We knew they were there. Now and then some of them made a noise when they went to get water. Otherwise during the day they were quite. We posted a few ‘recces’ now and then, saw nothing much, they were good. Tried an ‘O.P.’ to spot them but no luck, team leader reckoned that we would get some this night.

Night, was their soft spot. They always seemed a bit chatty after dark. It would give them away!

We set up the ambush brilliantly. The ‘Old Man’ (Team leader), reckoned the two of us could handle the job, so we picked up prepared weapons. Thankfully it was overcast. The bastards might have spotted us. We moved quietly from tree to tree. Stopped once or twice when we thought we had been spotted.

The other three were back at camp. They would know sooner or later if we were successful or not. Team leader told them to leave a few lights on, that way they wouldn’t expect our surprise attack. For the first time in ages he allowed them to play the radio softly. A clever distraction. As we moved off nervously, I could hear the smooth crooning of Justin Hayward, ‘Nights in white satin’. Somehow it helped to settle my nerves.

There was a small pond of water in the area and we knew they were using it. That’s where we headed.

This time, we were gonna get em. This wasn’t the first time we had tried.

Just before we had reached the cover of some bulrushes, one of them made a noise about 3 feet to the right. We had stumbled right on top them!

Shit, Shit, Shit, The Old Man, gave me the sign and I opened up with all I got; as he armed the huge weapon in one smooth stroke and brought it on instinct into full play. We were in trouble and the adrenalin was racing, if the old man missed we were fucked.

I turned on my torch and caught the frog, croaking away on the lily pad. Before it could draws it’s next breath, the Old Man brought the shovel down and the frog was airborne.

6 foot it went up, as the shock wave pounded the fish pond and bellied up a few Goldfish. It’s hard knock life. A few innocent citizens, caught in the cross fire.

The exploded corpse, guts hanging out a surprised mouth, came down and plopped at the Old Mans feet. With a deft swish, he scooped it up and flicked it neatly over the hedge into the next door neighbours garden. They were a strange lot, didn’t mix in, so no problemo airmailing the croaked croaker.

We went back to the house, celebrated our success with a 'quiet' cuppa. At last we were able to sleep well without that abominable din for the first time in days.

In future attacks, perfection was attained. As the corpse plummeted earthwards, I could connect the shovel to it. This got a far better distance into the next doors.