Shout at the Devil Read Online Free PDF Page B

him. He swung towards it, half raising the rifle.
    â€˜Master!’ and Sebastian felt disappointment swoop in his chest.
    â€˜Mohammed. Is that you, Mohammed?’ and he recognized the wizened little figure with the eternal fez perched on the woolly head as it emerged. Flynn’s chief gun-boy, the only one with a little English.
    â€˜Mohammed,’ with relief, and then quickly, ‘Fini? Where is Fini?’
    â€˜They shot him, master. The Askari came in the early morning before the sun. Fini was washing. They shot him and he fell into the water.’
    â€˜Where? Show me where.’
    Below the camp, a few yards from where the canoe was drawn up, they found the pathetic little bundle of Flynn’s clothing. Beside it was a half-consumed cake of cheap soap
and a metal hand-mirror. There were the deep imprints of naked feet in the mud, and Mohammed stooped and broke off one of the green reeds at the water’s edge. Wordlessly he handed it to Sebastian.. A drop of blood had dried black on the leaf, and it crumbled as Sebastian touched it with his thumb-nail.
    â€˜We must find him. He might still be alive. Call the others. We’ll search the banks downstream.’
    In an agony of loss, Sebastian picked up Flynn’s soiled shirt and crumpled it in his fist.

– 7 –
    F lynn shucked off his pants and the filthy bush-shirt. Shivering briefly in the chill of dawn, he hugged himself and massaged his upper arms while he peered into the shallow water, searching the bottom for the telltale chicken-wire pattern that would mean a crocodile was buried in the mud waiting for him.
    His body was porcelain-white where clothing had protected it from the sun, but his arms were chocolate-brown, and a deep vee of the same brown dipped down from his throat onto his chest. Above it the battered red face was creased and puffy with sleep, and his long, greying hair was tangled and matted. He belched thunderously, and grimaced at the taste of old gin and pipe tobacco, then, satisfied that no reptile lay in ambush, he stepped into the water and lowered his massive hams to sit waist-deep. Snorting, he scooped water with his cupped hands over his head, then lumbered out onto the bank again. Sixty seconds is a long time to stay in a river like the Rufiji, for the crocodiles come quickly to the sound of splashing.
    Naked, dripping, hair plastered down across his face, Flynn began to soap himself, working up a thick lather at
his crotch and tenderly massaging his abundant genitalia, he washed away the sloth of sleep and his appetite stirred. He called up at the camp, ‘Mohammed, beloved of Allah and son of his prophet, shake your black arse out of the sack and get the coffee brewing.’ Then as an afterthought, he added, ‘And put a little gin in it.’
    Soapsuds filled Flynn’s armpits, and coated the melancholy sag of his belly when Mohammed came down the bank to him. Mohammed was balancing a large enamel mug from which curled little wisps of aromatic steam, and Flynn grinned at him, and spoke in Swahili. ‘Thou art kind and merciful; this charity will be writ against your name in the Book of Paradise.’
    He reached for the mug but before his fingers touched it, there was a fusillade of gun-fire above them and a bullet hit Flynn high up in the thigh. It spun him sideways so he sprawled half in mud and half in water.
    Lying stunned with the shock, he heard the rush of Askari into the camp, heard their shouted triumph as they clubbed with the gun-butt those who had survived the first. volley. Flynn wriggled into a sitting position.
    Mohammed was coming to him anxiously.
    â€˜Run,’ grunted Flynn. ‘Run, damn you.’
    â€˜Lord …’
    â€˜Get out of here.’ Savagely Flynn lashed out at him, and Mohammed recoiled. The rope, you fool. They’ll give you the rope and wrap you in a pigskin.’
    A second longer Mohammed hesitated, then he ducked and scampered into