blokes at the back had  got  their weapons  up. Legs  had  his 203
across him with the barrel resting on my lap.
     "If he comes up and puts his head through, as soon as he  ID's us, I'll
slot him," he said.
     All I needed  to do  was keep my  head out  of the way. Legs would just
bring the barrel up and do the business. - "We'll  take the  other two," Bob
said.
     I leaned forward to hide Legs's weapon.
     The jundie got to the vehicle in front  of us. He  leaned down to speak
to the driver, laughing and gob bing off,  not a care in the world. He waved
his hands as he spoke, probably moaning about  the  weather. With our Arabic
we wouldn't have much to talk about when he  got to our car. I could ask him
the way to the market, but that was about it.
     He said his goodbyes  to the vehicle in front and sauntered towards our
cab. I leant forward and fiddled with the dashboard controls.
     He did one tap on the window. I  put my head right back and in the same
motion  pushed  my  legs  out  and  pressed  my  body against the  seat. The
squaddy's face was pressed expectantly against the window. Legs  lifted  the
barrel  of  the  203.  One round was all it took. There  was an explosion of
shattered glass, and the car doors flew open. We were out and running before
the body had even hit the ground.
     The two other  squad dies started  running  for  cover, but the Minimis
took them  down before  they'd taken  half a dozen paces.  The civvies  were
straight down into the foot wells of their vehicles and quite rightly so.
     We ran at right angles to the column of cars until we came into line of
sight of the VCP and were  illuminated by  the spill from  headlights.  They
opened  up, and we returned a massive amount of rounds. They  must have been
wondering  what the  hell was going  on. All they would  have heard was  one
round,  then  a couple  of  short  bursts, followed  by the  sight  of  five
dickheads in shamags legging it into the desert.
     The first people over the road put covering fire down on the VCP  until
the others got across. Once there, we all moved. The whole contact lasted no
more than thirty seconds.
     We ran south for several more minutes.  I  stopped and shouted, "On me!
On me! On me!"
     Heads dashed past me,  and I put my hand on them and  counted one, two,
three, four.
     "Everybody's here. Okay, let's go!"
     We ran and  ran,  making the best of  the confusion we'd created behind
us. To my right, I heard the sound of Dinger laughing as  he ran, and before
long  we'd all  joined in. It was  sheer  bloody  relief.  None of us  could
believe we'd got out of it.
     We headed west. From Mark's last  fix on the Magel lan we  estimated we
had  maybe  8  miles  to  the  border.  Eight miles  in  over nine  hours of
darkness--a piece of cake. All we had to do was take our time and make  sure
we got  there tonight.  There  was no way a group this big could  lie up the
next day.
     We  came  to an  inhabited area. There  were pylons, old cars,  rubbish
tips,  dogs  howling, the lights of  a  house. Sometimes we had  to get over
fences. There were vehicle headlights on roads. Behind us in the area of the
VCP  there  was  still  an  incredible  amount  of noise.  People were still
hollering, and  there  were  sporadic  bursts of  small-arms  fire.  Tracked
vehicles screamed up and down the road. It was just a race now, a  matter of
the hares keeping in front of the hounds.
     The  moon started to come  out. A  full moon, in the  west. It couldn't
have been worse. The  only  good thing was that we, too,  could see more and
move faster.
     We  landed up paralleling  another road. We couldn't avoid it. We had a
built-up area to our left and the road to our right. We didn't have  time to
fart-arse around. We were going for it big style. We had to hit  the  border
before their initial confusion died down and reinforcements arrived.
     Every  time a car came from either direction we had  to take cover.  We
were  climbing fences, avoiding dogs, avoiding buildings.  There were houses
everywhere  now, lights on,  generators  going.  We  picked our way  through
without incident.
     Vehicles  started  to  move   along  the  road  without  their  lights,
presumably hoping to  catch us out.  There was still shooting way off in the
distance. In our desert camouflage, against an almost European background of
plantations and lush arable land, we glowed like ghosts in the moonlight.
     We were spotted from the road. Three or four  vehicles  came  screaming
along, and blokes jumped out firing. We were down to a few mags each by now,
and there was bound to be  lots more drama before the night was over. All we
could do was run.  There was no cover.  They kept  on firing and we  kept on
running, the rounds zinging past us and into the built-up area.
     We sprinted for  1,200  feet.  We  passed  through  little clusters  of
houses, expecting at  any moment to be slotted by people coming out, but the
local population kept themselves to  themselves, bless their cotton socks. I
was sweating  buckets, panting for breath. Adrenaline  gets hold of you  and
you clock Olympic times, but you can't sustain it. Then the firing sparks up
again and you find a bit more.
     We  started to move over a crest. We looked down on the  lights of  Abu
Kamal and Krabilah, the two built-up areas that straddled the border. It was
just a sea  of light, as if we'd run on to the film set of Close Encounters.
And there were  the  masts, the taller  one on the  Iraqi side.  The boys in
pursuit kept firing.
     "Fucking  hell," Bob shouted,  "look at this, this is  good news! We're
nearly there!"
     Like  a prat,  I said  "Shut  the  fuck  up!"  as  if he  was a naughty
schoolboy. I regretted  it as soon  as I said it. I was thinking exactly the
same  thing  myself. Those  lights, Abu Kamal, that  tower--they  weren't in
Iraq, they were in Syria. I  could almost taste the place.  I was as sparked
up as Bob was.
     We  ran over the  crest. But the  moment we came  down from  the higher
ground we were sky lined to some boys stationed below. They turned out to be
antiaircraft battery. They greeted us with small-arms fire, and then  opened
up  with  triple  A.  We ducked  north  to get  across the  road, committing
ourselves  to going through the built-up  area  that lay between  us and the
river. Vehicles were revving up near the AAA battery, and to top it all some
jets screamed over. They must have been ours because the S60s diverted their
fire. In the chaos we slipped away.
     There  was firing  left, right,  and behind us, but we just kept going,
heads down. Heavy tracer went  up vertical, then horizontal where the Iraqis
were just  firing at  anything  that was  moving. It was outrageous  of them
because  there were  civilian buildings all about. We were  deafened by  AAA
gunfire. We had to scream our instructions and warnings to each other.
     We got up to  a  road, made a quick check,  and were straight over.  We
stopped  on the  other side and took a deep breath  to sort  ourselves  out.
Going  into a built up area is a totally different ballgame;  it's something
you always try to avoid, but we had no choice. There was a plantation to the
right, but it was protected by a high fence.
     There  was about 900-1,200 feet meters of habitation to get through,  a
big amalgamation of houses with perimeter walls. Two-inch plastic irrigation
pipes ran along the ground from the houses to the plantation. We moved down,
trying  to use the  shadows as much as  possible, walking  with  our weapons
facing  out, safety  catches  off,  fingers on  the trigger. We were  moving
north, and the moon was in the west. I was in front. If anybody appeared I'd
give it to him with my 203, and Mark would come out  two  or three steps and
give it a burst with  his Minimi. Then we'd withdraw around the first corner
and  reorganize ourselves,  or  move forward,  depending on what we had been
firing at.
     People were shouting their  heads off in the houses,  lights were going
off, doors being slammed. We walked: we couldn't be arsed to run. If  it was
going to happen there was nothing we were going to achieve by running.
     From  the end  of the buildings  there  were  pathways and  large pipes
running  down  to  the Euphrates about 450 feet away.  Diesel pumps chugged.
There was mud and shit all over the place which had iced over.  We got  into
the corner of a plantation for a bit of cover and stopped.
     The first priority  was to fill up our  water  bottles. Two of the lads
went down to the river's edge while Mark got a fix on the Magellan. "Exactly
lOKs from the border' he whispered.
     All  the  chaos was  over the other side of the road.  Tracked vehicles
were maneuvering and firing,  and the AAA guns were  still pumping away.  In
the  middle and far distance there were bursts of small-arms fire. They must
have  been  shooting at dogs and  anything else  that moved--including  each
other. We were almost past caring. There were six miles to go,  and we would
have to fight for every mile.
     We sat with our backs against the trees, watching the two  lads filling
the bottles.
     "Ten Ks,"  Dinger  said.  "Fucking  hell,  we  could run that in thirty
minutes."
     "Pity about the full moon," Bob said.
     "And the desert camouflage,"  Dinger said. "And the fact that every man
and his dog is out looking for us."
     When  Mark  and  Legs  came back  with our  bottles  we  considered the
options.  There seemed  to be four. We could cross  the river; move  east to
avoid the  border  and attempt to cross on the following night;  keep  going
west; or split up and try any of the three as individuals.
     The  river was  a  fearsome sight. It must have  been about  1,600 feet
across, and after the torrential rainfall it was in full flood, flowing fast
and  furious. The water would be freezing.  We were weakened by the long tab
and lack of sleep, food, and  water. We  couldn't see any  boats, but  if we
found one it would become an option. That left swimming,  and I doubted we'd
last more  than  ten minutes. And who  was  to  say there wouldn't be troops
waiting on the other side?
     We ruled out moving east  because there was too much  habitation for us
to  conceal ourselves in  daylight. Moving west seemed the best option: they
knew we were in the area, so why not just keep going? But should we do it as
a patrol or as individuals? Going  it alone would certainly create five lots
of chaos for our pursuers, but at the end of the day we were a patrol.
     "We'll go  west  as a  patrol  and cross  the  border tonight," I said.
"There must be some follow-up in the morning."
     It was about 2200 and bitterly  cold. Everybody was  shivering. We  had
been sweating and the adrenaline had been flowing.  In these conditions your
body starts to seize up as soon as you take a rest.
     Looking west along the Euphrates, we saw headlights crossing a bridge a
mile or so down. There  wasn't  a lot  we could  do. We  couldn't waste time
boxing  around it.  It was  too late for anything fancy  like that. We would
have to take our chances.
     "Let's just take  our  time and  patrol," Bob said.  "We've  got enough
time."
     The natural  water courses  ran  into the Euphrates.  Normally we would
have kept to  the high ground. It's easier to travel along, which saves time
and  makes less  noise  and  movement.  We  were cross-graining them to stay
parallel to the river,  but not  so close to  the water that we left sign in
the mud.
     The  ground  was frozen mud and slush.  Barbed wire fences cordoned off
bits of  land. We encountered small, rickety outbuildings,  knolls  of  high
ground, trees, old bottles that we tripped over, bits of frozen plastic that
crushed noisily underfoot. It could have been wasteland in Northern Ireland.
     The wind had stopped. The slightest sound traveled hundreds of feet. We
were  patrolling into the moon, our  breath  forming clouds in  the freezing
air.  We took our  time,  stopping  and starting  every  five  minutes. Dogs
barked. When  we came to a building, somebody would  go  up and  check; then
we'd skirt around.  When we came to a fence, the first man would test to see
if it was going to make a noise; then he'd put his weapon on it to force the
wire down and make it good and tense, and he'd keep it there while everybody
stepped over.
     We had  to go  round a three-sided hut. The  owner  was snoring  by the
embers  of a fire  but didn't stir as  we tiptoed past. Forward  of us was a
road. If we looked to the left there was the road that ran into the frontier
town of  Krabilah.  Lights  were  going  on  and off in  buildings.  Tracked
vehicles trundled backwards and forwards, but far  enough away not  to worry
us. There was still the odd shot  or  burst behind us. We'd  been patrolling
for  about  2  miles.  Four to go. It wasn't even  midnight  yet.  Hours  of
darkness lay ahead. I was feeling quite good.
     We followed the line of a hedgerow, then cut across left into a natural
drainage ditch. It ran into a steep wadi, which in  turn  seemed to run into
the  Euphrates. The wadi was about 150-160  feet wide and 80 feet deep. Both
sides were more or less sheer. The bottom was virtually flat, with a trickle
of  a stream. We couldn't  box around  it because we didn't know  how far it
went. It might have headed south, and  there were roads to our south that we
wanted to avoid. I then noticed that it went round to the  west, which would
be great. We could use the shadow that it created for as long as we could.
     As I got to the edge of the wadi, I crawled over the lip to have a look
inside. Mark was behind me. I  started to move down, and  as  I did so,  the
horizon on the opposite side of the wadi  was a lot easier to see. The first
thing I saw on the skyline was the silhouette of a sentry.
     He was walking up  and  down, stamping his feet  and  blowing into  his
cupped hands to  keep warm. I looked around him, and I couldn't believe what
I saw. It was a vast  location--tents, buildings, vehicles, radio  antennas.
As my eyes focused, I started to notice people  coming out of the  tents.  I
heard bits of talking.
     They  had their  backs to the moon,  looking in our direction. I didn't
move.
     It was fifteen minutes  before I could make my way back to Mark. I knew
he would have seen the same as I had because he hadn't come to  join me. He,
too, was lying as  still as a stone. This  was scary stuff. We were terribly
exposed.
     I got back level with Mark. "Have you seen it?"
     "Yes, this is outrageous,"  he said. "We need  to get back and sort our
shit out."
     "No drama."
     We'd crawl back to the others to regroup. From there we'd make  our way
back to the hedgerow, sort  ourselves out, and  find another route round. We
had gone 100 feet to get out of  the immediate area when we got up to a semi
crouch position in the ditch.
     Jittery shouting and firing happened at the same time. All hell was let
loose. Mark  was down  with the Minimi and stitched all along the hedgerows,
wherever he saw muzzle flashes. The location on  the  other side of the wadi
opened up. I was severely unimpressed because they were on higher ground.
     I  used  the last of my  203  bombs;  then  it  was  time to  run  away
gracefully.  I wanted to get  back to the riverbank because it would give us
cover. There was shouting and firing all over the place as we legged it. The
rest of the  patrol was having contacts. There was major  chaos going on all
around the hedgerow. I assumed that  Bob and the  others  were in a group of
three. The  Iraqis  on  the  other  side  of  the wadi  were  firing  in all
directions. I heard 203 bombs, which had to  be Legs because Dinger  and Bob
both  had Minimis.  It  was  very noisy.  Everybody was involved in his  own
little world. I realized with a sinking heart that there was no chance of us
getting together again. We were split now into another two groups, with only
miles to go. What a pisser. I really thought we'd cracked it.
     Mark and I were on the bank of the Euphrates, trying  to  make sense of
what was  happening.  The  waterline was 30-50  feet below  the line  of the
ploughed land that we'd just come over, and in between lay a system of small
plateaus. We were on the first one, in amongst the bushes.
     We could hear the follow-ups from the opposite bank, working towards us
with  torches and shouting  to one another. There  was intermittent, nervous
enemy  fire  from  our side of the  wadi, then contacts to our left and half
left  involving  203s and  Minimis.  Tracer  was going  horizontal and  then
vertical as it hit rocks and buildings.
     We  stuck our  heads  up like a couple of ferrets and looked around. It
was hard to know what to  do and where to go--whether to  cross the river or
go through the positions and risk getting killed or captured.
     "No way the river," I whispered into Mark's ear.
     I wasn't  brave  enough  for  that,  so  we decided to  go through  the
positions. But when? There was  so  much confusion,  it was difficult to say
what was a good opportunity and what wasn't.
     "Fuck it," Mark whispered, "we're in the shit, so what does it matter?"
     If we  got out,  all well and good, but  if we didn't, so what--I  just
hoped that it would be nice  and quick.  I  was feeling  quite dispassionate
about the whole business.
     We  checked our stocks of  ammunition. I had about one and a half mags;
Mark had a hundred link  for the Minimi. It was such  a ridiculous situation
we were in, with  contacts and shouting and  tracer  all over the place, and
there's us sitting in a bush trying to organize ourselves  and look over the
other side of the bank  at the  same time. My hands were freezing  cold. The
grass and leaves were brittle with frost. The river was shrouded with mist.
     I looked at Mark and nearly laughed. He was wearing a long woolen scarf
known as  a cap comforter that can be folded  into itself to make what looks
like a Second World War commando hat. Mark had failed to tuck the top of his
hat in, and he looked like Noddy. He was peering through the  bushes  with a
serious expression on his face and he looked so comical.
     "If we don't go now, mate, we never will," he said.
     I nodded.
     Still looking  out as he spoke, he dug in his pocket for a boiled sweet
and popped it into his mouth.
     "It's my last one. I might as well have it now: it might be my last one
ever."
     All of mine had gone. I looked at him longingly.
     "You ain't got none left, have you?" he smirked.
     "No, fuck all left."
     I looked at him like a puppy dog.
     He took the sweet out of his mouth, bit it, and gave me half.
     We lay there savoring the moment and psyching ourselves up to go.
     In the  end the decision  was made  for  us. Four Iraqis came along the
bank, and  they appeared  to be well trained and switched on.  There  was no
shouting, and they were well spread out. They looked nervous though, as  you
do when you know there are people about who might fire weapons at you. If we
moved they would see us. I signaled to Mark:  if they don't see us, let them
go on; if they do, they get it. But they got so close  there was no way they
were going to avoid us,so we dropped them.
     Now we had to go, whether it was the right time or not. We legged it up
the  ploughed  field, parallel to the  river.  Further  up to the  right  we
started to come  over a gentle rise where the ground went down to the water.
There was movement, and we went straight down.
     The furrows were running north-south so we were in the dips. We started
to belly  crawl and  worked our way the  whole length  up  to the  hedgerow.
Orders were being barked, and squads were running around confused. They were
no more than 80 feet away. We crawled for twenty minutes. The ground was icy
cold, and it hurt to put your hands on the  mud and pull yourself along.  My
clothing was drenched. Tiny puddles of water had frozen, and as we moved the
ice cracked.  The sound was magnified a thousand times in my  head. Even the
noise  of my  breathing sounded frighteningly  loud.  I  just wanted  to get
through this shit and get to  the treeline,  and then it  would be a totally
different, brave new world.
     There was still firing, shouting" and all sorts of  confusion going on.
How we were ever going to get  out of it I  had no idea. In situations  like
this you just have to keep on going and see what happens. It was so tempting
just to get up and make a bolt for it.
     The  Iraqis  were  still  down  at  the bottom  of the field.  Maybe--I
hoped--they thought we'd gone further down the riverbed, heading east to get
to the other lot. I didn't actually care what they were thinking, as long as
they did it a good  distance away. The one and only thought I had in my mind
was that we needed to get over the border that night.
     We got to the  hedgerow.  It  was a purpose-built field division, small
trees and bushes growing out of  a two foot mound of earth. Our initial plan
was to cross  the  hedgerow  that was running east-west, purely  so  that we
didn't  have  to cross  the south-north one as well. We heard  noises to our
right. Mark  had a look. It  was more enemy, behind the hedgerow. And beyond
that,  further south,  there  was  yelling and shouting  and  a profusion of
lights. Mark signaled me to stay this side of the hedgerow and move left.
     We crawled  along the line to get to the hedge that ran north-south. We
tried to find a place where we could get through without making any noise. I
started pushing through. My  head emerged the other  side, and I immediately
got challenged.
     As the boy shouted, Mark gave him the good news. His body disintegrated
in front of my eyes. Mark gave it a severe stitching all the way along--from
where we were, all the way along west. I scrambled out of the hedge line and
carried on the fire while Mark came  through. We moved  east,  stopped,  put
down a quick burst, ran, gave it another quick burst, and  then just ran and
ran.
     There was high ground to our front. Below it were buildings with lights
on  and  movement. We  didn't want to cross the  open  ground, so  we had no
option but to  use the obvious cover of a ditch. I had no idea what we'd got
ahead of us.
     The  fence line  was above us. Because the fields  were  irrigated, the
roads and buildings were on built-up land  to keep them above the waterline.
We got into a little dip below the fence and moved south.
     We started  to  slow down now that  we seemed  to  be out  of immediate
trouble.  We  took  the 6-foot chain  link  fence to  be the perimeter of  a
military installation. We got halfway along and stopped. We'd seen a road to
our front, running east-west. Vehicles were driving up and down, fully  lit.
Other vehicles drove with their lights off.
     There had to  be a  definite junction  to the east  of us. We could see
vehicle lights heading up there and changing direction. There was a  mass of
activity.  Every  man  and his  dog seemed  to be on  alert. They must  have
thought the Israelis had turned up or the Syrians were invading. All I hoped
was that  in all  this confusion a little gang of  two and a little  gang of
three could work their way through.
     We found  ourselves opposite a large mosque  on the  other  side of the
fence. We stopped and observed the road. Closer now, we  could see  vehicles
parked up along the side of the  road as headlights swept past. Trucks, Land
Cruisers, APCs. Where  there are  vehicles there are people.  We could  hear
talking and the mush of radios. I couldn't tell how far the column extended,
east or west. From the  initial contact on the edge of the wadi  to here had
taken three hours. With only two  and a half hours of  darkness  left  I was
flapping. We'd have to  take a chance.  There  was no time left  for  boxing
around.
     We were lying in the dip, wet and freezing, trying to work out where we
were going to go through the fence. Both of us were sweating and  shivering.
We were almost out of ammunition. We  waited  for lights to pass so we could
get  an idea  of where  all  the vehicles  were sited. We would cross in the
biggest gap.
     Two  of  the trucks  were about 50 feet apart.  If we could get through
unchallenged,  the  border  beckoned.  We'd  just have to  brass  it out. We
started across the field, taking our time. Each time a vehicle passed we hit
the ground. It was important to get as near to the parked convoy as we could
before we made our dash. All we  planned to do was run through them. Neither
of us had a clue what was on the other side, but  we didn't care--we'd  sort
that out when we came to it.
     The vehicles were 3 feet above us on the raised road. At the top of the
bank, we discovered, was a three strand barbed wire fence, 3 feet high. We'd
have  to  get over it  before  we could  even  start  to  dodge  between the
vehicles.
     The  gap was  between two canvas-topped trucks. In one of them a  radio
hissed loudly.  We  were going  to  have  to climb the  mound, and would  be
committed from the moment we started moving.
     I clambered over the fence and got down to give Mark  cover. He cleared
the fence,  but the wire twanged as he  removed his weight. A jundie started
jabbering  and  stuck his  head out  of  a  truck window. He got it  from me
straightaway.  I ran to the back. The  tailboard was up, but there  were two
slots at floor  level which would have served as footholds when it was down.
I  put my muzzle through and gave it a good burst. Mark went straight across
the road and was down on the other side of the  mound, firing  along what to
him  was  the right-hand  side of  the convoy. I didn't  know if  the  other
vehicle had  characters aboard, so I  threw in a grenade and legged it  over
the road to  Mark. We fired until we ran out of ammunition, which was all of
five  seconds. We dropped our weapons and  legged it. They  were no use now.
The Iraqis used 7.62 short, and we needed 5.56. Now the only  weapon we  had
left was darkness.
     We must  have put down enough rounds to get  them flapping because they
didn't  follow immediately. We  ran for  900  feet.  The sounds of screaming
filled the night.
     We stopped near a water  tower.  It wasn't that  long now  before first
light. Looking straight ahead, we could see the  road that we'd just crossed
to our right hand side, the mast on the  Iraqi  side,  and another road that
we'd have to cross to go west.
     We looked at one another and I said, "Right, let's do it."
     We scuttled on across the fields and stopped short of what we could see
was  a large depression. On the other side was  a built-up area,  unlit. The
right-hand corner, the end of it, was more or less at a road junction.
     The  depression  must have been used  as  a rubbish dump.  Small  fires
smoldered in the darkness.  We went  down into the dip and stumbled over old
tins  and tires.  The stench of rotting garbage was overpowering. We started
to come back up the other side. About halfway up the rise we were opened  up
on by two AKs, from really close range. We hit the ground and I went right.
     I ran for  what I  thought was enough distance to get me level with the
junction, then  turned  left.  I wanted to get over  the road and  carry  on
running. I ran  around the side of a  mound and  thought I could get  up the
other side, but  what  I'd come into was a  large water storage  area. There
were two big pools, oily and greasy. I was flapping, running around like the
cornered rat that I was,  trying to find a way out. The  sides were sheer. I
couldn't get up. I had to retrace my steps. I wasn't even looking now, I was
just running.  If they  were behind me, knowing  about it  wasn't  going  to
change anything.
     I  got  out of the  immediate area  and  stopped at the road.  My chest
heaved as I fought for breath. Fuck it, I thought, just go for it.
     I got past the buildings. I was elated. I felt I'd cracked it. Just the
border  now. I didn't worry about  Mark. I'd seen him go down. I didn't hear
anything after that, and  he didn't  come with  me. He was dead. At least it
had been quick.

        8

     I  felt it was all behind me. All I had in front of  me was a quick tab
to the border. The mud built up around my boots. It was heavy going. My legs
were burning. Physically I was wrecked. I stopped to get some  scoff down my
neck. It felt good. I drank some  water  and forced  myself to calm down and
take stock. Navigation was easy enough. The mast was right ahead of me. As I
walked I tried to work out what had happened during the  contacts. But there
had been total confusion,  and I couldn't make sense  of it. There was still
firing behind me.
     It was the early hours of the 27th, and I had about 2-3 miles to go. In
normal circumstances  I could run that in  less  than twenty minutes with my
equipment on. But there was no point just running blindly towards Syria with
only an  hour of  darkness  left. I didn't know what the border crossing was
like physically--if  it  was a  fence  or  a high berm,  if  it was  heavily
defended or not  defended  at all. And even if  I did get  into Syria during
daylight hours, what sort of reception could I expect?
     I was about a half mile south of the Euphrates and a half mile north of
a town. The area was irrigated by diesel pumps at intervals along the river.
The field crops were about  eighteen inches high. I had kept off  the tracks
and moved through the center of the fields, putting my feet down on the root
mounds of the plants. Even so, I knew I couldn't avoid leaving sign. My hope
was that no one would be out in the fields the next day, tending what, apart
from the frost, seemed to be a healthy young crop.
     I was  feeling very positive. I'd survived the contacts,  and that  was
all that seemed to matter. The last contact was  like a big barrier that I'd
got over and got away from, and now I was a free spirit.
     In many  ways this was the most dangerous time.  Probably since caveman
times, people have been  cautious  when they  plan an  operation, aggressive
when they execute it, and most open to error when it's finished and  they're
on  the  home straight. That's when people start to get  slack and the major
dramas occur. It's not over yet, I kept saying  to myself--it's  so near but
also it's so bloody far.
     Adrenaline during  the contacts  and the constant roller coaster of the
night's  events  had  blocked  the  pain  signals from reaching my  brain. A
soldier  of the Black  Watch during the First World War was shot four  times
and  still kept charging forwards. When he finally took the position and had
time to assess  his injuries, he  keeled over. You don't realize what's been
happening to your body because your mind blanks  it out. Now I'd calmed down
a  bit  and  the future  was looking  rosy, I was  starting to  realize  how
physically impaired I  was. All  the aches and pains of the last  couple  of
days suddenly started coming  through. I  was covered with cuts and bruises.
In contacts you're jumping and leaping around, and your body's taking knocks
all  the  time.  You  don't  notice  them  at  the  time.  There  were  deep
pressure-cuts on my hands, knees,  and elbows, and  painful  bruising on the
sides of both my  legs. I had scratches and scrapes from  thorn  bushes  and
gashes from wire; the sting of them  added to the ambient  pain level.  We'd
tabbed close to 125 miles  over  hard bedrock and shale, and the leather was
starting to fall  off my boots. My feet were in a bad way. They were soaking
wet and felt like blocks of ice. I  just about had some sensation left in my
toes. My clothing was ripped and torn, and my hands  were covered with thick
grease and grime, as if I'd been working on an engine for the last couple of
days. My body was covered in mud, and as I walked along it was slowly drying
out. Trickles of sweat  fell down my  back, and  big  clammy  patches formed
between my legs and under my  armpits. My extremities  were frozen,  but  at
least my trunk was warm because I was moving.
     It was  still very  cold. The mud had a film  of ice  over the top. The
first  foot  or  so  of any large pool  of water was frozen solid. It  was a
beautiful crystal night. The stars were glittering, and had it been anywhere
else in the world, you'd have gone out and marveled at it. But the clearness
of the sky meant there were no clouds to obscure the full moon in  the west,
and no wind to disperse the noise.
     Scattered here and  there  were little outhouses, some with a light on,
some with a generator going. I could see lights  from the town to the south.
Dogs  barked; I  skirted  around buildings,  hoping  that  nobody would  pay
attention to them.
     Car  lights  in  the  distance  made  me flap.  Were  they part of  the
follow-up? Were they going to start searching  the  fields now? It wasn't  a
very good place for  me to  be.  There  was only half an  hour  of  darkness
left-not enough for me to get around the town or even go straight through it
and get into the curls on the other side.
     As the lights gradually faded I made a quick appreciation. Like the old
Clash song, should I go  or should I stay? Did I hide up or did I go for the
border and try to get over before first  light? What were the chances of the
Iraqis  following up  during  the  day?  There  certainly  hadn't  been  any
follow-up so far.  Perhaps they  thought I'd already crossed the border  and
was away.
     The houses  looked so  inviting. Should I get  into one of these  small
buildings where you've just got the old boy and his fire and stay there with
him  for the day? I'd have shelter, and the possibility of  food  and  water
--and in theory  a better  chance  of being  concealed.  But  you  never use
isolated  or obvious  cover. It's a natural draw point for any hunter force.
In films  you see  all these characters living in hay barns.  It's  pure and
utter fantasy. If you're there they'll find you. None of this hiding under a
straw bale business, just narrowly being missed by a probing bayonet.
     My  best  chance  was in  the open  but  concealed, preferably from the
ground and air.  I had  to assume the worst scenario,  which  was  that  the
Iraqis would have spotter  aircraft up.  I found a drainage  ditch  that was
about 3 feet  wide and  18  inches deep,  with water coursing through  under
gravity.  I got in and moved along, pleased not to  be leaving  sign  in the
muddy water. The water was moving from east to west, my direction of travel.
     I looked at my watch, checking off the minutes till daybreak. I stopped
every  few feet  and looked  around, listening,  planning the next movement,
planning my actions on: What if the enemy moved in from the front? What if I
had  a  contact from the  left? I remembered  the ground  I'd been over  and
planned the best escape route in each contingency.
     After 900 or 1,200 feet I saw a dark shape ahead. It was either a small
dam or.  a natural culvert. When  I got closer, I saw  that  a track running
north-south from  the Euphrates to the  built-up area had a steel plate over
it as a makeshift bridge, the sort of thing you see at roadworks in  the UK.
It was  just coming up to first light. I had to make a decision. I  could go
further along the ditch and  hope to find something better,  or I could just
stay put. On balance, I thought I was better off where I was.
     The  only problem with the culvert was that  when you look at things in
the dark and  under pressure, they can look pretty good, but  in the daytime
the picture  can be totally different. You have to be so careful choosing an
LUP at night in an area that is virgin to you. When I  was  in the battalion
at Tidworth we  had mirror image  barracks,  the  Green  Jackets in one, the
Light Infantry in the other. One night, I came back from town with a  bag of
chips and curry sauce, pissed as a fart. I stumbled into my room, dropped my
trousers, and got into bed. Sitting up eating my chips with my head spinning
and the bedside light on, I couldn't understand it when a bloke called  out,
"Turn  the light off, Geordie." I looked up  and saw a  Debbie Harry poster,
and I didn't like Debbie  Harry. "Who the fuck's  that over there then?" the
voice demanded, but  by then I had realized what I'd done.  I  abandoned  my
chips, grabbed  my trousers,  and ran  for  my life from the  Light Infantry
barracks.
     I belly crawled under the steel span. The culvert wasn't as deep as the
drainage ditch itself because it hadn't  been cleared, but  the prospect  of
resting my limbs far outweighed the discomfort of lying in the cold mud.
     I retrieved the map cover from the pocket on my leg and tried to use it
as some  sort  of insulation, but  to no avail. My mind  strayed to food.  I
might  be needing it  later  on, but then again I might be captured. It  was
better to get it down my neck than to  have  it taken away. I pulled my last
sachet--steak and onions-from the pouch on my belt kit and ripped it open. I
ate with my fingers and stuck  my tongue into the recesses for  the  last of
the cold, slimy  gunge. For pudding, I put my lips to the level of the water
and sucked up a few mouthfuls. I got the map on top of me, ready  to look at
when there was enough light, and just lay back and waited.
     As dark  turned to  light, I heard trucks  in the distance and isolated
bits of hollering  and shouting, but nothing near enough  to cause alarm. It
was  almost  peaceful.  I  started  to  shiver,  and  the  trembling  became
uncontrollable. My teeth chattered. I  took a  deep breath and tensed all my
muscles as tightly as I could. I stayed like that for two hours.
     I had my fighting knife  in my hand  and my  watch out on my chest so I
didn't  have  to  keep  moving  my  hands. I  studied  the  map to  make  an
appreciation of where I was. If I had to leg it  the last thing I wanted  to
do was map-read. I wanted to know that, as I  came out, to  my left would be
the  built-up  area, to my  right  would be the  Euphrates, and that  I  had
however  many  miles to run  to  the border.  I  wanted  to  store  as  much
information in my head as I could.
     I went  through different  scenarios, fantasies really. What  if  I was
already in Syria? I knew I hadn't crossed the border: the two countries were
at war; there had  to be some physical barrier between them, but that didn't
stop me daydreaming.
     It must  have been  about eight o'clock  when I heard  the  scuffle  of
goats' hooves coming from the direction of the town. I tensed. We hadn't had
the world's best luck with goats on this trip.
     I  didn't hear the goat herder until  he  was right on top of the metal
plate. I took a deep breath, a  really deep breath. Straining my neck, I saw
the  ends of two  sandals and a set of big, splayed toes. One foot came down
into the mud. I gripped my fighting  knife. I  wouldn't do anything until he
put his head down and actually saw me, and even then I  didn't  know  what I
was going to do.  Did I just bring the left hand up and stick him one in the
face?  If he started  running, what  then?  I could tell by the big choggie,
splayed feet that he wasn't military, so hopefully he wasn't armed.
     He stooped to pick  up a small cardboard box  I  hadn't noticed  in the
ditch. It was a discarded ammunition box for 7.62 short, the  round that AKs
fire. He  disappeared from view. The box landed  back in the  water. He must
have looked at it and decided it was of no use.
     A couple of goats came and stood on the bank. I didn't want to breathe,
I didn't want to blink. The goat  herder  made his way back on to the bridge
and stood with his toes dangling over the edge of the steel. He coughed up a
massive grolly out of the back of his neck and flobbed it into the water. It
drifted down  to me like a  slimy green  jellyfish  and lodged itself  in my
hair. I was in such a mess anyway that it shouldn't have bothered me, but it
did.
     I was sure that one of the goats would get into the  water and make the
old boy come and rescue him,  but nothing  happened. The goats all  trundled
over, and the goat herder followed. I started to scrape the slime out of  my
hair.
     I lay listening to  noises. Looking  out from my tomb, I could see that
it  was a crisp winter's morning with not  a cloud in the sky. It was a view
of the countryside, not  at all a desert scene.  All it needed was cows, and
it  could  have  been the fields around  Hereford. There's  a small footpath
which  follows the banks of the River Wye, and from a certain point  you can
look over to the other side at a dairy which has  its own cows. Kate used to
love  being taken  there.  It looked nothing  at all  like  the scene  I was
looking at  now, but I imagined cows mooing and the sound of  Kate giggling.
The sun was  out, but I was out of  range of its warming rays. I felt like a
lizard stuck where I was. It would be so nice to be out in the open, warming
the bones.
     I could hear vehicles in the distance--the springy, old me tally jangly
sounds of them trundling along. Kids and older people hollered and shrieked.
I was desperate to know  what was going  on out there. Were they looking for
me?  Or  were they  just going about their  normal  business? In one way  it
concerned me greatly  that  people  were in the vicinity, but in another  it
just sounded nice  and comforting to hear human  voices because it  meant  I
wasn't alone. I was  cold  and exhausted. It was good  to  have some kind of
reassurance that I was on earth, not Zanussi.
     Sometimes  a vehicle  would come  nearer and nearer  and nearer, and my
heart would start skipping beats.
     Are they going to stop?
     Don't be so stupid--no drama, they're going to the river.
     They must be looking.
     But not intensively--it's too near the border.
     The noises were scary. By the time they got to me my mind had magnified
them  a hundred  times. I flapped about the  kids  being curious.  Kids must
play. Did  they  play in the water? Did they play with  the goats?  What did
they do? A kid  is shorter than  an adult and would get a better perspective
when  looking at  the culvert. Instead of seeing daylight a kid was going to
see my head or my feet, and he wouldn't need to have passed his  eleven plus
to know that he should raise the alarm.
     I wanted so much not to get caught. Not now. Not after so much.
     I kept looking at the watch lying on my chest. I looked once and it was
one o'clock. Half an hour later I checked again. It  was five past. Time was
dragging, but I started to feel better  about my predicament. There had been
vehicles, goats, and goatherds, and I'd got away with it. I was still trying
to memorize the map, going through the routes in my mind. I  was gagging for
last light.
     There was a deafening rattle of steel as a group of  vehicles thundered
across. This time they stopped.
     You're compromised: what did they stop for? You're in the shit.
     No  worries, they're picking  somebody up. Just keep  remarkably still,
control your breathing.
     I tried hard to think positively, as if that would stop them coming and
finding me.
     7.62  is a  big-caliber round. The  sound  of over  a  hundred of  them
reverberating on the steel plate just a fraction of an inch from my nose was
the worst thing I'd ever heard. I curled up and silently screamed.
     Fuck! fuck! fuck! fuck! fuck!
     Men  bellowed at  the tops of their  voices. They fired all  around the
drainage  ditch. The  mud  erupted.  I felt  the tremors. I  curled  up even
tighter and hoped nothing was going to  hit.  The  cracks, thuds, and shouts
seemed never-ending.
     The firing stopped but  the shouting continued. What were they going to
do now--just stick a weapon underneath and blow me away, or what?
     I  was shitting myself.  I  didn't  know what they  wanted  me to do. I
couldn't understand what they were  screaming. Did  they want to capture me?
Did they want to kill me? Were they going to throw a grenade  in? Fuck it, I
thought, if they want me out, they'll have to drag me out.
     I  was going to die in a drainage  ditch two  and a half miles from the
border,  of  that I  had no doubt.  My nose was  more  or less touching  the
underside of the steel plate.  I was stretching my  neck, but I couldn't see
much because of the perspective.
     The  muzzle of a rifle came down. Then  a bloke's face. When he  saw me
there was a look of total and utter surprise. He did a little jump  back and
shouted.
     The next  thing I saw was a  mass of boots jumping down  all around the
drainage ditch itself. Three blokes at either end, yelling their  heads off.
They motioned for me to get out.
     No fucking way!
     They wanted to see my  hands.  I was lying on my back with my feet  and
hands out straight. Two blokes grabbed a boot each and heaved.
     I  came out on my back and had my first view of  Syria in the daylight.
It looked  the  most beautiful country on earth. I could see the mast on the
higher  ground, tantalizingly  close. I  could  almost have  reached out and
touched it. I felt burgled or mugged-the  feeling of disbelief that this was
happening  to  me at  all, mixed with outrage that  I  was being  robbed  of
something that was rightfully mine.
     Why me?  All my life I've been lucky. I've been in dramas that I've had
no control of, and I've been in problems that I've created  myself. But I've
always been lucky enough to get out of them reasonably unscathed.
     They gave a couple  of  kicks and motioned  for me to get to my feet. I
stood up straight, my hands up in the air, staring straight ahead. Nice blue
sky it was, absolutely splendid. I turned my back on Syria and looked at the
ploughed fields  and green  vegetation, and all the huts and tracks that I'd
avoided during the night.
     So much effort wasted. So few hours of daylight left.
     They held their  weapons nervously and jumped up and down, making weird
warbling noises  like Red  Indians. They were as  frightened  as I was. They
fired into the  air on automatic, and I thought, Here we  go,  all I need is
for one of these rounds to come down and slot me through the head.
     Two  Land  Cruisers were parked to the right-hand  side of the  bridge.
Three characters were pacing around on the steel plate; eight or nine others
were charging around on the banks of the ditch.
     The  countryside looked even  more European than I had imagined. I  was
pissed off with  myself. To be picked  up  in  featureless desert would have
been  bad luck, but to be captured like this on  ground that could have been
in northwest Europe was bloody bad management.
     The squad dies  were all over the place, gibbering and gab bering still
very wary. Now that they'd got me they were not too sure what to do with me.
It seemed  there were  more chiefs than  Indians;  everybody  wanted to give
orders.  There  must have been some sort of reward coming their way. I stood
motionless in the mud, a pathetic mess. I stared straight ahead, no smile of
appeasement, no grim scowl of defrance, no  hint of eye contact. My training
had taken over. Already I was trying to be the gray man.
     They  started  firing into the ground.  They were  in  an  unbelievable
frenzy. It  seemed wrong  to me that  I was  going  to  get shot by accident
rather than doing a job or in  a contact with me firing back.  Nothing death
or glory  about  it: I  just didn't  want  to die because some trigger-happy
dickhead was going hyper. Or worse, get severely injured. But there's no way
you show them that  you're scared in a situation  like  that; you just stand
there, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and let them get on with it.
     The firing  stopped after  about fifteen seconds. One  of  the soldiers
jumped down into the culvert and started rooting around for  my kit. He came
back with the map, which was unmarked, the belt kit, and the fighting knife.
He brandished  the blade  in front  of me  and  did  the old  throat-cutting
motion. I thought, it's going to be one of them days.
     One of  the other soldiers was  poking me with his weapon and gesturing
for me to get down on my knees.
     Is he going to kill me? Is it time to die now?
     I couldn't think of any other  reason why I'd  get put on my knees.  If
they were taking me away, they'd drag me away or motion me somewhere.
     So do I get down  and wait for the possibility of getting shot, or do I
make a run for it?
     I wouldn't get  far. I'd be  killed within five  steps. I knelt down in
the water and thick mud.
     The bottom of  the drainage ditch was about 18  inches  lower than  the
level of the fields,  so when I finally got down I was more or  less at face
level with the steel plate. I looked up.
     The  penalty  kick that  one of  the lads aimed  at  my  jaw knocked me
backwards into the ditch. Water sluiced into my ears, and white  blotches of
intense light filled my vision. I  opened my eyes. Through the star bursts I
saw the  world closing in with people and a clear blue sky that was about to
rain rifle butts.
     Even when you're winded your body's  self-protection mechanism makes it
spin  itself over. Face  down  in  the  mud, I  curled up into a tight ball.
There's an old  saying in parachuting, if it's a  bit windy and you know the
landing is going to be fearsome:  "Feet  and knees together  and  accept the
landing." I had to accept this one; there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Compared with being shot, it was almost a pleasant surprise.
     They were like little animals,  putting in a bit of a kick, moving off,
coming in  again, starting to gain confidence. They grabbed  hold of my hair
and wrenched my head back. As they kicked and thumped my body in a frenzy of
pent-up frustration, they screamed: "Tel Aviv! Tel Aviv!"
     They jumped from the bridge onto my back and legs. You feel each impact
but not  its  pain. Your system's  pumping  too much adrenaline. You tighten
your  stomach,  clench your  teeth, tense your body as much as you can,  and
hope  and hope they're  not  going  to start  to  give you  a really serious
filling-in.
     "Tel  Aviv! Tel Aviv!" they shouted over an dover. It dawned on me what
they were getting at. This was not a good day out.
     It  can't have lasted for more than five minutes, but it was quite long
enough. When they finally backed off, I turned over and looked up at them. I
wanted them  to see how confused and pitiful I looked, a poor fellow soldier
who was terrified and meek and deserving of their pity.
     It didn't work.
     I knew it was going to start all over again, and I  rolled into a ball,
trying  this time to get my arms underneath me. My mind was numb,  but I was
more or less conscious throughout.  The thudding instep kicks to my head and
sides were  punctuated by telling, well aimed  toecap blows to the  kidneys,
mouth, and ears.
     They stopped after  a  few minutes and  hauled  me to my feet. I  could
hardly stand. I was  in a  semi crouched  position, trying  to keep  my head
down, staggering about, holding my stomach, coughing up blood.
     I  swayed and  lost my footing. Two boys came either  side.  They did a
rough search--no more than  a perfunctory frisk to make sure I didn't have a
gun--then they knocked me to my knees  and pushed my face down into the mud.
They pulled my hands behind my back and tied them. I tried to get my head up
so I could breathe, but they were standing  on it to force me down. I gasped
and inhaled  mud and  blood. I thought I was going to suffocate. All I could
hear  was hollering and shouting, and then the noise of more firing  in  the
air. Every sound was magnified. My head raged with pain.
     The next  thing I knew, I  was being frog marched towards the vehicles.
My legs wouldn't carry me, so they had to support me under the armpits. They
were  moving fast, and I was still coughing and snorting  and trying to  get
some  air  into my  lungs. My face was swelling up.  My lips  were  split in
several places. I just let them  get on with it. I was a rag doll, a bag  of
shit.
     I was thrown into the rear of  a Land  Cruiser, in the foot well behind
the front seats. As soon as they put me down, I tried to get myself nice and
comfy and  sort  myself  out.  It felt strangely secure to  be  in  such  an
enclosed  space.  At least  they'd stopped  kicking me  and I could  breathe
again. I  felt  the  warm  heater and  smelled  cigarette  smoke  and  cheap
aftershave.
     I got a rifle butt to  the head.  It  hurt severely and took me down. I
wasn't going to come up from that one even  if I'd wanted to. I was a bag of
bollocks. There  was massive pain in the back of my head, and everything was
spinning.  I took short,  sharp  breaths  and  told myself that it  could be
worse. For a second or two  it looked as though I was going to  be right.  I
wasn't being filled in any more, which I thought  was rather nice.  Then two
lads jumped in the back and thumped their boots hard up and down all over my
body. As the vehicle lurched across the field, they kept up the tempo.
     I couldn't see where we were going  because I  had to keep my head down
to protect myself  from the  flurry of boots. It would have been a pointless
exercise  anyway.  As far as  I was concerned, they were just going to shoot
me.  I had no  control over it; I just  wanted to get it over and done with.
I'd had the  initial shock of  being captured, then the demoralizing glimpse
of the  Syrian border. It suddenly hit home. I was right on top of Syria and
I'd got  caught. It was as  if  I'd run a marathon in Olympic  time and been
disqualified a stride from the tape. I wondered again when they'd shoot me.
     The vehicle swerved and lurched to avoid the crowds.  When  they slowed
down, I could hear people hollering and shouting. Everybody was in a frenzy;
they were really happy boys.
     The jundies fired their weapons from inside the  Land Cruiser. The AK47
is a large-caliber weapon, and when you fire it in a confined space, you can
feel the increase in air  pressure. It was  deafening, but the familiar tang
of cordite was oddly comforting. I started to taste the blood and mud in  my
mouth. My nose was blocked with clots.
     I was bouncing up  and down, the vehicle moving fast  over the ploughed
ground. The suspension groaned and screeched. All I wanted to do was snuggle
up  in a corner somewhere and be out of the way. One half  of  my  brain was
telling me to close my eyes and take a  deep breath, and maybe it  would all
go away. But  at the back of your  mind is that tiny little bit of  survival
instinct: let's wait and see, maybe they won't, there's always a chance .. .
     The  crowds  were making the fearsome Red Indian warbling  noise.  They
were jubilant that they'd caught somebody, but I couldn't tell if the warble
was a victory salute or a sign of even worse things to  come.  As we lurched
over the field,  I tried to concentrate on identifying the troops from their
uniforms.  They wore British-pattern DPM (disrupted-pattern  material), with
chest webbing that held five magazines, and  high laced boots. They had Para
wings, too, and red  lanyards, which marked  them out as elite commandos. It
was only much later  that I learned that the lanyards  were to commemorate a
victory  from  the Second World War,  when  they fought  under  Montgomery's
command, of which they seemed quite proud.
     We hit  a  meta  led  road and  the  bouncing  stopped.  I wasn't  much
concerned with where we were going at this stage--I just wanted to get there
and to stop being  filled in by these boys' boots. The soldiers  jabbered at
me fast and aggressively.
     The vehicle  stopped. We  seemed to be in the town. Noise surged around
us.  I heard voices, many voices, and  I knew from their tone that it was an
angry mob. The sound of hatred  is ugly and universal. I looked up.  I saw a
sea of faces, military and civilian, angry, chanting, shouting abuse. I felt
like a child in a pram with a gang of adults peering in. It scared me. These
people hated me.
     An old  man dug  deep into his TB-riddled  lungs and  fired a green wad
into my face. Other salvoes followed, thick and fast. Then came the physical
stuff.  It  started  with a  poke in  my ribs, a  testing prod  at  the  new
commodity in town. The poke  became a shove, then a slap, then a punch,  and
the crowd started  pulling my hair. I thought it  was going to  be a case of
mob rule. I felt I was going to get lynched, or worse.
     They started to climb aboard. There was uncontrolled frenzy. Perhaps it
was the first time they'd seen a  white-eyed soldier.  Perhaps they held  me
personally  responsible  for their  dead  and  wounded  friends  and  family
members.  They  closed in and slapped and punched, pulled  my  mustache  and
hair. There  was a gagging  stench of unwashed bodies. It was  like a horror
film with  zombies. All daylight was blocked  out, and I thought I was going
to suffocate.
     More and more shots were fired into the air, and I  began to worry that
it wouldn't be long before they  got bored with using clouds as targets. The
useless thought came to me  that  they must be taking casualties from firing
in built-up areas. Rounds have  spent  their explosive  force when they come
down, but they still come down with a deadly momentum. No doubt they'd blame
me for those deaths as well.
     What  were the soldiers  going  to do,  I wondered-just let the civvies
have  me? Kill me now, I thought. I'd rather have the squad  dies do it than
the crowd. The soldiers started pushing the people away.  It was a wonderful
feeling. Just a minute  ago they were bearing me  up; now these boys were my
saviors. Better the devil you know .. .
     I  was lying on  my stomach at the back  of  the Land Cruiser, my hands
still tied, and they  started to drag me out  feet first. The  hollering  of
obscenities got louder. I concentrated on looking dejected and badly injured
and on working out how I was going  to protect my face as I fell two feet or
so onto the tarmac. The solution was to spin around  on to  my  back because
then I could keep my  head up. I managed to do it  just in time. I lifted my
head, and the base of my  spine took the force of  the  drop, detonating  an
explosion of pain inside my skull. All the breath was knocked out of me. The
soldiers  were really playing the macho  man, waving at  everybody,  shaking
their AKs  in the air Che  Guevara style.  They looked  so butch, I thought,
doing this  in front of the girls. They  were the real local teddies; they'd
obviously be scoring tonight.
     The vehicle had stopped about 50 feet from a big pair of gates set in a
wall 10 feet high. I got the impression we were at  the local military camp.
They dragged me on my back towards the gates. I had to arch to save my hands
from scraping along the road.  Still there was mass hysteria.  I was scared:
the fear  of the unknown.  These  people  looked and sounded so very  out of
control.
     At last I was dragged inside and the gates slammed behind us. I took in
a large courtyard and a selection of buildings. The macho act ended at once,
and  the squad dies hoiked me to my feet and pulled me on by my arms. You've
got  to take time to  have a look around, to tune in. If you do the hard man
routine, stick your chest out  and  say fuck you, they'll fill you in again,
and that's  counterproductive.  If  you  appear  to  be  subdued and sapped,
they've got the effect they want. It's now that you've got to start going to
town with your  injuries. You've  got to look feeble, as if everything's  on
top  of you  and you're  totally  and  utterly  clueless. Quite  apart  from
anything else, it preserves what energy you've got left so that you're ready
for your  escape,  which  is  of primary concern, I felt I'd passed  a major
test. I was  in  another  world; another  drama had ended. In a  weird way I
almost felt safe, now that the local population  couldn't get their hands on
me.  The prospect of that seemed so much worse than anything fellow soldiers
might do to me. I exaggerated the limp, shivering  and coughing, and  moaned
every time someone got hold of me. It must have seemed a wonder I was alive,
the way I was going on. I  was in a  bad way, but my  mental state was good,
and that's the one you've got to worry about and conceal from the enemy.
     For a few minutes I stood there with a ring of  guards around  me. As I
looked straight ahead, there was  a meta led road going to a block about 300
feet  ahead. Looking  around from left to right, I saw barrack blocks to the
right, following the line of the wall, and a small clump of trees.
     Then I  saw  some poor bastard lying on the  grass,  trussed up on  his
stomach like a chicken, his ankles and wrists  tied together. He  was trying
to lift  his  legs to take the  pressure off  his head.  He'd obviously been
given  a good hammering. His head had swollen up to the size of  a football,
and his kit  was torn and covered in blood. I couldn't even see the color of
his hair or whether his clothes were camouflage-pattern. For a moment, as he
lifted his head, we had eye-to-eye, and I realized it was Dinger.
     The eyes give so  much  away. They can tell you when a person is drunk,
when he's bluffing, when he's alert, when he's happy. They are the window to
the mind. EHnger's eyes said: It's going to be all right. I even got a small
smile out of him. I grinned back. I  had a fearsome dread for him because he
was in such a bad state, but it was wonderful to see him,  to have  somebody
there to  share my predicament.  Selfishly, I was chuffed  I wasn't the only
one to be caught. The slagging  if I got back  to Hereford  would have  been
unbearable.
     The  down  side of seeing  him was the  realization that it was my turn
next.  He was really in a  bad way,  yet  he  was  much  harder than  me. It
occurred to me  that I could be dead  by the  end of the afternoon. If so, I
just wanted to get it over and done with.
     A couple of boys with weapons were lounging against a tree near Dinger,
smoking cigarettes.  They didn't  stop when  two  officers  and their little
entourage came out of their  office  and walked  halfway up the road to meet
us.  I just stood there,  playing on the  injuries, working on the principle
that  you don't know anything  until you try. Mentally I prepared myself for
another filling  in. As  the  officers approached, I  clenched  my teeth and
pressed my knees together to protect my balls.
     The local military had incurred a  lot of casualties, and it was  clear
that these well-dressed officers,  a mixture of commando officers in DPM and
ordinary  types in  olive  green with  stars  on their  shoulders, were  not
impressed.  My head was pushed up, and one of them took a swing. I closed my
eyes and braced myself for the next punch. It didn't come.
     Another officer was jabbering away, and I opened one eye just enough to
see what  the conversation was about. The rupert who had hit me had  a knife
in his hand now and was  walking  towards  me. Here we  go, I thought,  he's
going to  show the  jundies how hard he is. He jabbed it under the bottom of
my smock and ripped it upwards. The smock fell open.
     The jundies were  told to  search me, but they didn't have  a clue what
they were doing. They must have heard weird stories  about exploding suicide
devices or something because they were paranoid.  In  my pockets  they found
two pencils and inspected them as if they contained arsenic or rocket  fuel.
One soldier cut off  my ID tags  and took them away. I felt  suddenly  naked
without them. Worse than that, I was sterile, a  man with no name.  Removing
my tags was as good as removing my identity.
     Two others took  the Syrettes of  morphine  that  were hanging round my
neck and went  through the motions  of sticking them into  their arms.  They
were  cock-a-hoop  and would obviously be  shooting it up later  on. I had a
toothbrush  in a pen pocket in the sleeves of my DPM shirt, but they refused
to touch it. Maybe they didn't understand what it was doing there. Maybe, if
the smell of the mob  outside had been anything to go  by, they  didn't even
know what a toothbrush was. Whatever, they weren't taking chances. They made
me take it out myself.
     The body search was from the top down, but it was badly done  and  they
didn't even make me  take off my  clothes.  They removed my boots and looted
every item of kit. They behaved like  old ladies at a jumble sale. We always
use pencils rather than pens because pencils  always work, even in the rain.
I had a  couple of three-inch stubs, sharpened at both ends so that if I was
writing and  one end snapped, I'd just have to turn it around and on I'd go.
They went as souvenirs. So did the Swiss Army knife and a  Silva  compass  I
had in my pocket, both on lengths of  para cord Every bit of kit is attached
to  you  securely.  There  was  a  notebook, but it  had  nothing in it. I'd
destroyed its contents at the first LUP. There was my white  plastic  racing
spoon from an  American ration set, and that, too, was tied  on  a length of
para cord in  my pocket. My  watch  was  around my  neck on cord so  that  I
couldn't  be  compromised  by the luminous  glow  and  it wouldn't  catch on
anything as I patrolled. Even the spare plastic bag I had in case I'd needed
a shit while on patrol was snaffled.
     Around my waist, however, on a one-inch webbing belt, was today's  star
prize: about 1700 pounds in sterling, in the form of twenty gold  sovereigns
we  had  each been given as escape money.  I  had fixed my coins to the belt
with  masking  tape, and this  created  a  major drama.  They  jumped  back,
shouting what I  assumed  was the  Iraqi  for "Let  him  go! He's  going  to
explode!"
     A captain arrived. He couldn't have been more than about 5'2"  tall but
must have weighed  over  13  stone.  He  looked like  a boiled  egg. He  was
aggressive, speaking good English quickly and brusquely.
     "Okay, what is your name?"
     "Andy."
     "Okay, Andy, what I want you to do  is give me  the information I want.
If you don't, these men will shoot you."
     I looked around me. The soldiers  were standing in  a tight  cordon; if
they fired, they would wipe each other out.
     "What  is  the equipment  you have there?" he  asked,  pointing at  the
masking tape.
     "Gold," I said.
     That word must be as international as jeans or Pepsi, and in every army
in  the  world  the  soldiers  like the chance  to  make  a  little  earner.
Everybody's  eyes lit up --even the  jundies." This was their chance to make
more money in one hit than they probably earned in a year. I could see  them
planning their  holidays and buying  their new cars. I suddenly remembered a
story  I'd heard  about one of the US  soldiers who was among the troops who
invaded Panama. In an office  belonging to President Noriega he found  three
million US dollars in cash--and  the knobber actually got on  the  radio and
reported it.  It was  taken off to regimental HQ, and that was probably  the
last  anybody  ever saw  of it.  The bloke  who  told me  the  story said he
couldn't  sleep at night just  thinking  about the opportunity that had been
thrown away.
     The ruperts  were taking no chances. They  dragged me  away to  another
office and told me to put the belt on the table.
     "Why do you have gold?" the fat man barked.
     "To pay people if we run out of food," I said. "It's bad to steal."
     "Open it up."
     The ruperts stationed two  of the jundies in  the room with me and then
left,  presumably in case I was lying and was about to explode  a  string of
incendiary  devices. I pulled out the first  gold sovereign, and the ruperts
were summoned. They dismissed the two  squad dies and divided the sovereigns
between themselves.  They  tried to look so official  and solemn as they did
it, but it was blatantly obvious what they were up to.
     It  was probably thanks to the ruperts'  greed that my  silk escape map
and  miniature  compass  weren't found. They were both hidden in my uniform,
and a thorough search would have unearthed  them. I was chuffed to have them
still.  It was a wonderful feeling: you don't know this, big  nose, but I've
still got an escape map and compass, so up yours. The best time to escape is
as soon as  possible after capture.  The  further you go down the chain, the
harder it is to  escape, because the system caters more and more efficiently
for  a prisoner. Frontline troops  have  other problems on  their minds, but
further down  the line the security  is better and you've  most likely  been
stripped of your uniform. From  the moment I was captured I had  been trying
to orientate myself so that I knew which way was west. If the chance came my
way, I'd need these vital items.
     Blindfolded now, I was taken to another room. I sensed it was large and
airy. There were bodies in there talking; the atmosphere was more subdued. I
could tell by the more regulated voices that this was the Head Shed's  room.
It felt strangely secure. I  felt I was out  of danger somehow, far from the
madding crowd,  even though I  suspected what was  going  to happen.  Then I
realized  that  though the people sounded more in control, if they filled me
in they'd do it more professionally.
     There  was a  strong smell of coffee,  Gitanes, and cheap aftershave. I
was pushed down onto a chair with a cushioned seat and high back. Part of me
felt I wasn't there. My mind was going into some sort of fantasy to block it
out, as if it was  all  a dream. I had  never once considered  that anything
like this  could happen to me.  The  feeling was  the  same  as if  I'd been
driving a car and  knocked down a child: complete  and total  disbelief.  My
mind was  hearing  things,  but I  was  enclosed in my own  little world.  I
snapped out of it  and thought about trying to get  their pity, or a  cup of
coffee or something to eat. But I wasn't going to ask for jack shit. If they
gave me something all well and good, but I wasn't going to beg.
     I  clenched my muscles, put my head down, gripped  my legs together.  I
guessed that  before they got down to some proper tactical questioning, they
would take their frustrations out on me. They were murmuring to each other.
     So what's it to be, I thought. A fearsome torture?
     Or am I going to get fucked?
     Men milled  around,  whispering. The tiniest  sound  is  magnified when
you're trying so hard to hear. A chair scraped. Somebody got to his feet and
came towards me.
     I braced myself. Here it comes. I pretended to shiver. I wanted so much
for these people to feel sorry for me.
     Two  seconds felt like two minutes. It was unbelievably frustrating not
to be able to see what was going on. I shivered again, the injured, pathetic
creature, the man who knew nothing, the man not worth doing anything to. But
I knew I was grasping at straws. Head down,  I tried  to show no reaction as
he approached.
     There was a strong waft of coffee, and I longed to be in Ross's cafe in
Peckham with a big frothy  coffee in front of me. On Saturdays as young lads
we'd go down and  get two sausage  and  chips, pile on the salt and vinegar,
and get a frothy  coffee.  Ross the  Greek would  let  us spend all  morning
there. We can't have been more than eight or nine. My mum always gave me the
money to go  and get my dinner at Ross's; she knew it was the  big thing. In
wintertime  there would be condensation  running down  the windows  and that
strong, strong coffee smell. It was  such a snug and cozy  place  to sit. It
came back to me so vividly that  for a brief moment I felt like  a child who
has fallen over and is crying for his mum.
     There was no way Dinger would have gone into his cover story yet. Name,
number, rank, date of birth, the Big Four--that's all he would have given. I
thought: I'm going to  get severely filled  in here because they're going to
want a lot more  than that. I sort  of hoped maybe they  won't be  asking me
now; maybe  they'll be asking me later.  Maybe they'll just be taking  their
frustrations out now. Maybe  no one can speak English! My mind was racing at
incredible  speed  as this  character  got  nearer and nearer,  and  finally
stopped just inches away.
     He pulled my head up and punched me hard in the face.  The blow knocked
me backwards and to one side, but they were surrounding me, and I was pushed
back upright. Even when  you're expecting a punch like that,  you're shocked
when it  comes. I wanted to stay down because it would give me  time to rest
before the  next one, time to think. Everybody piled in. There  was laughter
as  they tried to outdo each  other's efforts. I felt drunk. You know what's
happening,  you know what's  going on, but  there's  nothing  you  can do to
control it. You begin to feel detached. It's happening to you, but your mind
takes over and  says Fuck this, I'm  not having  much more of this, and  you
start drifting  into unconsciousness. You  can  feel it happening,  but your
mind goes off into a wander. I was being punched into a semi stupor
     I let myself drop to the floor because at least then I could protect my
face. I  drew my knees up and kept them together,  kept my  head  down, kept
myself clenched up. As the  blows rained down I screamed and moaned. Some of
it was put on. A lot of it wasn't.
     Then, as if on a signal, the beating stopped.
     "Poor Andy, poor Andy," I heard, and a mock clucking of concern.
     I got to my knees and put my head against the man and shook it. I leant
against  him, my breathing heavy and  rasping because my nose was so clogged
with blood  and mud. I started sinking to the floor again. I needed his help
to  get  me up. This  gives  time,  I thought,  this  stalls  the operation.
Hopefully they'll  come to  their  senses and see  that I'm just a pathetic,
useless cretin, not worth the effort, and leave me alone.
     I  was helped  back into  the chair  and  somebody  dead  legged me.  I
screamed. Even  as a  schoolboy I used to hate dead legs--and they were just
the variety that were delivered with the knee. This was a full blooded kick.
Boots flew in from all directions again. I went straight down.
     You know the sensible thing to do is to appear weak and plead with them
for mercy, but something takes  over. I was so angry that I made a conscious
decision once more not to  beg. There was  no  way  I  was  going  to demean
myself. They were going to  do it anyway. I knew it was counterproductive to
resist,  but you can't fight your pride and self-respect. If I moaned,  that
would only give them more pleasure. The only way I could beat them was by my
mental attitude,  and beat them I  would. By keeping as  quiet as I could, I
was winning a small battle. Even the slightest imagined victory is magnified
a thousand times. I'm winning  this,  I  thought.  Ridiculously,  I  felt my
morale soar. Fuck 'em, I said to myself--don't give them the satisfaction of
going home for their tea and saying to their mates, "Yeah, he was begging us
to stop."
     They  didn't stop. Boots  swung  into my ribs and head, steel toe  caps
connected  with soft  shins.  There  was no  point to what they  were doing;
everybody  was just being macho. My only hope was that they'd get bored with
it soon.
     A  couple of  them started  sounding  off in  English, denouncing Bush,
Thatcher,  everybody they could  think of. My body was starting to throw its
hand in. I felt limp and drained. It was difficult to breathe. I had already
been  deprived  of  my  sense  of sight;  now  everything  was  swollen  and
throbbing, and I  felt my  other  senses numbing, too. My  heart pounded  so
strongly it was creating its own chest pain.
     I could hear screams and anguished groans. They must have come from me.
     Somebody shouted into my face from inches  away and then  laughed manic
ally "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" and backed off.
     I should have had the sense  to become a quivering  wreck and  let them
laugh about it and say, "Ah, bless his cotton socks, leave him alone, what a
dickhead."
     But I just lay there and took it.
     "You are the tool  of Bush, Andy," one of them said, "but you will  not
be for long because we are going to kill you."
     I took the threat seriously. He had just confirmed my worst fears. They
would give us both a good kicking, then take us off and slot us.
     Good, I thought, let's get on with it then.
     They dragged  me to  my feet again. Blood was pouring down my face from
gashes in  my scalp. It trickled into my eyes and mouth. My  lips were numb,
as  if I'd been to the  dentist.  I couldn't control them  to blow the blood
away.  I  bent  my  head  forward to  redirect  the flow  and  to avoid  any
eye-to-eye contact. I didn't want these bastards to see what I was thinking.
     For  another fifteen minutes people continued to take turns at punching
and slapping, often not even bothering to put me back on the chair. I stayed
crunched  up as  tightly as I  could.  A pair of hands  grabbed my feet  and
started to drag me  across the room so that the others could get an improved
angle on their kicking. This is way out of control,  I thought. Any more  of
this and I'm going to be well out of the game.
     The blindfold had come off by now with the hustle and tussle of events.
I didn't bother looking that much. All  I saw was my knees hard  against  my
face,  and  the  light-cream lino floor, once  beautifully polished but  now
smeared with mud and blood. I was finding it more and more difficult to draw
breath. I was really  getting concerned about the long-term effects. I  felt
my body disintegrating. I could  die here--and the only good thing about  it
would be that I'd mucked up their floor.
     The back  of my  throat was  rattling. I  coughed blood. Another twenty
minutes, I thought, and we'd be into serious damage. That  would really slow
down my chances of escape.
     At last they must  have tired of the game. I was a bag of  shit, they'd
got me where they wanted me, there was little point going on.
     I lay there on  the floor, drenched with my own blood.  There was filth
and gore everywhere. Even my feet were bleeding. My khaki socks were wet and
dark red.
     I opened  my  eyes for a moment and caught a glimpse of a pair of brown
Chelsea boots with zippers on  the  side, and a pair of bell-bottomed jeans.
The boots had cheap and nasty plastic heels, the stuff that Saturday markets
are  made  of. The jeans were dirty and  faded, and  well  and truly flared.
Whoever  was wearing them  probably  had on a David Cassidy T-shirt as  well
under  his uniform  shirt. Glancing  up  quickly, I saw that  they were  all
ruperts, very clean-cut and smooth-faced, not a hair out of place. Everybody
had a mustache and hair that was sleeked back. The Saddam look was in.
     I  lay in a corner against the  wall, trying to  protect  myself. There
were people on three sides of me. Their faces loomed down  at  me. One bloke
flicked his fag ash at me. I looked up at him pitifully. His response was to
do it again.
     More people  came into the room. I was  lifted  up and put back  onto a
chair and  re  blindfolded  I hoped it wasn't just a fresh crew coming in to
take over from where the others had left off.
     "What is your name?" I heard from a new voice in excellent English.
     "Andy."
     I didn't give my  full name. I was determined to drag this out  as long
as I  could. My surname  was a whole new question. The trick  is  to use  up
time, but at the same time to appear to be wanting to help.
     "How old are you, Andy? What is your date of birth?"
     His  diction was very precise, his grammar better than mine. The slight
Middle Eastern accent was barely detectable.
     I gave him the answer.
     "What is your religion?"
     Under the terms of the Geneva Convention he wasn't allowed to ask  that
one. The correct response should have been: "I cannot answer that question."
     "Church of England," I said.
     It was inscribed on my ID tags and they had  them, so why should I risk
another  filling in  over  information that they already  had?  I hoped  the
information would help confirm that I was from England, not  Tel Aviv as the
crowd had seemed to believe.
     Church of England meant nothing to them.
     "You are Jewish?"
     "No, I'm a Protestant."
     "What is a Protestant?"
     "A Christian. I'm a Christian."
     To  them,  everybody's  a  Christian  who's  not a  Muslim  or  a  Jew.
Christianity embraces everybody from Trappist monks to Moonies.
     "No, Andy, you are  Jewish.  We will soon find that out. Do you like my
English, by the way?"
     "Yes, it's good."
     I  wasn't about to  argue. As far as  I was  concerned, he spoke better
English than Kate Adie.
     I had my head down, swinging it from side to side, looking and sounding
confused. There were long pauses while I appeared  to be  trying to think of
things. I slurred my words, played on the injuries, played for time, dragged
everything out.
     "Of course my English is good," he snapped, coming right up to my face.
"I worked in London. What do you take me for--an idiot? We are not idiots."
     He had been asking questions from maybe 10 feet away, as if from behind
a desk. But now he was  up and walking around as he launched into a  torrent
of rhetoric about  how intelligent and wonderful the  Iraqi  nation  was and
what tremendously  civilized  people they  were. He  was beginning to shout.
Flecks of spit landed on my face. They smelled of tobacco and cheap cologne.
The speed and harshness of his verbal assault  made  me  wince  a  little; I
clenched my teeth. I had to fight to control my reactions; I didn't want him
to know  I was  in a better state than he thought. You've got to take it for
granted that these people are switched on.
     "We are an advanced nation," he spat. "As your country shall  soon find
out."
     I  had been  feeling a  bit like  a  child on the receiving  end  of  a
scolding,  who puts his  face down while he's being yelled  at and his whole
body starts to shudder.
     He mentioned London and I thought,  This is all getting on rather  well
here, we're going to talk about London.
     "I love London," I said. "I wish  I was back there now. I don't want to
be here. I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm just a soldier."
     We  went through the Big Four again.  In my mind's eye I tried to  race
ahead and compare what  I was  going to  say with what I'd  already  said. I
could hear lots of writing going on. All the pens seemed very close to me. I
heard paper being folded and the shuffling of feet.
     My interrogator moved away and sat down. His tone switched to something
soothing and approachable.
     "I know you're just a soldier," he said. "I am a soldier myself. Let us
just  get this done in a civilized manner.  We are a civilized nation. There
are certain things we want  to know, Andy. Just tell us. You're just a tool.
They are using you."
     It  was pretty obvious what was going on.  My job now was to  make them
think that their methods were working.
     "Yes,  sir," I said, "I'm so  confused,  I really want  to help  you. I
don't know what's happening. I'm so worried about my friend outside."
     "Well, tell me what  unit  you're from. Just tell us and you won't have
to go through this pain. Why are you doing this to yourself?"
     "I'm sorry, I cannot answer that question."
     It all started again.
     When  the new characters had come in, one of them  must have slipped in
behind me. When I gave the dud response, he must have got the nod because he
threw a massive hook with a rifle  butt into the side of my head. It took me
straight onto the lino.
     If you're  in a fight as a school kid you're  all revved up for it, and
you're  expecting  the blows. They  don't hurt  so much when  they  come. If
you're not expecting it, the pain is  intense. The shock from the rifle butt
was horrendous. I passed out. I went to another world, and although it  hurt
intensely, it was actually quite a pleasant place to be.
     As I lay on the floor, I noticed that my breathing was very shallow now
and my heart was pumping more  slowly. Everything  was slowing down. I could
feel myself gradually declining. I couldn't swallow. Everything was a haze.
     I took  another  blow  from  the  rifle butt.  Bubbles  of  vivid light
exploded before my eyes. Then there was darkness.
     I was semiconscious when they lifted me back onto the chair.
     "Look, Andy, we just  need to know some  things. Let me  do  my job. We
don't  have  to  do  this.  We  are  all  soldiers.  This  is  an  honorable
profession." All of this in a low, soft, comforting voice. A sort of  "Let's
get it over with, let's be mates' sort of tone.
     "We  could just leave you out in the desert to be eaten by the animals,
Andy.  Nobody would  care,  except your family. You're  letting  them  down,
you're not being brave, you're just playing into the hands of the people who
sent you here. They're having a good  time while people like you and me  are
fighting each other. You and me, Andy--we don't want to fight this war."
     I was nodding and agreeing with everything he  said, and all the time I
was doing it the wonderful feeling was growing inside me that I had actually
beaten him.  He saw  me nodding, but he didn't know that  inside my head  my
attitude was totally different. I started to  feel better about my  capture.
Everything had felt  so negative up till then. I  was thinking: He  must  be
believing this crap.  He's  chatting away  and  I'm  agreeing  with  him.  I
couldn't  believe  I  was  getting  away  with  it.  I was  on  top  of this
discussion, and he wasn't even aware of it. I'd got something over him. This
could be the start of a wonderful relationship.
     I was winning.
     "Just tell  us, Andy, and  we shall send you back to England. What unit
are  you from?" He made it sound as if he had the power to summon  a private
jet there and then to whisk me back to Brize Norton.
     "I'm sorry, I cannot answer that question."
     This time, as the kicks connected with  my  skull, there was a hissing,
popping sound in my ears,  and as I clenched my jaw, I heard the bones creak
together.  I  felt blood trickle  out of  my ears and  down  my face.  I was
worried. Blood coming  out of your  ears  is not a good sign. I thought, I'm
going to be left deaf. Shit, I was only in my early thirties.
     "What unit are you with?"
     I was hoping  desperately  that he'd get on  to something else,  but he
wasn't going to let go.
     I said nothing.
     "Andy, we are not making much progress."
     Bizarrely, the voice was still soft and chummy.
     "You must understand, Andy, I have a job to do. We're not getting  very
far, are we? There is no big problem, just tell us."
     Silence.
     More kicks. More punches. More screams.
     "We already  have this information from your friend, you know. We  just
want to hear it from you."
     That  was  a lie. He'd  have  got jack shit  out of Dinger. Dinger  was
harder than me; he wouldn't have said a word. The reason he had got  himself
so badly filled  in was probably because he'd treated them like anybody else
he didn't like the look of and told them to fuck off.
     "You  must understand,  I'm  a  soldier," I  said.  "You're a  soldier,
too--you must understand I can't tell you this."
     I was trying to get some affiliation, I was trying to put it  over in a
sobbing,  pathetic way.  I hoped to appeal to  their own traditional fear of
loss of face.
     "My  family would walk  around in shame for  the rest of their days," I
cried. "They would be disgraced, I'd be discredited for  ever.  I just can't
tell you these things, I can't."
     "Then Andy we have a big problem. You're not telling us what we need to
know. You're  not helping the situation,  you're  not helping yourself.  You
could be dead very soon,  for something that means nothing to you. I want to
help you,  but there are people above me who  don't  want to do  that. Admit
it,"  he said,  in the tone of my best  mate  giving me  advice. "You are an
Israeli, aren't you? Come on, admit it."
     "I'm not an Israeli," I sobbed. "Look--I'm not dressed like an Israeli.
This is  British  uniform,  and  you've  seen my  identification  tags.  I'm
English,  this  is British  uniform.  I don't know what  you  want  from me.
Please, please. I want to help. You're confusing me. I'm scared."
     "This is stupid."
     "You've got my identification tags, you've seen  that I'm  English. I'm
scared of what you're saying."
     His tone suddenly  changed. "Yes, we have your identification tags, you
haven't," he exploded angrily.
     "You're who  we say you are,  and as  far as we're concerned you're  an
Israeli. If not,  why were you so near Syria? What  were you doing? Tell me,
tell me, what were you doing?"
     Even if I'd wanted to answer, he wasn't giving me time.  He hit me with
a nonstop torrent of questions and raging rhetoric. "You mean nothing to us!
You're nothing, nothing!"
     It must have  been fun in his house. The kids wouldn't have known if he
was coming or going.
     What do I do now? I asked myself.
     Let's get back to the Israeli thing.
     A dread was creeping into  my mind concerning Bob. Bob had tight, curly
black hair  and a large nose. If he was  captured or they found his body, he
could be taken as Jewish.
     "I'm British."
     "No, no, you're Israeli. You are dressed like commandos
     "Everybody in the British army wears this uniform."
     "You'll die soon, Andy, for being  so stupid, for not  answering simple
questions."
     "I'm not Israeli."
     It had  got to  the stage where I was  having to remember what I'd been
saying and what I had not been  saying, because I knew that if these  things
were being written down--and I could hear the scribbling--I was going to get
myself into severe shit.
     Let's keep  on  the  Israeli  thing. Maybe if  this character keeps  on
talking to me, we can get a  relationship going. Him and me. He's mine. He's
my interrogator. He just might } | take pity on me.
     "I'm a  Christian, I'm English,"  I set  off again. "I  don't even know
whereabouts in  Iraq I am, let alone  if I'm near Syria. I don't want  to be
here. Look at me, I'm scared."
     "We  know you're  an Israeli, Andy. We just want to hear it  from  you.
Your friend has already told us."
     I  thought, Dinger  looks  like he could be a bit Jewish also, with his
tight, wiry blond hair.
     "You're commandos."
     In their army only commandos wear DPM.
     "We're not! We're just ordinary soldiers."
     "You'll die for  being  so stupid. All  we want is simple answers  from
you.  I'm trying to help  you. These people  want to kill you. I'm trying to
save you. How do you expect  me to do that if you're not helping me? We want
you to answer these questions. We need to hear it from you. You want to help
us, don't you?"
     "Yes, I want to help." I was sobbing again.  "But I can't help you if I
don't know anything."
     "You're  so  stupid."  The  voice  was aggressive,  but  he mixed  some
compassion with it. "Why aren't you  helping us? Come on, I'm trying to help
you. I don't want you to be in this situation any more than you do."
     "I want to help you, but I'm not an Israeli."
     "Just  tell us and we'll  stop. Come on, you're  so stupid, aren't you?
What's the matter? We're civilized  people. But  I need you to  tell me that
you're an Israeli. If you  can't tell me  that, then tell me  why you're  so
near Syria?"
     "I don't know where I am."
     "You're near Syria, aren't you, so just tell me. These people will kill
you.  Your friend's okay, your friend  has told us. He will live, but you're
going to die, for something stupid. Why die? You're stupid."
     I heard his chair scrape on the floor. I was trying to take in what was
going on without showing that I could focus. I was physically wrecked. I was
hoping  for  just the slightest hint of humanity in this man. Shit,  I could
always turn the waterworks  on so easily as a kid, win my aunties round, and
get a packet of crisps. What was wrong with these people?
     I was going for an Oscar without a doubt--but a good percentage of what
I was doing was for real. I was in real pain. It was a good catalyst for the
reaction I wanted to portray. It was good to have this  Israeli thing. Let's
keep on that and hopefully they'll keep away from the other questions.
     "I can't help you, I just can't help you."
     I heard a big sigh, as if he was my best  mate  in the world  and there
was  nothing left he could  do to help me. The sigh said: I am your contact;
it's only me that's keeping everybody at bay.
     "Then I cannot help you, Andy."
     As if on cue I  heard another chair scrape and feet moving  towards me.
When I smelt the waft of aftershave, I just knew that  the lad who was a dab
hand with the rifle butt was on his way over to give me the good news.
     He was, too. He really read me my horoscope.
     I must have been getting used to being blindfolded because my senses of
hearing and smell  seemed  to be more acute. I was  starting to  tell  these
people apart by their smell. The boy who was handy with  the rifle butt wore
freshly laundered clothes.  Another  one liked pistachio nuts. He'd put them
in his mouth and chew, then  gob the mashed shell into my face.  The one who
spoke good English smoked incessantly  and had breath that smelled of coffee
and stale cigarettes. When he launched into  rhetoric,  I got  his  spit all
over my face. He also stank like a color supplement aftershave ad.
     His chair would  scrape, and I'd  sense  him moving  around. He'd speak
like a  gatling  gun,  then he'd do the Nice Guy  bit and  give me  lots  of
"Everything's quite okay, it's going to be all right."
     As he  was chatting  very gently, I could hear him getting  closer  and
closer until we were nose to nose. Then he'd yell in my ear.
     "This is no good, Andy," he said. "We shall have to get this out of you
another way."
     What  worse  way  could  there  possibly  be  of  doing  it?  We'd  had
intelligence  reports of  interrogation  centers and  mass killings,  and  I
thought, Here  we go, we're going  to get  severely dealt  with now.  I  had
visions of concentration camps and electrodes clamped to my bollocks.
     Two of the boys set to with rifle butts.
     One  particularly heavy  blow caught me  on  the  jaw, directly over my
teeth. Only the skin of my cheek lay between the edge of the butt and two of
my back molars. I felt the teeth crack and splinter, and then the pain of it
hit  me. I was down and  screaming  my  head off. I tried  to  spit out  the
fragments, but  my mouth was too  swollen and numb. I couldn't swallow.  The
moment my tongue touched the sharp, tender stumps I passed out.
     I came to on the floor.  The blindfold had fallen off, and I watched as
blood  poured from my mouth into a pool on the cream lino. I felt stupid and
useless. I wanted nothing more than for the handcuffs to fall off so I could
get up and deal with these guys.
     They carried on, giving me  some good stuff  around  the back  with the
butts, twat ting my head, legs, and kidneys.
     I  couldn't breathe through my nose.  When I screamed, I  had  to  draw
breath through my mouth, and the air hit the exposed nerve pulp of my broken
teeth. I screamed again, and went on screaming.
     It was getting outrageous.
     They  picked me up  and put  me back on  the  seat. They didn't  bother
putting the blindfold back on, but I kept my head down anyway. I didn't want
eye contact, or to risk another  filling in for looking up. I was  in enough
pain.  I was a big, incoherent  mess, honking away, sniveling to myself as I
slumped on the chair.
     My coordination was well and truly  gone. I couldn't  even keep my legs
together any more. I must have looked like Dinger's double.
     There was a long silence.
     Everybody  was shuffling around, leaving me to ponder over my fate. How
long could I go like this? Was I going to get kicked to death here or what?
     There was a lot more sighing and clucking.
     "What are  you  doing this for,  Andy?  For  your country? Your country
doesn't want to  know you. Your country doesn't care. The only ones who will
really worry will be  your parents, your family. We don't want  a  war. It's
Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major. They're sitting back there doing nothing.
You're here. It's you that will suffer, not them. They're not worried  about
you.
     "We've had war for many years. All  our  families  have suffered. We're
not  barbarians,  it's  you  who  are  bringing  in war.  This  is  just  an
unfortunate situation  for  you. Why  don't you help us? Why are you letting
yourself go through all this pain? Why do we have to do this sort of thing?"
     I didn't answer, I just kept my head  down. My game plan was not to  go
into the  cover story  straightaway, because then  they've  got  you. I  was
trying to make  it  look as if I was prepared  to give them the Big Four and
that  was all. Queen and  country and all that. I would go through a certain
amount of tactical questioning and then break into my cover story.
     They were talking between themselves in low tones, in what I took to be
quite educated Arabic. Somebody was scribbling notes.
     The writing was a good  sign. It intimated that there wasn't just a big
frenzy going  on, with them getting what they could  and then topping me. It
made it seem there was a reason for not shooting me. Was there  some sort of
preservation  order on  us?  It  gave me a sense of security, a feeling that
some  officialdom  somewhere was directing operations. Yes,  said  the other
side  of my brain, but you're getting  further and further down  this chain,
and the longer this  goes on the less chance you  have of escaping. Escaping
must always be foremost in your mind. You don't know when the opportunity is
going to arise, and you've got  to be ready. Carpe diem! You've got to seize
that  moment, but  the longer you are in  captivity the  more  difficult  it
becomes.
     I  thought about Dinger.  I knew he wouldn't have substantiated any  of
this stuff about Tel Aviv. He would have done as much as he could, and  when
he decided that he'd physically  had too much and  was going to be kicked to
death, he'd have started to break into the search and rescue story.
     It occurred to me  I might  feel better if I could see  my environment,
absorb my surroundings. I  looked up and opened my eyes. The Venetian blinds
were down, but one or two thin shafts of light shone through. Everything was
twilighty and in semi shadow
     The room was quite large, maybe 40 feet by 20. I was sitting at one end
of the rectangle. I couldn't see a  door, so it  had  to be  behind  me. The
officers were at  the other  end,  facing  me. There must have been eight or
nine of  them, all smoking.  Smoke haze hung from the ceiling, pierced  here
and there by the sun coming through the blinds.
     Halfway down the room, on the right hand side as I looked at it,  was a
large desk. On  it were  a couple  of telephones and piles of normal  office
paper, books,  and clutter. A  big leather executive-style chair  was empty.
Behind it  was the world's biggest  picture of Saddam in  his beret, all the
medals on, smiling away. I guessed it was the local commander's office.
     General admin notices hung on the wall. In the center of the lino floor
and  continuing under the desk  was  a  large Persian carpet. On  the  left,
facing  the  desk,  was a large domestic-type  settee. The rest of the walls
were lined with stack able plastic chairs.  Mine, the  guest chair, appeared
to be a plastic cushioned dining chair.
     More tut-tut-tuts and sighs. People were  talking to themselves as if I
wasn't there and this was just a normal day at the office. I rolled my head,
and  blood and  snot dribbled down my  chin. I didn't know how much longer I
could bear the agony in my mouth.
     I worked out  the  options. If they started to fill me in again, I'd be
dead by the end  of the afternoon. The time had come to  start  spilling the
cover story. I would wait for them to initiate it, and I'd go ahead.
     When  I had  refused to answer  their  questions,  I wasn't  being  all
patriotic and brave--that's just propaganda  that you see in war films. This
was real life. I couldn't come  straight out with my cover story. I  had  to
make  it look  as  if they'd prized  it  out  of  me.  It  was  a  matter of
self-preservation, not bravado. People sometimes  do  heroic  things because
the situation demands  it, but there's no such thing as  a hero. The gung ho
brigade  are either  idiots or they don't even understand what's  happening.
What I  had to do now was give them the  least amount of information to keep
myself alive.
     "Andy,  you're  just sitting there. We're trying to be friendly, but we
have to get the  information. Andy, this  could go  on and on. Your friend's
outside, he's helped  us and  he's Okay, he's out there  on the grass,  he's
still alive, he's in the sun. You're in here  in  the dark.  This is no good
for you and it's no good for us. It just takes up our time.
     "Just tell  us what  we need to know and that's it, everything's ended.
You'll be Okay, we'll look after you until the end  of  the  war.  Maybe  we
might be able to organize it for you to go home to your family straightaway.
There's  no problems, if you help us. You look b