While we don't actually see him buggering his best friend, Neville Pickering, in a Kimberley outhouse, the viewer is left in little doubt as to what the lads are getting up to after lights out. The two of them play at dressing up, romp about at slumber parties, and have lovers' tiffs. Pickering is endowed with a lank blond fringe which he flicks to good effect at the sexually tormented Cecil. And when Pickering finally goes down with septicemia, Rhodes announces that he's not having "any damn fool woman" in there and will nurse the dying man himself.

The gaying of Rhodes is reinforced by some heavy-handed televisual nudging: Horseplay in the bath with his faithful black manservant, Christmas (a character Thomas admits he invented); and Rhodes' smoldering glances at the 8-year-old Harry Currey (clearly signalling a penchant for little boys).