Shout at the Devil by Wilbur Smith (1970, Pan Books)

Description

Shout at the Devil is a tense adventure novel from master of the genre, Wilbur Smith, set during the outbreak of the First World War.

‘Now the seas were more awesome in their raging insanity. Each mountain of glassy grey rose high above the raft, shielding it for a few seconds from the whip of the wind, its crest blowing off like the plume of an Etruscan helmet, before it slid down, collapsing upon itself in the tumbling roar of breaking water.’ In German East Africa on the eve of the First World War two freebooting adventurers – one a flamboyant Irish American, the other an impeccable young Englishman – pit their wits against the gross German Commissioner from whose territory they are making their living as game hunters and ivory poachers. But the outbreak of war gives the signal for their private skirmishing to flare into a relentless vendetta pursued with devastating violence by land and sea, so that what begins as a comic escapade gives way to chilling horror . . .