He knew he couldn't last in the camp. Already he was thin and weak. His only hope was escape.
He didn't say anything to the others. Best to stay solo. He watched the guards. Identified the hard drinkers and there were a couple. He had certain advantages. Some knowledge of the terrain. The cultures of the people. The snakes. The stinging insects.
He cut the wire late one night when the guards had ceased their singing, and he probed his way across the mine field more by luck than judgment. He stole a bicycle from the barracks and slipped off into the screaming jungle dark. There was a tool kit hanging from the back of the saddle and a hand pump was bracketed to the frame. He had his diary and a pencil. He was all set.
Just before dawn he smelled a village. Krat. The Krat would kill him in an instant. He spent the day hiding out, killing centipedes before they killed him.
He must have seen the orchid a dozen times before he really noticed it. Small and pale in the dark green vegetation. He wrote a brief notation and did his best to preserve the flower between two pages. Unclassified, he was certain.
He traveled at night, heading, he hoped, for the Indian border. He was so hungry that the tape worm he looked on as a companion was leaving him in long sections.
The soldiers saw him before he saw them, but for some reason they were not inclined to fire their guns.
Perhaps that was a hopeful sign. That friendly forces were near. Or perhaps they were out of ammunition. He melted away from them and they did not follow long.
When it was all over, when he and twenty seven newly classified orchids were safe in Canada and the war was over, he was back to teaching biology to bored teenagers.
A fussy little man in mis-matched socks. The other teachers liked to make fun of his speech impediment.