the way his scar faded within a year and then his own continuing youth. He never did grow a beard.

He stayed on in South Africa for about six years, forming a trio with Dirk and Jan. I visited him two years later. I rode up to their farmstead and came upon the three of them as they frolicked shamelessly in a stream that ran through their property. None of them had a stitch on and they were engaged in activities that many males of that day and age would strongly disapprove of. Not me. I joined them, though of course, I limited my attentions to the two Boer lads, who were soon plugging away at me at both ends, much to David's amusement.

You have no idea how humiliating it is to have to listen to your own son comment on your lovemaking techniques when you are unable to reply because of a huge cock in your mouth. I did show him that he wasn't too old for a spanking for disrespecting his elders. The Boer lads were only too glad to hold him down for me as I smacked away. His pleas for pity for his sore butt were unconvincing given how much he was laughing during the proceedings. The next day we went out riding bareback and bare-assed too. I learned that David often rode that way, which explained his overall bronzing. The Boer lads insisted on saddles for themselves though not on clothing. Needless to say our picnic was an unforgettable experience.

David was initially unsure what he would do with his life, but he had plenty of time to find out. I am happy to say that he did not fall into dissolution and idleness but took after his proud parents in his industriousness though he preferred the world of science to the world of business. Skipping university study, he set himself up as a collector of botanical specimens for museums, botanical gardens, and herbaria in Europe. He specialized on the newly recognized Cape Floristic Kingdom one of only six in the world and much the smallest, writing technical descriptions, preparing dried specimens, and the like. He actually made a good living at it too.

He sometimes consulted me on names for new species. I still spoke both classical and vulgar Latin and New Testament Greek even after all these centuries. Sometimes travelers in the back country were startled to find the avid botanist working in the field stark naked. David just laughed off their disapprobation. As a man of independent means, he could do as he liked. Lydia and I had settled a good income on him. She returned to London but visited him every couple of years. He visited London in the alternate years. I understand that he was the inspiration for Oscar Wilde's character Dorian Gray. The writer and aesthete had noticed the lad's unchanging appearance over nearly a decade's time from a portrait his mother had had painted. Of course, David passed it off as joke claiming he had made a pact with the devil.

I returned to Buenos Aires where news reports of the war and of my own part in the Battle of Kambula had preceded me. (I had been mentioned in dispatches as had Colour Sergeant Dunn.) In the eyes of the Somozas I saw not only respect but actual fear. I made a point for a while of wearing my katana in a scabbard on my back, reminding Esteban that this was the very sword he had once seen me use to cut the head off a slaughtered hog. Challenged over the efficacy of a Japanese sword compared to good Toledo steel, I had demonstrated its effectiveness in the most graphic manner possible. Esteban had no troubled visualizing that same sword decapitating Zulus and said as much to his circle of acquaintance. This helped restore my reputation.

That is as far as my revenge went against the Somozas. Compared to what had happened in South Africa, their injury and insult to me months earlier seemed too petty to concern myself with, so I set aside my plans for revenge, though I always refused business dealings with their firm. That was to our mutual disadvantage, but I could afford it better than they.

Only recently could I write of these things, choosing, from caution, to cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of modern science will believe it. In this tale, all of the names are real. The events described really did happen just as I have written.

I know that David reads these tales, for I have written them partly to let him know what kind of a man I have become over the centuries. Still it feels very strange for a man like myself to have a son. We were not like other fathers and sons. I never knew him as a child. Both of us were and are physically young men in our late teens and will remain so till the end of our days. We do not live together, but with Lydia we constitute a real family ready to assist one another if need be. It is a great comfort to know that you are not alone in the world.

Not that I do not value my mortal friends and lovers such as my current lover Jeffrey who has been with me just over a year now. Because it is so brief, the time I am able to spend with them is that much more precious to me.

As for my friend Diego. I had once given him a blood transfusion after an injury. Maybe it helped confer some part of my vitality on the man for he lived a long life, hale and hearty to the end, dying at the age of 103 of a sudden illness just after the second inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as President of the United States.