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.‘Er war in dem Flugzeug!’ Seeing Muende hadn’t understood her, she translated, ‘He was inside of the plane.’‘Search my kit,’ said Whinger, thickly.‘That’s what you were doing in the camp, anyway.Search it again.Search the vehicles.You’ll find fuck all, because it isn’t there.’‘No, of course!’ she cried.‘You have hidden it in the bush.Tell me where! Tell!’She shouted an order at the guards.Two of them started to beat Whinger about the head with rifle butts, one from either side, with sickening thuds.He made no sound as his head was hit to and fro like a football.‘Stop!’ I roared.‘You fucking bitch! Tell them to leave him alone!’I’d have done better to keep quiet.A second later, Inge was on her feet, limping down off the stage, coming at Whinger, jabbing at his face with her nails.‘See!’ she screeched.‘He is burned! Because he was inside! He knows the diamond, where it is.He has hidden it in a special place.’The next thing I knew, she’d started pulling patches of dead or dying skin away from Whinger’s cheek.‘Tell!’ she shouted.‘Tell!’Doped though he was, Whinger gave a roar and rocked away from her, knocking Genesis over sideways.‘This is the one who knows!’ she cried, turning back to Muende.‘Quite sure! He tells us! I make him tell us!’ With her long nails she peeled off another flap of skin and threw it towards the side of the hut.Again Whinger bellowed like a wounded bull.That was too much.With all my strength I lunged forward and sideways.The chair I was tied to brought me down almost in my own length, but I had enough forward impetus to head-butt the woman in the flank and put her flat on the deck.Immediately a rush of guards swarmed over me, kicking and stamping at my head and body.By the time they hauled me upright again I was bleeding freely from nose and scalp.One trickle ran down the middle of my forehead into both eyes, blurring my vision.I could see enough to know that Muende was on his feet, drinking again.He held the bottle high for several seconds, gulping.Then he smacked it down on the table and lurched towards us.Inge was also on her feet, bent and gasping, holding her ribs, white in the face.I reckoned she was coming for me, but she was confused, and thought it was Whinger who’d attacked her.She screamed at him from close-up, but this time in Afundi, or whatever African language she was using.Then she turned and screamed at Muende.The noise and the drink seemed to get to him, and he too suddenly began yelling orders.The whole room erupted into movement, a nightmare scrummage.Two or three men cut Whinger free from his chair, picked him up bodily and carried him to the stage, where they laid him flat on his back on the table and held him down.The poor bugger made no effort to resist: he hardly knew what was happening.Muende lurched round the far side of the table, bent over the prostrate figure until his face was nearly touching Whinger’s chest, and flung his arms out, sweeping them round and back as if swimming breaststroke.Three times he did it, giving loud grunts: ‘Uh! Uh! Uh!’ Then he stepped back and his place was taken by another man brandishing a machete.Its curved blade gleamed in the lamplight as he raised it aloft.I thought he was going to whack Whinger’s head off with one downward sweep, so I gave an almighty roar and tried to surge upright again.My reward was a stunning blow on the back of the neck, a rabbit punch delivered with the butt of a rifle, which put me down and out for several seconds.Perhaps it was a mercy in disguise.When I came round on the deck, the whole room was buzzing with noise.Our guards were chattering with excitement.Through a forest of legs I could see half the platform and part of the table.Inge was standing over it with her mouth gaping in a wolf-like grin of triumph, holding out a hand.A black hand passed her a long, thin strip of what looked like dark meat, shiny and dripping.She took it between finger and thumb and handed it to Muende, who raised it high over his head and lowered it into his mouth.I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.My eyes were still cloudy with blood.I blinked again and again, trying to clear them.The result was that I made out a tangle of grey, slippery intestines sliding down over the side of the table, reaching to the floor.The coils were moving, twitching.My gorge rose and my stomach heaved up into my mouth, but there was nothing to come up except bile.I lay gasping for breath.God almighty
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