Farmers' Boys

By Pueros

‘Ishe Komborerai Afrika!’

(‘God Bless Africa!’)

- National anthem of Zimbabwe

(A certain boys’ boarding school, April 2000)

The sparkling sensuous blue eyes, of a young, very pretty, fair-haired white boy, were observing the splendid scene from a privileged elevated position. Dry, sunny weather and a festival atmosphere amongst the large crowds also witnessing the ceremonial procession blessed the occasion.

The boy was waving a small colourful flag in his right hand. The banner of his homeland displayed seven horizontal stripes of green, yellow, red, black, red, yellow and green, with a white black-edged triangle in the hoist, where there was also a red star surmounted by an exotic golden bird.

Adjacent to the white boy, who was standing on a high balcony, was a similarly aged black youngster. The latter, in celebration of the host country, was waving a little Union Jack.

The boys were watching an ornate open-topped horse-drawn carriage drive down London’s Mall towards Buckingham Palace, accompanied fore and aft by a large troupe of resplendently attired mounted cavalry, whose silvery breastplates twinkled in the bright sunlight. Sitting in the coach next to King William V was the President of Zimbabwe, who was on a State visit to the United Kingdom.

The President waved happily at the large cheering crowds who had assembled behind low barriers on either side of the broad avenue to watch their King and his guest pass. British and Zimbabwe flags fluttered side-by-side on many tall flagstaffs, which lined the route along with many red-coated Guardsmen. The soldiers all wore their famous tall furry bearskin caps, although, as suited the more sensitive times of the mid-21st century, the headwear was now actually made from synthetic material.

The President was renowned as one of the world’s foremost leaders, historically almost equal, in his own way, to the late great Nelson Mandela. He had not only saved his country from years of political and economic turmoil but also turned his homeland into a prosperous bastion of harmonious democracy.

Zimbabwe was now a country where black lived alongside white without rancour. The people’s common aim of a just, affluent society had been aided by co-operation that used the best attributes of each social sector to turn their country into Africa’s biggest exporter of food, much to hungry neighbouring states.

As usual, the President’s face was hidden from the white boy, as the famous African leader rode with the King of England down the wide Mall to tumultuous acclaim. Also as usual, just as the friendly black visage began to turn towards the young observer, the 11 year-old woke up to face reality, in the form of his school dormitory in early 21st century Zimbabwe.

John had experienced the fantasy of a happy destiny for his Zimbabwean homeland many times of late but he had never managed to see the future President’s face. The recurring dream was to be a frustrating aspect of his life that would continue for three more years.

John Swift, or 'Swifty' to his many friends, an epithet that seemed to match ideally his speed of both foot and mind, had just returned to his boarding school after spending Easter at his family’s remote Zimbabwean farm. The latter had been in the possession of the boy’s family, which was of British origin, for over a hundred years.

Although nothing had been said to trouble John during his holiday, the beautiful boy knew that his father and mother, of whom he was the only child, were worried. The 11 year-old also appreciated the reason for their concern.

Many of the boys who attended John’s excellent educational establishment were the sons of farmers, who had little option but to pay for their offspring to board in order to provide them with a decent education, based upon the British public school model. Only families living in large cities could realistically send their children to day schools of this kind.

Similar agricultural backgrounds made the current plight of the country’s white farmers a natural regular topic of conversation between John and his school-friends. The Zimbabwean government, under President Robert Mugabe, proposed to confiscate, without compensation, all farms owned by white settlers, supposedly in order to redistribute the land to poor blacks.

Already, in several places, black mobs, armed with knives, clubs and sticks and claiming to be ‘war veterans’, the ‘war’ concerned being that of liberation from the white supremacists who had once ruled the country, had tried to preempt the law by seizing farmsteads. Some members of white farming families had been murdered in the process.

The government justified the proposals by suggesting that the relevant legislation involved “unfinished business” from the colonial era that would “put the land issue to rest”, adding that it was Britain’s responsibility, as the former occupying power, to compensate dispossessed white farmers for their losses. However, many Zimbabwean Members of Parliament were divided over whether the new powers would bring an end to the invasions of white-owned farms by large numbers of blacks or encourage more of them.

When proposing the relevant Bill in parliament, the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Nathan Shamuyarira, led the debate over the land issue. “The land we are talking about,” he declared, “was occupied entirely by our people, the indigenous people of the country, until 1890. They [the British] reserved the best resources - land, cattle, forestation, what have you - for themselves ... What the Bill simply states is that Zimbabwe belongs to the indigenous people of Zimbabwe. It does not belong to anyone else!”

One cabinet minister told parliament that there was no racial element to the proposed redistribution, even as another said only black Zimbabweans should own land. Another, noting that the government was being accused of land grabbing, asked who had grabbed the land first.

The Minister Without Portfolio, Eddison Zvogbo, indicated to parliament that the constitutional amendment might bring an end to the land invasions and siege of some white farms by armed men, which had evidently previously been encouraged by the government. “This Bill,” he advised, “is the only way out. Let’s get done today so we can repair our race relations. Once we get over today, law and order will return. Even white citizens in this country should love this Bill because it is going to restore order and good governance in the country. Without it, forget it. The turmoil will continue.”

(A certain boys’ boarding school, Zimbabwe, September 2002)

‘Unity, Freedom, Work’

- Motto on the national arms of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe shares the Victoria Falls, regarded as one of the natural wonders of the world, with neighbouring Zambia. The country is also the location of the mighty stone enclosures of Great Zimbabwe, remnants of a thriving past black empire, the sophistication of which surprised many early and prejudiced white archaeologists and anthropologists. Herds of elephant and other exotic African game roam vast stretches of wilderness.

For years, Zimbabwe has been the world’s third biggest source of tobacco and is potentially a breadbasket for surrounding countries, which depend on food imports. The staple crop is maize, although other agricultural products, including citrus and deciduous fruit, are also well established.

The former Rhodesia has sadly also been the scene of much conflict. European settlers originally dispossessed the resident population from their land in the late 19th Century. Later, guerrilla armies forced the white separatist segregationist government to submit to elections in 1980, and the post-independence black leadership committed atrocities in southern areas where it lacked the support of the Matabele people. The country’s challenges now include the need to address unresolved land issues, a rampant Aids problem, declining respect for the law and an economic crisis.

President Robert Mugabe played a key role in ending white rule in Rhodesia and he and his ZANU-PF party have dominated Zimbabwe’s politics since independence. He has only recently faced serious challenges to his authority, in the form of popular protest and substantial gains for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). However, he was dubiously declared winner of the 2002 presidential elections, which were considered seriously flawed by the opposition and foreign observers.

Ideologically, Mugabe belongs to the African liberationist tradition of the 1960s, with a strong and ruthless anti-Western philosophy, suspicious of capitalism and deeply intolerant of dissent and opposition. His policies, perhaps originally meritoriously idealistic and rightfully wary of white influence, are now widely seen as being geared to short-term political expediency, and the maintenance of his own position and that of his cronies.

The proposition of Lord Acton [1834-1902] that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” [‘Historical Essays and Studies’, appendix] certainly appears to apply to Robert Mugabe. However, the reader of this humble story will need to decide for himself or herself whether the much less well-known second sentence of his Lordship’s suggestion is true, namely that “Great men are almost always bad men.”

John had returned to school after the long summer holidays. The now 13 year-old had, as usual, managed to endure the potential loneliness of being the only white boy on his family’s farm by virtue of his gregarious and upright character. This had made him many friends amongst the children of the black farmhands, whose families had loyally served the Swifts for generations.

Foremost amongst John’s black friends was the similarly aged Ngoni, the handsome son of the farm’s main charge-hand. The boys were virtually inseparable whenever scholastic pursuits and domestic and farm chores allowed time for play.

Some of John’s closest school-friends, from farms currently particularly endangered by the recent legislation, had also spent time with him as guests of his family, mainly for their own safety. Their own familial agricultural holdings were apparently under much greater imminent threat than that of their hosts, which had so far been relatively untouched by the political tumult, having not yet been served with an eviction notice.

Orders had been issued in the previous May to speed up the land-grabbing programme. A 45-day notice to stop work was given to 2,900 of Zimbabwe’s 4,500 white farmers, who were also given another 45 days to leave their holdings. Nevertheless, despite being threatened by a two-year prison sentence for disobedience, hundreds of them defied the first deadline by continuing to farm, and only 14 were subsequently arrested. However, the countryside was in ferment, and many farmers worried about the return of black mobs to secure the evictions by illegal and violent means.

The Swifts were not rich, as most of what they earned was reinvested in the farm, which was also partially mortgaged to fund further improvements. The relationship between the family and their farm labourers was also symbiotic, as they could not manage without the help and their workers doubted that they could enjoy such security and relative prosperity if the land was under less caring and generous ownership.

The majority of the Swifts’ black farmhands therefore strongly disapproved of the government’s proposals, despite the fact that theoretically they should have been the ones to benefit most. Their attitude was reinforced by recognition that the main beneficiaries were instead going to be Robert Mugabe’s important allies, as evidenced by the fact that a number of the farms so far successfully grabbed had been awarded to government ministers, senior military officers and the like.

President Mugabe had declared that his land reform programme was a necessary righting of historical wrongs, after British colonisers had seized 90% of Zimbabwe’s most productive land. However, with his cronies primarily standing to gain from the confiscations, the country’s opposition politicians, and many poor Zimbabweans, were describing the policy as theft.

Jonathan Moyo, the Information Minister, had been rewarded for his vigorous defence of the so-called reforms with a farm in the eastern Manicaland province. Air Vice-Marshal Perence Shiri, a military figure accused of involvement in several massacres against political opponents in the early 1980s, took a farm in Mashonaland East. The Vice-President had already moved his cattle on to a previously white-owned farm in Matabeleland.

The main topic of conversation on the sweet young lips of John and his closest friends, on their return to the peaceful sanctuary of their boarding school, was the hope given to the threatened white farmers by a recent court ruling, which decreed that mortgaged farms could not be confiscated. However, one of the boys then quoted a newspaper article in which Sternford Moyo, the President of the Zimbabwean Bar Association, was reported as saying that he doubted whether the rule of law would prevail on the farmers’ side. “It’s not a situation,” the prominent lawyer had suggested, “you can predict with any confidence. Just because something’s unlawful doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. A lot of unlawful things have already happened in this country.”

According to one independent estimate, Zimbabwean and other banks and financial institutions stood to lose about $12bn in loans to evicted farmers. This loss would follow severe economic mismanagement over the previous decade, during which the economy had shrunk by over a third. Agricultural output had also been halved by the farming crisis, compounding the effects of a recent drought in the south, where famine threatened. However, the government did not appear to be too bothered by the latter prospect, as the countryside concerned was inhabited by tribes that constituted the main political opposition.

By the end of 2002, the UN world food programme predicted that more than six million Zimbabweans would rely on food aid, which was a scandal given that the country should not only be able to feed itself but also much of adjacent Africa.

“Land reform is important, but is secondary to feeding the country,” a spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change declared.

(Swifts’ Farmstead, Mashonaland, north western Zimbabwe, February 2003)

‘The place of justice is a hallowed place.’

- Francis Bacon (‘Essays’, 56, ‘Of Judicature’)

John’s father and mother had driven to the nearest large city of Karoi for a court appearance to contest the government’s recent delivery of an eviction notice. The boy’s family did not intend to give up their generations-long ownership without a struggle.

John, just turned 14 years of age, was home for half-term from his boarding school, where he was displaying excellent prowess both in the classroom, with his academic studies, and on the sports field. As in South Africa, the main sports for the country’s white population were Rugby Union in winter and cricket in summer, facts that were vestiges of British colonial influence.

‘Swifty’ was a fast, accomplished left-wing in the former and an excellent all-rounder in the latter. The boy’s natural speed and stamina also enabled him to be a champion junior runner on the athletics track and highly competitive swimmer in the pool. However, the favoured sport of most of the black population of Zimbabwe is soccer and, as the 14 year-old regularly proved in kickabouts with Ngomi and other friends on his farm, he was additionally rather proficient at this pastime as well.

The only opportunity for John to practise his swimming on the family farm was in a small pond surrounded by trees and shrubs. The scene had deliberately not been drained or cleared for agriculture or grazing because it had served as the family swimming pool for over a century.

John had persuaded his reluctant father and mother not to force him to go with them to Karoi. The boy did not want to spend a day of his precious short holiday travelling, in the summer heat, the long distance to and from the city, or suffer the boredom of court proceedings there, when he could instead stay on the farm.

John’s father and mother, worried in these troubled times that their property might be sometime raided by thugs claiming ownership, eventually succumbed to their son’s entreaties. The boy’s most successful argument had been to point out that forced requisitions of farmsteads had not happened since the previous August, after President Mugabe had pledged that in future only the due process of law would be followed. The 14 year-old also listed the various uncompleted chores that he had been charged to fulfil during his holiday. The young teenager did not mind that breaks from school invariably did not entail complete rest, as he appreciated and accepted that all residents, even the owners’ offspring, were expected to contribute in some way towards the running of the farm.

Despite John’s persuasiveness, his father and mother still left for Karoi in the early morning with some residual doubts about whether they had made the correct decision. Remembrance of the brutal murders of over a dozen members of white farming families in the last few years was still too fresh in their concerned minds for them to depart for their day trip to the city with entirely clear consciences. In fact, the boy’s parents probably only set out for their courtroom appearance without their son because the 14 year-old had risen with them at dawn and then used all his many charms to reassure them about his safety before seeing the troubled pair on their way.

John breathed a deep sigh of relief, as he subsequently observed the ancient family Land Rover head from the farm residence, along the dusty track that would eventually bring them to the main road to Karoi. The day was already hot and the boy was very tempted to proceed to the natural swimming pool straight away, as a swim would not only refresh and invigorate him for the hours ahead but also eradicate the need for his usual morning shower. However, the 14 year-old, disciplined towards paying careful attention to personal cleanliness by both his parents and boarding school, decided not to break his usual routine. Accordingly, instead of making for the pond, which was about three-quarters of a mile from the farmhouse, he walked into the bathroom, which was approximately twenty paces away.

John had already selected his clothing for the day ahead. This attire was to include his only home-based swimming costume, namely black speedos that needed renewing, as they were now a little too small for his growing body. The boy proposed to add a pair of old black Rugby shorts, which suffered from the same problem. In fact, as the 14 year-old subsequently tried to fit into the shorts, which he had not worn since the Christmas holidays, he encountered such difficulty in pulling them up his slender thighs that he almost abandoned the project.

Even when new, the shorts were both tight and sparing in length so that Rugby opponents did not have much to grab in an attempted tackle. However, John was encouraged to complete his mission by abashment at noticing that his now undersize speedos revealed the full shape of his genitalia.

John currently had mixed feelings about his developing sexual organs. The 14 year-old was happy about their recent growth, which, as he had noticed in the school showers, made them at least as big as those possessed by boys of similar age and size. However, whereas some of these others had also proudly developed the first signs of pubic hair, he had not yet produced any hint whatsoever of such maturation into manhood.

Nevertheless, John was otherwise very happy about his body, which was crowned with a tidy mop of straight silky fair hair, neatly trimmed in a fashionable double-layered style. The boy, who was far from being sexually naïve, also perceptively knew, from noticing the libidinous eyes, that many fellow school pupils admired his delectable young form.

A number of attempts by older scholars to become intimate with John had been made, although the beautiful boy had so far diplomatically managed to stave off such advances. For the 14 year-old, the ulterior motive had been both obvious and, at the time, unwanted.

Young homosexual couplings remain a fact of life in boys’ boarding schools throughout the world, although they are not as common as they once used to be. Today, when heterosexual leanings manifest themselves much earlier in maturing young masculine bodies, and sex magazines and videos, as well as internet pornography, are so easy to acquire, pupils can often satisfy their growing lusts by means other than playing with their male friend’s bodies.

John was happy with the secret masturbatory pleasure his genitalia now regularly provided, usually as he glanced through his small carefully hidden collection of Playboy magazines. The boy had therefore so far resisted the opportunity to begin a sexual association with a fellow pupil. However, there was a side to his sexuality that still tempted him to experiment with such a relationship, particularly as one of his similarly aged best chums was also maturing into quite a beauty. The 14 year-old had real reasons, from looks accidentally noticed on his friend’s very pretty face, that his temptation might be shared and he was therefore considering doing something about the situation after he returned to school.

As John showered in the farm bathroom on this February summer morning and lathered his slender smooth uncut cock, which was growing in size as a result of such manual attention, the boy wondered whether to indulge in early masturbatory pleasure. However, the 14 year-old eventually decided to tease his eager penis by waiting.

Instead of allowing his semen, which he had been producing for over a year, to wash away down the shower plug-hole, John determined instead to impregnate the water of the pond ¾ mile away. The boy experienced a strange but intense thrill by skinny dipping when there was no one around, as was evident by the frequent exhibition of a fulsome erection whenever he had recently done so. The 14 year-old invariably also gained even greater excitement when he finally concluded such activity with delicious masturbation.

John currently felt that such a pleasant start to the day would spur him nicely to fulfillment of his day’s chores, which he hoped to complete in time to meet Ngomi, when his chum returned from his lessons. The school of the black 13 year-old, which was located in a nearby village and was partially funded by the Swifts and other white farmers, provided a decent elementary education for the local children.

Ngomi’s place of education had unfortunately already enjoyed its half-term break a week previously. The lack of concurrency with John’s vacation had been a great disappointment to the two close friends, who therefore intended to make the most of their evenings and weekend together before the white boy had to return to his boarding school.

It was with mounting anticipation that John, covered only by his tight shorts and speedos, ran barefoot away from the farmhouse towards the distant trees that marked the location of the pond. As he did so, the side of the boy’s groin in which he normally ‘dressed’, namely the leg along which his cock fell when wearing shorts or trousers, was clearly evident from a narrow tubular outline in the very brief and tight outer black garment. The bulge was further enhanced by the fact that the underlying penile feature had remained hard, causing the 14 year-old even more difficulty when attempting to put his sparse clothes on after his shower.

The trouble encountered had originally tempted John to consider running to the pond without clothing. The boy knew that he would be removing his garments as soon as he reached the cover of the trees but this was not the reason for his temptation. As well as skinny dipping in secret, the ever-developing raging hormones of the 14 year-old were somehow pointing him to the potential sexual thrill to be gained from streaking, a situation that was perhaps encouraged by his pride in his gorgeous form and a subliminal desire for bodily exhibitionism.

John had so far not summoned up enough courage or the opportunity to indulge his fantasy but he now reconnoitered the intervening route to the pond from the farmhouse window, as the prospect of such a daring sprint intensified his current penile excitement. However, in the end, although no one else was in sight, discretion overcame valour, and taut speedos and shorts covered the boy’s resplendent loins when he later emerged from the family dwelling. This attire represented the 14 year-old’s only possessions, as the pervading heat negated the need for a towel.

The noticeable slender outline of John’s cock, currently confined by his sparse tight shorts, became even more evident as he ran towards the distant foliage. The boy’s destination was becoming increasingly inviting the closer it came, given what the trees and shrubs guarded and what he proposed to do once he attained the little oasis, located amongst the rolling, mixed arable and grazing farmland. As the 14 year-old advanced, under the unrelentingly hot overhead sun, in a largely cloudless sky, he appreciated that the secluded shade ahead, and the pool beyond, would soon bring a comfortable and stimulating cool to his lithe body, as well as sexual relief.

John’s cock began to throb in anticipation of imminent release and attention. In fact, the pretty 14 year-old owner became afraid that his unruly member might become so engorged that the head might escape its confines and begin to protrude into the outside world down the leg of his shorts. However, the boy’s concern was quickly overcome by other excitement, as, half way towards the pond, he realised that he had still not espied any of the black farmhands.

John knew that the farmhands would be conscientiously working somewhere, but obviously, on this day, the scene of their rustic labours was out of sight. The boy therefore challenged himself to perpetrate the act of exciting and stimulating daring, which he had considered indulging when back in the house.

John suddenly stopped running, with his sublime young fit body showing hardly any sign of breathlessness or sweat despite sprinting in intense heat. The boy now stood still to inspect the surrounding scenery as far as his sensuous blue eyes could see.

The deeply excited John could still notice no one in the vicinity and consequently his hands slowly reached for the sides of his shorts. The boy then felt his acute exhilaration swell even more within his majestic form, causing his heart to beat faster. The divine genitals of the 14 year-old also almost entered orgasm to emit the sperm his raging hormones had helped to create in the ten or so hours since he had last masturbated on the previous evening. However, the young teenager paused a while before disrobing in order to prevent such undesired premature ejaculation.

After eventually managing to retreat successfully from excited near-climax, and with one last thorough glance around to check that no one could possibly be spying on him, John pulled gently downwards. The beautiful boy gradually forced his tight, seemingly reluctant shorts and speedos down towards his ankles, whilst he simultaneously uttered a mischievous giggle. His smooth throbbing cock immediately and eagerly popped into view and, after manoeuvring his only garments off him and standing upright again, this long slender unruly member began to point vertically back up towards the owner’s very pretty and thrilled 14 year-old face.

As John remained standing in the open, he could not resist rubbing his rigid vibrating cock, which was obviously desperate for attention. However, the boy somehow managed to avoid the temptation of bringing immediate relief to his vibrating penis, which he knew would ruin his subsequent plans. The 14 year-old instead reluctantly let go of the eager organ and began to walk the remaining 650 yards or so towards his tree-circled destination.

John’s almost vertical cock, oozing some precum, pointed his direction as he proceeded, at a daringly very slow pace and with his discarded shorts and speedos in his right hand. The boy’s sublime naked body was revelling in the freedom and ostentation of his audacious nude parade in the open Zimbabwean countryside.

Meanwhile, stolen binoculars, held in other hands in the very spot to where John was advancing, spied the boy’s every movement, whilst the secret observer started to chuckle at the sight. However, the black watcher’s amusement was not only as a result of what he had just seen but also in anticipation of how he, and those he led, would punish the young white pervert, the son of oppressors and land thieves, for his most recent sacrilegious perfidy.

John remained impervious to being observed, as he made his slow but, for him, highly exhilarating way towards the trees that guarded the pond. However, as the beautiful boy came to within 40 yards of his destination, the excitement of his rampant cock became too much for him to bear. The 14 year-old therefore decided to succumb to the immediate delights of thrilling masturbation, whilst daringly still standing in the open. He decided to hope that his sexual appetite might be quickly restored to enable him to indulge in the same pleasurable pastime later before departing the local scene to embark upon his chores.

John carefully stood on a convenient nearby boulder, which, as well as providing him with a better perspective of the still apparently empty surrounds, added to his thrill by exposing him even more to view. The boy’s right hand, having discarded his shorts and speedos on the ground nearby, then gently started to stroke his eager cock.

John quickly felt his scrotum fill with his young reproductive juices, demanding speedy expulsion. For the first time during that hot morning, a few beads of sweat formed on the boy’s noble brow, just beneath his neat fringe of straight silky fair hair. Low ecstatic moans then emanated from the 14 year-old’s sweet rosy lips, as he brought his now quivering, young divine body to unprecedented intense orgasm.

“Ooooh!” John uttered several times, as several spurts of thick creamy sperm gushed out of his engorged cockhead to fall onto the boulder beneath him, before slowly running down, like a tiny white stream, to fertilise the soil below. The boy’s eyes were now closed, as he enjoyed his previously unparalleled ecstasy. However, those straining nearby to gain the fullest view of the sinful scene, through stolen binoculars, were wide open.

John’s mind took several minutes to recover from the supreme heights of his pleasure before the usual post-sex guilt and embarrassment instead began to overwhelm his senses. The boy now opened his eyes, jumped down from the boulder and shook his softening cock vigorously to shed extraneous semen. Given the fact that there was now only a short distance to the cover of the trees ahead, the 14 year-old then did not bother to redress. He just picked up his discarded shorts and speedos and made a dash for the pond.

In his rush, John did not spot the group of about thirty black men who were hiding within the trees surrounding the pond until he had finally reached his destination. The naked boy instead became aware of the intruders’ presence when they stepped out from the effective cover of the foliage to surround him in the clearing that skirted the pond.

“Who are you?” the suddenly very startled and shamed John asked of the unexpected voyeurs, as the naked boy attempted to cover his embarrassment by hurriedly trying to redress in his speedos and shorts. However, a command in the Shona dialect, which the 14 year-old understood, by the apparent leader of the group, induced a pair of black men to grab the young nude before his garments had even engulfed his ankles.

John tried both to resist being held by the two sturdy blacks and to protest such restriction. However, the boy’s opposition to and protestations about his restraint were quickly terminated when the leader, a middle-aged man possessing a pair of binoculars in one hand and a stick in the other, approached and kneed the 14 year-old in his uncovered and unprotected groin.

John’s instant anguish, along with the nature of his unyielding manual restraint, caused the boy’s lithe legs to rise from the ground, in instinctive response to the sudden terrible excruciation and whilst leaving his speedos and shorts behind. However, although some tears erupted from the 14 year-old’s sensuous blue eyes, a scream from the sweet rosy lips below was delayed until some breath had been restored to his sublime nude body.

“Shut up, homosexual pervert,” the leader ordered, now in good English, of John, after the boy’s shriek eventually emerged, “or you'll feel my stick next.” The black man, having successfully established the 14 year-old’s subsequent quietude by virtue of this promise, then added “In answer to your original question, we’re the new owners here, as we’ve come to reclaim our land. The courts tell us that occupations are illegal, but they’re the whites’ courts and we have the backing of our President to take the law into our own hands to secure true justice!”

“But....this....is....our....farm....and....I'm....not....homo....sexual,” John, still with his legs off the ground, now in a desperate act of protection for his endangered and pained genitalia, then managed to respond amidst some tearful moaning.

John then yelped even more loudly when he felt the wrath of the leader’s stick, as the wood agonisingly struck the uplifted front of the boy’s lower legs. “I told you to shut up,” the man shouted angrily, “and I mean it, especially as all you have to tell me is lies. This is our ancestral land and only homosexual perverts would act openly in the wicked way you’ve just done. I also shouldn’t have to tell you that, in this country, homosexuality is illegal. However, as with your farm, I propose to invoke our own laws to secure rightful remedy for your evil perversity, which I intend to punish with highly appropriate swift justice!”

The leader then reverted to Shona to command his comrades, whilst pointing in the appropriate direction, to “Use some rope we’ve brought to string him up from that tree branch adjacent to the clearing. Also tie his ankles wide apart to the nearby tree trunks and gag him. Then leave him and follow us to the farmhouse, where we’ll be accomplishing our occupation. I'll personally return later to see to the pervert’s just penance!” The man and most of his followers then turned to leave the cover of the foliage and advance purposefully towards the main complex of farm buildings, three-quarters of a mile away, taking the reverse route to the one John had just followed to reach the pond.

John now struggled mightily and noisily against those holding him, who had to call upon two other black men as reinforcements in order to fulfil their leader’s order. Accordingly, despite the boy’s desperate fight, the odds against the 14 year-old became too great and he soon found himself painfully and humiliatingly secured immovably in the requisite position.

John was suspended by his hands, which were tied together with rope that not only hung from the sturdy branch above him but also bit painfully into his wrists, now bearing his whole weight. Meanwhile, each of his ankles were stretched apart at maximum width and fastened to nearby trees, so that his feet were about six inches above the ground. The tearful and now gagged 14 year-old’s completely smooth genitalia, with penis now incongruously semi-hard, dangled invitingly in the middle of his beautiful, helpless, bound boyish frame.

Before the remaining quartet of blacks left the scene, having finally accomplished their unexpectedly awkward chore, one of the men produced a stick similar to the one their leader possessed. Without any preliminaries, he immediately began to beat John’s lustrous creamy buttocks with the harsh wooden implement whilst declaring, in Shona, “This’ll teach you, white homosexual pervert, to try to defy us. I’m also sure that it’ll be a foretaste of what’s to come when Joshua returns!”

This was the first time that John had become aware of the leader’s name. However, the boy’s anguished mind was currently not too concerned about such facts. The 14 year-old’s mental faculties had to continue to endure instead his painful and shameful nude bondage, plus the caning of his sublime rear curvature by his tormentor’s unforgiving stick.

Unfortunately for John’s pride, as the beating of his buttocks continued relentlessly, he also experienced more disturbance in his groin. When the boy somehow managed to focus his lachrymose eyes downwards towards the scene, he was both shocked and amazed to discover that his unruly cock had again become resolutely rigid, despite the earlier masturbation and the present suffering. The 14 year-old’s incredulous shame was then compounded when his superb body again visibly entered orgasm, as the stick viciously landed for the eighth time across his bottom, which already displayed vivid stripes of various darkening hues as a result of the earlier hits.

The latest blow was the most excruciating of all, as the wooden implement of chastisement cut across some of John’s existing wounds. Evidence for this was immediately produced in the form of some bloodspots at relevant posterior intersections, as well as the reaction of the boy’s lovely body in entering sado-masochistic climax.

Once more, John’s cum spurted out of his throbbing cockhead, which was still largely covered by his fulsome foreskin. The watching quartet burst into laughter before the one beating the 14 year-old loudly declared “Further proof that the white boy’s a homosexual pervert!” Despite his now almost demented mind, the young teenager, given the proof, began to wonder whether the statement was true, as the spermatic flow continued during two further rapid agonising blows from the stick.

Fortunately, the man conducting the beating did not believe that John’s perverse response to the chastisement merited any more strokes for now because he finally stopped, having delivered ten excruciating hits. He instead explained his reasoning for the termination of his efforts, whilst feeling with his fingers his hot multi-coloured handiwork, vividly exhibited on his young victim’s curvaceous rear.

“I think that’s enough for now,” the black man advised, “as I’m sure that Joshua will have a strong desire later to add to what I’ve started!” He and his three companions then, full of laughter, departed the scene for the distant farmhouse, now content at their recent work. They were leaving behind a dutifully bound but now severely pained 14 year-old naked white boy, who was not only ashamed and anguished by his present predicament but also terrified at what his immediate future might entail.

Meanwhile, Joshua and most of the other men he had brought to the estate were ransacking the empty farmhouse and outbuildings for valuables, which would not normally be the actions of prospective caring owners. During this looting, one of the thugs found some equipment, which resembled medical apparatus, and brought one of the items to his leader.

“What’s this boss?" the man enquired. “Something I want,” Joshua answered, whilst displaying an evil grin.

After a couple of hours supervising the plunder of the main complex of buildings on the Swifts’ farmstead, Joshua returned alone to the secluded pond, where John painfully and tremulously awaited his fate. The returning, smirking black man still possessed his binoculars, which were now draped around his neck, as well as his stick. However, the latter was in his left hand, as the right now held the medical tool acquired during the pillaging.

On arrival at the clearing surrounding the pond, Joshua at first intended to examine the efficacy of John’s bondage by walking round the suspended, firmly restrained nude 14 year-old. However, the middle-aged black man stopped halfway through his inspection when he reached the sublime rear of the young white boy.

Joshua had noticed that his young captive no longer had creamy white buttocks but instead the formerly perfect curvature displayed vivid dark stripes, which were so closely compacted across the relatively narrow target that they were barely distinguishable from one another. The ten marks were no longer their original scarlet but had darkened to a mix of purple and brown hues, with the only red now visible being some dried blood.

Two clues enabled Joshua to recognise that the wounds inflicted by the previous caning of John’s bottom, presumably correctly inflicted for trying to resist the earlier application of the black leader’s orders, were still hurting the boy.

First, John’s enduring soreness, from both the prior beating and on-going bondage, was encouraging him to whimper tearfully within the limits imposed by his effective gag. Second, the boy’s divine body visibly rattled, as well as emitted a muted moan, when Joshua, like the creator of the stripes earlier, began to run his fingers along the handiwork created by the recent beating, a reaction which caused the man’s sneer to broaden. Meanwhile, the softened cock of the 14 year-old recipient of this manual attention started to harden, seemingly absurdly, given the unprecedented humiliating and painfully smarting circumstances.

In fact, whilst alone during the last couple of hours, John’s unruly member had become incongruously hard on a number of occasions, as he fearfully awaited Joshua’s promised return “to see to the pervert’s just penance!” The boy had been deeply amazed and ashamed at the recurring penile phenomenon, which had caused him to struggle to fight off further embarrassing and, given the circumstances, extraordinary orgasm. However, the black leader had, fortuitously for his young captive’s residual pride, eventually arrived back at the wooded scene at a time when the 14 year-old’s cock had become temporarily flaccid once more.

Joshua noticed John’s fresh shameful penile reaction, and re-announced that his young captive was a “White homosexual pervert!” He then decided to add to the miscreant boy’s distress by slapping the young teenager’s sore bottom as hard as he could with his right palm, which had dropped to the ground the ominous device it had just been holding.

Joshua spanked each of John’s already hurting and visibly damaged buttock cheeks in turn, causing the taut ropes that held the boy firmly in place to vibrate like the strings of a harp. The black man linked his manual beating to repeating with each hit his claim that the 14 year-old was a “White homosexual pervert!”

Joshua was rewarded by stifled yelps, as well as denials about the shaming accusation, from the anguished, crying John. However, such dissent clearly appeared to be disproved by a bizarre and humiliating simultaneous further stiffening of the boy’s cock. Nevertheless, the black man now decided to prove his imputation more succinctly.

Joshua transferred his stick from his left hand to his right and introduced the narrow square end to John’s pink sphincter, which was nicely accessibly exposed to view by the boy’s demeaning position. The black man then began gently to push the top of the wooden implement against the round anal muscle, which guarded the 14 year-old’s virginal but vulnerable rear aperture. The young teenager’s copious foreskin immediately began to slip back to reveal his cockhead in all its damp, precum-drooling glory.

“You’re liking this, aren’t you, white homosexual pervert?” Joshua suggested rhetorically, as he continued to push. John, feeling the tight but vulnerable defences of his virgin sphincter excruciatingly begin to surrender, tried to answer “No!” by shaking his sublime head negatively. However, his black tormentor, spurred on by the boy’s continuing contrary penile response, replied, just before using much greater force on his stick, “Liar!”

Joshua now pushed his wooden implement into John with vigour and without mercy. The action induced the boy to utter the loudest squeal yet from his gagged mouth, as the stick rapidly and agonisingly penetrated his young virginal innards to the hilt.

Joshua, sensing that his stick had reached the end of John’s rectum, then began to withdraw the narrow piece of wood almost back to the 14 year-old’s sphincter before reversing direction. The black man then thrust his stick rapidly and venomously up and down the white boy’s anal cavity, whilst peering round to his young victim’s front to observe the captive’s penile reaction to the vicious artificial sodomy.

Joshua was not to be disappointed, although his arm was beginning to ache from almost ten minutes of rapid activity before the black leader received the due reward for his efforts. After John’s prostrate gradually encouraged pleasure to overcome pain, the boy’s engorged, vertical, throbbing cockhead erupted once more. A veritable stream of white semen gushed forth before succumbing to gravity to fall in a wide arc onto the soil below. The 14 year-old’s bound body vibrated in orgasmic tandem.

“There’s the proof, boy,” a very satisfied Joshua announced, “that you’re a white homosexual pervert!” John, again recovering from unexpected and abashing climax, was both too shocked and ashamed to respond.

Joshua pulled his stick from John’s rectum, causing a loud pop to resound round the wooded clearing, before discarding the now bloodied implement onto the ground. The black man then resumed his harsh spanking of the white boy’s bottom until the heat he was generating across the squealing 14 year-old’s curvaceous buttocks became almost too hot for his own comfort.

Joshua now curtailed this chastising activity in favour of introducing the appalled lachrymose blue eyes of his young victim to the medical tool he had looted, which was restored to his now well-exercised manly right hand.

John knew instantly what the item was, having observed his father use the apparatus on cattle. In response, as Joshua began to introduce the implement to the boy’s dangling genitalia, the 14 year-old, voice muted by his effective gag, again tried to beg “No!” by rapidly shaking his sublime head negatively. However, the young teenager’s vulnerable sexual organs, despite now having enjoyed three recent orgasms, reacted differently when they felt the touch of the cold surgical steel and immensely strong rubber band of the elastrator.

John’s softening cock, still dribbling semen, immediately jumped to erection again and began to quiver in apparent intense sexual excitement, as Joshua deliberately teased the 14 year-old’s genitals with the feel of the emasculating device. “As I’ve said, you really are a homosexual pervert,” the black man declared, as he stroked the white boy’s re-awakened throbbing penis and nicely hung ball sac with the cold steel and rubber. All the petrified young teenager could manage in response was further fruitless shaking of his head.

“I was brought up on a white man’s farm,” a smirking Joshua now declared, “and have seen such equipment used often as a bloodless method of castration. I believe the procedure shuts off the blood supply to the testicles and causes animal scrotums eventually to die and fall off, or be required to be cut off.”

“I understand that to use the tool for such a purpose,” Joshua continued, “I should squeeze the handles to stretch the elastrator band, like this.” John, glancing tremulously downwards, saw his black tormentor operating the device as described.

“I should then squeeze both balls through the extremely strong, tight and narrow band, like this,” Joshua advised before the horrified John both saw and felt his own young testes being so manhandled.

“I should finally release the handles of the elastrator to leave the band in place around the scrotum,” Joshua now commented. However, John retained a modicum of hope for the longevity of his boyhood because the black leader did not announce “Like this” after his last remark and did not immediately perpetrate the described action.

Rather incompatibly, Joshua instead began to tell John a joke, whilst the boy’s genitals could feel the unreleased, severely stretched rubber band surround the base of his young smooth trapped scrotum.

“There was once a wise old Arab,” the grinning Joshua announced, “who told a young man, who had just bought a camel, ‘This is a male animal. It is also a young beast and, as it grows older, it will become unruly. It would therefore be to your advantage to have it castrated.’ The young man asked in response ‘How do I accomplish this, O wise one?’ The sage replied ‘You take two large stones, hold one in each hand, place the animal’s testicles between them and bring the stones sharply together.’ ‘But surely this will cause severe pain’, said the astonished young man. ‘Not if you are careful to keep your thumbs out of the way’, replied the wise man!”

His own anecdote caused Joshua, whose face was now very close to that of John, whilst he peered into the boy’s lachrymose and terrified blue eyes, to burst into laughter. However, the 14 year-old did not react similarly, and not just because he did not find the story particularly funny.

In fact, there was no immediate visible reaction from John at all, apart from an incongruous reinforcement of his fulsome erection, as Joshua simultaneously released the elastrator band around the base of the 14 year-old’s smooth ball sac. The black man’s deed would condemn the white boy’s testes to an excruciating death if the severe binding was not released soon.

Meanwhile, John’s intelligent fearful mind and beautiful naked body were taking a few moments to appreciate both the danger and the slowly increasing pain that had now been introduced by the arrival of the harsh, strong, unyielding scrotal strap. This uncompromising constriction was now so resolutely and tightly fixed around the base of the boy’s delectably smooth ball sac that his testicles were entrapped and separated, potentially fatally and agonisingly, from their vital, life-giving blood supplies.

John’s initial mental and physical non-reaction was to be short-lived. His mind soon began to appreciate what the fate of his boyhood would be if the scrotal band was not quickly released. His gorgeous body, and in particular his genitals, also started to experience the gathering intense anguish that would eventually lead to emasculation. Tears now flowed copiously again from the boy’s sensuous blue eyes. At the same time, his divine 14 year-old form struggled fruitlessly against his proficient bondage, which retained his immaculate frame virtually immovably in place.

John simultaneously attempted to beg for mercy. However, his desperate verbal entreaties, which were muted effectively by his gag, and negative shaking of his sublime head, topped by the very pleasant crown of straight, silky, fair hair, were ignored by the still smirking Joshua. The latter, now backing off from the greatly distressed boy to gain a better perspective of his genital handiwork, instead made an announcement. “I think,” he declared “that the strap I’ve applied will soon end your wicked, sinful, homosexual ways for ever. Let the Lord be praised for giving me this opportunity to end further perverse corruption of His God-given world!”

“I and my followers,” Joshua announced, “are ‘amadoda sibili’ [real men] and there is no room for any other kind in Zimbabwe. I myself am a supporter of the preacher, Michael Mawema, of the African Reformed Church, who says that our laws against homosexuals are too soft and has called for a public crusade to whip such perverts publicly at least 100 times before either castrating, stoning or lynching them. Our great President supports these views. As you should be able to tell, therefore, I’m exercising great merciful restraint by simply gelding you instead of flogging and killing you for your evil, wicked ways!”

The sobbing John, now tormented in both mind and body, somehow took little comfort from Joshua’s declaration of mercy, as the boy felt his balls begin to die.

Meanwhile, having been satisfied, from his longer-distance view, that his application of the elastrator strap would prove fatal for John’s boyhood, Joshua could not resist the temptation to re-approach the 14 year-old to fondle his young victim’s condemned scrotum. The latter was already beginning to darken in colour, in line with an intensification of the agony of the owner.

“White pervert!” Joshua re-asserted, when he noticed that his manual molestation of John’s hurting, reddening ball sac had resulted in the rise of the boy’s slender throbbing penis from the horizontal to the vertical, whilst some clear precum began to ooze again from the cockhead. “However, white homosexual trash,” the black man advised, as he now gently fondled the 14 year-old’s doomed left testis between his thumb and forefinger before moving on to the other, “I’m sure you’ll soon be incapable of repeating your shameful exhibition!”

Joshua then reinforced his point by terminating his rather tender fondling of John’s scrotum in favour of squeezing hard, as if trying to burst the fated sac like he might a small balloon, which indeed the constricted organ increasingly resembled. The black man’s action resulted in early genital excruciation for the white boy, the immediate expulsion of whose breath prevented stifled screams from instantly being uttered by his rosy but sternly gagged lips. The 14 year-old’s acute scrotal anguish even prevented him from appreciating that his tormentor was accompanying his sadistic deed with loud satisfied laughter.

Joshua continued to chortle noisily after he eventually released his excruciating grip on John’s increasingly rotund ball sac and stood back to regain his earlier more distant perspective of the agonised boy. The black leader was enjoying his observation of his young white victim’s suffering, with the hurt inflicted by the man’s hand now being more than replaced by the gradually increasing pain caused by the emasculating elastrator band.

Joshua’s already base opinion of the boy was then further increased when he noted that John’s rigid vibrating cock was still pointing towards the 14 year-old’s cute navel, whilst continuing to dribble precum. In fact, the black man once more made this estimation known when he yet again described the young teenager as a “White homosexual pervert!”

Joshua now decided that he had lingered long enough in attending to the eradication of the 14 year-old’s perversity instead of supervising the occupation of his young victim’s family farm. He therefore announced “Goodbye for now, white trash. I’ll leave you to suffer the rightful consequences of your homosexual leanings. By the time I return, you’ll no longer be capable of evil such as sodomy, as you’ll no longer be a boy but you’ll be a eunuch instead!”

Joshua then slowly began to depart from the wooded scene. Meanwhile, John tried to stop the black leader from leaving him, again forcibly mainly by facial expressions and head movements because of the resolute nature of his bondage and gag. Despite the earlier distress suffered at this particular man’s hands, the 14 year-old appreciated that his tormentor represented possibly his only chance of retaining his boyhood.

Unfortunately, as with his other efforts to avoid the intentions of his black captors, John was unsuccessful and he was soon alone within the quiet and secluded tree-lined setting, suspended naked from the branch with his legs fastened wide apart and his dangling, encased balls dying slowly and agonisingly. Nevertheless, despite three earlier orgasms, the boy’s cock remained resolutely hard, throbbing and vertical, as well as drooling copious precum. The latter began to drip along with his voluminous tears onto the soil below, with some of the lachrymation also descending from his smooth 14 year-old genitalia.

John’s facial cheeks and chin, as well as his sublime chest and belly, were now awash with his tears, as his testes really started to endure the consequences of the termination of their lifeblood. The lachrymose flow, helped in its descent by the boy’s inability to avoid becoming transfixed by the downward bleak view of his doomed genitalia below, had even reached his sexual organs. Here, unencumbered by any pubic hair, gravity encouraged it to run over and around the genital obstacle before falling onto the ground.

Meanwhile, in line with the increasing intensity of John’s genital grief, the boy’s entrapped ball sac not only became a darker and darker hue but also began to enlarge. Nevertheless, the erection above, free of any constraint, somehow maintained a defiant pulsating rigidity, whilst still producing voluminous clear precum and pointing back towards the 14 year-old’s tearful downcast eyes.

John’s wrists were now red-raw, as result of the rope that bore all of the boy’s weight, and his curvaceous buttocks were still very sore as a result of his earlier beatings. However, the resulting ache from both bodily locations was completely inconsequential when compared to the ever-intensifying distress being experienced in his groin.

Many acutely distressing minutes then began to pass.

Meanwhile, Joshua returned to the farmhouse complex to continue his supervision of the occupation of the buildings. However, after a few more hours passed, the black man became curious as to how the young white homosexual pervert might be faring and decided to return alone to the tree-lined pond to see whether the boy had yet been converted into a eunuch.

As Joshua walked back towards the pond, he wondered whether John’s scrotum had already gone through the process of becoming an increasingly dark shade of red and doubling in size before turning to black and beginning to shrivel. However, the man was to obtain no immediate answer because, after arriving at the quiet setting of such supposed distress, the 14 year-old was nowhere to be seen. Only untied ropes marked the spot where the young teenager had been kept in his bondage.

Despite this shocking surprise development, Joshua’s mind did not linger long in trying to discover what might have gone wrong. The black leader’s mental faculties were instead diverted by a noisy tumult, clearly emanating from the farm complex ¾ mile away. He therefore started a hasty retreat back whence he had just come in order to ascertain the cause of another unexpected and unwanted happening.

Two hours earlier, John’s beautiful body had shaken violently despite the tight constraints of his bondage, almost as if his lithe limbs were truly taught strings, stretched within the framework of a harp, being played by a musician. The boy also simultaneously bizarrely encountered the most intense, delicious and productive orgasm of his young life, as if his sexual organs wanted to die gloriously, after one final, remarkable, climactic spectacle.

It was then that an incredulous Ngomi, playing truant to play with his white friend and guessing, almost correctly, that the boy might currently be swimming, asked of John “Is this a game I can play?”

Two hours later, the alerted black farmhands, having armed themselves with their own knives, clubs and sticks, and led by Ngomi’s father, chased the would-be occupiers, including Joshua, off the land. Although the farm labourers had been out-numbered, they believed that they had not only been protecting the Swifts’ property but also their own homes and livelihoods. Accordingly, they were much more motivated than the basically cowardly thieves, who comprised the intruders. Like many bullies, the latter had backed off when confronted with resolute and potentially harmful resistance.

(Swifts’ Farmstead, Mashonaland, north western Zimbabwe, a few days later)

‘Alle Menschen werden Bruder.’

(‘All men become brothers.’)

- Friedrich von Schiller (‘An die Freude’)

It was the weekend, chores had been completed for the day and so John and Ngomi could happily swim together in the otherwise deserted pond. For the first time in each other’s company, they were skinny-dipping.

After all, after the painful, embarrassing, orgasmic nude predicament in which the black boy had recently observed his white friend, mutual lack of clothing now seemed rather tame. John’s recovering but still sore genitals and bottom also appreciated the greater comfort provided by the lack of cover to his loins.

“Thank you,” a relieved John had eventually uttered, after Ngomi had cut the rubber band off his friend’s cum-covered scrotum. The white boy remained thoroughly thankful even after the resultant sudden return of testicle-saving blood induced him temporarily to double-up in acute agony.

“I’m glad to have been of help in saving your boyhood,” the very bright, charming and handsome Ngomi had replied, whilst displaying a broad smile, which revealed his perfect array of sparkling teeth, “as it’s my firm belief that there’s room for the product of both black and white seed in our country!”

Later, there developed another reason for Ngomi’s pleasure in saving John’s masculinity, as the boys became even closer friends, and did not just indulge in swimming within the trees surrounding the pond.

(A certain boys’ boarding school, Zimbabwe, June 2003)

‘Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.’

- T.S. Eliot (‘Four Quartets’, ‘Burnt Norton’, I)

John was sleeping soundly in his school dormitory, as dawn approached. The boy’s mind then drifted into a familiar dream.

The sparkling sensuous blue eyes, of a young, very pretty, fair-haired white boy, were observing the splendid scene from a privileged elevated position. Dry, sunny weather and a festival atmosphere amongst the large crowds also witnessing the ceremonial procession blessed the occasion.

As usual, the President’s face was hidden from the white boy, as the famous African leader rode with the King of England down the wide Mall to tumultuous acclaim. However, unusually, the friendly black visage began to turn towards the young observer and the 11 year-old recognised the man he knew as Great Uncle Ngomi.

The President was the godfather of the white boy on the balcony. He was also the grandfather of the 11 year-old’s similarly aged adjacent black friend.

The young duo were in the protective company of the white boy’s own grandfather, whose name was John Swift and who was the Zimbabwean High Commissioner [equivalent to Ambassador in Commonwealth nations] to the United Kingdom.

The white boy, also called John and a virtual replica of his grandfather at the same age, temporarily closed his sensuous blue eyes. He then suddenly experienced a strange feeling that he was not in London’s Mall in the middle of the 21st century but rather in a Zimbabwean boarding school years previously.

When young John opened his eyes again, he saw…………….?

‘Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick with patines of bright gold:

There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st

But in his motion like an angel sings.

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubs;

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.’

- William Shakespeare (‘Merchant of Venice’, V.i.58)

THE END

of

‘FARMERS’ BOYS’

by Pueros

*