y gets so  psyched up when  you are being filled in,
but  when there  is a period  of  calm, all  the  little aches and pains get
magnified because you have nothing else to worry about. The feeling reminded
me of school. When you have a fight as a kid, you're all sparked up,  and it
doesn't hurt so much initially. It's a couple of hours later  that  the pain
comes  out. My lips were still bleeding. My mouth had been split  in several
places during  the beatings, and the wounds kept trying to congeal. But even
the slightest movement made them  reopen. My  arse and lower back  were sore
from sitting  all day  on the hard concrete.  The injuries made me feel even
more  exhausted, and  I wanted to  get my head down.  I nodded off, my  head
lolling on my  chest, then jerked awake a minute or two later. This  went on
for  about half an hour.  Then Dinger and  I leant against  each  other  and
dozed.
     We  were woken by  the slamming of doors  and the sound of talking. The
glow  of a Tiny lamp appeared at the bottom of  the  corridor and got bigger
and  bigger.  Finally the lamp  appeared, with  lots of bodies behind it. We
knew we were off again.
     We   were  handcuffed   and   blindfolded--not   aggressively,   rather
nonchalantly. We stood  up and shuffled together  along the corridor and out
into the open air. A Land Cruiser was waiting with its engine running.
     Our blindfolds were taken off again as we got in, though  I had no idea
why--perhaps there was just  a breakdown in communications. Off we went, two
guards in the front and one in the back.
     "Baghdad? Baghdad?" Dinger sparked up, nice and friendly.
     "Yes, Baghdad," the driver replied, as if he was stating the obvious.
     The driver  knew all the back doubles. We drove for ten minutes through
busy back streets. The vehicle had its headlights blazing. The guards didn't
seem  particularly bothered  when I strained to  see  road signs and  street
names. I  didn't see  a single written word. There were no large magnificent
buildings to be remembered  and  identified later. All  the  houses had flat
roofs. By  the  look of it  this was the slum area of the city. It must have
been a residential  area because there were no  signs of  bombing. It didn't
even  look  as if there  was a war  on. The roads were tarmacked but full of
potholes, and the sidewalk areas were just dust. Old cars  were abandoned at
the roadside, being pissed on by dogs.
     We  stopped outside a  pair of large, slatted wooden gates. They opened
inwards as soon as the vehicle arrived, and we  drove into a small courtyard
not  much  bigger  than the Land  Cruiser's  turning circle.  Squaddies were
waiting for us, and I felt  the familiar knot of apprehension tighten in the
pit of my stomach. Dinger and I looked at each other blankly.
     I wanted to look up as we were hustled out of the vehicle but made sure
my  head was down so I didn't antagonize anybody. It was pitch-black, and at
every moment I  expected the filling  in  to  start. We  were dragged into a
block and along a corridor that  was hardly wider than my  shoulders. It was
totally dark, and the jundie in front of  me had to use his torch. We got to
an area where  there  was a row  of  about  a dozen  doors,  all very  close
together.  The jundie opened one,  pushed me inside, took  off my handcuffs,
and closed the door. I heard a bolt sliding and a padlock being applied.
     There was no ambient light whatsoever. It was so dark in the  room that
I couldn't even see my hand in front  of my face. There was a gagging stench
of shit.  I got  down on my hands and  knees  and felt my way  around. There
wasn't much  to feel. The room was tiny,  and  it  didn't  take  me  long to
discover the two porcelain footpads either side of a hole about eight inches
in  diameter.  No wonder  my new bedroom  stank.  I  was in  a minging  Arab
shithouse.
     You have  to  take  advantage  of every  situation,  and  here  was  an
opportunity  to get the sleep I desperately needed.  I wasn't going to waste
time  thinking about  anything.  There  wasn't  room  to  stretch out  so  I
maneuvered my body so that I was bent around the pan.
     There was no ventilation and the smell was overpowering, but there  you
go.  It  was  just a  relief  not  to  have  been beaten up. I  fell  asleep
immediately.

        10

     I woke  up  feeling  as  if  I'd been drugged. Doors  further down  the
corridor were opening noisily. There was some talking; I could hear it but I
was not really conscious of it because I was in such a daze. I wondered what
time it was. My body clock had completely packed in,  and I didn't even know
if it was night or  day. It should  be a priority to keep track of times and
dates, mainly  because  it  makes  you  feel a little  bit better,  but also
because it keeps your mind  sharp.  If you  lose track of  days, then you'll
lose track of weeks and then months. Time becomes  meaningless, to the point
where you lose touch with reality. Therefore you should make all attempts to
keep a grip from day one. You look  at people's watches if  you can  because
they always have numbers; there's no such thing as an Arabic watch face None
of the guards so far had worn a watch, which was pretty switched on of them.
But  I was wrecked, and such considerations were irrelevant at this stage. I
was more concerned with  whether  I was going  to survive. I was still in  a
stupor when  they  came  to  my  door. "Andy! Andy! Andy!"  a guard  shouted
through  the door in a jovial, holiday camp kind  of  voice.  "Is  it  Okay,
Andy?"
     "Yep, yep, I'm all right!" I tried to sound happy and polite.
     My muscles had seized up; I was as stiff as a board. I tried my best to
stand up. If they saw me  just lying there, making no effort, they'd fill me
in. But I couldn't move.
     The door opened  and  I saw daylight. I  stretched  out my arms,  palms
upwards, in a gesture of helplessness.
     "I can't move," I said. "Stiff."
     He called to another guard. I clenched my sore muscles in readiness for
the kicking I was about to receive.
     They came into the toilet and bent over me.
     "Up, up,  aaah," one said, all nice and gentle. They put my arms around
their  necks  and  lifted me  upright,  almost  with  compassion. They  were
actually concerned. I couldn't believe it.
     The crash of  a door bolt and the friendly shout of "Good morning! Good
morning!" echoed around the block  as they helped me towards the door to the
courtyard.
     The  light was  dazzling,  even  though the  toilet  block was in  shadow. I
squinted  at the sun.  It  was fairly low, and I  guessed the time was about
eight o'clock. The sky was a beautiful, cloudless blue, and the air was cool
and crisp, with just enough nip to make your  face  tingle and  let  you see
your  breath as  you exhaled. It could  have been an early spring morning in
England, and I could have  been coming out of my house  and  setting off for
work.
     Directly  in front of  us was  a vehicle, and beyond it a  single-story
building. The  noises were  subdued--vehicles  in the distance,  disembodied
voices shouting further down  the  camp, city  noises the other side of  the
walls. I heard a bird singing to my left. I turned my head and looked up; it
was in a tree that grew on the other side of the courtyard wall. It sang its
heart out and it was lovely to hear.
     Below it, in the corner where the toilet block met  the wall, there was
a  pile  of  large metal segments.  When  aircraft  drop cluster bombs,  the
ordnance breaks  up at altitude and releases  the payload of smaller  bombs.
The large  outer casings  fall  to earth,  and  these  were obviously  being
collected by somebody. They had English  writing on  them. It gave me a good
feeling to see something from  home.  Somebody friendly was up  there in the
sky, not watching  over me or even looking for  me, but at  least  they were
there, and they were hosing these people down.
     The vehicle was facing outwards, ready to go, and as we  approached the
engine fired up. I got in and was left with a couple of guards. One of them,
the  first black Iraqi soldier that I'd seen,  reminded me of  my  battalion
days. In the early eighties,  when the Afro  was in, our black dudes used to
buy pairs of tights and cut the legs off to use as sort of bank robber masks
to squash their hair  down at night. The effect  of this  was to make  their
Afros  really tight  in the morning,  so that when they put their berets on,
their hair didn't poke out and look ridiculous. As soon as we were off duty,
they'd get out the Afro comb and frizz it all out again.
     This lad had the mop on top, then the ring where  the band of his beret
had dug in, but  all the  rest was sticking out. Obviously he didn't put his
head in  a stocking bottom at night, and I wondered  if I should pass on the
beauty tip. It gave me a  little giggle to remember the battalion. It seemed
a lifetime ago. Dinger  was in  a bad way, shuffling like an old man, moving
along  about a foot every pace, being supported either side by two  lads. It
was quite  funny to watch because Dinger towered a foot or so above them. It
looked like a pair of little Boy Scouts helping an old-age pensioner.
     The bright light hit  him, and  he shuddered up like a vampire, putting
his head down to protect his eyes. We'd been blindfolded and in darkness for
so  long, and all of a sudden we were getting full wattage, like bats caught
in a searchlight.
     I saw that  the guards were commando again,  in DPM and carrying AK47s.
Dinger didn't have his boots either, and his feet were cut. Much the same as
me, there were big red scabs on the outside of his socks where the blood had
congealed. His hair wasn't its usual dirty frizzy blond; it was matted and a
dark reddish brown. His face  was  covered with a week  of growth, and that,
too, was covered with mud and scabs.
     As he was  helped into  the vehicle,  he put his hand out and I grabbed
hold of it and pulled him in.
     "All right, mate?" I said.
     "Yeah, I'm all right."
     I  got the grin. The house might be bomb-damaged,  but  the lights were
still on in the attic.
     It  was  another  major  victory.  We'd  made  physical  contact,  we'd
exchanged words.  It was  a big boost to my morale, and I  hoped I'd had the
same effect on him.
     The guards put the blindfolds on again, breaking the scab on the bridge
of my nose and squashing my eyeballs so  hard that I got snowstorms in front
of my eyes. One of Houdini's secrets was to tense all his muscles as tightly
as he could when they were tying him up, so that when he relaxed he had some
room to play with.  As they tied the blindfold, I tensed my cheek muscles to
give me some slack later on. It didn't work.
     They  put the handcuffs  on again, good and  tight.  My hands were very
tender,  and the pain  was unbearable. Perversely, I took  a deep breath and
clenched my teeth as the  ratchets bit  into the flesh because I didn't want
them to see that they were hurting me. I'd been going through the process of
playing on  my injuries, and now  I was  being  counterproductive  again  by
trying not to show the pain.
     We sat and waited. As I listened to the engine ticking over, I wondered
where  we were  going to.  Had  we convinced  them  we  were inconsequential
nuggets, not worth any further waste of manpower? Were we now on our  way to
a prison  where we  would  just  sit out the rest  of  the war  in  relative
comfort?
     My thoughts  were broken by what I assumed was  one of the guards. Just
as the driver put  his foot on the clutch and  engaged  first gear, he poked
his head through the open window and said quietly, "Whoever is your God, you
will  very soon be needing him." I  didn't know if he  was  saying it out of
compassion, or as  a cruel and deliberate ploy to  make  us flap. But it had
the effect of  totally  saddening me. My  whole body dropped, as if I'd been
told my dad was dead. It was a massive shock. Things had seemed to be on the
up, and now this.
     Whoever is your God, you will very soon be needing him.
     The sincerity in his voice alarmed me. I thought: That's it then, it is
going to get  worse. The mention of God was horrifying because  there was so
much concern in the  guard's voice when he said it, as if it really was only
God who could  save us  now. Did it mean we were going  to be executed? That
was fine--I'd just have to hope it was publicized and  the people back  home
got  the news. What  about torture? We'd heard the horror stories during the
Iran-Iraq war, and the thought now crossed my mind that this was it: Here we
go, it's time for the old chop  your bollocks off routine, followed by ears,
fingers, and toes, all nice  and  slow. But the optimist in me was  fighting
hard, saying: No, they wouldn't  do that: they must realize they're going to
lose the war; they don't want another Nuremberg.
     If   the  desired   effect  was  simply  to   piss  me  off,   then  it
succeeded--severely. The same went  for Dinger. As the Land Cruiser  lurched
across the courtyard, he muttered out of the  corner of his mouth, "Well, at
least they can't make us pregnant."
     I giggled. "Yeah, fair one."
     The boy in the passenger seat turned round and gob bed off angrily, "No
speak! No talk!"
     They might not be able to make us pregnant, but they might try and fuck
us. It was a crazy assumption, but your mind  does that sort of  thing under
duress. The thought worried me more than getting killed.
     Alone with my  thoughts, I brooded about the  conversation I'd had with
Chris back at the FOB.
     "That's all you need on  top of getting captured," Chris had joked. "To
have six chutney ferrets roaring up your arse."
     We drove for  about fifteen minutes in brilliant sunshine. I could tell
we  weren't  heading out  of town because we were still turning  corners  at
quite frequent intervals and the noise of human activity didn't drop. People
in the streets were shouting  at one  another; drivers were leaning on their
horns.
     One of  the  blokes in the front  farted. It was outrageous,  a  really
putrid bastard. That's nice,  I thought: on top of everything  else I've now
got to chew somebody else's shit.
     They thought it was hilarious, and the guy on the passenger side turned
around and said, "Good? Good?"
     "Mrnmm, yum yum," Dinger said, full of appreciation, inhaling deeply as
if he was on the se afront at Yarmouth. "Lovely, good stuff."
     Our noses were so clogged that  not  too much of  the smell was getting
through,  but  it  was important  to show them  that  we didn't  care  about
anything they  did.  After  a while  the  blokes  up front  couldn't hack it
themselves and had to wind the window down.
     It was lovely to feel the cool breeze hitting my skin. I turned my face
into it  until  I tingled. It kept  my mind off my hands. I had perfected  a
technique of  leaning  forward and keeping my  back  straight  to  take  the
pressure  off  the cuffs.  The  problem was that every  time  I  moved, they
thought I was  doing something  to try and get away, so I'd get shoved back.
But what was fifteen minutes of this between friends?
     The driver  stopped laughing, and  I sensed  that we had arrived. Gates
were  being opened, and we drove over a different surface for another couple
of hundred meters. The Land Cruiser was surrounded by angry voices. We had a
reception committee.
     The  moment  the  vehicle  stopped  the doors were pulled  open.  Hands
grabbed my hair  and face and pulled me out  on my side. It was straight out
and  onto  the  ground,  no  messing.  It  wasn't  the  worst beasting  we'd
had--slapping, hair pulling, punches to the side, all the  normal harassment
stuff--but  it came as a  big, big shock. People were  laughing and gob bing
and I got  my head down, clenching up, just letting them get on  with it. It
was their party.
     After two  or three minutes I was hauled  to my feet,  and they started
dragging me away. My legs wouldn't function, and  I  tripped  and  stumbled.
They just kept  dragging, very quickly, very rehearsed, like porters  at  an
abattoir processing carcasses.  There was hollering all around me, but I was
trying to  listen out for another group  so I could  keep  tabs on Dinger. I
couldn't hear anything outside of my own little environment.
     I kept trying to lift my feet so they wouldn't scuff on  the  floor and
get damaged even more. We only went about a dozen meters. While they fiddled
with the door, I tried to catch my breath. We went up a couple of steps that
I didn't know were there, and I banged my toes and groaned. I went down, but
they dragged me up  again, shouting  and slapping. We went along a corridor.
The echoes  were eerie and ugly. It had  been hot,  and  now suddenly it was
cold and damp and musty again. The building seemed derelict.
     The cell door  must have  been  already open.  They threw me against  a
corner and pushed me down  onto the  floor. I  was arranged  so  that  I was
cross-legged but  with my  knees  right up,  my shoulders back, and my hands
behind  my  back, still handcuffed. I didn't say or do anything; I just went
with  the  flow. After  another  couple of  slaps  and kicks and a burst  of
rhetoric for good measure, they slammed the  door shut. It sounded as  if it
was  made of  sheet metal bolted to a  frame, but the frame  must  have been
warped because  they had to  slam it really hard,  and it banged and rattled
with an echo that frightened me shitless.
     You're alone. You think you are  alone. You can't see what's going  on,
you're  disoriented,  and  you're  worried.  You're fucking  worried. You're
breathing heavily,  and all you're thinking is: Let's just  get it done. You
can't be sure there's nobody in the room. Maybe they haven't all gone; maybe
somebody's still looking  at you,  watching for a mistake, so  you keep your
head down,  clench your teeth as best you can, keep  your  knees up, try  to
protect yourself against the punches and kicks that could start again at any
instant.
     I heard  the crash  of another  door.  Dinger  getting locked  away,  I
assumed. It gave me  a bit of consolation to know that we were both still in
the same boat.
     There wasn't a lot  I could  do  except just sit there and try  to calm
myself down. I took deep breaths and  exhaled very slowly as  I analyzed the
events  and  came  to  the obvious  conclusion that something unpleasant was
definitely going to happen. We had been moved to a place that felt organized
and geared up. There was a reception party  to deliver a short, sharp shock;
they knew the  score, they knew exactly what they were going to do and when.
But was this the prison  we were going to stay in now,  or were we still  in
transit and these boys just asserting their authority?  Was I going  to stay
blindfolded and handcuffed for the rest of my days? If so, I was going to be
in a desperate  state.  Would  I  come out with my  eyes impaired? And Jesus
--what about my hands?
     I  calmed myself  with the thought  that  once  I'd tuned in to the new
environment,  I'd be  all right.  It  was like going into a house  that  you
haven't visited before. It feels  strange, but after a  couple of hours  you
feel a bit more affinity with it, you feel more at home. I knew that as long
as my blindfold came off, that was what would happen eventually. I still had
my escape  map and  compass safely tucked  away, so at least I had something
over them.
     It was cold: a  dank, dilapidated sort  of cold. The floor was  damp. I
was sitting in wet mud and shit. I found that my hands could touch the wall.
It  was plaster that had chips and  chunks  out of it, and where it met  the
floor there  were  gaps.  The  concrete  floor  was  very rough and  uneven.
Pressure sores  on  my  arse  made  me  try  to adjust my position.  I tried
straightening my legs out but that  didn't work, so  I brought them  back up
and tried  to lean on one side. But wherever I leaned my hands were painful;
I just couldn't get comfortable.
     I  heard  noisy  talking and the  sound  of people walking up  and down
outside. There was obviously a gap  in the  door or a  window, and I  sensed
them looking  in at me, checking out the  new commodity,  just  staring with
blank,  gormless  eyes. It flashed through my mind  that  if  I got out, I'd
never visit a zoo again in my life.
     The pain from the  handcuffs  and the stress  position  had  become too
much. Whether or not I was being watched, I had no choice but to try and lie
down to relieve the pressure. There was nothing to  lose in having a go. You
don't  know  until you try.  I  shifted  on to  my  side, and the relief was
immediate--and so was the  shouting. I knew they  were  coming for me. Every
nerve in my body screamed: "Fuck! Fuck! Oh no, not again .. ."
     I tried to pull myself  up by putting my weight against the wall, but I
ran out  of time. The bolt  flew undone, and the guards  battled to  get the
warped  door  open.  It shook and rattled like an up-and-over garage door as
they  kicked  at it in a fury,  and when it  did  finally swing open, it was
still rattling like  a pantomime thunderstorm. It  was the most  frightening
noise I'd ever heard, horrendous, absolutely horrendous.
     They  were straight  in, grabbing me by my hair,  kicking and punching.
Their message was very clear. They forced me  back into  the stress position
and left the cell, slamming the door behind them. The bolt crashed home, and
their footsteps echoed and faded.
     This feels like  a  proper  prison;  this is a purpose-built cell.  I'm
under their  total  control.  So this  is  where  it's all going to  happen?
There's no chance of  escape, and if conditions  stay like  this there never
will be.
     These boys  knew what  they were doing  all right. Their reactions were
well rehearsed and orchestrated.  This suddenly felt like it was going to be
for ever. I was without  hope. I thought it would be impossible ever to feel
lower, or lonelier, or more abandoned and lost.
     My mind rambled. I  wondered if  Jilly had been told  I  was missing in
action or  presumed dead. I hoped she'd  been told jack shit. I  hoped  that
somebody had got  over the border or  that the Iraqis  had spoken to the Red
Cross.  Some chance. Maybe I'd land up  on the TV soon, which would  be  all
rather nice. But then again would it? The next of kin would be pacing up and
down enough already, just because there was a  war on. Jilly had always been
quite good about  my  work.  She  took  the view  that what she  didn't know
wouldn't hurt her. She was able somehow to just cut it out of her mind. This
time, however, it was obvious where I was, and the same went for my parents.
     My only fear of dying was  if nobody  knew I  was dead. I couldn't bear
the thought of my family's  anguish  at not having a body to mourn, of going
through their lives not knowing for sure.
     The Iraqi  Head  Shed  obviously  didn't want  us dead at  this  stage,
because if people had been left to their own devices we'd have been topped a
long time ago.  And if  they  wanted  us alive, it  must be for some purpose
--whether for propaganda or  just because they knew  they were going to lose
the war and it wouldn't look good if prisoners were getting slotted.
     You have to accept the circumstances and  do the best you can in  them.
There was  nothing  I could do to help the people back home, so I  turned my
mind elsewhere. Should I have gone for the border that night? It was obvious
to me that I should  have taken my chances.  But then,  with  hindsight, I'd
have got eight score draws on last week's coupon.
     I was injured  and disoriented. I couldn't even  remember  what  day it
was. I knew I had to get  a grip.  Disorienting the prisoner is a good start
to breaking him, and I knew it. But there was  nothing I could do but put it
out of my mind until I got a chance to see a clock or a guard's watch.
     Interrogators have two hurdles  to get over: the straightforward one of
cracking you physically,  followed by the more difficult one of breaking you
mentally.  They  don't  know  your  psyche,  your  weaknesses,  your   inner
strengths. Some  people  might break the  first day,  others will never give
in--and  spread along  the spectrum in between lie  all the  rest of us. The
interrogator  cannot  be  sure  that  his objective has been  achieved.  The
telltale  signs are  hard  to  detect;  he'll  know he can't  judge by  your
physical condition because you're exaggerating your injuries. But he'll have
been taught that  the  eyes don't lie. It's up to you to make sure he  can't
see through the  window;  you have to mask your alertness.  You have to make
people peering  in believe that  they're looking  at empty premises, not the
shop front of Harrods.
     I forced  my mind to focus on more  productive  thoughts. I ran through
the story  once more, trying to  remember what I'd said, hoping  that Dinger
had said more  or less the same thing. The aim had to  be to hold out for as
long as we could so that a damage assessment could be  made back at the FOB.
The question our Head Shed would be asking was: What do members of Bravo Two
Zero know? They would come to the conclusion that we knew our own tasks, but
nothing  of  other  people's,  present  or  future,  so   nothing  could  be
compromised.  Anything  that  we did know that could affect other operations
would have been changed or canceled.
     We had to keep to our story. There was no turning back.
     I was still in  the  stress  position  in the corner an hour later,  or
maybe it was ten minutes.
     People paced up and down, looked in, mumbled.
     As far  as my body was concerned,  it was the lull  in the  battle.  It
hadn't been  complaining of such things while I was  getting filled in,  but
now that nothing physical was happening to me it screamed that it was hungry
and thirsty. I wasn't  too worried  about  food. My  stomach had been kicked
about  a bit and probably couldn't  have  taken it anyway.  The priority was
water. I was so, so thirsty. I was gagging.
     I heard them fiddling with the padlock and throwing back the bolt. They
banged  and  kicked  the door to get  it open, and  the steel  juddered  and
jarred. They were coming for me. Thirst vanished. Fear was everything.
     They  came in without a word,  just straight  over and  grabbed  me and
lifted. I  couldn't  see  them, but I could smell them.  I tried to look  as
though I was doing my best to help them, despite the injuries  I was playing
on. But I found I was  kidding myself more than them.  It was well and truly
past the stage of playing. I couldn't stand up. My legs would not obey me.
     They  dragged  me  out of the cell  and  turned right, heading down the
corridor. My feet trailed in their wake, the scabs  on my toes  scraping off
on the floor. I could see a  little through the  bottom  of the blindfold. I
saw the  cobblestones  and a trail of blood. I saw a step coming but  had to
trip over  it because I  didn't want  them  to  realize that I could see.  I
didn't want to get punished more than I was going to be anyway.
     It was warm in the  sun. I felt it on my face. We went  along a pathway
and  brushed past a small hedgerow.  Up  onto another  step,  then back into
darkness. A long, black corridor, cool, musty, and damp. I heard office type
noises and the sound of  footsteps  on lino  or  tiles. We  turned right and
entered a room. It was cold and damp, but as they carried me in we went past
isolated  centers of heat. It wasn't  at all  the nice, comfy,  Aunty  Nelly
feeling of a room that had been flooded with heat for a long time.
     They pushed me down onto a hard chair. There was the usual strong smell
of  paraffin and cigarettes, and this time  some acrid body odor. Whether it
came from the people in the room or a previous  prisoner, I couldn't tell. I
tried to lean forward, but hands grabbed me and pulled me back.
     There were  lots of people in there, shuffling their feet, coughing and
muttering to one another,  and they seemed to  be arranged on either side of
the room. I heard Tiny lamps. I didn't know if the room was windowless or if
the curtains were drawn, but it was very dark apart from their glow.
     I clenched my muscles and waited. There was silence for a minute or so.
I was  worried. We'd got to the serious place. This was the  real world; the
people here would not be idiots.
     A  voice  spoke  to  me  from  the  top of  the  room. It sounded  like
somebody's favorite grand ad a sort of old, gravelly voice, very pleasant in
tone.
     "How are you, Andy?"
     "I'm not too bad."
     "You  look quite injured."  The  English was fluent  but with  a marked
accent.  "Perhaps  when  we  have finished  our  business  and  we  have  an
understanding, we might be able to get you some medical attention."
     "It would be  very nice if  I could have some. Thank you very much. And
my friend also?"
     We were in a new environment now, with a new gang. If this was going to
be  the good boy routine, maybe  I'd  get  something to eat, maybe  I'd  get
medical attention, maybe I'd be able to get medical attention for  Dinger. I
might even find out some  information. Maybe they might  be  able to  let me
have my blindfold off or my handcuffs--maybe, maybe,  maybe. Even if  it was
for ten minutes,  it  would be better  than a kick in  the tits.  If they're
promising you things, you must try and see if they'll deliver. Take what you
can, while you can. Right, let's go along with this.
     "All we need to know, Andy, is what you were doing in our country."
     I went through my story again. I tried to look scared and humble.
     "I was  in a  helicopter as a member of a search and rescue team. I'm a
medic: I wasn't there to kill people.  The  helicopter came  down, there was
some form of emergency, we were all  told to run off the helicopter quickly,
and then it just took off. I don't know how many people got off the aircraft
or are on the ground and still running around. You have to understand, there
was total  confusion. It was at night,  nobody knew where the officer was; I
think he might even have run back on  the helicopter and deserted us. I  had
no idea  where  I  was and  no  idea where  I was going. I was just  running
around, scared and confused. And that's all there is."
     There was a long pause.
     "You understand,  do you Andy, that  you  are a  prisoner  of war,  and
prisoners of war are required to do certain things?"
     "I understand that, and I am helping you as much as I can."
     "We need you to sign some things. We need to get some  signatures  from
you  so  they can  be  sent to the Red  Cross. It's  part of  the process of
letting your family know that you're here."
     "I'm sorry, but  under the  Geneva Convention I'm told  that I must not
sign  anything. I  don't  really  understand  why  I have to sign  anything,
because we're taught that we don't have to do that sort of thing."
     "Andy," The Voice became even more grandfatherly. "We need to help each
other, don't you agree, so that things will run smoothly?"
     "Yes,  of course.  However, I don't  know anything. I've told you all I
know."
     "We really must help each other;  otherwise  things  will  have to  get
painful. I think you understand what I mean by that, Andy?"
     "I  understand  what you're saying,  but I really  don't know what  you
need. I've told you everything that I know. I don't know anything else."
     There's a technique that high-pressure salesmen use to  get you to tell
them  that  you want  to  buy  the product. It's called something  like  the
Creative  Pause. Victor Kiam  explained it in one of  his books: when he was
going through his sales pitch, he would stop and pause, and if the person he
was  trying  to  sell  to  actually  felt  that they  had to  carry  on  the
conversation during this gap, Kiam knew that he had a sale.  The punter felt
he had to do something, and that was to agree to buy.
     I kept quiet and looked confused.
     "You're really  looking quite poorly, Andy. Do you require some medical
assistance?"
     "Yes, please."
     "Well, Andy, you have to pay for things. What we require in return is a
little assistance. You scratch  my  back  and  I'll scratch yours! I believe
it's an old English saying, yes?"
     He  must have looked around the  room for  approval because  the others
laughed hard--a bit too hard. It was the sound  of the chairman of the board
making a bone  joke and everybody  chortling because they  have to. Half the
people in the room probably didn't even know what he was saying.
     "I will be helpful," I said. "I'm trying  to be  as helpful  as I  can.
Would it be possible to have some water or some food, I wonder, as my friend
and I haven't eaten  or  had anything to drink  for a  long time.  I'm  very
thirsty and feeling very weak."
     "If  you are  helpful,  we  might  be  able  to come  to  some sort  of
agreement--but you  cannot  expect me to do  something  for  nothing. Do you
understand that, Andy?"
     "Yes, I understand, but I really don't know what you want from me. I've
told you everything I know. We're just soldiers; we were just told to get on
an aircraft and go. We don't know what's going on. The army  treats us  like
dirt."
     "I  think you will  find we  treat people better here. I am  willing to
supply  food, water,  and medical assistance for you and your friend,  Andy,
but it must be a fair trade.  We need to know the names of the other people,
so we can inform the Red Cross that they are in Iraq."
     It went without saying that this  was a load of old bollocks, but I had
to appear as compliant as  I could without actually giving anything  away. I
wanted to  keep this interview in the hands  of Mr.  Nice Guy. He was  being
polite,  cordial, gentle, soft,  concerned. I wasn't looking forward  to the
bad guy stuff, which I knew would happen sooner or later.
     "The  only name I know is  my friend Dinger's," I said.  He would  have
given  his name, number, rank,  and date of  birth anyway as required by the
Geneva Convention. I said his full name. "Apart from him, I have no idea who
is here and who  isn't. It was very dark, everybody was running all over the
place, it was chaos. The only reason I know  about Dinger is because  I have
seen him."
     Something told me the  cover story was crumbling.  It just didn't  feel
credible to me any more. It was starting  to  get holes picked in it, as any
story will unless it's deep cover. It was just a matter of playing for time.
I  had no  idea  what they were thinking  at this stage; it was just cat and
mouse. He'd  ask a  question  and I'd give one of my bone answers, and  he'd
just go on to the next one without even questioning what I had said.
     The Voice must have realized I  was giving him  a load of old pony, and
I,  in turn,  realized that  what I was giving him wasn't  what they wanted.
Despite that, bad things weren't happening--but happen they certainly would.
     Mentally I  was fine. Your mental state can be altered by drugs. I just
hoped  they  weren't  that  advanced  and were still  into  caveman tactics.
Physical  abuse can only get  the  interrogator to  a  certain point; beyond
that, it's not a viable inducer  of the goods. They can assess your physical
state from the beatings they've given you. What they can't gauge for sure is
your mental state. For that, they need to know your  level of alertness, and
the only  visible clue to that is your eyes. Some  people would  get totally
wound up  if an  interrogator laughed at the size of their cock, or  accused
them  of being  a homosexual, or said  their mother was a  whore. They would
spark up, and this would show that they were not as out of it as they wanted
to appear. Everybody has a chink in their armor, and the  interrogator's job
is to find it. From that moment on, they can really go to town.
     We  were  trained to  expect  it,  and we were  lucky  that within  the
Regiment everybody  is taking the piss  all  the time.  Daily  life revolves
around personal insults. But it would still be a battle.
     If  you're  physically and  mentally exhausted you  shouldn't have  the
energy  even to comprehend what's being  said, let  alone react to  it. Your
bluff job won't last long if you as much as blink when he laughs at the size
of your cock or asks  about your wife's favorite position. The effect you're
striving  for is that  you're exhausted, everything's really too much bother
for  you  to understand,  you've told them everything you know, and  there's
nothing more you want to do than  go  home. The  advantage we  were starting
with was  that, to them, even a senior NCO is a nobody. Their army is run by
the officers for  the  officers. Other  ranks are just ignorant  cogs in the
wheel. They didn't  have my mind and  they would never get it; it was just a
case  now  of reminding  them that  I was just a cretinous bumpkin, not even
worth the bother.
     I asked if it was possible for the handcuffs and blindfold to come off.
"I can't  think  straight," I  said. "My hands are numb and  my eyes are  in
trouble. I've got a headache."
     "It is for your own security," The Voice replied.
     "Of course, I understand, sir. I'm very sorry for asking."
     It  was for their security, not mine. They didn't want me to be able to
identify them.
     "I'm trying to  help," I went on, "but  I'm only the sergeant.  I don't
know anything, I don't do  anything,  and  I  don't  particularly want to do
anything. If I  did know any more, I'd tell you.  I  don't want to  be here.
It's the government  that  sent me.  I  was  just  riding in the  back of  a
helicopter, I didn't even know we'd landed in your country."
     "I understand all that, Andy. However, you must realize that we need to
clarify a few things. And for us to help you you need to help us, as we have
discussed. You understand this?"
     "Yes, I understand, but I'm sorry, this is all I know."
     The game went on for about an hour. It was played very cordially, there
was no mistreatment whatsoever. But the undertone  was that they  knew I was
lying through my hind teeth. The only problems were of my own making, when I
failed to keep two steps ahead of him and ended up contradicting myself.
     I did it a couple of times.
     "Andy, are you lying to us?"
     "I'm confused.  You're not  giving me  time to think. I'm worried about
getting home alive. I  don't want  to be in  this  war,  I'm just very, very
scared."
     "I  shall give  you  time to think,  Andy, but you  must think clearly,
because we cannot help you unless you help us."
     He started then to  talk about my family life  and  my education. "Have
you got a degree?"
     Degree? I didn't have so much as a CSE.
     "No, I've  got no  qualifications. This  is why  I'm a soldier. In Mrs.
Thatcher's  England, unless  you've got education you can't do anything. I'm
just a  working class person at the  bottom of  the heap. I had  to join the
army because there's nothing else I can do. England is very expensive, there
are many taxes. If I didn't do this I'd starve."
     "Have you any brothers and sisters?"
     "No, I haven't any brothers or sisters. I was an only child."
     "We  need  to  know  your parents'  address  so that  we can send  them
notification that you're  still alive.  They must be  very worried about you
now, Andy. You need to get a message to them; it would make you feel better.
We can do this for you. We are willing to help you, as  long as you help us.
So if  you  would just give me your parents' address,  we shall  send them a
letter."
     I explained that my dad  had died of heart trouble,  and my  mother had
run away  and was  now living  somewhere in America.  I  hadn't seen her for
years. I hadn't got any family at all.
     "You  must  have friends  in  England who would need to know  where you
are?"
     "I'm just a loner. I drifted into the army. There's nobody."
     I  knew he  didn't  believe  me, but  it was better  than a point-blank
refusal. The end result was the same,  but at  least I didn't get a beasting
in the process.
     "Andy, why do you think the Western armies are here?"
     "I'm not entirely sure. Bush says that he wants the oil  of Kuwait, and
Britain just goes along with  it. Basically we're the servants  of Bush, and
I'm  the servant  of John  Major, the  new  prime  minister. I don't  really
understand this war.  All I know is that I was sent out to do a medic's job.
I have no interest in war; I  don't want to go to war. I was just dragged in
to do  their  dirty work for them. I know Thatcher  and Major are sitting at
home with their gin and tonics,  and Bush is jogging around Camp  David, and
here I am, caught up in something I don't really understand.  Please believe
me --I don't want to be here, and I'm trying to help."
     "Well, we will see you very soon, Andy," he said. "You can go now."
     The blokes behind me picked me up and dragged me away at the  double. I
didn't manage to get my feet  going at their speed, and they dragged  me all
the way  down  the  corridor,  along the  path,  down  the  step, across the
cobbles, and  back to the cell. They put  me back in the corner, in the same
agonizing position.
     When  the door slammed, I let  all my breath out with relief. I started
trying to sort myself out.
     Two minutes later,  the -door banged and crashed, and  a guard came in.
He took off my blindfold, but I didn't look up. The last thing I  wanted was
another  filling in. He walked out again, leaving me to  see my surroundings
for the first time.
     The floor was concrete--really  bad, decaying  concrete, full of little
dips and  very damp.  There was a window to the right of  the door, a small,
slim, long opening.  As I looked up at it, my  eyes fixed on a large hook in
the middle of  the ceiling. My heart started pumping hard. I  had visions of
me hanging up there very soon.
     The walls  had once  been cream but now  were  covered  with  muck. The
surfaces  were chipped  and  etched  with Arabic writing. There were  also a
couple of Nazi swastika signs, and on one  wall  a back view, about A4 size,
of  a dove  flying up towards the sky. The bird had chains  joining its legs
together, and underneath, in English amongst the Arabic, were the words: "To
my only desire, my little  boy Josef, will I  ever see him  again?" It was a
beautiful piece of artwork. I wondered who had done it and what had happened
to him. Was this the last thing that anybody did around here?
     Splashed over the  walls were  two enormous bloodstains,  two  or three
pints of blood per stain, dried onto the plaster. By one of them was a scrap
of  cardboard. I  stared  at it for a while, then shuffled across on my arse
until I was close enough to read what was on it. It was from a box which had
held sachets of fortifying drink. The packaging said how wonderful it was to
drink: it  gave  you vitality and energy. I read more  and  got a shock that
made  my heart jump. The product came from  Brentford in Middlesex. That was
where Kate's mother came from. I knew the place  well; I even knew where the
factory was. Kate still lived there.  It depressed me beyond belief to think
of her. How long  was I going to be here? Was this it for the war?  Was this
it  until they'd  finished  with me?  Would  I  just end  up  as one of  the
statistics of atrocity?
     My defense  was to get  back  to  business  and  think  about  possible
scenarios.  Did we have any more survivors? Had the Iraqis made a connection
between  us  and the compromise at the MSR? Had they already  got people who
had confirmed this,  and were they  just playing games? No, the only  fact I
knew for sure was that they had me and Dinger.
     About a  quarter  of  an  hour later  I heard  muffled  voices  in  the
corridor.  My heart pounded. They  walked on, and  I let go a big breath.  I
heard another door open. Probably Dinger, being taken for an interrogation.
     An  hour later  I heard his door  being slammed and locked down. It was
starting to get last light. It must have been very dark out  in the corridor
because the shadows  weren't coming  under the door any  more. I listened as
all the voices walked  away to the door at the end of the corridor, and then
that was locked as well, for the  first time since we'd  got there. Did that
mean we were there for the night? I hoped so. I needed to get my head down.
     Darkness brought with it a strange sense of security because I couldn't
see, mixed  with dread  because  I was cold  and had time to think. I  tried
sleeping on  my  front,  with  my head resting on  the floor, but  the  best
position turned out to be lying on my  side  with  my  cheek  resting on the
concrete. The  only drawback  was  the  pressure that was exerted on my  hip
bone;  I  had to move  every few  minutes to relieve  it  and  ended  up not
sleeping.
     The glow of Tiny lamps  shimmered under the door, and I heard footsteps
and the jangle of keys. The bolt thudded. They started to kick the door.  It
was  even scarier than in  the daytime. I could hear Dinger's being  done at
the same time. It was all so intimidating: they  had the power and the lamp,
and I was just the dickhead in the corner.
     The door was kicked open. I got myself sitting up. I pulled my knees in
and  got  my head down,  ready  for the  inevitable kicking. They came over,
picked me up, and guided me out into the corridor. My feet were agony, and I
had to  collapse to take the weight  off  them. They dragged me a few meters
and stopped. They took me into  another cell. I  couldn't work out  what was
happening.  Was  it  some  sort  of  punishment  cell?  A   toilet?  Another
interrogation room?
     They pushed me  down to  the  floor.  The handcuffs  were  removed, but
reapplied to the left wrist. My right hand was  free.  The  other  wrist was
handcuffed to something.
     One of them said, "You stay here now."
     They left  the cell, locked the door, and their  footsteps receded down
the corridor.
     I felt with my free  hand to find out what I  was anchored to  and came
into contact with somebody else's arm.
     "Dinger?"
     "Wanker!"
     I couldn't believe it.
     We were chuffed to fuck to be reunited. For  a few  minutes we just sat
there  amazed,  hugging  each  other  and  swapping greetings.  Things  were
absolutely  splendid.  Then we heard footsteps  in the corridor. The  guards
started kicking  the door to come in. I looked at Dinger. His face looked as
disappointed as  I felt. I  looked up as they  came  in, ready to  say: Nice
stitch, guys. But they'd come  back with a  blanket for us to  share. Was it
Saddam's birthday or what?
     "How's your hands?" I whispered into Dinger's  ear, unsure if we'd been
put together because the cell was bugged.
     "Shit state," he said.
     That pleased me. I'd have been pissed off if mine were worse than his.
     "I've still got my map and compass," I said.
     "Yeah, same here. I can't believe."
     "Gold?"
     "Civvies took it. And yours?"
     "The ruperts had it away."
     "Wankers, the lot of them."
     For  the  next half  an  hour we  were like a couple of kids  comparing
wounds. We took the piss out of the guards and generally let off steam. Then
we got the blanket sorted out so that it was under our arses but also coming
up our backs  an dover our shoulders.  As we  moved around to make ourselves
comfortable, the handcuffs got tighter and tighter.
     Sitting  with him  in  the  darkness,  I learned  what  had happened to
Dinger, Legs, and Bob after we got split up.
     As  they  patrolled  along the  hedge line  Dinger  heard  a noise  and
stopped. Behind him,  Legs and  Bob followed  suit.  They  couldn't shout  a
warning forward. The patrol was split.
     The noise  subsided. They waited  for ten minutes but no one  returned.
They  carried on,  moving on the bearing. They  had only gone 600  feet when
there was a challenge from about 50 feet away.  Two incoming shots went very
close. Then  there was fire from many positions. There was a contact, during
which Bob got separated from the other two.
     Dinger and Legs fired and maneuvred back down to  the river. They heard
a clearing operation about 450 feet  away, lots of firing and  shouting. The
Iraqis were coming down in extended line.
     Dinger  and  Legs  had thirty rounds of  link for the Minimi and a  mag
between  them. There was no way they could fight their way through. They had
no choice but  to cross  the river. They got right down to the  water's edge
and found a small boat. They tried  to unchain it. No luck. They didn't want
to shoot the padlock, so there was only one escape route left.
     The river only looked about 300 feet across and slow flowing. The water
was  so cold  it took Dinger's breath away.  As  they  staggered ashore they
found that all  they'd done was swim a tributary. They were stuck on  a spit
of land in the  middle  of  the river, there was firing  and shouting on the
bank  they'd left, and torch lights flashed over the water.  They looked for
cover.
     The spit was overlooked by a  roadblock on a pontoon  about  250 meters
away.  There  was  no  cover;  both  men  were  freezing  cold  and  shaking
convulsively. Legs recce'd around to find how they could get off, and where.
They could still hear all  the  other contacts  going on, including one very
long one with a Minimi. It must have been Bob. Then there was silence.
     Legs  found  a polystyrene  box, which  they  broke up and stuffed down
their smocks for buoyancy. The only exit point from  the spit was guarded by
the  bridge; there was so much  enemy activity that their only chance was to
swim the main river.
     They lay on  the ground for  an hour, waiting for an opportunity. Their
wet  smocks and trousers were icing solid; they had to move. Dinger stalled.
He'd had  a  tough  enough  struggle  getting this far, and  he doubted  his
ability to swim the main river. Legs urged him on. They waded in up to their
waists and started to swim. The river was 1,600 feet across, the current was
flowing fast, and Dinger was soon struggling.
     "We can do it, mate," Legs said. "We can do it."
     At  last,  Dinger's  feet  touched  the  ground.  "That's  bottom,"  he
whispered  as  he staggered onto dry land, instinctively  carrying on up the
shoreline to check for enemy activy.
     Looking back across the river, he saw that the current had carried them
about a kilometer and a half downstream.  He also saw that Legs was still in
the  water. Dinger  ran down  to the  water's edge and hauled him  out. Legs
couldn't stand.
     Dinger  had seen  a  small  pump-hut about  30  feet from the  bank. He
dragged  Legs up to it and carried him inside.  Dinger was so tired  himself
now that it took him two hours to get the wet clothes off him.
     It was first light.  Dinger  carried Legs out into  the sun, no  longer
caring about a compromise: the most important  thing was  to keep him alive.
People  were starting to  work in the  fields,  forcing  Dinger to drag  the
injured  man  in and  out. He  knew  it wouldn't  be  long before  they were
discovered. There seemed to be hundreds of troops on the ground.
     Legs  was  going  to  die. Dinger  had to make a decision: did he  stay
concealed and just watch him die, or did he compromise the position and give
Legs  the chance of medical attention? It didn't  take much  thinking about.
Dinger left the hut and stood around until a farmer spotted him.
     Dinger ran back  inside and closed the door behind him. The farmer  ran
up, locked  it, and took off  into the fields ranting and raving. Dinger had
already organized an avenue of escape from  the back of the hut. Legs was by
the generator, his breathing labored.  Dinger told him what he was doing and
left. He didn't know if Legs understood. He hoped he did.
     He was running along the floor of  a dry wadi when a local spotted him.
Soon  there  were  whole  groups  of  them,  twenty  or thirty  at  a  time,
paralleling him on either bank. They started shooting.  He knew he was going
to  get caught, but he  kept running. He'd had his shamag around his head to
try and  pass himself  off as a  local; when they finally converged on  him,
they knocked him  down  and  used it  to bind his hands behind his back.  As
Dinger looked up, he saw one of them pull a  knife. The  man  started to cut
his ear off.
     Dinger reckoned this was as good a time as any to  indicate the gold on
his belt. The locals thought it was Christmas. Off it came, and they started
squabbling about it. When they had sorted themselves out,  they frog marched
Dinger into their town.
     The  civvies were trying to pull  him apart.  Several shots were fired,
and he thought the end was near. But the  shooting had come  from a squad of
jundies; they waded into the mob and  pulled him clear. There must have been
some sort of order or reward to deliver prisoners alive.
     He  was put into a convoy of  vehicles,  and they crossed back over the
river and  drove  to a  camp. Everybody was  excited; Dinger  was  the first
white-eye they'd caught.
     He was  handcuffed  to a  chair in  a room full of officers. They spoke
good  English and asked  him  the Big Four. Then they said,  "What  is  your
mission?" to which he replied: "I cannot answer that question."
     They said that things would  get very bad  for him if he  didn't answer
the questions: this was war.  They asked him again, and he started to reply.
He got as far as "I cannot ..." and they launched him.  He was kicked to the
floor and filled in. It sounded as though there  was a competition going on;
there  was a  lot  of  high  spirits and  chat. Dinger  was starting  to get
worried.
     The  beasting  went  on  for  about thirty minutes.  No questions  were
actually being asked. Then one of the  officers jumped up and left the room,
and one of them said, "You will be sorry now."
     The  man returned with a wooden pole about 4  feet long and 3 inches in
diameter. He waded straight into Dinger with it.
     It  only  lasted for about  ninety seconds, but Dinger was sure he  was
going to die. He started going into the cover story.
     They asked how many people there were in the search and rescue package,
and when Dinger  said, "I cannot answer that  question," they started  again
with the pole.
     They brought in  an empty 66 and a 203  and  asked  him how the weapons
worked. Dinger refused to show them, which earned him another seeing to with
the pole. Then Dinger thought: It's a weapon, for Christ's sake, not a state
secret. They could find out how to work it from a copy of Jane's.
     He told them the pilot rescue story,  and it  seemed to work  well, but
this was an early stage in the questioning. He knew things were going to get
a whole lot worse.
     We compared notes  on the rest of the patrol. The last thing Dinger had
seen of Legs was him  lying on a stretcher, absolutely motionless. As far as
he was  concerned, Legs  was  dead. We  had  no idea  about Bob. Dinger  had
thought he was with us, and we had thought he was with them. Dinger had seen
some  of Bob's equipment when we first got  moved to Baghdad; it was part of
his  webbing and it was badly  burnt. It didn't bode well. Whilst I had been
getting interrogated just after capture, Dinger was in another room with all
our captured equipment.
     "They had some weapons there. The blokes were fucking about with a 203,
and I started shouting to leave  it alone  because it still  had a round in.
All I got for my pains was a smack in the mouth. The nuggets fired  it,  and
it went off."
     Luckily for  Dinger,  a  40mm bomb needs to travel about 60 feet before
the  inertia device kicks in and it self-arms. The  bomb hit the ceiling and
bounced  down  again. Allah  was  smiling  on him that  day: if the bomb had
popped it would have taken everybody in the room.
     "There was a mega flap at that stage, and obviously I got filled in for
it," he said.
     We were rolling  up about the 203 but trying hard not to giggle. It was
such a relief to  listen to  Dinger's voice again. All my problems seemed to
fade away.
     "The sergeant major picked up a compass, and the knobber didn't  have a
clue what he was doing with it," Dinger  went on. "He knew it was a compass,
but  he really didn't know how  to use it. He daren't lose face  in front of
the jundies, so  he acted as if he knew. It really kept me happy. He had the
fucking  thing upside down  trying to open it, and there  was me, keeping my
head  down, a bit of  a  smile on  my face, trying not to  laugh. They  were
dragging  little  bits  and  pieces  like  batteries  out  of the  kit,  and
everything to them was  an explosive. They obviously  thought everything was
going to blow up in their faces."
     We  lapsed into a  phase of seriousness and wondered if Stan  and Vince
were still alive. As  far as I  was  concerned, Stan  was likely to be dead.
He'd  been  on the way  out on  the  first night of the  E&E, and I couldn't
imagine him suddenly improving.
     "Bastard!" I said. "I gave him my bobble-hat."
     It  genuinely annoyed me  that he still  had  my hat  and was  dead and
didn't need it any more.
     "That bastard's always  got  all the  kit,"  Dinger  said. "I  bet he's
already nicked God's anorak."
     We  weren't  sure about  Vince  and  Chris. On  the assumption that  if
anybody was  alive they'd  be with us now, they, like Bob, were either still
on the run or dead.
     The only question we didn't have an answer  for was why they had put us
together. What did it mean? That they believed our story? That they hoped we
were going to start waffling and  they would listen in? The  only conclusion
we came to was that  we wouldn't waste time  and  energy thinking  about it,
we'd just take advantage of being together.
     The crash of the  bolt being  undone on the  door at the far end of the
corridor concentrated our minds wonderfully.  Footsteps  echoed again on the
tiled floor,  and the  glow of Tiny  lamps invaded  the cell. Boots  thumped
against the door to  force it open. Oh shit, oh no, I thought, they're going
to split us up now.
     Two guards  appeared. The first presented us  with a pitcher of  water.
The second guard was carrying bowls that were steaming.
     The blanket, the water, the soup--it was like staying at the Ritz. This
was all rather  pleasant, room service coming in and pampering us like this.
I wondered if I could trouble them for a copy of the FT.
     We looked up at them with  our blanket  around  our shoulders, grinning
like a couple of grateful refugees.
     "American?" they asked.
     "No, British."
     "No Tel Aviv?"
     "No. British. England. London."
     "Ah, London. Football. Manchester United. Football. Good."
     "Yeah, Liverpool."
     "Ah, Liverpool. Bobby Moore! Good."
     We  didn't  say a word to each other until the  door had slammed firmly
shut. Then I turned to  Dinger, and in unison we muttered "Wankers!" and had
a giggle.
     The  bowls  held a hot liquid  that tasted vaguely  of  onions. In  the
pitcher there  must have been four pints of water, and it tasted better than
vintage champagne. In theory, you've really got to take your time and sip it
slowly. In practice, because you can't trust the bastards not to come in and
whisk it away again from under your nose, you are forced to rush it. The big
danger then is that all you achieve is the feeling of wetness on your throat
and a swollen belly.
     We tried to settle down. The handcuffs  dictated  that we had to lie on
our backs.  We got the  blanket over us, and I stared  at the  ceiling. Very
soon my nose started twitching. Dinger stank, he absolutely stank.
     "Your poor wife," I  said. "Imagine sleeping  with a stinking mess like
you every night--it must be like kip ping next to a grizzly bear."
     Just a minute or  two later, I  was gripped by a fearsome urge. It must
have been the onions.
     "Dinger, mate--I wanna go a pooh-pooh."
     Dinger  grudgingly hauled himself into a  half-lying position  with his
hand in the air so I could get as far away from him as possible.
     I struggled to get my  trousers  down, trying hard  not  to tighten the
ratchet on the cuffs.
     "For fuck's sake  get on  with  it," he  moaned.  "Let's get  our heads
down."
     At last  I was  in  position, and I  emptied my arse. Wet,  gooey  shit
sprayed all over the place.
     "Oh,  fucking  cheers," said Dinger  indignantly.  "This is  my  house,
this--would you do this in your own place?"
     I couldn't help myself. It kept on coming.
     "No consideration. I had to work hard for all  this. You invite  people
over, you offer them dinner, and how do they repay you? They drop their arse
all over your nice carpet."
     I was laughing  so  much I fell back into  it, and  there wasn't much I
could do except pull my trousers back up and lie down. It wasn't the best of
situations, but at least there were three compensations. I'd done it in  his
cell, not mine, it was warm on my legs, and it would be his turn next.
     We put  half of  the blanket  under us for insulation  and got snuggled
down, sharing body heat.
     During the night  we  heard the  guards  coming  and  going  and  doors
banging. Each time I'd dread they were coming for us, but they always passed
by and kept on going.
     At  one point we heard a door in the distance being kicked open and the
muffled screams and shouts  and moans and groans  of somebody getting filled
in. You strain to hear, but you only  get bits  and pieces. To hear somebody
else  in pain like that is a horrible thing. You're not particularly worried
about  who  it  is.  You  don't  know,  so  you  don't  care.  But  it's  so
demoralizing, because  you're  so defenseless  and  you know it could be you
next.
     We heard, "Naughty boy.  Stand! Bad boy.  Bad boy' Then  the  sound  of
something like  a plate  being  thrown across a room and  banging on to  the
concrete.
     Could it be "Stan" they were saying? We tried our hardest to hear more,
but  the noise subsided. At  least  we knew there was somebody else  in  the
equation, even  if we  didn't know whether it was one of us. But whoever  he
was, he could pose a threat. Dinger  and I were  reasonably content that our
stories  squared  up;  another  person  on  the  scene, however, a person we
couldn't get to  speak to,  could mean that the  rug was  about to be pulled
from under us. I  felt my  happiness  evaporate. The  only thought  I  could
console myself with was that Dinger and I were still together.
     Suddenly,  as  if it was sent  deliberately  to  calm  me,  I heard the
welcome noise of  bombers going through the sky about a mile away. I felt an
instant surge of hope. If we took hits, then we had means of escape.
     We  spent  the rest  of the night together. Every time  we  heard doors
banging we  thought  they  were  coming  to separate us,  and  we  said  our
goodbyes. Finally, some time in the morning, our cell door was  kicked open.
I was handcuffed and blindfolded and taken away.
     I knew I was being taken for another interrogation; I knew the route so
well. Out  of the door, turn right,  up the  corridor,  turn left, over  the
cobblestones,  up the step, along the pathway, past the bushes, into a room.
I assumed it was the same room.
     They pushed me onto a chair and held me there.
     "Good morning, Andy," The Voice said. "How are you this morning?"
     "Fine, thank you very much," I said. "Thank  you  for the blanket. It's
very cold at night."
     "Yes, it is very cold. As you can see, Andy, we do take care of you. We
take care of people who help us. And you will help us, Andy, will you not?"
     "Yes, I've told you, I'll help as much as I can."
     "There are just  a few matters that we need  to clear  up this morning,
Andy. You see, we are not totally  convinced that you're not Jewish. We need
proof. Tell  us  if  you  are,  because this  will  stop  a lot of pain  and
discomfort for you. What is your religion?"
     "Church of England."
     "What is Church of England?"
     "It's Christian."
     "Who do you worship?"
     "I worship God."
     "I see. And who is Jesus?"
     I explained.
     "Who is Mary?"
     I explained.
     "Andy, do you understand that we worship the same God, you and I? I'm a
Muslim, and I worship the same God as you."
     "Yes, I understand."
     "Are you religious, Andy?"
     "Yes, I am religious. I take my religion seriously."
     "Tell me how you pray in the Christian world."
     "We can pray on our knees, we  can pray standing up, it all depends, it
doesn't matter. It's a very personal thing."
     When I was a junior soldier at Shorncliffe there was a battalion church
parade every fourth Sunday. You had to wear your best uniform and boots, and
march smartly all the  way from  the camp to the garrison  church.  It was a
bind, because as a boy soldier you  only get one  full day off a week, which
was  Sunday-and that was only  if you weren't behind  the  CO on the  Friday
morning cross-country run: otherwise it was another run on Sunday. Even then
you couldn't  go  home because  you  weren't allowed  out until  nine in the
morning and had to be  back by eight  at night. So all in all I wasn't  best
pleased with church parade and never paid much  attention to  what was going
on. Now I was desperately trying to remember all the  bits and pieces of the
services and make myself sound like the devout est Bible-thumper since Billy
Graham.
     "When do you fast? When do Christians fast?"
     Did we fast? I just didn't know.
     "We don't fast."
     His tone changed. "You're lying to us, Andy. You're lying! We know that
Christians fast."
     He told me  about  Lent. You learn  something every day. I hadn't known
that Catholics fasted.
     "I'm a Protestant," I Said. "It's different."
     He seemed to calm down.
     "So  tell  me  about  the festivals. What foods do you  eat? What foods
don't you eat?"
     I was  racking my brain faying to remember what happened at times  like
Harvest Festival and Easter.
     "Protestants eat all foods. We  actually celebrate the fact that we can
eat what we can, when we can. It's a very liberal religion."
     "So you don't have to keep away from pork?"
     "No."
     "Look, Andy, just tell us  if you're a Jew, that's all we need to know.
If you're lying to us, you know you will be punished."
     Another bloke  to  my  half  right  joined  in,  also speaking in  good
English. He told me he'd been to Sandhurst.
     "When is St. George's Day?"
     I didn't have a clue.
     "St. Swithin's?"
     Same response.
     "How do you have burials? How do you mourn? How long for?"
     I ducked and weaved for the next two hours.
     Finally The Voice said, "What would you say, Andy, if I was to tell you
that we know you are Jews and can prove it?"
     "You're mistaken. I'm not a Jew."
     "Right. Tell me what you know about Judaism."
     "You've got orthodox  Jews with long  matted hair,  and they don't  eat
pork. That's all. We don't mix with the Jewish community."
     "Well, tell me, have you ever had a Jewish girlfriend? Do  you know any
Jews in England? Tell me their names and where they live. How would you know
if they were Jews?"
     "I've never had anything to do with Jewish women."
     "Why not, Andy, are you homosexual?"
     "No, I'm not homosexual, but in England we have definite racial groups,
and there's not  too much  intermixing. The Jewish community keep themselves
to themselves, and you don't really have that much contact with them because
they're very insular."
     "How big is the Jewish community in England?"
     "I have no idea. We don't really mix."
     The questions went  on and on, and the answers I could give became more
and  more limited. I was getting boxed into a corner.  Then I suddenly had a
thought. I couldn't believe that it hadn't come to me sooner.
     "I can prove I'm not a Jew."
     "How can you prove that?"
     "Because I have a foreskin."
     "What? What is a foreskin?"
     There  was  lots of gob bing  off in Arabic,  and  the sound  of  paper
rustling. Perhaps they were checking a dictionary.
     "I can show you,"  I said helpfully.  "If you undo my hands,  I'll show
you what a foreskin is."
     Still they couldn't comprehend what I was talking about.
     "How do you spell foreskin?"
     I could hear  the bloke scribbling away. A soldier on each side clamped
a hand on my shoulders, and somebody undid one of my handcuffs.
     "What are you going to do, Andy? You must tell us what you are going to
do first."
     "Well, I'll unzip and get my penis out, and I'll show you that I have a
foreskin."
     I stood  up  and pulled out my cock.  I  got  hold of the  foreskin and
stretched it as far out as I could.
     "See, I  have  a  foreskin!  Jews  are circumcised  as  part  of  their
religion. They have the foreskin taken off."
     The room rocked  with laughter. They were rolling up. As I  did  myself
up, I was pushed back on to the chair. The handcuffs went back on.
     They were  having  a  huge giggle  about this  foreskin business.  They
babbled on in Arabic, occasionally throwing in the word "foreskin."
     "Would you like some food, Andy?"
     "Yes,  thank you very  much,  I'd  love  some food,"  I  said.  And  as
everybody  was  in such a good mood, I added, "And something to drink, if  I
could, please."
     A hand came up and put a date in my mouth.
     They all  carried on laughing as if I wasn't  there, and I  was  rather
pleased  with myself  because things  were going  rather well.  I didn't get
anything to drink though. I sat there with  the stone in my mouth, wondering
what I was going to do with it. I didn't want to swallow it because it would
stick in my throat and  I didn't have  anything  to wash it  down  with. The
Sandhurst officer must have realized  my problem, because  he gob bed off at
the guard and the bloke  put his hand  under my  chin and  I spat  the stone
carefully into his hand.
     The room was still buzzing with chat about foreskins.
     I had  a sudden thought. I  didn't know what everybody else's condition
in the patrol was, whether they had foreskins or  not. It dawned on  me that
Bob  looked  dark  and Mediterranean.  If they had his body, they could have
taken him for a Jew, and we were getting the good news as a result.
     "Of course,  Christians  as well as Jews get  circumcised, for  medical
reasons," I said. "Some parents want their children circumcised at birth. So
it's not just Jews that are circumcised."
     "Tell me more, Andy. You told me Jews  are  circumcised  at birth.  Now
you're telling me  that Christians are circumcised at birth as well. This is
confusing. Are you lying to us?"
     "No,  it  all  depends on  the  parents. Some  people  think  it's more
hygienic."
     They found  this ever so funny, and I was chuffed  that there was a bit
of laughter going on. I wondered how I could keep them going.
     "We shall talk some more very soon, Andy," The Voice said.
     I was dragged to my feet and taken back to my old  cell. Once again,  I
was on my own and handcuffed.
     I heard Dinger being put back into his cell some time later. Then there
was silence, and we were both left to our own devices for a number of hours.
     Later that afternoon they came for me again.
     "Tell  us  more about the  helicopter,  Andy," The Voice said as  I was
pushed onto the chair. "What sort of helicopter was it?"
     "It was a Chinook."
     "Why a Chinook?"
     "I  don't know  why  it was a Chinook; that's just  the  helicopter  we
used."
     "Where did you land?"
     "I  have  no  idea  where we landed.  It was nighttime.  We're  soldier
medics, not navigators; we just sit in the back."
     "Do you know if the helicopter took off again?"
     "I have no idea what happened to it."
     "If it crashed on the ground and you know where it is, we could find it
for you and maybe find the rest of your friends."
     There was a brief pause, and then he said,  "Look, Andy, we can find no
aircraft anywhere. It  must  have  taken off  and  left you, or you  must be
lying."
     "No, I'm not lying."
     I went  through  the  story  again.  As  I  spoke,  I  was  interrupted
constantly by questions.
     "Andy,  I'll  ask  you again, one  more  time.  Do you  know where  you
landed?"
     "No, I've no idea where  I landed. I've told you, I can't tell you  any
more. I don't  know anything else. Why  keep  on asking me?  I  really don't
know. I want to help. All I want to do is go back to England."
     His tone was shifting now. He was  getting  more grave.  "How much fuel
does the helicopter hold?"
     "I haven't  got a clue. I don't know anything about that. I just get in
the helicopters, I don't know anything about them."
     And that was  more  or  less true. I had never known anything technical
that  I  didn't  need to know. With a weapon, all I want to know is  how  it
works, what kind of ammunition it fires, and what to  do when it goes wrong.
I don't want to know the muzzle velocity and stuff like  that, because it is
immaterial. You aim, press  the trigger, it goes bang, it fires a round. The
same principle applied to  helicopters and other bits of kit. I am downright
wary, as most professional soldiers are, of anyone who can come out with all
the  statistical   facts.   Sometimes   people  use  these  to   mask  their
inadequacies.  They might  know  all  the bumpf, but  it's  "hands on"  that
counts.
     This line of questioning was irrelevant anyway; they could have got any
of the  information  out  of Jane's.  It was  taking  up  time though, which
couldn't  be bad-and I wasn't  getting beaten. I sat  there, acting confused
and  humble  as  usual.  The only problem  was  that they were  getting more
serious about  it and accusing me of  not helping.  But I must have  sounded
genuine because I was. I didn't have a clue.
     "How does the ramp come down?"
     "Somebody presses a button."
     "Where's the button?"
     "I don't know .. ."
     They gave  up, and  I  was  taken back to the  cell. It  was  dark.  My
blindfold  was off, but the handcuffs were still  on. I had long since  lost
all sense or feeling in my fingers and hands. The flesh on my wrists had now
swollen so much it covered the bracelets. My hands were like balloons.
     I heard them toing and froing  with  Dinger as_ well and then they came
back for me. It was the third interrogation within what  felt like the space
of  twenty-four hours. This was the scariest, because  they  fetched  me  in
pitch darkness.
     The  Voice  started by going over some  of the  helicopter stuff again.
Then I got questions on the big war plan.
     "Schwarzkopf and his Allies--how do they plan to invade?"
     "I don't know."
     "Will they invade Iraq?"
     "I don't know."
     "How many aircraft are there?"
     "I don't know."
     "How many Syrian soldiers are preparing to invade Iraq from Syria?"
     "I don't know."
     "Do you think  it is  a feasible idea that they should invade Iraq from
Syria?"
     "I don't know."
     "Will Israel invade Iraq?"
     "I don't know."
     "Well, how many soldiers have the British got here?"
     "That I do know. I read it in the newspaper. Forty to fifty thousand, I
think. It doesn't really interest me, I'm afraid."
     "How many tanks are there ready to invade Kuwait and Iraq?"
     "I don't know."
     "Aircraft?"
     "I don't know."
     "Does Bush realize that he's killing our women and children?"
     This was  weird stuff, but  wonderful: at least I wasn't getting filled
in,  and they  weren't bringing up the fact that they had  lost a lot of men
during the contacts.
     Again there were lots of pauses, and: "Andy, you're not helping me. You
must know how many aircraft there are."
     I was profoundly tired. It had been more or less  impossible to  sleep,
and I was very hungry and thirsty. I was gagging for a drink.
     In daylight, with the usual scary noise, the guards kicked the door  in
and brought me a pitcher of water. It was horrible minging stuff that looked
as  if it  had  been  dredged up  from a drain, but  I  wasn't  particularly
bothered.  It was  wet.  And  even if  it  made me  ill, at least  I was  re
hydrating--unless I brought it up again.
     They wanted to take the pitcher back with them, so  I  was to  drink it
all in one go. They took off my blindfold for the first time since the first
interrogation,  undid my handcuffs, and stood over me as I sat  on the floor
and grasped the pitcher in both hands.
     I  started drinking.  My broken teeth exploded  with pain as  the  cold
water hit the stumps. As I looked past their legs and out into the corridor,
I saw Stan. Stan was about 6'4",  and  he was being dragged  by men who only
came up to his armpits. The whole of his head, including his beard, was dark
red and matted. On  one side  his scalp was split open in a  big, glistening
gash. His  trousers were  caked with blood  and mud and shit. His  eyes were
closed,  and he  was  moaning and groaning  to himself. He was  totally  and
utterly  gone. He  was  hobbling  and stooped, well  past  the "injured  and
confused"  stage  of bluffing. He made me feel like I'd just  come  out of a
health farm.  It was the first time I had  seen  him since  we had  tried to
contact the jets with the TACBEs.
     I  remembered the  night Dinger  and I  had heard what  we thought  was
guards  commanding somebody to get  up. "Stand, bad boy! Stand!" So they had
been mispronouncing his name after all.
     The guards turned and saw what I was looking at.
     They  kicked the pitcher  out of my hands and went  berserk  with their
boots.
     "No look!" they screamed. "No look!"
     It  was  the  first  kicking  I'd   received  since   the   very  first
interrogation, and I could have done without it. Whether they had screwed up
by leaving the door open or it was all intentional, I had no idea.
     I curled up on the damp concrete. My teeth were raging but I counted my
blessings: the guards had forgotten to put my handcuffs back on.
     I felt sick, but I was  trying hard to keep  it down.  I didn't want to
dehydrate.  Finally I  couldn't  help  myself, and retched. All the precious
fluid I had gained I lost again.
     I heard  Dinger being moved; I  didn't hear Stan being  brought back. A
short while  later they came for me. It was routine by now. They blindfolded
and handcuffed me, and dragged me off without saying a word.
     There was a long, long silence as I sat on my  chair. I could hear feet
shuffling and pens scribbling. I could smell all the same smells.
     Nothing happened for what seemed like an hour.
     "Andy," I heard.  "Today we want the truth out of you It was The Voice,
but in a new guise. Firm now, impatient, no nonsense.
     "We  know that you've been  lying. We've tried to help  you. You're not
helping us at all. Therefore we will get the truth out of you in other ways.
Do you understand what I mean?"
     "Yes,  I understand what you mean, but I don't know what you want. I've
told you everything I know. I am trying to help."
     "Right. Why are you in Iraq?"
     I went through the same old story. Before I  had  even finished, he was
up and walking around.
     "That's all I know," I said, blindly trying to locate where  he  was in
the room.
     "You're lying to us!" he screamed in my  face. "We know!  We  know that
you're lying!"
     My face  was pulled up, and The Voice started slapping  me hard. Guards
on either side held me up by the shoulders.
     It stopped, and he shouted at me, from so close I could feel his breath
on my cheek. "How do we know that you're lying? Because we have your signals
operator in  hospital, that's  why. He's  been captured,  and  he's  told us
everything."
     It  was  possible. Maybe Legs  was still  alive,  and  in  his physical
condition he  might have said  anything. Or everything. But The Voice hadn't
told me what Legs had said. Was it a bluff?
     "You are lying, aren't you, Andy?"
     "No, I'm not lying. I can't help you any more. I  am trying to help but
I just don't know anything."
     I was doing the pleading bit now, because I was flapping good style.  I
was trying to think of a reason why they should have told me this.
     More  slaps  and  I  went down.  They picked  me up  and  took  off the
handcuffs. Before I had time to wonder why, they  started to strip me. I had
sudden visions of them cutting my cock off.
     They  ripped my  shirt off and  pulled down my trousers. This is  it, I
thought: this is where they fuck me.
     But they  pushed  me down on  to the chair  and held my head forward. I
took a deep breath and waited.
     It  must have been a piece of four-by-two or  the end foot  or so of an
oar. Whoomph! The shock of it hitting me--whoomph! ivhoomph!--I screamed out
like an idiot.  They  worked their way all over my back  and head with it. I
must have been unconscious before I hit the floor. '
     I  came to, groaning  and mumbling, and they  hoisted me up and  put me
back on the chair.
     "You will tell us everything, Andy. We want it from  you. We  know what
has happened. We have your signals operator. He's told us he's your  signals
operator."
     That had to have come from Legs. He was the signals operator. Was he in
hospital?
     I denied, denied, denied.
     They punched and slapped, smashed the paddle in  a  frenzy on  my back.
Then they stopped for  five  minutes, as if they were resting, getting their
strength back.
     "Why are you doing this to yourself, Andy? Just tell us what we need to
know."
     They started up again.
     I got my first  hit with what felt like a metallic ball on the end of a
stick, like some sort of medieval mace. It thumped into my neck and arms and
kidneys with terrible precision.  I went down again,  screaming my head off.
This was way out of control. This was when I was going to die.
     As I hit  the floor, the lads behind me started to give me a kicking. I
screamed again and again.
     The Voice screamed back at me. "You're lying! You will tell us!"
     It went on and on, I didn't know for how long. They'd kick, get me back
up, slap me around the face, whack me with the metal ball and wooden paddle.
I could hear them breathing hard with the exertion of it all.
     The Voice would shout at me, and I would shout back.
     "Fucking  hell," I  bawled,  "I don't know, I  don't  know anything for
fuck's sake!"
     He gob bed off at the boys in Arabic,  and they started up  again  with
another kicking.
     I went down time and again.
     Pain upon pain.
     It hurt, it really hurt.
     They stopped kicking and lifted me up.  I  was dragged out of the room,
my chest  bare and my trousers still round my ankles.  As soon as we got out
into  the courtyard,  there was the  reception committee.  I  was kicked and
punched all  the way down. I got  one kick up the arse, and I really thought
they'd  split my rectum.  I thought  my  insides were  falling  out.  I went
straight down, howling like a pig.
     They threw me into the cell,  blindfolded, handcuffed, and  naked,  and
left me. My breathing was very shallow. When I had recovered sufficiently to
sit  up, I  checked  myself for  broken bones. I clung to  the memory of the
lecture by the  Marine aviator. The Viet Cong had broken every major bone in
his  body during the course of his six years in jail.  In comparison,  I was
having a picnic.
     "I was told the bigger and harder you were the quicker they would leave
you alone. This I soon discovered was untrue. They can do whatever they want
with you. The  only thing they cannot break  is your mental state. Only  you
can let that collapse.  My head stayed clear,  and every day it  said to me:
"Fuck 'em." That's what kept' me alive."
     My body was in far better condition than his had been, and  my mind was
definitely clear. So then--fuck 'em.
     It was dark. I had been lying there for ages. I hadn't noticed the cold
at  first: the pain had blocked  out such  trifles. Now  I was  starting  to
shiver. I thought, if this carries on  for many  more days, I've had it--I'm
going to get well and truly done in here.
     I could  hear screaming and shouting in the other rooms, but  I  wasn't
taking much notice of it because I was too involved in my own  little world,
my own little universe of pain and bruises and broken teeth.
     The others would be getting the same as me, but it was a world away. It
was in the distance, it did  not concern me. All I  did was wait for my turn
again.
     From  then, and for what  must have  been quite  a  few  days,  it just
carried on. Hour after hour, day after day, beating after beating, taking my
turn with the other two, lying curled up, cold and in pain, waiting  for the
terrifying noise of the door being kicked open,  the  worst sound I had ever
heard.
     "Andy, this is your last chance; tell us what we need to know."
     "I don't know anything."
     I knew one  thing.  I  knew the  other  two weren't  giving up  because
otherwise  my  interrogations  would have stopped. I kept saying  to myself,
It's not going to be me, I'm not going to let them down, I'm not going to be
the one to put the others in the shit.
     It was a haze. Two  or three  interrogations per twenty-four hours. Day
after day. Always the same stuff. Always a little bit harder to bear.
     Then  they found new ways of hurting me. Twice they held me down on the
seat, pushed my  head  down, while they flogged  me with  a whip  with thick
thongs. And when they had finished, the others joined in with the paddle and
ball.
     After one session I was sitting on the chair,  still  naked, my mind  a
blur of anguish. The Voice talked quietly and conspiratorially in my ear.
     "Andy, we need to  talk. You're in very bad condition.  You're going to
die very soon,  but you're still not  helping us.  I  cannot understand  it.
We'll get the information out of you, you know we will. One of you will tell
us,  there's no  big problems. Why make it harder on yourself? Look,  do you
want me to show you how bad we can be?"
     There was a rubbing  sore on the inside of my thigh about two inches in
diameter. It was a weeping, seeping thing, red and raw. I heard the chinking
of metal and the hiss of a paraffin heater being turned up. Hands gripped my
shoulders and pinned me to the chair.
     The back of the spoon was red-hot as  he ran it over an dover the sore.
The stench of burning flesh made me gag. I howled like a dog.
     Spoon. Scream. Spoon. Scream.
     He rubbed it in small circles and little crisscross grids.
     I jumped up, so violently that  the blokes couldn't  hold me. I  yelled
and yelled in an effort to release the pain.
     They got me back on to the chair.
     "Do you see, Andy? It's pointless. Just tell us what we want to know."
     Legs told them fuck all.  They wouldn't be  doing  all this just to get
his information confirmed. And  they hadn't said what  information  Legs was
supposed to have told them. It was  a load of old bollocks. If he could hold
out, so could I.
     People came  in and  out of the cells all the time now. The sound track
was just screaming and shouting and the horrific banging of the sheet  metal
doors.
     The guards  must  have had a beasting roster. Teams came  in  every two
hours or  so,  hollering  and  shouting  and  filling  us in. We were  still
handcuffed and blindfolded.
     "Stand up! Sit down!"
     As you're trying to do it,  they're punching and kicking. Sometimes I'd
fall into a semiconscious state after just a few punches, sometimes I'd just
be there,  breathing heavily and taking it. Sometimes they'd come in  with a
length  of hose, which hurt incredibly on my  kidneys and back. My  body was
becoming even more of a mess, but the worst bit about it was hearing them in
Stan's or Dinger's room. Not so much because I was concerned for them--there
was nothing I could  do to help, and they were big and ugly  enough  to take
it-but because it meant that it was going to be my turn soon.
     One time, by way of a change, the interrogation started off  all rather
pleasantly.
     "You're in a terrible condition, aren't you, Andy?"
     "Yeah, I'm in terrible condition."
     My mouth was so matted with scabs and swellings I  could hardly get the
words out.
     "How are your teeth--they were giving you some problems before?"
     "I've got some smashed in at the back.  They hurt." I continued to play
the humble dickhead. And at this stage I was totally out of the game anyway.
My teeth were agony--more painful than the worst toothache I'd ever had, and
then some.
     "I have arranged for somebody to  come in and sort that out," The Voice
said soothingly.  "We have a  dentist  here.  In fact,  he  worked in  Guy's
Hospital in London for nine years. He's one of the best."
     My blindfold was removed. The dentist appeared and said, "Hello, Andy."
He got me to open wide, and gently and reassuringly he peered into my mouth.
He sounded sympathetic as he took some instruments from a bag.
     "Open wide again, Andy, please," he said in perfect English. "Oh, dear,
that is bad, but I'll soon sort it out for you."
     I had my suspicions, but there was nothing I could do. I opened as wide
as I could for him, and the cunt gripped the  first stump of  tooth with the
pliers and twisted hard.
     I screamed and blood gushed from my mouth.
     "Do  you really think we're going to help you?" The Voice laughed.  "Do
you really think we're  going  to help you, you despicable heap of shit?  We
could  just leave you to die, you know--you're so  irrelevant  to us. Who do
you think is  going to  help you, Andy? Your  government? You can't  believe
that. John  Major doesn't care  about lumps of excrement like you. No, Andy,
the  only one  who  can  help  you  is yourself. Why  are you doing this  to
yourself?  You're  going through  this for nothing. You're stupid, a stupid,
misguided fool, and your teeth are going to come out one by one."
     I couldn't answer. I was screaming. I knew that I was going to die. And
I knew now that it wouldn't be clean and quick.
     We  had been stripped  of all  clothing  for several days now and  left
exposed to the damp and bitter cold. We were getting beaten regularly in the
cells  and  tortured   to   the  point   of   unconsciousness   during   the
interrogations.  We were put in  stress positions in the cells,  blindfolded
and handcuffed, and we had to stay that way. They'd come in and beat us when
we toppled over. The combined effects were taking more and more of a toll.
     There was bombing every  night, and sometimes it would be close. On one
occasion the place  was rattling  on  its foundations, and the  guards  were
yelling and running around.
     I was lying on the floor  listening  to the  noise,  and I heard myself
screaming at the top of my voice: "Do it! Fucking bomb me! I'm down here!"
     I really  thought they were going to carry on with it until I was dead.
I wanted it over with now. I wanted the pain to stop.
     Heavy ordnance makes a buzzing  sort  of sound  as it falls. I fixed my
attention on each buzz and willed it to land in my cell. The building rocked
and trembled. I felt the pressure waves of high explosive. It was the  first
time I had ever wanted to die, and I just wanted and wanted them to do it. I
had reached the lowest point of my life.
     For fifteen minutes one night I found God. The Supreme Being was in the
top right-hand corner of the cell, and I had a little discussion with him.
     "Come and  help  me now," I pleaded. "If you  help me now, I'll be your
best  mate for ever. If you're there, fucking do  something  about  this. We
need your help now--all of us. If you're there, do it,  and  I'll be putting
pennies in your pot every day."
     I said  as much of the Lord's Prayer as  I could  remember from school,
but nothing happened. God did not exist.
     I was  slowly  dying. Your body tells you. The  cell  was awash with my
shit and piss. I slept in it. It covered me.
     Sometimes they'd bring me a drink.
     One night a gang of guards came in.
     "Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv," one of them said.
     "No, British," I mumbled, "I'm British."
     "Foreskin," he demanded. He'd  obviously heard  the story and wanted to
see for himself.
     I motioned that I couldn't  do  anything because of the  handcuffs, and
they undid them.
     Still blindfolded, I  fumbled with my swollen, numb fingers to find  my
cock. I stretched out the foreskin, and they roared with laughter.
     Two  of them grabbed my  arms  from  behind.  One in  front  of me  was
slapping something in the palm of his hand. I heard a slight swishing sound,
then all my world was  pain. My  knees buckled. The guard in front of me had
raised something like a riding  crop in  the  air and tonked it down hard on
the end of my cock. They hooted as I screamed and writhed on the ground.
     They  bent  over  me and prodded  and flicked at my bollocks.  Again  I
wondered if I was going to get fucked, but the difference this time was that
I was way past caring. But that  wasn't  what they had in mind. With a final
kick to my balls that left me  retching with agony, they handcuffed me again
and left, still chortling.
     One day they came into my cell, screaming and shouting. One of them was
carrying a newspaper. The frontpage story that  he shoved  under my nose was
of the
     Allied bombings the day before. The  Iraqis had lined up all the bodies
of  the children  that had  been  killed. There  was a photograph  of  their
distraught  mothers  weeping over their little forms. The guards slapped and
punched  me  furiously, as  if  I was personally  responsible for  what  had
happened. It developed into the normal filling in,  followed by  a 10-minute
recovery  period,  and  another filling in. When  I finally flaked out, they
left me.
     When I came to, I saw that they'd left  the newspaper behind. I crawled
over and  checked  the front  page  for  something  that I  remembered  from
previous trips to the Middle East.  I found what I was looking for. The only
thing in English  on  the whole page was at  the  top, near the  title:  the
figure 4.
     It was the 4th of February.
     That meant they had been torturing us for five days.
     I was dressed  just  in  my socks  and a big, baggy  pair of army-issue
skivies I'd been given when I arrived in Saudi. They were black now, smeared
with shit and permanently wet with piss.
     I lay shivering on the concrete, handcuffed and blindfolded.
     Guards came into the cell and poked me with their  weapons until I made
donkey noises. When I did, they kicked me.
     "Bush, pig," they said. "Thatcher, pig."
     I  had  to  repeat  it. They laughed  and giggled and gob  bed  on  me.
Sometimes they sat  me up against the wall, pulled back my head, and held my
face while they ranted at me. By now it was like water off a duck's back.
     There was one major  shift  in their tactics, however. They didn't hurt
my face any  more. It was  slapped,  but no longer  damaged  by  punching or
butting as before.
     I was  hauled out of  the  cell  in  my socks  and  skivies for another
interrogation.  It was  several days  since I'd  even  been able to stand up
unaided.
     At first, nothing happened. There was a long, long silence.
     There was lots of sighing and:  "Oh dear, what are we going  to do with
you, Andy? You're simply not helping at all, are you?"
     "I'm trying to help," I mumbled. "But I don't know anything."
     I'd got  to the stage where I'd said it so many times I believed it was
the truth.
     "Andy, you know that we have one of you in hospital. He's had two pints
of  Iraqi  blood, and he should  be very proud now to be one of us.  We have
demonstrated to him  that  we're not  barbarians. We've helped  him.  But we
can't help you, because you won't help us."
     Possibly there might be somebody in hospital, and my  mind flashed back
to an incident when the guards had  come in and pointed at my  feet and gone
"bang bang."  At  the  time,  I'd thought they were going to shoot me in the
foot.  After all, they  played lots of games with me, like making  me put my
mouth over the muzzle of their weapon  while  they cocked it. But maybe what
they  had really been  getting at was  that one of us  had been shot in  the
foot.
     I didn't know whether  to believe  him or not. "Thank you very much," I
said. "I'm glad that you've saved him."
     "You  need  to tell us what was happening, Andy. Why were you in  Iraq?
Your friends have all told us what was going on, but we just want to hear it
from  you. Are you  going to  help  us? We've got no more time for you,  you
know. We'll let you die. You're nothing to us. Have a think about it."
     They took me back to my cell.
     Was it true? Had they actually got  people  in hospital? It couldn't be
Legs. He had exposure;  he wouldn't have  been  needing  blood. Had somebody
else survived a contact? It seemed very unlikely.
     During  the day I heard Stan  and Dinger being taken away. Towards last
light they came for me. This time there was no talking. It was just straight
in and a good beasting with the plank.
     I went down, only semiconscious.
     "You're the only one that's  not helping us, Andy," The Voice said. "We
need the truth from everybody  and you're not helping. We have told you that
we have your people in hospital and we're willing to let them die."
     I didn't answer.
     "We  actually  have  two of your people  in hospital, Andy, and  if you
don't tell us what we need to know, we'll simply let them die. There  are no
consequences for  us.  The only reason  they're  alive is because of  us. So
therefore we can  kill them, and we can kill you, too. There are no problems
with this whatsoever. Nobody knows you're here.  You would not sign anything
for the Red Cross when we offered you the chance; therefore we have not told
the Red Cross that we have you. This is your fault, Andy. Everybody else has
signed the papers."
     I didn't believe him.
     "If you don't  tell me what I  need  to know, Andy, we  will simply let
your  friends die. You know that your signals operator is in  hospital. I've
already told you this. And also you  know that one of  your men has had  two
pints of blood. Now we will  let them both die, and that will be your fault,
Andy. And everyone else will also die  because of you. Five men dead, simply
because you're stubborn.
     "We know you're the  commander," The  Voice said impatiently. "We  know
you're a sergeant, you're in charge of these people. It's down to you now to
tell  us;  otherwise  we're  simply going  to  let  your  men  die.  Do  you
understand?"
     "Yes,  I understand,  but  I can't  help  you  because  I  do  not know
anything."
     It wasn't an act of bravado. Far from it. I just  needed time to think.
They knew that I was the commander  and were changing  their tactics. Now it
was  down to  me if people lived or died, because they were  getting nothing
from anybody else.
     "Well then, we cannot do anything more for you. What is about to happen
is your fault. Remember that. You are responsible for these deaths."
     They picked me up and dragged me back  to the cell. When we got  to the
open door, they launched me against a wall. I crumpled to the floor.
     "Stupid, stupid, you're stupid," the guards shouted.
     They left me alone all night. I started to go through the options in my
mind. As far as I  was concerned, we would  all be dead in another two days.
Stan  probably  even before that, going by how he looked.  So what it boiled
down to was: I was the commander and it was up to me. It was decision time.
     It was a fact that there were three of us in prison. I had  to  take it
as also true that  there were two others in  hospital. Dinger  had seen Legs
being taken away on a stretcher, and there was the possibility that somebody
else was also there. At the back of my mind, the correct thing  to do was to
let the interrogators have  something that was going to keep them happy, and
in turn keep all of us alive.
     I came to the conclusion that we'd held out long enough. This was eight
days since capture, plenty  of time for the  damage assessment  to have been
made back at the FOB. It  was time now  to think of ourselves. OF SEC was no
longer our problem. We'd held out long enough. We'd done our bit.
     It was a tough decision. Pride shouldn't have come into it, but it did.
     So, what could I actually give them? I'd keep  the Regiment out of  it,
because that  would make the situation even worse. There  was no doubt  they
knew that  the boys were screaming around  like  lunatics. They'd  know this
from the acts on the ground as well as from the media. They watched CNN like
everybody else.
     No  one had said a word to me about  the Regiment  since the time I was
captured, and  there  had been  no  indication that they  suspected  Special
Forces. I  wanted to keep it that way. But what was I going to give them? As
far as they  were concerned, we were part  of  the eight-man  team that they
compromised on the MSR. I had to come up with something congruent with  that
story. What were we doing there?
     I  could hear  the screams  every hour or so  as  Dinger  and  Stan got
filled, but I was left on my own. Twice  guards came in and taunted  me, but
they didn't beat me.
     On the second occasion, in the early hours of the morning,  I told them
that I wanted to s