For a man with military experience, John made a major tactical mistake walking along a road when the goal was to be inconspicuous. Even so, he should have been able to hide the group from the large gang on motorcycles which certainly made enough noise to warn John before they were within line-of-sight. All the hikers would have had to do was lie down behind the stone wall along the road. Instead, they wind up in a costly gunfight. Stupid.