‘The day we set off into the forests of Surinam,’ he said, ‘the barge nearly sank after hitting a reef of sunken trees at the river edge. The port bow plunged down and we took a big slurp of water and all the slave paddlers panicked, stood up and rushed around the deck like a bunch of chickens, sent the barge tilting even more. The Negroes can’t swim, of course, and naturally one of them fell in. While he thrashed about drowning, a giant, fifteen-foot caiman woke up from lying in the sun and slipped off the bank into the river. For a few seconds you could see the crust of black mud on his back melt and billow out into the water like smoke, but then he disappeared deeper and it was just the sunlight tinkling on the ripples he’d made. The boy was still drowning and a couple of Negroes were trying to reach out to him with their paddles, all the rest of them were yelling, gibbering and gesticulating— it was enough to wish ’em all drowned. And then, just like that, the boy went under, gone. Everything quiet.’ Wesley Lewis Jr wiped his hands down his pants. ‘We kept watching the spot where he’d been, waiting, waiting, but nothing happened, it was like the whole thing was a dream. And then there was this great almighty splash and the surface broke and we saw the boy again. Only now the caiman had clamped his enormous jaws down on his shoulder, and was trying to wrap himself around the boy, and began rolling him, both of them spinning like logs. The boy’s face, Jesus—screaming terror! I’ll tell you, Mr von Rolt, there isn’t anything more obscene or sickening than the sight of that beast’s buttery, slimy-scaled belly. There’s a reason why God put him so close to the ground.’

‘Herr Lewis,’ Claus von Rolt said. ‘I think we should—’