Men of Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

tracked his first elephant,
and stood shoulder to shoulder with him as he shot it down. Together they had marched and ridden the breadth of a savage continent. They had drunk from the same bottle and eaten from the same pot
at a thousand camp fires. Yet he could not bring himself to call him back. He knew that Jan Cheroot must make his own decision.
    He need not have worried. When ‘dop’ time came that evening, Jan Cheroot was there to hold out his chipped enamel mug. Zouga smiled and, ignoring the line that measured his daily
ration of brandy, he filled the mug to the brim.
    ‘It was necessary, old friend,’ he said, and Jan Cheroot nodded gravely. ‘They were good beasts,’ he said. ‘But then I have had many fine beasts go from my life,
four-legged and two-legged ones.’ He tasted the raw spirit. ‘After a little time and a dram or two, it does not matter so much.’
    Aletta did not speak again until the boys were asleep in the tent.
    ‘Selling the oxen and the wagon was your answer,’ she said.
    ‘It cost a guinea a day to water them, and the grazing has been eaten flat for miles about.’
    ‘There have been three more deaths in the camp. I counted thirty wagons leaving today. It’s a plague camp.’
    ‘Yes.’ Zouga nodded. ‘Some of the claim holders are getting nervous. A claim that I was offered for eleven hundred pounds yesterday was sold for nine hundred today.’
    ‘Zouga, it’s not fair to me or the children,’ she began, but he interrupted her.
    ‘I can arrange a passage for you and the boys with a transport rider. He has sold his stock and he leaves in the next few days. He will take you back to Cape Town.’
    They undressed in darkness and silence, and when Aletta followed him into the hard narrow cot the silence continued until he thought she had fallen asleep. Then he felt her hand, smooth and
soft, touch his cheek lightly.
    ‘I am sorry, my darling.’ Her voice was as light as her touch, and her breath stirred his beard. ‘I was so tired and depressed.’
    He took her hand and held the tips of her fingers to his lips.
    ‘I have been such a poor wife to you, always too sick and weak when you needed someone strong.’ Timidly she let her body touch his. ‘And now when I should be a comfort to you,
I do nothing but snivel.’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not true.’ And yet over the years he had resented her often enough for just those reasons. He had felt like a man trying to run with shackles
on his ankles.
    ‘And yet I love you, Zouga. I loved you the first day I laid eyes on you, and I have never ceased to love you.’
    ‘I love you too, Aletta,’ he assured her, yet the words came automatically; and to make up for the lack of spontaneity, he placed his arm around her shoulders and she drew closer
still and laid her cheek against his chest.
    ‘I hate myself for being so weak and sickly,’ she hesitated, ‘for not being able to be a real wife any more.’
    ‘Shh! Aletta, do not upset yourself.’
    ‘I will be strong now – you will see.’
    ‘You have always been strong, deep inside.’
    ‘No, but I will be now. We shall find that capful of diamonds together, and afterwards we shall go north.’ He did not reply, and it was she who spoke again. ‘Zouga, I want you
to make love to me – now.’
    ‘Aletta, you know that is dangerous.’
    ‘Now,’ she repeated. ‘Now, please.’ And she took his hand down and placed it under the hem of her nightdress against the smooth warm skin of her inner thigh. She had
never done that before, and Zouga found himself shocked but strangely aroused, and afterwards he was filled with a deep tenderness and compassion for her that he had not felt for many years.
    When her breathing had become regular once more, she pulled his hands away gently and slipped out of the cot.
    Leaning on one elbow he watched her light the candle and then kneel by the trunk that was lashed to the foot of the cot. She had plaited her hair with a