Prose

It only takes Ryno seconds to remove the telescopic sight and noise suppressor from the Heckler and Koch 417 and to zip it in the watertight bag, before he climbs down from the tree.
 
It feels to him as if the eyes of every person in the enemy camp are looking at him, while he moves between the graves to the back wall and climbs over it.

With the wall and the graveyard between him and the enemy camp, Ryno sneaks into the direction of the hillock that lies north from him.  He is careful to avoid leaving tracks.

At the foot of the hillock the undergrowth gives more cover and Ryno quickly climbs higher to where the ground becomes rockier. From this position he watches the enemy camp carefully with the binoculars.

He notices a group of heavily armed soldiers arriving at the Land Cruiser and when he sees activity at the five Mi-24 Hind helicopters, he starts moving quickly further away from the enemy camp

Where climbing the hillock took him only a few moments, it takes him a little longer to get down on the other side while he is jumping from one rock to another, being careful not to leave signs of his presence.

On the other side of the hillock he takes a southwestern direction, to avoid the camp and to reach the river.

At the road running to Techamutete, he notices that there is still confusion in the enemy camp.  It feels like an eternity while he moves over the open road, while he is brushing away his tracks with a small piece of bush and he expects that shots are going to be fired at any moment but nobody notices him.

Ryno reaches the shelter of some bushes and takes a westerly course to the river.  That he has avoided the enemy but for a short while is soon evident, when he hears the sound of helicopters and though the binoculars he notices how those helicopters descend on both sides of the river

That escape is almost impossible becomes clear when two Mi-24 Hind-D attack helicopters start flying up and down with the river and he knows instinctively, that two enemy sweeping lines have been set up on both sides of the river in the direction it.

At the river he finds shelter among some reeds and is waiting on the enemy, while mosquitoes, gnats and some flies continually harass him.

The mosquitoes land on their heads, before trying to sting him and he smacks at one after the other.  “Such stupid insects,” he grumbles and again returns his attention to the approaching enemy.

The sweeping lines on both sides of the river are only two hundred meters away, before he takes action.  He quickly zips the Heckler and Koch into one of the watertight bags.
 
It only takes seconds to remove any signs of his presence, before he crawls on his stomach deeper into the brown waters of the river.

He however disturbs a few African red-knobbed coots that fly protesting up from the water.  The water is icy cold and it’s with shaking fingers that he uses the knife from his boot, to cut one of the hollow reeds on both sides.

There’s only seconds before the enemy will notice him and he disappears under the cover of the muddy water.  Where he lies beneath the water and is breathing through the hollow reed, Ryno waits for the enemy to move past while he can hear every beat of his own heart.

For almost half an hour Ryno lies in the muddy water, before he dares to come out of the water behind the reeds.  The sun hangs like a red ball in the west and there is no sign of either MPLA or Cuban soldiers that were hunting for him earlier.

Ryno is almost on the riverbank when he hears a droning noise, coming up the river from the opposite direction from the enemy camp.

Like a crocodile he glides back to the deeper cover of the midstream, with only his head sticking out.  Ryno notices three Mi-24 Hind-D helicopters, that are searching along the river and disappears under the water with the reed in his mouth.

The helicopters are flying so low that the shockwave of the downward wind that they are causing drags him about under the surface and he almost chokes, when he sucks a mouth full of water through the reed.

It is almost turning to dusk while Ryno walks in the river with the water up to his waist. He tries to pass the enemy camp and he walks on until he notices a gigantic tamarind tree of which some of the branches hang into the water.

It only takes him minutes to climb from the water up into the tree and when he is hidden in some of the higher branches, he hears a different droning sound that is slowly coming along with the river from the direction of the enemy camp.

Through the lenses of his binoculars he notices five rubber boats, that are loaded with armed soldiers that are slowly sailing down the river.

It is clear that they are searching for him in the river and when they are only a short distance away from him, one of the soldiers in the front boat points in the direction of the tamarind tree.

Ryno has already taken the Heckler and Koch from the watertight bag and his finger tightens around the trigger, while he presses the butt of the rifle against his shoulder.

A few shots ring up from the rubber boats and the moment that they fire, Ryno wants to answer their fire but something keeps him from firing and he notices how the water under the tree suddenly boils.  That they are shooting at something in the water, soon becomes clear and smiling he draws back to deeper cover.

It sounds as if a small war is breaking out on the river beneath him and he is scared that a ricochet bullet might hit him and after a while the bloody carcass of a big crocodile floats under the tree.

”Well we now know that he would never have gotten out of the river at this place,” one of the soldiers beneath the tree say in Portuguese where all five boats drift next to the carcass of the crocodile.

It feels as if the mad mosquitoes are carrying him away, but he does not dare to drive the insects away and stays motionless in the tree, until the last rubber boat sails away down the river.

It is still very hot and his wet clothes are a kind of relief, when Ryno climbs down from the tree and in darkness sneaks back in the direction of the enemy camp.

He follows the same route that he had taken earlier in the morning and before he can stop himself he is almost at the place where he had killed the soldiers in the afternoon.

When he comes near to the camp he can hear voices laughing carefree and he notices the campfires en the smell of frying meat is strong on the breeze.

You would swear that they are holding a picnic or something, he thinks and he is searching for guards through the lenses of his infrared binoculars.  Where that morning there had been no guards, he now notice some all around him.

It is nevertheless clear that some of them are drunk and when a Cuban soldier walks swaying into his direction and the others do not bother that he is deserting his post.

Luckily the moon has not yet appeared and when another soldier abandons his post to go and talk to his friend, it is clear to Ryno that this is the last place that they expect him to return to.

Ryno cat-sneaks through the guards, leopard crawls over a big open space and his backpack wants get off from his shoulders and his stomach that is growling from hunger does not make it any easier.

Around him there are guards, civilian people, lights and vehicles that drive up and down.  When he is in the middle of another open space a light suddenly goes on for some time in front of him.

They must have spotted me, he fears.  He tries to lie still flatter on the ground and when the light goes out after a while his eyes are blinded.  For some time he looks into the darkness and tries to smell and listen.  His senses however do not spy any danger near to him.

Around him everything is now deserted and Ryno cat-sneaks up to a sickle-bush about ten meters further.  It’s the only bush in the aria and when there is movement at the guards behind him, Ryno is certain that they have seen him enter the camp.

Suddenly a vehicle comes driving along into his direction and Ryno cocks the Heckler and Koch and just when he want to begin firing, it turns off with another dust track that he now notices for the first time and stops at a building just a bit further on.

Ryno wipes the sweat from his eyes and brings the infrared binoculars to his eyes.  He freezes from what he notices.  No ten meters further on, there is a guard with a dog.

Luckily the wind is not blowing in their direction and he waits for them to move past, before he turns into the direction of the orange grove and he is surprised when he finds the ideal bush for his scouting.

There is a strip of msasa trees and at one of the trees it is quite overgrown near to the ground with the tree growing in the midst of some cover.  It is the ideal place to crawl under to spy on the camp.  He decides to crawl still deeper into the thorn bush.

He rests for a while before he drinks some water and eats bully beef from a small tin.  The layer of leaves under the bush is like a nice soft mattress after the discomfort of the two trees and the river and it takes only seconds before he dozes away.

His senses are however still sharp and at three o’clock that morning he gets awake, when he hears something moving in the thicket.  Once again his finger tightens around the trigger of the Heckler and Koch, but when he becomes aware that it is a tame goat that is grazing near to him he again falls to sleep.