Darkness was all around, the wind blew and it was a biting cold night. The grass swayed slightly, an almost invisible movement in the cloudy night. Far behind enemy lines there were no friendly light; everywhere there were light there were enemies.

The electrified fence was far away. No man on earth could possibly see him here, lying down in the grass on the top of a hill. David Armstrong attached the butt to the main part of the rifle. No sound was to be heard. There was some whistling by the wind perhaps, but nothing more. Far away, behind the fence, some guards patrolled. They were not aware of the danger lying far away from them.

The scope was slipped into its clips, and fastened to the rifle with a screw. It could zoom up to x8 of original size. He adjusted the scope so that he would not miss his target in the wind. “To clips to the right, then one up,” he said quietly to himself. He had done this before; the shore landing of Normandy was his first real mission. Many of his friends and fellow soldiers had been killed. He killed nine German soldiers during that invasion, but he had barely survived himself. A bullet had cut his helmet, another one had gone through his water bottle. 

As he screwed the silencer to the end of the pipe, a crow flew up from a tree not far from where he was lying. Could it be SS-Guards? He decided to take a look. He would take no chances. Making no sound at all he raised himself to a crouching position, and slowly crawled into the high grass. First he saw nothing, but he heard footsteps, and after a while he could see the light of a flashlight.

There were indeed three SS-Guards on patrol. He knew that if he stayed out of sight, they would not take notice of him. So he crawled around until he got behind them. Silently he lifted his knife and cut the throat of the hindmost SS-Soldier. A gargling sound came out of his mouth as he sank to the ground. The two others had not heard it. David crawled behind the second soldier and stabbed him too. But this time the soldier managed to scream. The last soldier, alerted by the painful scream, turned around, only to be hit in his forehead by a bullet from David’s silenced gun.

David crawled back to his sniper place. No one in the base would suspect anything. The soldiers were not to report back for several hours. There was no rush. He picked up his rifle and lied down, relieved that he managed to kill the SS-Soldiers without making any sound that could alert the base. Still, there was almost like the soldiers patrolling in the base knew that something was wrong. They walked slower, turning their heads nervously from side to side. Sometimes they stopped to light a cigarette. The glow from the tip of the smoke seemed so warm and good in the cold weather. If I only was home in front of my fireplace, David thought as he put his cheek to the gun.

His finger reached out for the trigger. The target was in sight. It was a German general on a routine inspection of one of the many military outposts. Inside information was good to have. The Allied Forces had many spies inside the Nazi staff. If it wasn’t for them, this information of the general would never been acquired. One dead general was like a stab in the heart for the Nazi Government. Hitler had many generals, but each and every one of them was of great importance. This general was no exception. As his finger touched the trigger, David began to realize how difficult it would be to get away from there. There was some backup a mile or two to the south, but if the Germans detected his position before he could back out, then he would have no chance reaching them. He was just supposed to kill that general, and then pull out as fast as possible without being noticed.

The scope’s crosshair swayed gently over the general’s head. He stood next to some other officers and discussed how to arrange an attack against the Allied. Little did he know that he only got a few seconds left to live. He thought being one of Hitler’s most important men would make him almost invincible. He was wrong. A dump bang, like the sound of a firecracker, split the air. Less than half a second later, blood gushed out from his throat. Another bang followed; this bullet went straight through his head, killing the general instantly.

All of the German soldiers threw themselves to the ground, unable to locate the source of the bangs. At the same time David crawled backwards not to be seen by the guards. When he got about 20 feet away from the firing site, he raised himself to his feet and ran. With his compass in his hand he located the south direction where the rest of the group were waiting. But they were far away, and now had the Germans alerted their patrol guards. All soldiers in the area were contacted informed that a sniper was out there somewhere, and they were to liquidate him at all cost. So it didn’t take long time before David ran into a couple of soldiers. He shot the first one in the head, but the second soldier hided behind a tree, returning fire with a machinegun. Unfortunately for him the tree was not very thick. David took his rifle and fired three shots at the tree. The bullets penetrated through the wood, and ended in an unsuspecting soldier.

Other soldiers had of course heard the gunshots, and hurried to the place where the fight had been. There they found the two dead soldiers. Only one of them had a gun, and all their ammunition was gone. “This man is dangerous,” they said. They were right. A kilometer away they found three more soldiers. One strangled, and the two others full of holes. “Let him run,” said the commander of the SS-soldiers. “If we try to kill him in the dark, he will probably fool us all, and kill us one by one. This man knows how to take advantage of the dark. And by dusk he will be far away.” They heard another gunshot far away.

The sun came up over the mountains, sending it’s warm, lovely rays at David’s face. He was still running, but now he knew that the soldiers didn’t follow him. Suddenly he heard some sounds in the grass. Then someone shouted: “Thunder! Thunder or we will fire!” “Light,” David answered, and five men of his group rose from the grass. “Damn I’m glad to see you guys,” he said. “What happened to you?” they said to David. “You are covered in blood. Weren’t you just supposed to snipe that general?” “Relax. It’s not my blood. I killed indeed the general, but there were some guys in my way when I was returning back here. They had to die.” “Come on,” said the other soldiers. “The Lieutenant will be glad to see you.” Damn what a mission, David thought as he went with the rest of the soldiers towards the base. Never before had he feared so much for his own life than this night. And the war was still not over, though the Allied went deeper and deeper into Nazi land. Somehow he knew that it wouldn’t be long before Hitler was dead.