Prose

It is still dark when Ryno wakes up and quickly rolls up his sleeping bag and throws his backpack over his shoulders, before he takes care not to leave any indication of his presence.
 
He wonders if he should dare to sneak to the sickbay or the jail, but he cannot dare to betray his presence before the wounded man has left the enemy camp.

When he notices a few roaming pickets through the lenses of the binoculars, he decides that it is far too dangerous to sneak around in the camp.

It only takes him minutes to climb into the Msasa tree and he finds a hiding place beneath the shelter of the branches and hangs the backpack and Heckler and Koch 417 rifle on some branches next to him.

At dawn the gnats are continually disturbing him, while he removes a ration pack from his backpack and open it.  He presses a small twig into the band of his hat and he is satisfied, when the gnats disappear from his face and they start flying around the top of the small twig

It is still icy cold and really beautiful when red ball of the sun hangs above the river and for a moment he forgets, that he is in the middle of a enemy camp in Angola and it almost feels as if he is back on his father’s farm in the bushveld.

In the ration pack he finds a tin of bully beef, a tin of curry fish and some mixed vegetables.  He is thankful for the tin opener that he had received from some well-meaning grannies, that he had brought along but he leaves the tins of food for later.

In the ration pack there is also a box of matches, burning tablets, water purifying tablets, two energy bars, two packets of dog-biscuits, two packets of cool drink powder, chocolate milkshake powder and pronutro porridge that contains milk powder.

Ryno tears the packet of the pronutro porridge open carefully and adds some of the water from a water bottle, before he greedily eats the porridge with the spoon from a folding knife.

It is with some glad expectation that he adds water to the packet of milkshake.  He is careful not to let any water splash down and after closing the little bag he shakes it thoroughly, before he bites a small hole into the one end and start sucking at the contents.

It gets hot early that morning and Ryno scouts the camp with his binoculars while he disciplines himself to work carefully with the water in the water bottles.

Directly south of Ryno’s position in the Msasa treed the mud huts of the women are situated and the black boys who had driven the cattle to the river on the previous morning, come nearer while they are playing and they climb into a tree near to him and Ryno remains without movement as if he is part of the tree.

After a while the boys climb down from their tree and they start walking into the direction of the cattle coral while Ryno feels relieved.

It is when he starts to relax that the migraine hits him with its full intensity and the tremendous heat does not make it any easier.
 
It is with difficulty that he tries to ignore the headache and to concentrate on the layout of the enemy camp.   Further south from the mud huts he notices an engineering complex with some workshops.

Directly north of him there’s the one or other concrete building looking somewhat like a aircraft hangar, that is followed by a massive excavation and the camp’s prison.  Still further north from Ryno’s position, there are some buildings that act as barracks for the soldiers.   The barracks continue in a northwestern direction to the other side of the main road.

Further on in a north-western direction there’s a large vehicle park where Ryno notices five T-55 battle tanks, five T-64 battle tanks, twenty four BTR-152 troop carriers, four BM-21 rocket launching trucks, one BRDM armoured car and about thirty GAZ-66 lorries and a large commercial bus.  He is however not able to see all the vehicles in the vehicle park.

In a western direction he notices the hospital with a parade ground to the south of it and with the enemy headquarters lying just north of the hospital.

”Such sons of Satan! That bus is proof that they had abducted the hundred and nineteen school children,” Ryno talks with himself while he again looks at the commercial bus through the binoculars and further on to the northwest there’s a massive camp consisting of tents.  He notices that some of the recruits and probably some of the abducted school children are busy with physical exercises.

It’s a sound coming southwesterly from him that attracts his attention.  The noise of helicopters makes it clear to him that the enemy are still searching for him when he notices four Mil-24 Hind-D helicopters taking off in a cloud of dust and one after the other heading South over the bushes.

When the cloud of dust dissipates Ryno notices that one Mil-24 Hind-D attack helicopter and two Hind-A helicopters have remained.  Within minutes one of the Hind-A helicopters takes off to land on the parade ground next to the hospital.

Ryno notices twelve heavily armed soldiers climbing into the helicopter through a big side door that is situated just in front of the aircraft’s sub-wings. 

When Ryno notices the man with the scar being carried to the Hind-A helicopter and how it takes off in the direction of the Lubango road, before its followed by another Hind-A helicopter, he smiles satisfied.

Minutes later there’s life at the vehicle park and Ryno notices how all of the twenty four BTR-152 troop carriers are manned by Cubans wearing green camouflage uniforms, with twelve occupying a vehicle.

Some more soldiers scurry around when MPLA and PLAN-soldiers get onto twenty of the GAZ-66 lorries.  One of the BTR-152 armoured cars drives north along with two GAZ-66 trucks with the Arthur de Paiva road, another BTR and two GAZ-66 lorries drive away in a north-eastern direction with the Menongue road while a third BTR with two GAZ-66 lorries drive off in a western direction.
 
Most of the vehicles however drive to the south into the direction of Techamutete and Ongiva, with the troop carriers that are followed by lorries.

It is clear to Ryno that the camp is almost deserted, after the departure of the vehicles and at about ten o’clock there is movement at the prison.

Spades and pickaxes are distributed to the prisoners and they are marched by four armed guards, past the excavation to the main road that runs right through the camp.

The prisoners are marched along the main road into a southerly direction past the orange grove, past some buildings looking like hangars, to where another road breaks away through the mud huts to the graveyard