well I don't suppose Buchan actually says 'I don't half get turned on by the thought of big naked zulus waving their enormous spears' - but in your own words -'In today's revisionist thinking it might be said that it's a thinly cloaked gay thing'.

All those 'adventure stories for boys' lot were all a bit weird sexually - think of The Black Arrow where the hero spends the night in the forest sleeping with a girl, he thinks is a boy.

Its all a bit like Blackadder having a roistering good time with 'George'.