natural cover. My skin is painted with natural dyes that make me an unseen creature in the green lands, like a tiger’s stripes had once been in the dry jungles of India.
Probably there is a scent about me too. If I cared what these mundane folk thought, I might be glad that they keep their distance. There is washing for hygiene purposes and then there is washing for the appearances of polite society. Similar could be said of my hair and beard, long overgrown.
On my back I carry the bolt action rifle that makes my kind the stuff of stories. Bullets are rare in this age, made painstakingly by hand in moulds over the embers of cairn built fires. Most soldiers carry crossbows as standard. The ammunition for those is easy to make, even the lowliest private can learn to do so. Only the most respected soldiers still carry guns, ancient relics that only continue to work through a programme of veneration that ensures the weapons are treated with the respect they deserve.
My rifle only fires one shot at a time, but its magnifying sight means a man can be dead before he even knows I am there. Though it is my most important possession, the most important thing I will ever own, it is not the only tool of my trade. My many pockets are full of herbs and small odds and ends that are equally vital instruments. I have a crude whittling knife and a sharp military blade that earns its keep both in hunting and in warfare. A metal canteen bounces off my hip, tied to my belt with string.
Though I have not been to this town for over five years, I have researched the route to headquarters in my mind, planned every twist and turn in the route. I am a creature of vast patience now, able to plan each operation down to the smallest detail.
Soon I will arrive, soon I will find out why I have been called. I am, I realise, looking forward to the mission, whatever it might be.
I remember when I first saw a sniper. I was away with my parents, visiting relatives in another town. The locals welcomed us and put us up in a spare house on the edge of town. It was a beautiful old building, slightly crumbling around the edges, but kept scrupulously clean inside. Maybe it had often been used for visitors. Because the land around the house was not regularly farmed, it was a little overgrown. Round the front there was a small, fairly neat garden, mainly ornamental, but round the side was a veritable jungle of grasses and over-arching trees. I can’t remember what games I played at that age, but I do remember that place with a sense of adventure. There was an old, forgotten path cut through the trees and a secluded stone seat in a tiny hollow that made the perfect den for an imaginative child.
One day I was there, examining an old bottle that stood on a rock, which I had always wondered about. My young mind conceived fantastic origins: that it had been a magical medicine – though now I suppose it may just have been used for water or perhaps wine.
Out of nowhere the jungle seemed to move and a man detached himself from it. He looked down on me and smiled as if remembering something.
“Hello there,” he said in a friendly way. I remember his clothes and face were painted the same way as the undergrowth, which made it seem as though he belonged there. I’m sure he meant no harm, but at that age I was a little frightened of strangers, the way some children are, so I ran away, out of the jungle, to find my parents.
I don’t remember asking, but in my memory somewhere, I have the impression I later learned this man was one of the snipers that I had heard about, whispers in the school yard. It was one of those things we played at as children, pretending we were snipers, stalking invisibly, playing games of war. No-one ever imagined that we would become such when we got older, no more than any of the other possibilities that seem immensely open in our youth.
What had the man being doing there? Perhaps he had been on patrol or perhaps on a particular mission. I never found out, but I always remembered that man, the glint he had in his eye, the sense that he was the possessor of esoteric knowledge. I think maybe that encounter, slight though it was, prepared my reactions for when I met one again, many years later.
“Have you come from far?” the general says, trying to make conversation, but I have no interest. Though this room is dark, cool and quiet, I can hear the press of the masses closing in outside. I just wish she would get on with it. There doesn’t seem to be any point arguing, so when she offers a cup of tea as refreshment, I go with it, to better get the ritual over with and the briefing underway.
She is a portly woman in her late fifties, well beyond the age of combat, but mind still keen. She leans on a walking stick and has a slight limp, whether the cause is injury or the ravages of age, I cannot tell.
“Do you know the old road, between here and where the Buddhist temple stood on the outskirts of Glastonbury?”
I nod in reply: “You mean the pass?”
“Yes. There is an inn there at the bottleneck between two hills.”
I nod again. I have eaten on the road there two or three times, in a dark corner where the light from the roaring fire does not reach.
“I’m sorry to say it was sacked by bandits three weeks ago.” She pauses, perhaps reading the fall in my expression.
“What does this have to do with the army? It’s outside our territory,” I say, regretting later the uncaring tone that has crept in. Perhaps she will see my indifference as cold professionalism.
“Six men deserted three months ago. We thought they had gone back to their families, disappeared, but they started hijacking cargo wagons on the old road.”
I stare at the wall in thought. It is covered with old chalk drawings of battle plans and lectures in military tactics and history.
“They still hold the inn,” I guess. Now it is her turn to nod – but there is worse to come:
“A little over a week ago, a family was travelling through the pass. The eldest daughter had found a husband in another town and they were heading there for the wedding. We do not know exactly what occurred, but we do know that the entire family bar one young girl was murdered. We have her here in care, if there is anything you need to ask her.”
I shake my head in grim determination. I have little qualms over the victims of my art, but being chosen to target those who especially deserve my retribution gives me an extra edge of satisfaction.
“Will there be anything else you need?” she asks.
I know there will be little beyond some supplies and water, a few pieces of lead. I am eager to get back into my realm, into the wilderness.
It was early into the summer. The monsoon season was just finishing and the grasses and trees were growing long, thriving as the sun began to warm the land after the welcome rain. I was in a unit of five soldiers dispatched to deliver a message and a parcel to a remote outpost. We did not know what it contained - it was not our business to ask.
What we did know was that the territory was dangerous. Fundamentalist Christian groups were established in the area, attacking villages of ‘heathens’ and massacring wagon trains on the roads.
There was not much to the outpost, I gathered, little more than a watchtower on uncivilised ground, outside the rule of law. Its function was to provide advance warning if the borders were threatened. A radio operator would send out frequent coded messages for army operatives to gather.
The outpost was hidden and well-defended, but that did not mean it would be easy to get to. When we started out on foot, we tried to make light of things, pretending like we were on a jolly. Just outside town we got a lift on a cart about ten miles along the road. It was a piece of good luck that kept our spirits high.
From there, we passed the outlying villages into the wilderness areas. The signs of human occupation lessened. The only sign now was the infrequent relics still clinging to existence from before the great collapse: the decaying remains of walls and small roofless buildings, all overgrown with vegetation which had mostly reclaimed the land for itself.
Here we grew quieter, more professional. The jokes and japes which formed part of our team spirit died away and we began nervously to watch the surrounding countryside for sign of trouble.
The sound of our footsteps, the rustle of our clothes and the tap of our equipment as we walked, all sounded loud to our ears. I wondered how far away we could be heard, but there was nothing further we could do to silence our progress; none of us knew the ways of the sniper. In the playground they had said a sniper knew how to walk through walls and turn his skin the same colour as his surroundings. How I must have wished then that we could disappear in such a way. Our army uniforms were camouflaged with the same colours as the surrounding vegetation, but I still felt as though we stood out for all observers to see for miles.
In time we grew closer to our goals and, feeling more confident that we would succeed, we grew complacent. It was not that we were less careful in our progress, just that as our natural paranoia died down, we were less meticulous in our observations of our surroundings. To be fair, none of us were trained trackers.
When it happened, I was almost literally caught with my pants down.
We must have been pretty close to the outpost, not more than a couple of hours travel. We stopped in a clearing to gather back our energy. The sun was blazing down and its heat sapped a man’s energy within minutes. We wore sweat like a second skin under our clothes and we were running through water fast.
When we stopped, I took off my backpack and