The soldiers moved cautiously along the hedgerows as they
emerged from the woodland. The platoon
comprised nine men, each dressed alike in camouflage clothing. One carried a
sub-machine gun (perhaps an officer?) , the others all had rifles.
Their field craft was sloppy. They moved separately, but
clumped too closely together with one moving up to where another took temporary
cover behind a bush or in ditch.
Although they kept to the edge of the fields to avoid being
silhouetted by the skyline they made progress steadily, and predictably.
Walking fully upright, rather than crouching or crawling, their heads and
backpacks bobbed along like balloons, occasionally outlined against the grassland
as the hedge dipped.
When they came to the track that slashed nakedly across the
scrubland one man called the others towards him and they huddled together below
a small tree. Two or three faced outwards looking for discontinuities
The leader pointed up towards the rocky outcrop, and
indicated the route they would take.
The group began to disperse with a pairs of men slipping one
along each side of the track. The leader and the man without a rifle stayed
back by the tree, observing the troops they had sent up the slope.
The leader was turning to the other when he suddenly jerked
and backwards as if kicked by a horse, clumsily clutching at the man net to
him.
As the corporal instinctively grabbed at the officer the sound of the shot reached them, but before
it echoed he was already pulling the captain into what little cover the tree
provided. He heard another bullet strike the ground behind them, and then a
second later the sharp crack of the shot that had sent it on its way.
He shouted urgent orders to the men spread out in the
undergrowth around the track, who lay as low as possible in whatever cover they
could find while staring up at the hillside searching for any sign of the
sniper.
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