Hyena Dawn by Christopher Sherlock Read Free Book Online

difference, Lois was still the tough Afrikaner to him, the one who excelled at karate and rugby.
    After that, Rayne had lost track of him, only to meet him again in the harrowing selection process for the Rhodesian Special Air Services regiment. By that time Lois had changed a lot. He was even harder. And he never talked about his past.
     
    Lois stood back as Captain Gallagher staggered to his wheelchair. Already the man was walking normally. Lois knew that Rayne would be on his feet again the next day.
    He was glad he’d come to the hospital to see how Rayne was, even though the place brought back so many unpleasant memories. He owed Gallagher a lot. He’d been flying choppers as part of a fire force when his machine had been shot down, and the terrs had got him. They were busy carving tattoos on his stomach when Gallagher came out of the bush with a machine-gun and mowed them down. How Captain Rayne Gallagher of the Selous Scouts had ever tracked him down, he never knew. Why he’d done it also eluded him; after all, Gallagher knew he was a homosexual . . . What he did know, was that he owed him his life.
    Lois had always told himself that Gallagher might be the one man he could talk to about his past - the guilt that lay deep inside him. The hospital reminded him of that time, five years ago . . .
     
    Lois knocked against the door covered with paint once white, now yellow with age. A faint voice told him to enter, and there was Dr Forsyth seated at a giant desk strewn with papers and reports. He looked over seventy, though in attitude he seemed as alert as a much younger man. He gestured for Lois to sit down.
    ‘ What can I do for you, Mr . . . ?’ He squinted at the card. ‘Kruger?’
    ‘ I had a fight in a bar. Really stupid . . . My groin, it’s hurting badly.’
    ‘ All right, if you will take your clothes off, please. Behind the screen over there.’
    Lois got undressed behind the screen and sat painfully on the high white table. Dr Forsyth came in and asked him to lie flat, then examined him carefully. Lois shouted out as the doctor gently raised each of his testicles. Having completed his examination, the doctor asked Lois to sit up on the edge of the bed. He checked his reflexes and his blood pressure. Then he asked Lois to get dressed.
    Lois had the feeling that all was not well. Dr Forsyth smiled at him good-naturedly.
    ‘ I would like to book you into the hospital immediately. Fortunately we have a first-rate surgeon who can do the operation. Unfortunately, however, you will have to lose both testicles. They are severely damaged. It must have been a very direct blow to the scrotum. I’m sorry, Mr Kruger.’
    Lois felt that the world was spinning about him. The doctor carried on speaking but Lois hardly heard him.
    . . this does not, necessarily, mean the end of your sex life. You could still have children . . .’ That was a joke. . . there are numerous documented case-histories of men who have been able to carry on an almost normal sex life with both testes removed . . .’
    The sympathetic voice receded into the background as Lois thought deeper into his past. . .
     
    He had been an only child, and his father had died of lung cancer before Lois was two years old. He had become very attached to his mother, while hating his father for having abandoned them. He had been a bright child and had attended one of South Africa’s most exclusive schools on a scholarship. In his final year it looked certain that he would win the engineering scholarship he wanted. Then he had been found in bed with his maths master, a young man in his thirties. They had both been expelled.
    So Lois became an air steward with South African Airways. The personnel manager had been perceptive enough to see that he was very bright and had suggested a course as an aircraft mechanic. By the time Lois completed his apprenticeship he had learnt to fly, and had also regained some of his lost confidence. All this time he lived with his