Shout at the Devil by Wilbur Smith

as it is. Chuck the poor bastard over.’
    â€˜Later on, not now.’ Sebastian could not stand to watch the sharks squabble over the corpse.
    â€˜Mohammed, get a couple of your lads on the oars. I want to pick up as many of those coconuts as we can.’
    By the time darkness stopped them, they had retrieved fifty-two of the floating coconuts, sufficient to keep the seven of them thirst-free for a week.
    It was cold that night. They crowded together for warmth
and watched the underwater pyrotechnics, as the shark pack circled the raft in phosphorescent splendour.

– 15 –
    â€˜ Y ou’ve got to cut for it,’ Flynn whispered, and he shivered with cold in the burning heat of the midday sun.
    â€˜I don’t know anything about it,’ Sebastian protested, yet he could see that Flynn was dying.
    â€˜No more do I. But this is certain – you’ve got to do it soon …’ Flynn’s eyes had sunk into plum-coloured cavities and the smell of his breath was that of something long dead.
    Staring at the leg, Sebastian had difficulty controlling his nausea. It was swollen fat and purple. The bullet hole was covered with a crusty black scab, but Sebastian caught a whiff of the putrefaction under it – and this time his nausea came up acid-sweet into the back of his throat. He swallowed it.
    â€˜You’ve got to do it, Bassie boy.’
    Sebastian nodded, and tentatively laid his hand on the leg. Immediately he jerked his fingers away, surprised by the heat of the skin.
    â€˜You’ve got to do it,’ urged Flynn. ‘Feel for the slug. It’s not deep. Just under the skin.’
    He felt the lump. It moved under his fingers, the size of a green acorn in the taut hot flesh.
    â€˜It’s going to hurt like Billy-o.’ Sebastian’s voice was hoarse.
    The rowers were resting on their oars, watching with frank curiosity, while the raft eddied and swung in the drift of the Mozambique current. Above them the sail that Sebastian had rigged from salvaged planking and canvas flapped wearily, throwing a shadow across the leg.

    â€˜Mohammed, you and one other to hold the master’s shoulders. Two others to keep his legs still.’
    Flynn lay quiescent, pinioned beneath them on the slats of the deck.
    Sebastian knelt over him, gathering his resolve. The knife he had sharpened against the metal edge of the raft, and then scrubbed clean with coconut fibre and seawater. He had sluiced the leg also, and washed his hands until the skin tingled. Beside him on the deck stood half a coconut shell containing perhaps an ounce of evaporated salt scraped from the deck and the sail, ready to pack into the open wound. ‘Ready?’ he whispered.
    â€˜Ready,’ grunted Flynn, and Sebastian located the lump of the bullet and drew the edge of the blade across it timidly. Flynn gasped, but human skin was tougher than Sebastian allowed. It did not part.
    â€˜Goddamn you!’ Flynn was sweating already. ‘Don’t play with it. Cut, man, cut!’
    This time Sebastian slashed, and the flesh split open under the blade. He dropped the knife and drew back in horror as the infection bubbled up through the lips of the knife wound. It looked like yellow custard mixed with prune juice – and the smell of it filled his nostrils and his throat.
    â€˜Go for the slug. Go for it with your fingers.’ Flynn writhed beneath the men who held him. ‘Hurry. Hurry. I can’t take much more.’
    Steeling himself, closing his throat against the vomit that threatened to vent at any moment, Sebastian slipped his little finger into the slit. Hooking with it for the bullet, finding it, easing it up although tissue clung to it reluctantly, until it popped from the wound and dropped on to the deck. A fresh gush of warm poison followed it out, flowing over Sebastian’s hand, and he crawled to the edge of the raft, choking and gagging.

– 16 –
    â€˜ I f