R.A.W. Hitman by S. Hussain Zaidi

Author:S. Hussain Zaidi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S India
Published: 2023-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

twenty-four

Jungle Survival

January 2005, Training Camp, Israel

Standing on an elevated position, Lucky and D’Hencho were scrutinizing the military topographic map spread out before them. The terrain offered them a vantage point which would help them chart their way out of the jungle so that they could finish the jungle survival drill within the stipulated time.

“We go two degrees north. We reach the water,” Lucky suggested in broken English to his buddy D’Hencho.

“Yes, we try,” said D’Hencho.

Lucky attempted to squeeze out the last few drops of water from the only bottle he had carried along with a few other supplies. The drill stretched over two days and a night where a commando and his buddy had to find their way out of the jungle from the spot where the military chopper had dropped them. They were fast running out of supplies which would eventually force them to use survival skills they had learnt in the camp. Other supplies included small amounts of dry ration, a tarpaulin, a pocketknife and a firearm.

They climbed down the steep treacherous terrain by holding hands so that in case one of them slipped or stumbled the other could prevent his plunging all the way down by quickly pulling him back by his hand. The rays of the setting sun were largely hindered by the dense canopies of the overwhelming trees. Overarching mountains that lined the forest accentuated the darkness. Lucky knew that a night in the jungle brings along a distinct set of dangers. The setting of the sun also meant being deprived of the crude method of charting the way ahead to which he was taking recourse up until now by studying the direction of the sun and the bending of the trees in relation to it. He felt a dire need for a source of light which would enable them to progress further in the direction of their desired spot as well as keep all possible nocturnal threats at bay.

Lucky scoured the ground beneath their feet and picked up a dry bark lying in the midst of a sea of leaves, broken twigs and branches. D’Hencho understood that Lucky wanted to light a fire by employing the friction method. He would use this fire to create a flame torch. D’Hencho hastened and sculpted a spindle out of the small wood lying nearby with his pocketknife. Lucky cut the bark with precision and built a long shaft to grit the spindle against.

Lucky snipped a V-shaped notch on the shaft and slit the adjacent part to form an oblong slot to drive the produced ember down which could then be transferred to the tinder that D’Hencho was piling up next to the arrangement. Lucky placed the spindle on the notch and started rolling it vigorously while moving his hands up and down its length. The exercise, trivial on the face of it, demanded a lot of exertion.

Lucky endeavored with the spindle for a while before a tiny speck of ember popped out of the surface of the shaft which was immediately collected and transferred to the tinder by D’Hencho.

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