Beyond was another channel that was almost waist deep. The water in this was flowing and not so muddy. He could see the plane circling a good kilometre back to the east and got glimpses of the helicopter over near the highway. ‘We will have to risk being seen,’ he decided. An arm signal set the platoon moving, spaced twenty metres apart. Still watching the circling aircraft Graham walked up onto hot sand and had to put the rifle down to wash mud and sand off his feet before pulling on his boots. Then he began clambering over the jumbles of rocks and through patches of mud with waist high reeds and small thin trees as high as his hat. Graham was nearly in the middle of the river bed when the note of the aircraft engine changed. He scrambled down amongst some rocks and looked. The plane was heading towards them. No, it was heading more to the north. It flew in a straight line across the trees on the far bank and on out of sight. ‘I wonder where it is going?’ he thought.
