1 SAVANNA’S TEARS:The Arrival

Captain Matthews gave a gesture that the squad clearly understood and they began to crawl on the grassy ground towards him with their guns in front of them under the Hot Savanna sun. When they got close to him they hid at different positions under the long Savanna grass. The captain looked behind and gave a signal to a soldier who was about two meters away to come to him. The soldier responded without hesitation by crawling as quickly and quietly as possible towards him. He was the youngest of them all being barely twenty two years of age but his young age was overshadowed by his extreme bravery and ingenuity which always led to missions being accomplished. Such qualities made him fair well with his superior officer’s especially captain Matthews and the rest of the squad knew it. When he reached the captains position he knelt towards him and lowered his gun. The captain handed him the binoculars and pointed at the area he was to focus his view.

“The bastards we are supposed to intercept and take down have just reached the village and have already killed two civilians the one thing we were supposed to stop,” Captain Matthews said and paused for a moment while patting his upper pocket, “shit were is a cigarette when you need one.”

“These freaking Kamunyama rebels move like wild beasts captain, they are not a normal bunch,” the soldier said as he looked around with his binoculars spotting the rebels in the different positions they had assumed around the village.

“Crazed shits love the sight of blood. They chopped the two villages down like pieces of wood not minding the screams, hell I bit its music to their ears. One of the blood stained brutes went further and chopped one of those poor soul’s head off before he could die from the machete cuts already inflicted on him and did not even give a shit about his pleading,” Captain Matthews said as he looked at the rest of the soldiers behind him as he removed his helmet and cleaned the sweat off his forehead.

“To some men killing is a favorite pass time. Their lives are a waste of air,” The soldier said as he focused on a group of the rebels that were now heading directly to the village while two groups moved left and right respectively to surround the village and prevent any escape. One of the rebels who was very dark in complexion knelt on the ground and when he stood up he was carrying a severed head in his left hand and a large shiny machete on the right. When the soldier zoomed in he saw that the dark ugly scared face of that rebel resembled the leader of the Kamunyama rebel group he had seen in a photo. His face had slashes all over and the deepest being the one that cut through his face from the right side of the forehead via his nose that was cut in half with the right side totally removed and only a hole was left to show for it and down to his chin on the left side of his lower face. The soldier’s heart pounded and he took a deep breathe to contain it.

“Captain,”

“Yes, Oscar,”

“You better come and look at this,” Oscar said as he removed the binoculars from his face and handed it to the captain.

Captain Matthews grabbed the binoculars and looked through it to where Oscar was pointing. He looked intently with the expression of disbelief covering his face.

“I think we have found our guy,” Oscar said slowly as he grabbed a bottle from his side pocket and began to drink from it.

“Holy shit! It is the toad faced devil himself. He thought he would be in hiding forever. I guess the grass is not tall enough for him to hide anymore,” captain Matthews said as he forced a brief smile, “this mass murdering machete welding maniac will not leave this village alive. Maybe this is the last good deed I will do before I retire.”

“Captain, it looks like they are getting ready to attack the village,” Oscar said as he pointed at the rebels moving towards the village and just waiting for the attack signal from their leader.

“Sorry, sergeant I was distracted by that pretty boys face. We need to attack these brutes before they wet the land with the blood of the innocent. We need to make sure none of these rebels remains alive for the countless lives of people they have put into this unsatisfied ground. The best part is we will kill the Big Bad himself and we will put to the test the saying of cutting off the head of the snake to kill the whole freaking body,” Captain Matthews said as he looked at Oscar and the rest of the squad.

“Yes captain,” Oscar replied with confidence while holding his gun in a tight grip.

“How many of these bastards did you spot son?” The captain asked slowly as he looked at Oscar directly in the eyes.

“I counted thirty hostiles about twenty two armed with machetes while eight with AK 47’s and rifles. The armed rebels have surrounded the village with two on all four sides who are acting as look outs and at the same time preventing anyone from escaping. The other two armed men who seem to be the best of them are guarding the rebel leader closely and are right behind the machete handling rebels. The nineteen are the attackers,” Oscar said slowly and clearly.

The captain looked at the other soldiers and gave them a signal to get closer. Then he broke a stick from a nearby tree branch. After all the soldiers had gathered around he draw a .circle to represent the village.

“Boys here is what we are going to do, we will first have to deal with the armed rebels. They are positioned here, here and here,” Captain Matthews said as he draw x’s at the points were the armed rebels were, “we have to do it quietly so that we don’t alert the rest of the rebels carrying machetes. Then we will kill those armed with machete before they carry out a mass killing of the villagers.”