Thru The Scope

'Sniper' By .Spartan.

The world through a snipers scope is a frightful one. You don't just see a soldier, you see a face; of a boy or man, if they've shaved this morning or not and whether their aware they have just seconds to live.
He often wonders how many families he has hurt and friends of people he had whisked away with the simple squeeze of a trigger.
Yesterday he shot a young soldier who had barely a chance to start life; the boy still had his rifle slung over his shoulder and a laugh in his chest. The young soldier was a crumpled heap on the ground long before the sound of the gunshot caught up with the bullet.

At that moment of recollection and hours of waiting, something caught his attention.
A flash of movement; a quick dash across open ground. Very bad move, he now knew someone was out there.
All of a sudden the green hilly landscape seamed to aquire an eerie silence. The hedges and trees seamed to stop swaying as the wind appeared to die down.

Flexing his trigger finger he peered through the scope of his rifle. Scanning the landscape ahead of his for any more signs of movement.
Back and forth, back and forth he scanned. Waiting for the moment that the enemy betrayed his position.
There was nothing for a while. The wind picked up again and the rustling of leaves in the wind broke the still silence. Luckly the wind was light and not strong enough to affect a bullet in flight.
His finger continued to hover patiently over the trigger for what seamed like enternity as he scanned the landscape back and forth; waiting, watching.

Then something caught his attention.

A light. A small, fast flash of light.

A reflection.

He slowly tracked his rifle over to the position where the flash of light had come from and felt the hair prick on the back of his neck prick up at what he saw.
The very end of a rifle barrel protruding ever so slightly from a hedge. It was moving back and forth; slowly like what he did; searching for someone, for him.

The enemy sniper had placed himself in a position where he was heavy concealed but the sun had reflected off a tiny section of his scope, ever so slightly. But that was all he needed; his position had been given away.
He didn't give the enemy sniper time to realize his mistake as he lined up the sniper in his crosshairs and fired.

***

Private Jimmy Edmunds from Iowa never knew what hit him; he didn't know he had given his position away. He had no idea that he wasn't alone, let alone in someone's crosshairs.
He didn't see the mussel flash of the German's rifle, let alone hear the gunshot which signalled the end of his life.
The bullet shattered the crucifix which hung around his neck and tore through his heart. The bullet continued on and ripped a large, tattered hole in his back as it passed through him and came to rest in a tree trunk behind him.

His open eye, which was pressed to his scope, remained open as his head hit the ground.

***

He was saddened to see the rifle slump onto its side. Knowing he had just ended another life. Slealthily reloading he continued to scan the kill zone just incase his target had suvived.
When he was satisfied that his target was dead, and there was no one else out there, he then waited with well practiced patience for night to come and cover his escape.