Open Writing

There was lots of wildlife around Affenrucken and in the Sperrgebied. I had bought a rifle and kept it at Affenrucken while I worked there. I used to stalk and shoot the jackals that scavenged for scraps in the dump on the other side of the kitchen. There must have been hundreds of them, and shooting a few dozen seemed to have no effect on their numbers.

Here are some stories about the wildlife there.

The Crow

There used to be a crow that sat on top of the light pole by the footbridge that crossed the river between the single quarters and the dining room. Every morning at dawn, and without fail, it would start crowing its monotonous “caawww” sound. If you were on night shift then it was sure to wake you up. We used to run down and throw rocks at it, but it would return within a few minutes and continue its raucous crowing. It would do this for hours on end and I’m sure it did this just to p--- us off. It disappeared by lunch time and we never did know where it went.

After I got my rifle, I started taking pot shots at the thing from my bedroom window, which would have been about 100 metres distant. I wouldn’t use telescopic sights, so only had open sights on the rifle and even though a crow is pretty big, it’s a damn small target at 90-100 metres, so I don’t think I even got close. It was too damn smart to let me get any closer and seemed to get a thrill from flying away whenever anyone approached and then returning a few minutes later to continue his noise. This carried on for a few weeks, and I must have blasted off 20 rounds at the thing and still hadn’t hit it.

One long weekend morning we were all sitting around the pool and lo and behold the crow flies back to its perch on the pole.
“I’m going to get that bastard,” I muttered as I ran to my room to get my rifle. The pool was about 120 to 130 metres away from the bridge, and I could barely see the crow.

“You’ll never hit it from here,” someone said.

“Watch me,” I replied as I loaded a cartridge into the chamber.

I leant against a fence post and lined up on the crow. The front sight covered the bird and I couldn’t even see him. I aimed as best as I could and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

There was a thud a split second later, and everyone watched in amazement as the crow slowly tumbled to the ground.

We walked over to where the crow lay. Its head was missing – it was a perfect head shot.

“I aimed for its head you know,” I said boldly.

“Bulls---. You could barely see the f------ thing.”

“Well I was aiming where I imagined the head would be.”

“Crap.”

“In your f------ dreams.”

It must have been the unluckiest crow in the whole of Africa. I buried it in the riverbed. We had peace after that.