What he would give to have a hand free for just one minute. To swat the devils where they sat on him. To have the satisfaction of seeing them crushed and broken. But no. He couldn’t move. He could only lie here and feel them suck out his blood.

Slowly the light had faded from the swamp until it was almost as black as his cell had been, and somehow it was worse in the dark, just hearing the insects and feeling them crawling all over him, biting and biting.

At first he had been aware of each fresh itch as it developed, spreading down his arms and up his legs, but now the bites all blurred into one another so that every bit of his skin was burning as his system fought against the germs they injected into him.

He was horribly aware of his blood flowing around his body, taking their poison with it. It only needed one of them to be carrying the malaria parasite and he would be sick for the rest of his life.

He prayed that somehow relief would come, but sleep was impossible; his body hurt too much. If only he could fall unconscious; anything to escape this torture.

The young guard had a bottle and James had been vaguely aware of him getting drunk, splashing repellent over himself and cursing the insects. Twice he had come over and mocked James in a thick dialect and prodded him with his foot. The second time he had blown a lungful of smoke into James’s face and laughed. James didn’t mind. The smoke kept the insects away for a few precious moments, but the guard hadn’t been back since and for a while James had seen no sign of him or the glow of his cigarette.

He spat a mosquito from his mouth and growled in the back of his throat, shaking his head wildly from side to side, but they wouldn’t stop; nothing could stop the insects. They were not afraid like other animals. They were single-minded and utterly ruthless. If you waved them away they were back a moment later. All you could do was wait till they landed, then flatten them; but with your hands tied to the ground that was impossible.

There were tears of frustration in James’s eyes. It felt like this night would never end.

And then he saw a torch beam, zigzagging through the darkness. There was a brief, low exchange of words and somebody came to stand over him.