Fair enough. If this thing could make facial expressions, it would scare me to death.
After a moment's hesitation, I took the knife from my waist and looked at the crocodile again.
"This will hurt. Don't close your mouth..."
It didn't answer, but... wow, its breath stank.
There was no helping that now. I reached in with the knife and started cutting away the rotten flesh.
The flesh had gone completely soft. It felt like a heap of cooled pork fat in my hands, and it reeked
so badly that the deeper I cut,
the worse the smell became.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
The stench made me cough. I turned and limped to the sea to wash my hands, then took
a deep breath of the fresh sea breeze.
Only then did I look back at the crocodile. It had closed its mouth and was watching me without moving. It was pretty smart; it knew its wound
hadn't been treated yet.
Hmm... I had nothing else, so I tied a towel over my mouth and limped back
to keep cutting.
That alone took a full half hour. I'd cut away at least two hundred kilograms of rotten flesh, piled so high it reached above
my waist. Waves of stench rolled off it.
I'd removed most of the gums in its mouth and some flesh from its lower jaw. I eased the knife
deeper into the wound. When the tip
suddenly met a different texture, I knew there was no rotten flesh farther in.
Following that edge, I cut away the rest bit by bit.
This part demanded even more care, so I spent another full half hour on it. It was almost dark by the time I'd finally cut away all
the rotten flesh and pried out
two bad teeth.
I