Bush Snipers. Greg Pius
Читать онлайн книгу.
be in extreme pain. So the local vet had to be called. The adults all accepted this as necessary. But one little girl cried her eyes out every time it happened. She won the hearts of even hardened horse men when she went up to the suffering horses and hugged their necks. Holding on till the very last minute, Mossy would sign a song of love to that horse. Afterwards they could all see her little heart ache for the lost of one of her animal friends.
Taking Mossy to the local river crossing, Hannah tried to explain the death of horses. She started with,
"Mossy you know that your horse friend would never have got better."
Mossy nodded her head but said stubbornly,
"But I would have nurse it for ever and ever."
Hannah tried another tack when she said,
"But Brutus was a champion jumper. He would never be able to jump again. How would you like to never be able to jump?'
Mossy's face became a picture of concentration. Finally she replied,
"You are right Hannah! I would hate to never be able to jump. Brutus was the best at jumping."
Sticking with this winning argument, Hannah said.
"Yes and he will be jumping now in horse heaven."
Mossy's face lit up with a smile as she said.
"Yes I can see him jumping. Look there he is so big and strong. Brutus is calling to me."
Alarmed at this, Hannah looked quickly at Mossy's face. The signs were all there, Mossy was having an attack. Calling fron help, Hannah pick up a now unconscious Mossy and ran towards the stables.
A well hidden Lieutenant Doras was filling in time before the killing started. She was enjoying recalling how she had shown up all those men in that courtroom. In a male dominated army, Doras loved nothing better than getting one up on a bunch of ego driven males. Her conversation with Adam Champion had revealed how much she enjoyed rubbing their noses in the dirty business of sudden death. Doras had been pulled up by Champion as she left a still stunned court martial. Champion had quietly drawn her into a vacant interview room to ask,
"Why did you save me?
Doras had laughed derisively before answering,
"Men! You're all alike. Its always about you isn't it? Well for your information it had nothing to do with saving your worthless life. I wanted revenge on those officers. Each one has tried to hold back by career. Well their own career's are now looking shaky. Imagine they tried to railroad an innocent army officer. One who had served his country with valor overseas in many black ops missions. Its scandalous. Ha! I would love to see their faces when they tell the Governor General that they ruined his big moment. Ha! Ha!"
Champion was still confused, so he asked,
"You said you saw Cain Flint kill our spymaster!"
Doras said in an exasperated tone of voice,
"Of course I had to say that to scuttle their little plan. I did see Cain Flint assassinate someone but it was not Yves Machel."
Champion could not let it rest, so he asked,
"Who then? Why say it was Machel he shot?'
Doras now got a tremble in her voice when she said,
"Flint killed the woman I loved. Just like all men, he used her then threw her away. Not happy with that he also killed her. I saw him do it but could not stop him. I raced to hear my lover's last words. She died very slowly."
Champion now began to see an answer, he said,
"So you plan to kill Flint yourself."
Doras nodded violently before saying,
"I will kill Flint slowly and painfully! And you are going to help me do it. Don't shake your head at me. You will help me or I will have a sudden bout of honesty and withdraw my eyewitness statement. That will certainly get you dishonorably discharged from the army. It might also get you tried for murder. Face it I own you now. You will do exactly what I tell you to do!"
Back in her ambush hideout, Lieutenant Doras smiled her evil smile. She thought to herself,
"That's one male who will prove handy!"
Doras believed that he will make for good bait when she was ready to kill Flint.
All thoughts of that revenge were driven from her mind however when her forward scout gave the signal that the convoy was finally approaching her position. Now the killing could begin.
Summer Ramblings
Summer in Australia can be very hot. With daytime temperatures of over forty degrees Celsius in the shade, bush dwellers learn to stay out of the sun when possible. Most locals go to the nearest town and visit their favorite bar. Younger people go to the town swimming pool. Workers on the rural properties swim in the dams. But refugees in the UN camp have no bars, alcohol being forbidden under Sharia law. They have no ice cream milk bars. There are no swimming pools. No refugee is allowed to work on local properties, despite the local farms having severe labour shortages.
The hot days cause many cases of heat stroke, dehydration and heat fatigue. The United Nations camp hospital can be quickly overrun with distressed refugees. This is why the UN had negotiated a deal with the government to allow emergency cases to go to the base hospital. Here there was air conditioning! For more serious cases there was equipment to restore proper hydration and salt levels. Extreme cases would need a hospital bed for forty-eight hours.
All this made Dr. Roman Ruffe's hospital shifts very hard work as the mercury climbed to record heat wave temperatures. He had the day shifts! The older doctor on staff, a local, had cleverly volunteered to do all the night shifts. At first Roman thought he was being given a big concession by his peer. By the middle of summer, Roman knew he had been snookered. His twelve hour shift started at seven in the morning. By that time, summer temperature had shot past thirty degrees Celsius on the hospital indoor thermometer. By the end of his shifts, the temperature had not fallen below forty degrees. Roman was a very young man but by day's end he was still grey in the face from overwork.
Then one day he entered his ward to see three females waiting in emergency. They looked familiar. As he walked up to them, Roman realized that all his prayers had been answered. His opening remarks seemed strange to the day emergency nurse, who was listening to the conversation hoping to pick up some gossip about this new young doctor,
"Senior Nurse Feelgood. Thank goodness you are here, this hospital desperately needs your help."
Only Hera was not surprised by this welcome. Her professionally trained eye had been assessing this base hospital. So far it was failing in all departments. So she replied,
"I bet it does. But what are you doing here Doctor Ruffe?"
Roman was not letting this marvelous woman get away. So he opened up to her completely,
"After that horrific shooting in that city hospital