...the one minute that we stood there staring at each other indeed seemed like eternity...very long...perhaps in the minds of the afandes and comrades the ringing tone was one-wrong-step-and-we-are-dead-men...both the groups knew far too well that if one had to survive the night one had either to overpower or outrun the opponent...either way some skulls would have to be cracked and some bones broken if a winner had to be determined and remain standing...both groups stayed mean but the contingent of afandes looked meaner and there was no telling what their next cause of action was going to be...the stiff motionless dark silhouettes stood there very confidently with their batons on their shoulders on the ready and if we read them well the comrades were not being viewed by the afandes as humans but rather like snakes with soft heads to be crashed at the blow of the whistle...the comrades being as brave as we thought stood still evaluating and analysing each and every twitch of the unseen muscles in the afandes and at the same time looking for any unusual head signal that would usher in the violence..non seemed to be coming...there was no taking chances and any aggression would have to be countered with the severity that it deserved....as it stood the tension was running high enough and all that was required was a command and the thoroughfare would begin....
The command came...not from the comrades but the afandes...an order had been issued and without wasting any more time the contingent of afandes came charging like a hard of buffaloes and the battle began...we raised the alarm to warn our colleagues at the drill grounds and any other place....at first it was really tough for the comrades noting that we had no “weapons”.... our main concern therefore was to disarm these afandes and use their weapons ...we were actually accumulating casualties pretty fast and as the comrades became more and more weaker the afandes became more and more stronger...but we still held on and fought harder...we would not relent after all we needed to see the following day whether half dead or totally incapacitated...
The conflict must have been on for about 30 minutes when we started reversing the gains by the afandes albeit slowly...this gave us more motivation and revamped our previously rapidly diminishing energies...the battle ranged on...both sides were having fairly heavy casualties who lay scattered all over in the battle ground groaning in pain...it was about 12.00am in the morning as we continued our fight we noted that the afandes had started retreating actually faster than we thought they would do...we struck harder as the afandes were by this time weak and vulnerable...the situation eventually melted down to a group chasing the other and the afandes scuttled out of the area for their own safety in different directions...at least we felt that we had acquired some victory which we so desperately deserved...some of the comrades were left to attend to the injured colleagues while the rest of them advanced towards the parade grounds to join the others...
Elsewhere in the drill grounds the scenario ran similarly and we got the afandes out of the scene...the group from the cells ground eventually linked up with the group in the drill grounds...by this time the screams from the females barracks had subsided and what remained in the air was the shouts from the comrades combatants...there was peace...this is what we had yearned for since the previous evening when the conflict started...we were starving and exhausted...it was very cold and the frost was biting...the temperature must have been anywhere between 5 to 100C and very few comrades got time to grab sweaters or jackets before things fell apart....
It must have been about 1.00a.m in the morning when all of a sudden the screaming started again from the ladies barracks...we started off towards that direction, but wait...we had some comrades whom we had sent there and the number must have been big enough to protect the ladies...they had not joined us in the parade grounds and there had been no word from any of them either...we were also expecting that by now there should have been a large number of females who would have chosen to stay close to the male counterparts for their own safety...apparently there was only a handful...something was wrong...something was not going right... as we cleared the drill grounds on our match towards the female barracks we had to entered a treed field with scattered shelters stretching about 150m to get to the desired destination...the area was very dark as the lit areas were relatively far....although the moon was full this time it only managed some scattered pockets and shafts of light underneath the tree canopies, but on average it would not have helped much...as we matched to just near the middle of the field, hardly did we know that the darkness could be our best friend or the worst enemy...in our case it turned out to be the latter as this is the time that the most sickening and deadliest attack came....
...besides, the presence of a safe alone does not signify that there is money inside...