I SHIFTED uneasily in my camp chair and stole a sideways glance at the old man sitting beside me. This man is my uncle, Rob Acutt, and I owe him plenty. Memories came flooding back to me of how he mentored me in my youth, instilling in me a love of the chase and a deep attachment to the hunt. Sparrow shooting with air rifles led to monkeys and, on a never-to-be-forgotten day with the .22, a duiker fell to me after a long stalk. What boy could forget that? A blesbuck I took on my own was another milestone, and before long eland were my prey. All this before I started shaving, and usually Rob was there for me.
More than one carton of ammunition passed slyly through his hands to me, in spite of my father’s protestations of “Don’t spoil the boy.” When I had graduated through the procession of firearms that country boys know, he gifted me his 9.5mm Mannlicher, a rifle he used to handle
