Prose

Early the next morning they walk the last few kilometres to Cuito Canavale, where they set up a position in a wooded aria near to the enemy air field.
 
Maria accompanies them when Ryno and one of the soldiers move nearer to enemy airport to do some scouting.

The three of them sneaks from bush to bush and they come upon a small stream that meanders in the direction of the enemy camp and notices the water drain that runs into it.

There are walls of earth right around the base and they can only see the guards that are patrolling between the two fences with their dogs and can see nothing of what is going on inside the base.

There is no hillock nearby as a higher place to scout from and the aria around the camp is stripped from any trees.  It does however not make a big difference, as they know layout of the enemy camp thoroughly.

When thunder clouds is drawing the sky close during the late afternoon, the three hurry back to the Unita-soldiers, where Ryno once more draws the layout of the camp in the sand.

A while later they check there weapons and other equipment, they activate the bombs and set the timing devices on them and the bombs are ceiled in small plastic bags.

It is a miserable night and the rain sieves down in a fine curtain, on to the group outside the enemy camp.  A fresh wind is rising and it sprays the rain into their faces, but it is an ideal evening for what they are planning.

The hands of Ryno’s watch indicate that it is just after twelve o’clock and he brings the lenses of his pair of infrared binoculars to his eyes.

From the shadowed aria where they are waiting, Ryno scouts the enemy base but he can find no indication of any activity.

They hurry to the cover of knee high grass, until they reach the stream on the outside edge of the enemy camp.

The stream is flowing strong from the rain and they splash along in knee high and they are covered by the riverbank on both sides while water is pouring into their boots.

Carefully they sneak up to a concrete storm water drain that runs into the stream.  “You do not want us to crawl into this pipe,” once of the Unita-soldiers wants to know with unbelief that is written over his face.

The success of the whole operation depends on sneaking unnoticed in and out of the enemy airfield,” Ryno remarks before he throws his rifle over his shoulder on its strap and starts sailing along the concrete pipe.

Although the rain is not falling rapidly as in a thunder storm, the level of the water in the pipe is deep enough to make them soaking wet.

The cold is coming from below, but they are ignoring it.  They are excited and thankful for the diabolic weather, as it gives them extra cover for their awaiting task.

It is pitch dark in the pipe and they sail on with it, until Ryno reaches a wall.  The water must be coming from somewhere he realises and feels how it is pouring down upon his head.  Ryno’s hands reach along the concrete wall in next to him and he realises that he is not any longer in the pipe and that he is able to stand.

Behind him the others one after the other also come to their feet, while Ryno draws a torch from his waterproof backpack.  The torch throws ghostly shadows around them and shows that they have entered a tunnel and what he had thought of as an impregnable wall is only thirty centimetres high.

They walk along the tunnel and the further they go, the louder the sound of rushing water becomes.  When a manhole cover appears above their heads, Ryno who is leading walks on passing it.   “Haven’t we reached the place,” Maria wants to know as she reaches for his shoulder.

“No I have guessed the distance that we have got to travel from the map and are busy pacing it off,” Ryno remarks and walks further in silence.

It is clear that Ryno is satisfied that they have walked far enough at the next manhole cover, as Ryno tries to push it open with his hands.

The steel lid refuses to budge.   A well build Unita-soldier barely passes Maria in the narrow tunnel and turns his AK-47 rifle upside down.

“Let us hit it from both sides with our rifles,” he suggests to Ryno. “No it is going to make far too much noise,” Ryno protests and both of them tries to force the lid open.

The steel lid still does not budge.  Ryno turns his own rifle upside down and nods with his head to the other soldier.  Together they count to three and hit the cover of the manhole simultaneously with all of their power.

It sounds like cannon fire in the narrow space of the tunnel and Ryno is certain that they have woken the whole camp, but the lid gets loose and is thrown away from the hole to fall with a crashing thud and is quivering on the concrete surface.

Ryno and the other soldier waits for long moments at the opening with their guns ready for the guards that should have heard the noise to come to investigate.

However it is only the rain pouring down through the open manhole onto them.  After some minutes that feel like an eternity for the group, Ryno removes his backpack from his back and puts it down carefully outside of the hole.

He draws himself up through the hole and is hold up by willing hands, while he is scouting the aria around him.

Nobody is waiting on them.  There is only a bright light against a building that gives light to the aria.  He quickly gets out of the hole and makes a three hundred and sixty degree sweep of the aria.

There is nobody near to them and he finds the manhole’s cover where it had fallen and carries it back to the manhole, where he gives the sign to the group to join him.

He puts his backpack onto his back and goes and waits in the shadows near to some trees, where the group joins him one by one.  One of the soldiers helps the last one to get out from the top, before they replace the cover back onto the manhole.

Ryno scouts the aria around them with his infrared binoculars and it is only at the nearest of the two lookout posts that he notices any movement.

Although some lights are burning in the camp, most of the buildings are covered by darkness and it is only the lights of the control tower that is burning brightly.  They walk quickly up to the fence and cut a big hole to pass through and at the bottom of it, before each one of the group sails through the hole.

A private jet that had landed earlier in the evening stands next to two Hind gunships in the north-western corner of the camp near to the group and the three aircraft are beneath bright lights.

The ground walls that had been erected to stop rocket propelled grenade attacks from Unita, that run right around the base, now gives them cover from the guards that are moving between the two fences and it is only for the roaming pickets and the guards at the lookout towers that they have got to be careful.

They sneak carefully from dark spot to dark spot and are happy for the protection of the fog that is starting to appear.

It is almost unexpectedly quick that they reach the aircraft hangars in the western side of the base.  Some of the soldiers are guarding, while Ryno is cutting a piece of glass from a window of the nearest hangar.

Within seconds Ryno has the window open.  The whole group climbs through the window into the hangar, where they find six Mig-25 fighters gleaming in the darkness.

They take their backpacks off their shoulders and remove some of the devices that are going to destroy the aircraft.  Each one of them presses a bomb into the air intake openings of the aircraft, before they climb out of the hangar through the open window.

Although the lights near to the two Migs standing outside the hanger is sharp, the rising fog causes the group not to be seen by the guards on the lookout at the nearest lookout tower.

One of the soldiers places a bomb into the private jet that is near to two Hind helicopter gunships.  It is difficult to get on top of the wet helicopters and Ryna and another soldier is helped up to press the bombs into the air intake openings beyond the cabin beneath the blades.

When they hear dogs barking in the base, the group hurries to get to the next hangar.  They have just reached the shadow of the hangar, when a guard with a dog passes near to them.

Luckily they are under the wind, but the dog is drawing its owner into their direction.  It however goes to a tree where it lifts its leg and the group relaxes when the picket and dog walks away, to find shelter against the rain near to workshop.

They find an open window and climb through it into the aircraft hangar.  There are six Hind gunships that are already armed and within minutes the bombs are planted on them.

To reach the last two aircraft hangars that they want to target, they have perforce got to sneak past the control tower that is brightly lighted.

They find that the door on the porch to the crew room of the hanger is not locked and there is another door leading into the hanger from it that has also been left open.  After the six Hind gunships that they find are sabotaged, they sneak out of the hanger.

However at the last aircraft hanger, they find two guards who are talking to each other at the front of the building.  They cannot dare to break a window and Ryno feels on the windows but cannot find one that is open.

One of the Unita-soldiers however finds a side door that is not locked.  When they push it open it makes such a load creaking sound that it would even have raised the dead from their graves.

They quickly enter into the aircraft hanger and pull the door close behind them.  After a while both of the guards come to investigate and they shine with their torches through the windows into the hangar.

“It must have been the wind,” a guard remarks in Portuguese and the group sighs their relief, when the two guards after a while walk away into the direction of their living quarters.

It only takes minutes to press their bombs into the air intake openings of the six Migs that are standing in rows of two’s inside the hangar and they apply the same treatment, to the two Migs and one of the two Hind’s that is parked outside on the concrete apron.

Their bombs are finished and only one remaining Hind is the only aircraft in the camp that has not been sabotaged.  “They cannot win a war with only one helicopter,” Ryno remarks and looks carefully at the number that appears on the outside of the aircraft.

Ryno is astonished to notice from the hands of his watch that only half an hour has passed, from the time that they had got out of the manhole when they reach it again and one after the other jump down into the hole.