ee an officer. They didn't understand.
     "Officer," I repeated. "I need to see an officer."
     They  seemed to  think that I was saying that I  was an officer and was
disgusted with my treatment. They laughed and came into the cell and gave me
a kicking.  I heard them coming to attention and making a mock rifle salute,
and I realized there was no way I was going to get through to these  people.
I'd just have to leave it and wait.
     During the day, one of the guards came in and spoke to me in reasonable
English. "Andy, you're very stupid. Why don't you help?"
     "But I want to help. I want to speak to an officer."
     "We shall see."
     An hour later, another guard came and shouted through the window. "What
do you want?"
     "I need to speak to an officer. I might have something that he needs to
know."
     "Maybe."
     Two or three hours later, I was taken into the same block as usual, but
to a different  room. It was very  cold. I was  pushed down  onto a chair. I
heard a different voice, one I'd never heard before.
     "Andy, what do you want to tell me? Why  have you  waited so  long? Why
have you gone through all this stupid pain for yourself and other people? We
cannot understand: why does it have to be like this?"
     "I was told  yesterday that there  are people  in hospital,  and  I  am
worried for  their safety and ours.  I just hope  that  you will look  after
these people." "Of course we will. What do you think--that we're just  going
to kill  them? Don't be naive. If you  help  us, everything will be fine. We
told you  that in  the  beginning. So this  is the reason  you're  doing it,
because of the other people in your patrol?"
     "Yes. I don't want people to die."
     "Andy, don't worry about  them. You must do  it for  yourself, for your
family.  Don't  worry about the other people in the  patrol. You help us and
we'll look after you."
     "Well, I'm concerned about the people in hospital. I don't want them to
die."
     "Think about yourself, Andy. Do this for yourself. Now tell us, why are
you in our country?"
     "I am a member of a COP platoon."
     There was a buzz of chatter in Arabic.
     "What's a COP platoon?"
     - "A close  observation platoon. Every infantry battalion has one. They
do the forward recces for the battalion. We were flown in, told to go to the
MSR and count the number of military vehicles passing  in each direction and
to report them."
     I  couldn't tell  if they were buying it  or not. In  theory,  that was
correct tasking  for  a COP  platoon, except  that it would never have  been
behind enemy  lines. But it  sounded feasible, and  there had been Sandhurst
and  Staff  College-trained  officers  present  during  the  interrogations.
Hopefully it would ring a bell with them.
     There was more gob  bing off, and the sound  of people leaving the room
and returning.
     "Why would they want this information?"
     "I don't know: we're only told  what we need  to  know. As I'm sure you
know,  at the beginning of the orders brief, there is the reminder "Need  to
know." We're not told  these things  because  we're just the  troops on  the
ground."
     There was the sound of general agreement.
     "How long were you planning to stay in our country?"
     I had to assume that  they had got all our kit and had rummaged through
it. If nothing had been  pilfered, they could  assess how long we planned to
stay by the quantity of rations.
     "It was going to be for up to fourteen days," I said.
     "How many of you were there?"
     Again  this was  easy enough  to work out  by the number  of  abandoned
bergens
     "There were eight of us."
     "Where did you land, Andy?"
     "If you take off my blindfold and my handcuffs, and give me a map, I'll
be able to help you."
     There was a heated discussion between themselves.
     "We'll take off your  blindfold and  your  handcuffs, but you remember,
Andy, we consider that you are all very dangerous men, and if you attempt to
do anything, we will shoot you. Do you understand this, Andy?"
     "Yes, I understand."
     Even if I'd  wanted  to  do anything, I didn't have  the strength left.
They took off my blindfold, and in front of me, sitting down, was an officer
in olive drab uniform. Another officer, who was sitting in the top left hand
corner of this  room, was  dressed  in a camouflaged  bomber  jacket over  a
flying suit.  Instead of military boots, he  wore the Chelsea boots they all
seemed to have on.
     The  bloke in olive drab  was doing  the talking.  I'd never heard  his
voice before, but he spoke excellent English. He looked like an Arab version
of Richard Pryor, with normal,  swept-back Arab  hair and a very clean, very
smart, very  well-pressed uniform. There were three  or  four  other  people
sitting down, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea out of small glasses. They
were all wearing cheap and nasty, badly fitting suits.
     I was facing a window. Beyond it I could see trees and a wall. Sunlight
was streaming into the room.
     There was a guard on either side of me. One of them held a pistol to my
head in  case I started running around doing  karate chops  or whatever else
they considered I would do. On the table was one of our own escape maps.
     "Is it all right if I get up off the chair and come to the table?"
     "Get up."
     The two guards lifted me  up and  took me  over to the table.  The  gun
never left my head.
     I pointed out the general area where we had landed.
     "Yes, Andy, that's correct. We know about that. We know when you landed
because you  were heard.  You landed  two nights before, didn't  you? You're
helping us. This is very good."
     Some of  the lies I told them would have to be based  on the truth,  as
all good ones are. This wasn't just  training: it was a lesson I had learned
in childhood.
     "Show us where you went to hide."
     I indicated the bend on the MSR.
     "Yes,  good, we know that. This is  good, Andy, you're helping us.  How
many people again?"
     "Eight of us."
     "Give me some of their names."
     This was no problem. They knew there were eight of  us. If they had, in
theory, five of us--dead or alive-they'd know  our  names, because everybody
was  wearing  dog tags.  And  it  appeared  that I  was  helping, which  was
good--for now. Later on it  might get totally out of control, and I'd  spend
the rest of my days answering questions.  But at this stage I had no choice.
Was  I supposed to call their  bluff and see if  they would  carry out their
threat? I had to take it as real.
     I gave the names. They wrote them down.
     "We know this."
     I didn't know if that meant that they  had  everybody, or if it was all
bluff. I played on my concern for the people  in  hospital  and acted scared
and humble, but inside my head I was racing  to think about  what I had said
and what I was going to say.
     "Please, look after the people in hospital."
     "Tell us more about the COP platoon. What does it do?"
     "We just report."
     "Does this mean that the British army plans to invade Iraq?"
     "I don't know. We are never  told.  All we're  told is to go out and do
the job. We're not told why. We're just squad dies
     "How many COP platoons are there?"
     "There's one for each battalion."
     "How many battalions here?"
     "I don't know; I've never  really  bothered  to find  out.  It's  of no
consequence to me. I'm just a soldier."
     I was so  glad that we hadn't had vehicles with us. We were unlucky not
to have them  when  we  got compromised,  obviously, but we  were lucky  now
because vehicles might have linked us to the Regiment.
     Things were going well at this stage. They seemed happy with what I was
telling them. There was a  potential problem in that they might come back to
the other two and say, "Right, we know what you're doing.  You tell us now."
However, the chances were  slim. The  boys  had said nothing  so far, so why
should they suddenly cave in?
     If I didn't tell them something, they were going to let  people die. If
I did tell them and they found out it was another load of old bollocks, then
I might be committing everybody to going through this system again, and they
would die. But I couldn't see that there was anything else I could do.
     "Thank you  very much for helping us,  Andy. Things may get better  for
you  now. If we find out  you're  lying,  they won't.  But things  might get
better. And I'm glad that you have had the sense to help us."
     His words  made me  feel  a  complete shit. Had I done the right  thing
after all, I asked  myself? Was this going  to go on? Was I going to be used
now? Was I going to go on telly and be "the  British lad who  helped  us?" I
had visions  of  Vietnam,  of people getting prosecuted and  persecuted when
they got home. They were  marked  down as collaborators by people who had no
conception  of  the circumstances in which  the  so-called "betrayals"  took
place.
     But here was Richard  Pryor telling me we were now  best  mates, and it
was hard to take.
     "You've done well, Andy. This is good."
     I knew I was right to  have taken their threat as real.  The way they'd
been  treating  us, I wouldn't  have  put  it past them to  kill the ones in
hospital. They'd had ten years' practice at this sort of thing.
     "Do you want a cigarette?"
     "No, I don't smoke. But my friend Dinger does."
     "Maybe we might be able to give him a cigarette one day."
     "Now that  I've told you, is it possible that we can  have some clothes
and maybe some warmth? We are very cold."
     "Yes,  this will be no problem, because now we are  friends. You can go
back to your cell  now, Andy, and maybe things will change. Meanwhile, we'll
check on this."
     They put the blindfold  and handcuffs back on,  and took me back to the
cell.
     Half an hour later,  they came back and threw me my clothes and removed
the blindfold  and handcuffs.  But  they hadn't  finished with their  little
games quite yet. As I tried to get dressed, they kept pushing me over.
     I  woke  up still wondering whether I had done the  right thing.  I was
lying in the same old corner. You seem to go to the same place all the time,
maybe because it makes you feel more secure or more covered up.
     The guards came in, accompanied by a sergeant major. He spoke very good
English.
     "Ah, Andy, Andy. Our friend Andy," he said, his mouth full of pistachio
nuts. "My name is Mr. Jihad."
     He spat shells on the floor.
     "Good morning, Mr. Jihad." I knew that couldn't be his name, but I went
along with it.
     "It's good to see that  you've got  your clothes  back now, and you are
feeling better. You are feeling better?"
     "Yes."
     "Unfortunately we can't give you any medical attention because we don't
have it ourselves.  The children  are dying in your bombing; we have to give
it to them first. Do you understand?"
     "Of course, I understand."
     "It's Bush  and Thatcher  and  Major. They're stopping  all medical aid
coming in. But we do  have some  food for you this  morning.  You would like
some food?"
     "Thank you very much, I would like some food."
     They  brought  in  water and  a one-inch cube of margarine in  a  paper
wrapper. I opened it up and started eating.
     "About escape, Andy. You've been here a long  time. You may be  feeling
that you want to escape. Escape  would be very, very useless; it would be no
good for  you. You're in Baghdad. There's nowhere for you  to  go. And we're
friends now, aren't we, Andy?"
     I nodded and agreed, my mouth slippery with grease.
     "Let me show you  what happens  when people try to  escape." Mr.  Jihad
lifted  up his trouser leg and showed me  a huge scar. "When  I  was a young
man, I  was in prison  in  Iran  for six  months. My friend and  I  tried to
escape. We  got away but we were captured the next day. They took us back to
the camp and decided to make an  example of us. So they got us on the floor,
face  down, and two soldiers stood over us with their  rifles  and bayoneted
our legs through the back of the knee. They  forced  our kneecaps right out.
If you try to escape, Andy, I will have to do the same to you."
     I wasn't going anywhere. I could just about stand up.
     I smiled. "I just want to go home to my family."
     "This cell is very dirty, you know, Andy.  You people  might live  like
this, but we Muslims are very clean. You will clean this up."
     "How do I do that?"
     "You clean  it with your  hands, Andy. Come on, clean this place up. We
do not live in this mess."
     He stood over me and watched  as I got  down  on my hands and knees and
scooped all my shit into a  pile.  Then he gave me  two bits of cardboard to
put it on, and they left the cell.
     I  looked at the walls  and saw fresh bloodstains on the surfaces. They
were mine. At least I'd added to the ambience of the cell.
     I began to feel apprehensive. What would happen now? Would we go  away?
Would we stay there? Richard Pryor had said to me: "England is a nice place.
I  was there fifteen years ago.  I was at  college in London. I  know London
well. Maybe one day you'll get back." Yeah, maybe.

        12

     Some time in the afternoon of the 6th, they came in  and handcuffed and
blindfolded me again. They picked me up, and I thought I was off for another
interrogation. I went outside and  started to follow the old familiar route,
but this  time we took  a strange turning, and I found myself being put into
the back of a vehicle.
     I leaned forward, head  down to release pressure on my  hands.  It  was
lovely and  warm in the  car, and I  could  hear the  birds singing.  It was
gorgeous weather. I was full of dread.
     The car was big. An old American thing, I assumed, like they all seemed
to be.
     "If you try to escape," somebody said, "we will kill the other two. And
if they escape, you will be killed. So you see, it is pointless."
     Did  that  mean  that  Dinger and  Stan were coming  too?  I waited for
someone else to get into the car, but no one did. Both doors  were closed. I
was alone in  the back.  There were  two fellows in the front, and they both
spoke excellent English.
     "Do you know where you're going now, Andy?" the driver asked  as we set
off.
     "No, I have no idea."
     "We're taking you to the British Embassy. You will now be going home to
your family. No problems."
     "Thank you very much."
     They  started laughing to  themselves and I went along with it, playing
the idiot.
     "No, we are only joking, Andy. You'll be  going home  one day,  but not
yet. Not for a long time yet."
     We drove for a few minutes in silence.
     "Have you heard of Ali Baba?" one of them asked.
     "Yes, it's an old film  which  they play  every  Christmas. They always
have Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves on."
     "Yes,  well  this is  where you are. You're in the land of Ali Baba, in
Baghdad.  The  thieves  of  Baghdad. A very beautiful city.  But  no longer,
because everybody's  dying.  You people,  you are coming in and bombing  our
places. Children are dead. Entire families are dying. It's no more the great
land of Ali Baba; it's all demolished. But when  we win, we will rebuild, no
problem. Fantastic place. Ali Baba."
     I nodded and agreed. They turned on the radio and scanned  through  the
stations. Every one sounded the  same  aggressive rhetoric or wailing Arabic
songs. They were  enjoying themselves, driving along with the windows  open,
not a care in the world.
     I listened to the sounds of the city. We stopped at lights, hooted, and
people  gob bed off.  Music  blared out of shops;  there  was all  the usual
hustle  and bustle of  a city.  The characters suddenly started laughing and
chattering.
     "We're just looking at your two friends in  front of us,"  one  of them
said. "They are  leaning  against one another, sleeping.  They must  be very
good friends."
     This was  great. It confirmed that Dinger and Stan were with me. It was
a fantastic feeling.
     The boys started smoking and were very jovial. We  drove on for another
30 minutes or so.
     "Yes, we're going to somewhere else in Baghdad.
     You'll enjoy this place. Very good place. We were only joking about the
embassy."
     People reached  in through  the windows  when we arrived  at  what they
announced  was  the military prison,  slapping me  on the head,  pulling  my
mustache. Nothing too serious, all very neighborly stuff.
     I heard barriers  being lifted, gates being opened.  We drove forward a
bit more and stopped. They got me  out of the  car and put a blanket over my
head. I was led up to a door and along a wide corridor with concrete floors.
There were echoes of talking, of bolts being opened and closed, the jangling
of chains and keys.
     This place  wasn't  damp, but  it was freezing cold. They led me into a
cell. I was made  to  sit on the floor, and  my handcuffs and blindfold were
taken off.  I saw soldiers dressed in olive drab and red berets, wearing the
old '37  webbing-pattern  belt  and  gaiters,  all immaculately  blancoed in
white. They were military  policemen. I spotted  an officer  and a couple of
blokes in civvies. They closed the door and left me.
     The door  to  the  cell was  something  that the  sheriff would put you
behind in a western.  The bars were covered with a blanket to stop me seeing
out. There was one fluorescent light, right in  the  middle of  the ceiling,
which was about 15 feet high. Also right at the top was a small slit window.
A shaft of light beamed through. The  bottom half of the walls  were painted
red, the top magnolia. And at first glance, that was  all  there was to see.
Then I saw the scratchings on the wall,  in Arabic. There were more pictures
of doves with chains around their legs, and a drawing of a woman.
     I paced out the cell. It was about 12 feet by 9.
     I strained my  ears  and heard other doors  being opened  and closed. I
assumed that Dinger  and  Stan were getting banged up as  well.  At least we
were all in the same place. And compared with the  interrogation center this
was Buckingham Palace.
     Had they  finished with us now, or what? I wasn't too sure and I didn't
really care. I loved this place. It was wonderful.
     Fifteen  minutes later  the  doors  opened again. I thought  I'd better
start switching on  and showing some respect. To  turn the situation to your
advantage you have to make an effort, get some sort of friendship going.
     As I got slowly to my feet, wincing with  the injuries, a new character
came into the cell. He was wearing  civilian clothes, but with a  DPM combat
jacket over the top. He was about 5'3" tall and had  white hair. On his face
he had a pair of really thick glasses and a big happy smile.
     "Would you like to be with your friends?" he beamed.
     "Yes, I would, very much."
     He took me  by the arm and led me  to another cell three doors down. It
was empty.
     Yeah,  I thought--good fucking stitch! For a few moments there I'd been
all happy  that I was going to see Dinger and Stan. I sat  down on the floor
and tried not to show my feelings.
     Two minutes later the  door opened and there  was Dinger. We had a  big
hug  and  a shake of hands. Then another couple  of minutes later Stan  came
stumbling  in, supported  on either side by guards. In his hand he carried a
tray of  rice. As  the  guards  locked us in and  left us we  looked  at one
another in disbelief, then started gob bing off.
     "Chris and Vince?" I asked.
     "Vince is  dead," Stan said. "Exposure. I got split from Chris; I don't
know what happened to him. What about the other three?"
     I said that Mark was dead, and probably also Legs and Bob--despite what
the Iraqis had told me.
     We  fell  into silence  and  started  eating.  We  heard  the sound  of
footsteps and keys in the corridor and stood up again. The door opened and a
major entered. He introduced himself as the prison governor.
     "What happened where you were,  I was not  responsible for," he said in
better English than mine. "I am only  responsible for you  now. We will feed
you  and we will look after you. If you are good, we will be good to you. If
there is trouble, you will be punished."
     Just 5'6" tall and small-framed, he  was smartly dressed, well groomed,
and fresh  smelling. He seemed genuine. If we  played the game, we should be
Okay. As he spoke, however, I couldn't  help noticing that the guards behind
him didn't seem to have the same  benign  smile on their  faces. They looked
every  bit as brutish as the people  we  were used to. They were very young,
and  they would have things to prove to us-and to each other. I didn't doubt
that when the cat was away, the guards would play.
     Once  the  major  had  gone,  we came  to certain  decisions  based  on
experience, training, and the advice of the Marine POW.
     We would remain always the gray man, never allowing ourselves to show a
reaction or become overconfident. We weren't out of the woods yet, not by  a
long way.
     We would  show respect  to the guards.  Being young bastards, they were
almost certain to tear the  arse  out of the situation if we were abusive or
truculent.  By being respectful we might also be able to  get information or
take some advantage, which would take us halfway towards another  aim, which
was to get some form of relationship going. Sometimes it works, sometimes it
doesn't, but you don't know until you try. We  didn't know  how long we were
going to be there for-it could be days, weeks, or years. We would try to get
some sort of fraternal thing going, based on us all being soldiers together,
which might bring us medicine, food, and little goodies.
     We'd use this time as best  we could to sort  ourselves out and prepare
ourselves for escape, adjusting both physically and mentally. I still had my
escape map  and  compass, and so did Dinger. Physically we'd sort  ourselves
out, hopefully helped by more reasonable supplies of food, and mentally we'd
spend as much  time as  we could  doing  map  studies.  We knew  we were  in
Baghdad, so  if we learnt the surrounding area we'd have some form of chance
if  we managed to escape. The escape maps  were not detailed enough to  show
the city  in street form, but they indicated the main features on the ground
like  rivers, salt lakes, and high ground. All we  had to do was get  out of
Baghdad.
     The  first  thing  to do,  as ever, was  just  to tune in  to  the  new
environment,  hoping  that there was  going  to  be some sort of routine. We
didn't want to screw up the fact that we were all together. We would use the
system, rather than fight against it.
     During the  course of  the first day and night,  guards were coming and
going nonstop.  Each time we'd  stand up and face  them. They  were still in
their  teens,  most   of  them,  which  made  them  more  authoritative  and
overbearing.  They  never appeared in  groups of less  than  three, and they
always  carried pistols. They were clearly very  wary of  us. On  one of the
visits our boots  were  taken away  from us  and  replaced with  white pumps
without laces.
     I asked for water. They came back  with  a pitcher and a cup. We  drank
some,  and then put the pitcher back down on the floor as if it was going to
stay there. They didn't question it.
     "How do we go to the toilet?" Stan asked.
     "You go when we say you go."
     "We're suffering  from diarrhea and stomachaches, and we're being sick.
We need a bucket or something so we can go."
     A  bucket turned up.  They were  small victories, but encouraging signs
that  we  could manipulate our  circumstances. That first night was a happy,
giggly, taking the piss sort of time. We heard mumbling in the near distance
and guessed that there were other  prisoners. We eventually  worked out that
they were right next door to us. How many of them, we couldn't tell.
     There was a door  right at the end of the corridor, and once the guards
had slammed that shut they seemed to be out of earshot. Nobody  had  told us
that there was a no talking rule, but it was safer to assume that there was.
     Tapping  on  the  wall  with our  tin mug,  we  knocked  out  a  simple
identification code to see if the person in the next cell was an ally.  Only
a Westerner would recognize  the friendly pattern of knocks you  would do on
the front  door of a  friend's house: tap, tapetty, tap  tap --to which  the
reply, of course, is:  tap tap.  We got  the answer we were hoping for.  The
contact was good for our morale, and probably theirs. It  was a good feeling
to have got something going on the very first night.
     We started to speculate  about our situation. Were the other members of
the patrol here? Was this a staging post? Would we be here for the duration?
     "We didn't know where the hell you guys had got to," Stan  said. "Vince
was babbling  about aircraft  and TACBE, and Chris and I remembered  hearing
jets. We  worked out  that Vince was telling us that you'd stopped and tried
to make contact with them. We sat on  high ground looking through the  night
sight, but there was no sign  of you. We tried to raise you on TACBE, but no
answer. In  the end we decided to press on, hoping you'd keep on the bearing
and we'd meet up."
     They carried on  for about four hours, and  then it was coming to first
light. Chris and Stan were worried about being caught in the open. Vince was
out of the decision making;  he stood swaying  in the  wind and rain as  the
others ran around looking for somewhere to hide.
     Stan found a tank berm about 6 feet deep, with tank tracks leading away
from it that were about knee deep. They led Vince into one of the tracks and
lay down either side of him. Throughout the night Chris and Stan took it  in
turns to sleep. The man who was awake kept a watchful eye on Vince.
     First light came  and Stan  had a auick look around. To his  horror, he
found that  the  tank berm was only about 600 meters from some sort of enemy
position--either a hut or a box  vehicle with aerials, it was hard  to tell.
They were stuck there now until last light.
     It started to snow. Soon the  snow turned  to sleet, and the tank track
filled with slush. They were soaking wet. The  temperature dropped. They had
very little  food left, just  a  couple of packets of biscuits between them.
Everything else had gone in the berg ens
     As it started to  come  to last light, they  crawled into the  berm and
stood  up. They'd been  lying in freezing water  for  twelve hours. Stan had
lost all  feeling  in his hands  and feet; Chris's  joints were frozen. They
moved around in circles, frog-marching Vince between them. When darkness had
fallen and  it was  time to leave,  they were so cold that the only way they
could pick up their weapons was by cradling them in their arms.
     Vince was soon lagging  behind.  He stopped in  his tracks at one point
and called the other two back. He complained about his hands, muttering that
they  had  turned  black. Chris looked at them and  saw that he  was wearing
black  leather  gloves. "They'll soon  get  better  if you  put them in your
pockets, mate," he said.
     The  next  time they stopped,  Vince was totally  incoherent.  Stan and
Chris huddled around him, but  it wasn't much use. They had to keep going or
they'd freeze.  They were  on high  ground,  crossing  bare  rock  and large
patches of snow.  Chris was in  front  with the compass,  but  the cold  was
getting to him. He was doing everything in slow motion.
     The three men spread out as they climbed a gradient at their  different
speeds. Stan stopped to let Vince overtake him; he wanted to keep an  eye on
him. But Vince  didn't appear. Stan turned around; Vince  was nowhere to  be
seen. Stan called to Chris and they both went back. Visibility was down to a
few feet in  the blinding blizzard as they  retraced their footsteps  in the
snow.  They got to a large area of bare  rock. They couldn't find  the trail
the other side.
     They  had  to  make  a  decision.   They  were  both  going  down  with
hypothermia. It was agony standing  still; they had to get moving again.  In
the end they just  looked at each other, then turned  and headed back up the
hill.
     Stan  and Chris  walked all that  night, coming off the high ground  at
about 0530. They came into a shallow wadi  about three feet deep and cuddled
together. As first light came the weather cleared; the sun came out, and for
the first time in several days they felt warmth on their faces.
     The  sound  of  goats came at  about  1400,  and sure enough  they  got
compromised  by an old  herder.  This  one  was  wearing  a  tattered  tweed
overcoat. Stan couldn't help  thinking how warm it looked  and how  good  it
would be to eat warm goat meat.
     The old boy seemed quite friendly as he pointed  east. Drawing pictures
in  the sand, he indicated  food, a house, a vehicle. Chris looked at  Stan.
Did they kill him? It would protect their concealment, but was there anybody
else about who was expecting him?
     Stan was keen to investigate the vehicle. "I'll go down, bring it back,
and we'll shoot off. We'll be at the border by tonight," he said.
     They made their RVs, actions on, and warning arrangements, and Stan set
off due east with the old boy and his goats. He left his belt kit with Chris
to look less conspicuous, and wrapped his shamag around his head.
     After a short while the goat herder wandered off at a tangent but again
pointed east. Stan continued.
     The hut  was exactly where the old  man  had  said, but there  were two
vehicles parked  outside  instead  of  one.  Stan OP'd  it for about  twenty
minutes. Nothing stirred. If the keys were in the vehicle, he'd just take it
there and then and go. If they weren't, he'd make a room entry on the house.
He'd get to the door, kick it in, and take on whatever was there.
     As he started to  approach the  vehicles, an Iraqi  soldier came out of
the house. He looked as surprised as Stan was. He made for the first vehicle
and  tried to pull a weapon out. Stan downed him with his 203, and the  body
slumped over  the driver's seat. The house was  less than 60  feet away, and
the door was  open. Six or seven squad  dies came  flying  out in confusion.
Stan got three hits off, and  then  he had  a stoppage. It was too late  for
stoppage  drills. He ran to the nearest  vehicle, the one with  the body in.
The  soldier  was still  groaning.  Stan pushed him aside.  No  key  in  the
ignition. He was still fumbling for it in the man's pockets when he felt the
muzzle of a rifle jab into his ribs.
     Stan turned around and stared at  them. There  were  five jundies left.
They appeared very undisciplined, screaming and shouting at each other. They
fired into the air and into the ground each side of him. He wasn't expecting
to survive. They came forward cautiously  and then one of them  summoned the
courage to smash him with a rifle butt. The others piled in.
     They put him  into  the  other  vehicle  and  took  him to  a  military
installation near  the  Euphrates.  Stan  entered  the  tactical questioning
phase.  He  was  interrogated  for  most  of   the  night,   handcuffed  and
blindfolded. The interrogators spoke very  good English. Some had trained in
the UK. A major who had trained at Sandhurst said, "Everyone's very sad with
you at the moment. They want to take your life."
     Stan denied  everything  except the Big  Four. They beat him  badly and
only stopped when  he fell unconscious. When he  came to,  he started  to go
into the cover story. He told them he had done a medical degree in Australia
and gone to  London. Because  of his medical experience he had got  roped in
through the TA to become part of a search and rescue team.
     "I want to cooperate in any way I can," he  said. "All I am is a doctor
who dropped out."
     He  was questioned on medical  techniques, and they brought in a doctor
to confirm  his story. It went well, but the rest of  his story was starting
to fall apart. They searched the area in which  Stan said the helicopter had
crash-landed but could find no sign of wreckage. "Possibly the aircraft took
off again," he said, but they looked dubious.
     Two or three days later, Stan was moved to an interrogation center. The
reception  party beat him with batons. He was made  to kneel in front of the
panel of interrogators. He was thrashed with hose pipes whipped, beaten with
a pole. At one stage they pulled back his head and held a  red-hot poker  in
front of his eyes. They didn't  carry out the threat  to blind him, but they
did use the poker elsewhere on his body.
     We told Stan our stories and finally collapsed into sleep. I woke up in
the night  with my stomach  tugging at  me. We'd all had four or five liquid
shits  in the short time we'd been there. We  were dehydrating  drastically,
but at least we could replenish the loss now.
     It  was pitch-dark.  Lying  on  the  floor, feeling relatively safe,  I
started to think about home.
     There was another bombing raid in the distance.  Flashes of  light came
through  the high  slit window. As  ever  the  bomb blasts were rather nice,
giving a  sense of security, a feeling that  we weren't the only ones there.
And  best  of all, they also gave us a  possible  means of escape if we took
direct hits.
     The main gate  of  the block was  opened  after  first  light. We heard
chains  rattling and keys going into locks, and  then the sound of  a metal,
corrugated-type door the  other side  of our wall being  opened  and  people
talking and walking about. We heard  the base of a  metal bucket clanking on
the floor, followed by the sound of the metal handle hitting the side.
     Then we heard, "Russell! Russell!"
     There was a mumbled reply.
     Further down the corridor there was  the  same banging of buckets. Then
"David! David!"
     This one was definitely  American.  When he heard his name  called,  he
replied with a resounding "Yo!"
     The guards were shouting at  this David  character. They shut  his door
and came down the corridor to our cell.  The door opened and we  got  to our
feet. We didn't know  what to expect. There  were three of them: one  little
bloke who said we were to call him Jeral,  one big  fat  thing with glasses,
and a  really young kid with curly blond hair. Jeral carried a bucket  while
the others covered  him,  pistols  drawn. They seemed  keen  to throw  their
weight around with the new blokes on the block.
     "Names?" the fat one demanded.
     "Dinger. Stan. Andy," Dinger said.
     He handed us three small  plastic bowls, into which  he tipped a  small
ration of rice and  water mixture from the bucket.  We were  issued with two
more mugs and  given a brew of  cold black tea from a battered old teapot. I
thought it was Christmas.
     When  they  left we had our first  chance  to look  around the  cell in
daylight. There was a nail high up one wall, sticking out a couple of inches
from the cement surface.  Deciding it might come in handy, I as the lightest
was given a leg up  and jiggled  it until I managed to prize it free. Dinger
used it to mark where the  light was shining on to the wall, as some sort of
check on the passage of time.
     We sat down and ate the rice, licking the bowls clean.  We took sips of
cold tea as  we  pondered what  might happen  next.  The  same three  guards
returned ten minutes later with the major.
     "You're  in my prison now," he repeated.  "I want no  misdemeanors from
you. If  you cause  me trouble,  I will  return  the compliment. You're only
together because the officer yesterday  decided to put you together. He says
to inform  you that we know  that you are dangerous men, and that if we have
any trouble with you, we are to just shoot you."
     It must  have been a reference to the  COP platoon story, which made us
an unknown quantity compared with the airmen they were used to. Either that,
or because we  looked  like wild men of  the north with our  matted  beards,
scabs, and bruises.
     "Any attempt to escape or to aggravate us and we'll shoot, it's as easy
as that," he said.
     "Is there any  possibility of emptying  our  bucket, sir?" I asked. "We
have bad stomachs and it is filling up."
     He gob bed off to one of the blokes and  said,  "Yes, take the bucket."
Stan picked it up and followed a guard.
     The major said, "You will  be fed, and you're lucky  to be fed  because
you've come over here to kill our  children.  There  is to  be  no noise--no
talking, no shouting. Do you understand?"
     While he  was talking, Dinger spotted the outline of a cigarette packet
under his shirt.
     "Excuse me, sir, is it possible that I can have a cigarette?"
     Dinger  was smiling  away.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  We  were
trying our hardest to come  over as  friendly, nice,  polite, and courteous.
The major unbuttoned his shirt and took the pack from a  pocket in a T-shirt
underneath. He handed Dinger a cigarette, but he didn't give him a light, so
that was Dinger fucked. He spent the rest of the day looking at it wistfully
and holding it under his nose.
     Stan had tried to  gather as much information as he could. All he could
tell us was that there were a  number of cells, with  the doors  sealed with
blankets or rice-sack covers that were marked, ironically, FROM THE AMERICAN
RICE BOARD TO THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ. At the  bottom of the corridor there was a
gate, and  another corridor that led  out into a courtyard, with yet another
metal  gate  beyond  that.  That was as far as  he  had been  able  to  see.
Everything seemed to be self-contained  within  the one unit, with  only one
way in and out.
     It  appeared  that we shared the  ablution block with the guards. Their
washing was hanging on lines. In one corner was a large oil barrel which was
filled with water. There was  a long concrete sink with about  four or  five
taps coming  off  it, and normal  Arab  toilets which were blocked as usual.
According to Stan the whole place stank.
     A week passed. Sometimes  they would come  into our cell three  times a
day, sometimes twice, sometimes six or seven times. We could hear squad dies
continually  toing  and  froing,  doing  their washing,  and  just generally
mooching about.
     We were  fed irregularly  as well.  Sometimes  the bucket would come at
breakfast time,  sometimes in the  late afternoon, sometimes  at last light.
Meals always  consisted of rice soup  or boiled rice, real dreggy stuff with
grit and mud in it.  They always  told us we were lucky to have it. One time
we were given bones that people had been chewing. We tucked in hungrily.
     They must  have watched  one  of  those  prison  films  where  you  get
indoctrinated by radio, because every morning at first light they turned  on
a radio  that then blasted away  outside our  window. It  was  like having a
loudspeaker  blaring into the  cell, aggressive  rhetoric punctuated by  the
occasional  English  word  like  "Bush"  or "America." Then  there  would be
prayers, then  the rhetoric would start up again. It only  stopped  at  last
light, and it drove us all crazy.
     We  were  bombed  every night.  There had  always  been sporadic firing
around  the  city from antiaircraft guns, some  of  which  were sited in our
compound. We'd feel the shudder of  the guns on our roof and hear the sounds
of the gun crews arguing and shouting. What they never seemed to realize was
that by the time you've heard an aircraft it's out of range anyway.
     On the night of  the 13th there was a massive amount of small-arms fire
in  the  streets around  the  prison,  which went on  for twenty  to  thirty
minutes.
     "What the fuck's going on here?" Dinger said.
     He and Stan lifted me up to the slit window, and I just managed to pull
my head  up high enough  to  see tracer  going horizontal. It  was  bouncing
everywhere.
     "Must  be some form of revolution or  coup  going on. That is one major
firefight."
     A few nights later we decided that we'd try and make contact  with  the
characters  in the other  cells. We knew that the bloke next door was called
David and was an  American. We  weren't sure about  Russell.  We  decided to
initiate some form  of contact with them. We risked a beating or worse if we
were  caught,  but we decided it was  worth it.  If  they  were  released or
escaped, they could report our names.
     Last thing at night, when the  guards finished  their  duty, they would
close  up the main gate from the corridor and then go out to  the courtyard.
It was  a  fair assumption that once we'd  heard  the final gate close, they
would be out of  earshot. I  got right up to  our  door, covered by its rice
bag, and called for help. If a guard responded, I would just say that one of
us was really ill and needed attention.
     We heard nothing.
     I called out, "David! David!"
     We heard rustlings, and then "What? What?"
     "How long have you been here?"
     "A few days."
     He said that he and another transport driver, a woman, had strayed over
the border and  been shot. He had received a stomach  wound, but had no idea
what had happened to the woman.
     "Who's further down?" Dinger asked.
     "A Marine aviator called Russell."
     "Russell! Russell!"
     He responded and we all swapped names.
     "What have you heard?" I asked him.
     Russell  Sanborn  had  been shot down  by a SAM missile while at 10,000
feet over  Kuwait. He'd only  been in the prison for  a couple  of days.  We
concluded  that we were the only  prisoners and agreed we  would try to talk
again.
     One morning,  on about the 15th or  16th, the guards came  in,  and  we
stood up as usual and smiled at them. We'd got a bit of a routine going now.
We'd say  "Good morning," and they'd say "Good  morning" back, and one of us
would then go out and empty the bucket.
     There were no  smiles this morning. The  guards were  accompanied by  a
young officer, who pointed at me and said, "You--you come with me."
     He had  a white bandage blindfold that he put  around my eyes. My hands
were cuffed in front of me, and a blanket was  put over my head. Escorted by
guards, the officer started leading me  away from the prison. He held my arm
under  the blanket and dragged  me along. I looked down through my blindfold
and  watched the ground. We went through  the gate, stopped awhile while  he
spoke to somebody, then carried on.
     We were  moving fairly fast when he walked me straight into a lamppost.
The surprise of  it knocked  me over. My nose started to pour with blood. He
thought it was brilliant. We went  into a building, up some stairs, and into
a room. I  was pushed up against a sideboard and  told to sit down and cross
my legs, facing the wall.  The  doors closed. I didn't have a  clue what was
going to happen next, but assumed the worst. A minute later the  blanket and
blindfold were ripped off, and I was told to stand up and turn around.
     I  was in  an office. The lighting was strong  and harsh.  There was  a
chair  against  one  wall  and a  video  camera  set up facing  it,  with  a
microphone on a boom. Now I knew why they had stopped hitting my face.
     I was facing the prison governor. When he saw the state of my nose,  he
went ape shit  with the young rupert. I was in shit state to look at anyway,
so I don't know what difference  a nosebleed made. They took me next door to
a sink and told me to wash off the blood. I used the blindfold as a flannel.
I was  then given a comb and a mirror and told to tidy up my hair. There was
nothing I could do to it. It was just too matted with old blood.
     It was the first time I'd seen my face  since I  left the FOB. I looked
like Ben Gunn after somebody  had taken a shovel to his face. I had a dirty,
scruffy  beard and the  skin  was  flaky.  My mouth  was scabby.  I couldn't
believe they were going to  use me in a video. I cleaned myself up  a bit to
make them  happy, but not too much: I didn't want to look too healthy for my
public.
     I sat in  front of the video, thinking hard about an appropriate way of
showing that I  was doing this against my will. I remembered that during the
Vietnam  War, people were going  back to the  States and getting  persecuted
purely because they'd  signed something or said something to save their life
or that of somebody else. People learned that  they should do something that
was  out of the ordinary while they  were exposed to the  media, or do their
signature with their left hand, so anyone  knowing them would recognize that
something was wrong.
     I decided  that I  would try for as long as  I could  to keep my  right
index  finger  straight  and constantly  bring it  up to stroke my left eye,
under the pretext that my eye was hurting after walking into the lamppost.
     I sat  and waited.  A jundie appeared  with  three  glasses of  tea and
offered me one.
     "We're going to ask you some questions,  Andy," the major said. "I want
you  to answer them truthfully for  the camera.  Then,  who knows, maybe you
might go home soon."
     "Oh, thank you very much."
     He asked  all  the questions they'd asked before.  Name,  number, rank,
date of  birth, religion.  Details of the helicopter and  COP  platoons, and
what we were doing  in Iraq. There was a  bloke  wearing dark glasses behind
the camera, behind the lights, whose face I couldn't see properly.  He would
talk  in Arabic into the speaker  system on the video, then ask the question
in English. I would answer, and he would translate. I  kept  rubbing my  eye
with my finger and never looked  directly to camera. I tried all the time to
make myself appear drowsy and incoherent.  It was worth a go. Either I'd get
away  with  it  or they'd give  me  a bit of a slapping. In fact they didn't
react to it at all.
     "That's it," the major said after  about twenty minutes.  "You're going
back now."
     As I got up to leave, the fellow with dark glasses said, "You know your
side will never win, don't you, Andy?"
     "Why's that?"
     "Because you're far too technical."
     I was  blindfolded and  taken back  to  the prison and put into another
cell on my own. I  was depressed. I thought that now  they'd done the film I
was going to spend the rest of my time in solitary.
     The guards  went into the cell with the  blindfold in their  hands  and
said to Dinger, "You're next."
     Dinger took one look  at the blood on the bandage and roared:  "Fucking
hell!" He  thought that either I had  been  slotted, or it  was all going to
happen again.  Either way, if they were going to do it, they'd have to do it
to  him in the cell right there and then. There was what Stan later called a
"bit of a scuffle" until other guards rushed in and put guns to their heads.
They led him away, and Stan thought: And then it's me.
     In front of the camera Dinger  was given a  cigarette. When  it came to
smoking, Dinger was  very much a man of the thumb and forefinger school, but
in  front of  the camera he smoked elegantly with the middle fingers  of his
left hand, like some character out of a Noel Coward play.
     Stan decided that he would stroke his hair continuously with both hands
and  look down at the  ground. While he was  being interviewed,  I got moved
back  in with Dinger. We tried  to work out  why we'd  done these videos. We
prayed  that they were going to  be shown to the media, so  people back home
would know we were alive.
     We talked to the guards as often as we could about their families.
     "How many children do you have? Do you miss them? Do you see them?"
     I landed up  scoring with Jeral. He was really skinny and young, in his
early  twenties.  His  English  was  very  good;  he  spoke  as  if  he  was
apologizing, with his shoulders shrugged up.
     "I'm a  drummer really," he said. "I play for  a group  called Queen at
the Meridien Hotel in Baghdad."
     His favorite groups were Boney M and Michael Jackson, and every time he
saw me he'd start singing, "He's crazy like .. ."
     "Oh Andy,  I  want to come to London,"  he said to me one day. "When  I
come, will you show me London? I want to play in a hotel there."
     "Yeah, sure," I shrugged, "once the war  is over we can be friends. You
can come to London."
     "Yes Andy, I love you."  He stared longingly into my eyes. "I love you.
Do you love me?"
     "Yes, I love you too, Jeral."
     I got a fearsome slagging from the other two the moment he left.
     "I'll give you a month's pay if you let me watch," Dinger said.
     "Give me a year's money, and I won't tell the squadron," said Stan.
     Jeral was a nuisance, but we did get extra bread and little tit bits of
information from him.  At some stage there was an initiative by the Kremlin,
and  Jeral  said, "The war's  going to  be over  soon.  Gorbachev's going to
organize everything."
     There  was indeed some sort of peace initiative, because we  heard lots
of chanting  in the streets and small-arms fire.  Some guards  burst in, and
Jeral said, "The war's over!"
     "How do you know?" I asked.
     "Saddam Hussein has  signed a  treaty. He has  explained  to the nation
that  he cannot  let  so many of the enemy die.  He is a very  compassionate
man."
     Our gauge of  whether he was  bullshitting or not was whether there was
any bombing that night. In fact  there was. Jeral  wasn't correct that time,
but he did tell us when the ground war started.
     Stan got on quite well  with a sergeant major who couldn't speak a word
of English. There was  some sort  of affinity  between the two of them,  and
Stan would speak to him through another of the guards. He would ask how many
children he had. It turned  out he had  two wives and  five  children.  Stan
said: "Oh, very strong man," and the man loved it.
     We did  have some slight problems with the guards. We'd get  filled  in
now and again while  we were  taking the bucket down.  They'd  make sure you
were on your own, then come  and pick  on  you. On  one  occasion they  made
Dinger do a Michael Jackson  moon dance We  just let them get on with it. It
was just  a kicking and a few  punches.  You'd go  down, they'd  have  their
little laugh, and that was that.
     Another time, the toilets were blocked with their shit. They marched me
down there and made me  pull it out with my hands. Afterwards,  they made me
lick my fingers clean. They thought this one was a cracker.
     Stan went to the ablution block  one morning with the bucket,  and when
it was clean, they  offered to let him  fill  it up with water  from the oil
barrel. Thankingthem for  their  kindness, he  dropped  the bucket  into the
barrel  and received  a massive  electric shock that threw  him against  the
wall.  We  heard his  screams and their hoots  of  hysterical laughter.  The
generator was running, and they'd wired up the barrel to the mains.
     Baghdad was still  getting  attacked every night.  If  a  bomb fell too
close or somebody lost a  friend or  family member, the guards would come in
and make  sure  we knew  about  it. They began dishing out many more serious
kickings in the toilets. The three  of us made a pact that if they  went for
it when we were together, we weren't going to stand for it.
     One  night during the bombing we took a hit near the compound. From the
beginning we had maintained that if ever there was a crack  in the structure
big enough for us to get through,  we would go for it. If bombs were falling
that close and you didn't start  moving, you'd probably  end up being killed
by your own ordnance anyway.
     They  took casualties  that  night.  We  could  hear  the screaming and
shouting,  the  pressure waves, all the windows in the area shattering.  The
town of Ali Baba was really getting the good news. There was shouting by the
gate  to the  outer  courtyard, and then  the sound of the gate being pushed
open. We could  guess what was going to  happen. Sure enough the guards came
in, and they gave it to Russell and David.
     Then  they came to our  cell, two  lads  waving their  Tiny  lamps  and
hollering. They had their helmets and  webbing on. Their weapons were slung,
and they carried batons.
     We stood up  as they charged into  the  cell. They could  kill us  with
those  batons: it only takes a good twat around the head to do the business.
In  the films the hero gets beaten unconscious, then comes  to a few minutes
later and goes off to save  the world; but in  real life if you put your arm
up to defend  yourself, it  will be broken. Something in our  eyes must have
told them that we were prepared to  fight. They stopped in their tracks  and
stared  at us. We  stared them out,  and they  edged towards the door.  They
stood  in the doorway, shouting and  pretending  to cock their weapons,  but
they backed off and slammed the door behind them. We couldn't believe it. We
might have laughed if we hadn't had to listen to  the moans and  groans from
the other lads further down.
     We went through the same  scenario  one other  time, but  this  time it
wasn't a bomb that sparked it  off but  an  American. They seemed to have an
irresistible urge to communicate with their fellow countrymen, even if to do
so resulted in a good hiding. The Americans in our block knew now that there
were others around, and that set them off.
     David called out: "I'd kill for a Burger King."
     A  guard who happened to be in the washroom overheard him, and  minutes
later  the blokes tore in. But it was Russell,  not  David,  who carried the
can. His cell was nearer  to the  washroom,  and they must have  come to the
wrong  conclusion.  He  got a  severe going over  and was dragged  off to  a
punishment cell. They came back and gave David a few slaps as well, and then
they came to us.
     There were three  of them, in  helmets and wielding  batons. We greeted
them with a look that said: "Come on, then."
     They backed off,  shouting, "We're  going to split you  up." The threat
was more horrifying than a beating would have been.
     Miraculously,  nothing happened.  We could only  surmise that  the boys
didn't report the incident in case their lack of bottle came to light.
     We became  a  sideshow.  The  guards would bring in  friends  and local
dignitaries, and stamp about and show their authority, cocking their weapons
and  pointing them. One big  fat bastard came in  one day -with his Makharov
pistol.  He cocked it,  brought  it  up, aimed  it at Dinger, and pulled the
trigger. The hammer came  down on an empty chamber. The guards loved it. The
fat bastard started laughing, all his mates started laughing, and  we joined
in. Then Dinger somehow managed to turn the whole thing to his advantage and
ended  up getting a  cigarette  out of it, which made his  day. We continued
doing our  ground  studies of the  map  every afternoon, trying  to memorize
every  detail so that when  we escaped and got out of the built-up area we'd
have  some form  of identification of where we  were. I think we got so good
after a  while that as soon  as we saw  a road sign we'd have  known exactly
where we were.
     Map studies  took  up a  lot  of time, but in  idle moments we just sat
there  and waffled.  I went  through  my life  story  several  times,  until
everybody knew Peckham and  my three ex-wives almost as well as I  did. Stan
would talk about his time in Rhodesia with his family. They had  donkeys and
used to  paint  their hooves in bright  colors. He told us one  particularly
good  story about the day he'd watched as  a herd of elephants came  and ate
all  the windfall apples from an  orchard. The fruit was  so old that it had
started  to ferment, and it wasn't long before the elephants had  flaked out
on their  haunches,  completely pissed. While they were sleeping it  off,  a
group of monkeys appeared and ate the remaining  apples. They  Went  up into
the trees to rest after the feast, and it wasn't long before they  also were
pissed. One  monkey was so gone that it fell  off  its branch, bringing down
two other monkeys with it. They  landed on the head of a pissed-up elephant,
which then came to and started charging around the place.
     Another story had a  much darker side. Stan's family had a houseboy who
lived with  his family in a small bungalow on the estate. One night, a group
of rebels got hold of him  and shot him because he worked for the white man.
They dragged the body  back to the bungalow and left it on the doorstep as a
warning to the rest of the family. The  warning was heeded. Soon afterwards,
Stan  joined  the  army and became  part of  the rapid  reaction force. When
independence was declared, Stan left the country in despair.
     We tried to educate Stan in the  finer points of punk music. It took us
three days to remember  all  the words of the Jam song  "Down  in  the  Tube
Station at Midnight," and then we tried to teach it to him. He soon gave up.
"I  don't understand all this British shit," he complained. "Don't  you guys
know any Rolf Harris?"
     Poor Stan. He had a thing about storing food: even if he was hungry, he
would  try  and save it for a rainy day.  He'd  spend  a  lot  of  time  and
ingenuity hiding it from the  guards, and then we'd wake  up in the  morning
and insist that he share it. After all, what else are friends for?
     We  also passed  the time doing exercise or assessing our  injuries.  I
worried  a lot about tooth decay. The guards nearly always spat in our food,
and I  imagined foul  Iraqi  bacteria attacking my broken stumps and rotting
them, and then all my other teeth falling like dominoes.
     We  kept  tabs on  the date, and I  felt especially low  on the 24th. I
couldn't  help myself thinking about  how I would have spent the day  if I'd
been  in England. Would Katie have been with us for the day, or would I have
just phoned her to wish her a happy birthday?
     Towards  the  end of the  month the  major  began turning up  much more
often, normally just  before last light. He  talked to us  a  lot  about how
wonderful  it was  to  be  an  Iraqi  since  the  revolution.  There  was  a
comprehensive health-care system, he explained, and everybody got a handsome
pension at retirement age. Saddam also provided  free education for all,  up
to and including university level--even if that entailed studying overseas.
     "Our children read Shakespeare at school," he said one time, showing us
a copy of Hamlet.  "Last night I was going home, and a bomb  dropped  behind
me. To be or not to be--it is Allah's will, no?"
     None of us said anything, and after a while he muttered, "You know, you
have been well treated here."
     It  was our  best clue yet that the war was nearly over. We didn't tell
him what his guards  were up to when  his  back  was turned. That would only
have made matters worse.
     "Just remember that what happened  before is nothing to do  with me' he
repeated. It must have been obvious  to him that  the war  was going against
them, and he was covering his arse.
     One  night we  heard  the gates opening  and the  sound  of moaning and
groaning. I  hated  hearing the gate open at  night: it  made  me  feel very
insecure. It was clear from the sounds  that a prisoner was being brought in
and put into a cell. There was lots of mumbling, and  suddenly a  long, loud
burst  of screaming. We made contact with him the following  night. His name
was Joseph Small, call sign Alley Cat.  He was a major, an aviator in the US
Marine  Corps. Poor bastard, he had been shot down  on what he  was  able to
tell us was the last day of the  ground war. He had a  bad parachute landing
that  left him  hanging in a tree. He had  sustained an open fracture of the
leg, and all the Iraqis had  done was  give him  an open-cast splint and let
him get on with it.
     It was wonderful to hear the news. The ground war had not  only started
but nearly finished, and Iraq was on its  arse. But the problem Joseph Small
brought with him was that the more Americans there were, the more chat there
was. They wouldn't listen to make sure there weren't any guards around: they
would just spark  up, and the fallout  was bad  for all of us.  I was  still
concerned that we could find ourselves separated.
     Joseph was quite amusing  because he was gagging for a cigarette and he
was always asking  for them, but he always asked aggressively and  they just
fucked him off. But Dinger, the model diplomat,  every time the major turned
up now he'd get a fag out of him.
     In the end we  decided not to initiate any more conversations  with the
Americans.  We let  them  start their own, and waited  to see if there was a
reaction  from the  guards. If there wasn't, we'd join in, always  trying to
get as much information as  we could. Had anybody  been reported  to the Red
Cross? we asked. Did they  think that we were  dead? Did they  know we  were
alive?
     Joseph Small was able to say that nothing about us had been reported to
the Red Cross; we'd all been posted  as missing in  action.  Bush  had  just
announced that if all prisoners were not released, the Allies were going all
the way to Baghdad. That  made us feel good in one respect: at least we were
winning,  and there was  a good  chance that we'd be released. But there was
also a chance we wouldn't be freed. We  knew the Iraqis had contact with the
PLO. Were we going to land up best mates with Terry Waite, cuddling the same
radiator?
     There was a funny side to it as well, though.
     "Who's that?" a voice boomed out.
     "Major Joseph Small, Marine Corps."
     "Russell Sanborn, Captain, Marine Corps."
     "Aviator?"
     "Yes, sir!"
     It was real good gung ho stuff, straight out of Top Gun.
     The day  after Joseph Small turned  up, a  medic  sergeant  called Troy
Dunlap was brought in on a stretcher with spinal injuries. He had  been with
a woman doctor who had broken both her arms and was also taken prisoner. The
rest of the Black Hawk crew were dead after being shot down. Inevitably, the
Americans made contact with him straightaway.
     "Major Small? Major Joseph Small? Shit, sir, I'm your search and rescue
mission!"
     We made  sure he knew our names as  well,  in  case he got  repatriated
early because of his injuries.
     Around this time the bombing stopped, which confirmed Small's story. We
were using the bombing as a barometer. If  it started again, we  would  know
that things had gone to rat shit. In  the afternoon two bangs sounded off in
quick succession. After the first the birds flew away very loudly, and there
was lots of  shouting. Our hopes of an early release  faded with the echo of
the boom.
     I tried to think positively. The Iraqis  were getting their arse kicked
by  ground troops as well now. Small's  information indicated it would be  a
matter of days rather than  weeks  until  the end.  And things must be going
well for there  to be daylight  raids. But  I  hadn't heard any antiaircraft
fire. Jeral  confirmed that it had  been aircraft  going supersonic over the
city-theirs or ours he didn't know.
     Early in the morning of March 3, the outer gate of the courtyard opened
up and then the gate into the main prison.  There was lots of noise of  keys
clanking, voices  raised, and shouting. David's cell was opened. We were all
straining to hear what was going on.
     We heard the words: "You're going home."
     We  looked  at one another, and Stan said,  "Fuck, mate,  this is  good
shit."
     Our door burst open, and a guard stood in the doorway with  a clipboard
in his hand. "Stan. Dinger. You are now going home. Wait here."
     No Andy. It was one  of the worst  moments of my life. Our  worst fears
had been confirmed. They were going to keep back hostages.
     I turned to Dinger and said, "If you're going home, make sure you speak
to Jilly."
     Dinger and Stan shook my hand before leaving. "Don't worry," they said.
     Don't worry? I was flapping fit to take off.
     Left  alone  in the cell, I  spent the  first  couple of hours  feeling
severely sorry for myself.  I felt happy for the blokes that were going, but
that  didn't  stop  me  from  feeling  abandoned.  After  so  many  weeks of
comradeship, the  sudden  loneliness  was almost a physical  pain. I  forced
myself  to work through  the options. The war must have  ended; there was no
doubt about that. We knew that Small's sortie was just about  the last to be
flown, and  that was  days ago. So why had only three of  us been  released?
Were they being released?
     In the afternoon the major came in with all his entourage. "Yes, it  is
true," he said.  "Your  two friends have gone  home. They will be  home with
their families very soon. Maybe you will be going soon. Maybe one day, maybe
two  days. I  don't know. But remember, what happened at the other place  is
nothing  to do with me. What happened here is my responsibility. You've been
well looked after."
     I was nodding and  agreeing like a  lunatic.  He  gave  me two oranges,
which I ate as soon as he had gone, peel and all. I began to feel better.
     Later that afternoon I  was dragged out  and  put into the courtyard in
the sunlight.  I sat  there soaking  up  the  rays  for five minutes and was
joined by  two  guards who started  talking  about the pop charts. They were
about  two decades  behind  in their news, but I wasn't going  to  tell them
that. Instead  I  discussed  the merits of various  Boney M  and Abba  hits,
nodding and  agreeing as  much  as  I could  without  my  head falling  off.
Everybody was being all rather nice, so I knew something was afoot.
     I  got the sun on my bones  for an hour, and  it felt  -wonderful. They
took me back  in  when  the sun went  down, but  I was feeling more and more
hopeful.
     Something  strange happened to Joseph Small that night. I  was lying on
the floor of my cell when I heard his door open and people go in. There were
mumblings;  then  about  a minute  later  the door  closed, and  the  noises
receded. At  last  light  the guards  left  us alone.  The  three of  us got
talking, and I asked him what had happened.
     "An Iraqi soldier came into my cell," he  said. "He was in combat dress
and in bad shape.  He had a rough beard, he had his webbing on, helmet,  his
boots were in shreds from rock cuts. He came in, looked  at me, saluted, and
left. Weird, Andy, fuckin' weird."
     We could only  surmise  that he  had withdrawn from Kuwait and for some
odd reason wanted to see a prisoner.
     We spent the next half hour  trying to work  out why  two lots had gone
but not us, but didn't get far. For the second night I didn't get any sleep.
The first time it had been because  I was so  down  in the dumps. Tonight it
was the excitement of what the morning might bring.
     In the  early hours of March 5  the gates opened,  and  I jumped  to my
feet, eager with anticipation.
     Russell's door opened.
     "Russell Sanborn? You're going home."
     Then Joseph's door.
     "Joseph Small? You're going home."
     The next one was the stretcher case.
     And the last one was me.
     "Andy McNab? McNab? Yes, you will be going home soon."
     They  handcuffed us and took us  out of the  cells one by one. We  went
through the gates that led onto the courtyard, and then through those gates,
and  were  put onto a bus. For the very first  time I  saw  the  bodies that
belonged to  the voices from other cells. Joseph Small was much older than I
had imagined, a man  in  his  mid-forties  who  looked  good considering his
injuries. All I had ever seen of  Russell Sanborn was an eye and finger that
pulled down a small flap of blanket so he could look out and see people slop
out as  we walked past his  punishment  cell. There was no light in his cell
apart from this hole. He had a deep, booming voice, full of authority, and I
had expected a man mountain. In fact he had a very slight frame.
     They moved  down the bus and blindfolded everybody.  We drove along the
road for another 75 feet  and stopped. We  seemed to be picking  up  another
batch of prisoners, who sounded like Saudis. I guessed  we'd been staying in
a mirror image jail that had two identical wings.
     We drove for about forty minutes. We stopped and I  heard aero engines.
This is great, I thought: We're just going to get on the plane and fuck off.
But  only  the Saudis disembarked. The guards then started to  call out  our
names.
     I went  forward  when called, still blindfolded, and  was taken  into a
building.  The echoes  indicated it was a low structure; I imagined it was a
hangar. We were arranged in a long line, handcuffed and  blindfolded.  There
was  a  loud hiss of Tiny lamps, and the noise of  soldiers moving around. I
could hear the breathing of people either side of me. We were held there for
a long  time. My stomach  was  playing up again, and I was  feeling  weak. I
leaned forward, and my nose brushed against a brick wall.
     A  sudden  flurry  of  commands  brought  me bolt upright.  I heard the
ominous, metallic echo of weapons being cocked.
     Well, there  you go,  I said to myself. So much for  getting  released:
we're going to get topped. I took a deep breath and waited for it.
     Nothing happened. We stood there  for  five minutes in  total  silence,
everybody holding their breath.
     I  was feeling  more and more  ill as we stood  against the  wall,  and
finally I buckled, collapsing on to my knees.
     "I've got to go to the toilet," I called out.
     Somebody grabbed my  arm and propelled me away, but  by the time we got
there I'd sprayed myself with  runny stuff. I was  taken back and put in the
queue.
     They took  us one by one into tiny  cells. The  handcuffs were removed,
and I could touch either side with my hands. But there  were three blankets,
a real luxury, and  a little window. I needed to bang on the door every five
minutes during the night. A guard appeared each  time and dragged me down to
the toilet, then stood  over me while I dropped my  arse. We spent the whole
night toing and froing.
     At first  light we  were given a good breakfast of  egg, jam and bread,
and hot,  black tea. It was rather encouraging. I looked out of my cell  and
saw piles  of  old  uniforms arranged  on  the floor,  and yellow prison POW
pajamas with pumps. I thought, this is the ticket.
     An hour after breakfast, my cell door was opened, and I was led along a
corridor  to a  room  where there was a chair,  table, mirror, water,  and a
razor.
     The "barber"  started to shave  me,  so clumsily that  he  ripped small
chunks out of my face. Blood trickled down my chin.
     "Can I do it myself?" I asked.
     "No, you  are  a  dangerous  man." They wouldn't let  me rinse  my face
afterwards, either. I just had to wipe the soap and blood off with my shirt.
     I was taken back to the cell by two soldiers who told me to strip. They
presented  me  with one of the yellow uniforms and took  my clothes away.  I
said a sad, silent farewell to my escape map and compass.
     "Name?"
     "McNab."
     "You'll be going home today. Very soon." The blindfold was put back on.
     The  cells  were  opened  one at a time.  A soldier  checked our names,
removed the blindfolds, and we came out and got in line. Somebody came up to
the  left  of  me and  grabbed  my  hand enthusiastically. "My  name's  John
Nichol," he beamed.
     I shook his hand. He noticed  me  looking at  the green R.A.F polo neck
under his yellow top.
     "Fifteen Squadron," he said. "Tornadoes."
     He was  a really  happy bloke, but not  as delirious  as the Americans.
They were behaving as if they were already back in the  States, and a few of
the guards  were getting  twitchy about  it. I was still  keeping myself  in
check. The light was  at the end of the tunnel, but who was to say it wasn't
just another guard with a Tiny lamp coming towards us?
     We were blindfolded yet again and marched off in a big crocodile. After
a few  meters they stopped  us again, and  a soldier walked up and  down the
line spraying us with women's perfume. I gritted my teeth. I could live with
the smell, but the alcohol stung my badly shaved face.
     We  boarded a bus and after  half an hour or so were told that we could
take our  blindfolds  off. The bus had  curtains,  but I managed to look out
through  a gap and saw  bombed  bridges and buildings. Daily  life was still
very  much going  on, however. It was quite  a happy  time on the coach. The
pilots were  saying "Hi" to each other, and the guard at  the front just sat
there and let them get on with it.
     It could be the world's biggest bluff,  however,  and I decided to keep
myself to myself.
     We pulled up at the door  of the Nova Hotel. The place was teeming with
soldiers and  camera  crews, and there was  a fleet of Red Cross vehicles. I
began to feel slightly more at ease.
     The  main foyer was crowded  with what I  at first thought were Iraqis,
but  who turned out  to be Algerian  medical  staff. Part of  the  trade-off
between Saddam  and the Red  Cross had  been that they provide medical staff
for Baghdad.  The Algerians lived  in  the  hotel and helped  in  the  local
hospitals.
     We  were taken  into one  of the  reception  rooms  and  segregated  by
nationality for documentation. The hotel  had no  heating, no hot water,  no
lifts. There was lighting, but  the  Red  Cross had brought everything  else
with them, including their own food.
     This was the first time that  the  Red Cross had had any news about any
of us from the Iraqis. Even then, the lists being handed over were  corrupt.
It was a breach  of  the Geneva Convention,  but a rather minor one compared
with the rest of our experiences as POWs.
     I was keen to find out about Dinger and Stan.
     "Have  there  been  prisoners released before us?" I asked  one of  the
women.
     The  Red  Cross  personnel  appeared  to  range  from  women  in  their
mid-twenties to men  in their  late fifties.  They were incredibly brave and
professional people. I wouldn't have done their job.
     "Yes. They got out via Jordan."
     "Is there any chance you can give me the names of the Brits?"
     She  checked a list for me and found  the surnames of Dinger and  Stan.
There were no other names that I recognized.
     The girl confirmed that we were the last batch. So we had been the only
three  all along,  I thought. All the stuff  about wounded signals operators
was a load of bollocks--a good  bluff that  had got me to  gob off. Legs had
probably been dead from the time Dinger left him.
     Once  the  administration was  done,  we were given a little Red  Cross
ticket and a  number, and the  Europeans  were  taken upstairs to the  third
floor. I noticed that the fire escapes were boarded up, leaving only one way
in and out through the central staircase.
     Everything we needed was on the third floor. A Red Cross waiter brought
us  anything we asked for--if he had  it.  We  got boiled eggs  that weren't
boiled  properly.  When we opened them they ran, but they were the best eggs
I'd  had  in  my  life.  The  others  followed theirs  with  croissants  and
chocolate, but by that time I was in the toilet, bulking up. I started again
with an empty stomach  and settled for a bottle of  beer and some bread.  We
sat  around talking, and I listened  to everybody  saying, "Well, that's it,
we're away."
     I couldn't  believe  what  I  was  hearing. After  all that  we'd  been
through, people were taking the Iraqis at their word.
     It seemed the intention that we were going to be held in the  hotel for
a couple of hours and then taken away to  an airfield. One of  the Red Cross
blokes asked if anybody was cold.
     "Fucking right," came the reply.
     Two hours later he came back with a jumper for each of us that somebody
had gone and bought  downtown. The  patterns were  weird  and wonderful, but
they were warm.
     The  main man  of the Red Cross appeared and  said,  "Is there an  Andy
McNab here?"
     "Yes."
     "Somebody downstairs wants to see you."
     As he led me down the staircase I said, "We fly out this afternoon?"
     "We  don't know yet  because  of the weather. We  could also be delayed
because we can't get the aircraft  back from Saudi.  It's very  difficult to
get communications  --the Iraqis won't let me set up my own satellite com ms
It's  all third-hand information, so I'm just sitting here and waiting. It's
a terrible setup: they  won't  give me any help at all. We brought all these
Algerian  medical  teams  to  help  them  with the  civilian  victims of the
bombing, but they've  moved the civvies out of  the hospitals in Baghdad and
told  them  to go home, to leave hospital  beds for soldiers who  are coming
home from the front. There's  so much  unrest they  have to give priority to
the soldiers.
     "That's why  you  are on the third  floor.  We put the Algerians at the
bottom because they are in no danger.
     We  have the Red Cross personnel next, and then  you right  at the top,
because they  are after  you.  They  want  some  of  you  for  hostages  and
bargaining  power. If you  come down these stairs, you must  only  come down
with me or another Red Cross member.
     "We can't get the badly wounded up to the third floor because the lifts
do not work  and we can't maneuver them around the staircases. Unfortunately
they've got  to  stay downstairs. It's quite possible that they'll  raid the
place and take people. The only defense we have is our Red Cross status."
     We  went into the main foyer, and  I spotted two sinister-looking Arabs
sitting by the reception desk.
     "Secret police," he warned.
     If they hadn't posed such a threat, they would have looked laughable in
their big, baggy suits with turnups, white socks, and swept-back hair.
     "Believe it or not," the official went on, "the soldiers  out there are
protecting you."
     It  was ironic. I  saw  the soldiers stop  two other men in  suits from
coming in. You could tell by the body language that there was obviously some
friction  between them. Rumors  were already circulating that fifty generals
had been executed after a failed attempt to change the system of power.
     We walked through the foyer.
     "When you go into  this room,"  the official  pointed, "you  must  stay
there. If you want to move outside, one of us must be with you."
     A  Red Cross girl was sitting in  a chair, blocking  the  door. She was
quietly reading a book, and on the floor by  her side she had a small bottle
of wine, a bit of bread, and some cheese. Brave, unbelievably brave.
     Four or five people  were on stretchers.  I recognized Joseph Small and
Troy Dunlap and waved. Then, looking along the line, I saw Mark.
     "I  gave  them  everybody's name to see if any  of you  were  here," he
grinned.
     I wanted to hug him and say "Great to see you," but  the words wouldn't
come out. I shook his hand instead.
     "What happened to you?" I said, hardly containing my amazement.
     He was wearing a dish-dash.  His body  looked wasted, and he still bore
the bruises and scars of severe beatings.
     "When we  had that last contact and  we both went down, I went left and
got  caught  up  in fire.  There were people all over the place. I ended  up
lying in a small drainage ditch. They were following up and were a foot away
from me at one stage. Then I moved off a bit, trying  to edge  my way out of
it. After about  half  an hour I saw some torches,  and as they were fanning
about,  they caught me in the beam. There  was  a big cabby,  and I got shot
through the foot and across the elbow. Look."
     He lifted the  dish-dash. The round had skimmed all the way around  his
elbow. He was incredibly lucky. A 7.62 round could have taken his arm off.
     "The foot wound fucked me up," he said.  "I couldn't move. They gave me
a good kicking, dragged  me onto a truck, and took me to a  location. It was
fucking hideous.  My foot was just  bouncing up and  down on the wagon floor
because  I had  no  control of it, and  I was  screaming  my head off.  They
thought it was hilarious. They were laughing their bollocks off."
     Mark lost a lot of blood and thought he was  going to die.  He received
no  medical attention for his foot; the gaping  wound  was just bandaged and
left to heal by itself. He was handcuffed naked to a bed all the time he was
in  prison,  and basically  left to rot. He went  through the same system of
interrogation as  the rest of us, the only difference in his case being that
the interrogation took place in his room.
     "They'd dig at my foot," he said, "and shake my leg so my  foot rattled
around. It was grim. But one funny thing was, they'd piled my clothes on the
floor by  my  bed. Every day  I looked down  at the gold, wrapped  up in the
masking tape, and the  fuckers  never  found  it  until  halfway through  my
capture. I still had my escape map and compass and all."
     He had two blokes that used to come in and take  him out for a shit. He
called  them Health and Hygiene because they were  such dirty,  minging  old
things. When he was on his  own, he used to get the pitcher of water and try
to  clean his  wound.  The  actual hole was clogged  up with  human skin and
gunge, trying to  heal itself  over. His  foot was swollen to the  size of a
marrow.
     "Sometimes I'd call out that I needed a  shit, and they'd  come in  and
put a bowl under  my arse and leave me for hours.  Piss was going everywhere
because I can't organize myself, and there was shit  up to the brim of  this
little bowl."
     He got filled in by the guards quite a few times. The blokes would come
in and play with his foot and generally give him a hard  time. All along, he
kept up the same  old  story  as the rest of  us. During  one interrogation,
somebody  recognized  his  New Zealand  accent. He  was accused  of being  a
mercenary, working for the Israelis.
     I told him that Dinger and Stan were away and should be in the UK soon,
and gave him our theories of what we thought had happened to the others.  As
we talked about events, he reckoned he could have been in the same prison as
us: it certainly took direct hits at exactly the same time.
     The Red Cross  were  knocking out  sheds of coffee  for us,  and then a
cooked dinner turned up.
     Mark had  lice, like we all did, and generally stank. But his stink was
something special, and he was worried that it could mean gangrene. We talked
about the possible scenarios that could happen now,  but kept drifting  back
to swapping horror stories, each of us trying to cap the other.
     I was just telling  Mark  about the situation outside  with the  secret
police when one of  the Red Cross guys came around and said that there was a
delay.  We couldn't go until the  next day because  of the aircraft: it  had
gone  to Saudi to pick up  prisoners for an exchange, but because of adverse
weather it wouldn't be coming back until the following morning.
     The Red Cross people  were tense. They posted sentries in the corridors
and at all the  entry points, and armed them with  candles  and food. It was
obvious that they were expecting this to be a rough night.
     Mark and I had a beer and then turned in. I planned to kip on the floor
next to his stretcher in case of trouble. That was  the  plan  but it didn't
happen. I went back upstairs to  get some food and chocolate and fell asleep
in a chair. Red Cross people, awake all night, sat among us in groups of two
and three.
     I woke up early. An official appeared and announced with a grin that it
was time to go home.  Mark and I had a problem now of  security, because men
from the Regiment  are required to keep  their faces out of the press at all
costs.  I went up and saw the pilots,  and  explained my concerns to the Red
Cross.
     "No problem," they  said. "At the  same  time as the coach comes to the
front of the hotel, ambulances will be going to the back because we can only
get the stretchers  out through the service area. You can go in  one of  the
ambulances with your friend."
     The aircrew agreed to put on a diversionary show for the media, pulling
their jumpers over their heads to get the cameras clicking. Footage of these
camera shy "Special Forces" lads was broadcast all over the world.
     We moved off in a convoy. We had two Red Cross guys in the front of our
ambulance, and as we  drove along, one of them said, "We'll give you a  tour
of Baghdad, if you like.  If you look to your left," he  said,  adopting the
voice of the  typical  tour guide, "this is the Ministry of Information.  It
was a  whole  system of buildings, and just  one  building was dropped. Talk
about precision bombing. And on your right you have the Ministry of .. ."
     Posters of Saddam  and the symbol of the  Muslim crescent were on every
street. There was  devastation everywhere, but by  the  looks of things  the
precision bombing  had indeed been excellent. Without  a doubt  they'd  been
hitting  their military targets. Civilian  buildings right next door to  the
ruins were relatively II unscathed.
     He  started talking about  the Iran-Iraq  prisoner exchanges that  he'd
been involved in. He said they'd been exchanging prisoners in their twenties
who looked over forty, they'd had such a terrible time of it. Their life was
gone. Some of the injuries were horrific,  open wounds that had been left to
fester.
     "This is actually the most successful exchange yet," the bloke said. "I
think that's because of pressure  from the military, who probably want their
manpower back.  There is  a lot of  concern  about stability.  A coup  seems
imminent. The sooner we get you out the better."
     "I'll second that one," Mark said.
     I  read  the  road signs  towards  Baghdad  International,  and  as the
kilometers ticked down, I felt my apprehension building. There seemed to  be
a lot of administrative cock-ups because we'd drive a little way, then stop,
then drive on, then stop. I couldn't see any aircraft.
     "We  have  this all  the  time,"  the driver said. "The bureaucracy  is
mind-boggling."
     We rounded a corner and  saw a convoy of buses full of Iraqi prisoners.
They didn't look very happy with themselves. The main terminal was deserted.
We sat  through two hours of  petty  administration before  the call finally
came for us to be put onto an aircraft.
     The  walking  prisoners  went  up  the  steps at the  front of  the two
Swissair 727s. The  stretcher cases were maneuvered up  the stairwell at the
rear. I stayed  with Mark.  The  Swissair  crew  greeted us  like VIPs,  and
straightaway the coffee came out--with cream. It was nectar.
     As the aircraft lifted  from the  runway,  we  roared like  a  football
crowd. I looked at Mark and grinned. This time we really were going home.

        13

     The  head  boy of the American contingent,  a colonel,  came  over  the
loudspeakers. He wanted  to orchestrate  it so that all his men were dressed
only in their POW kit, to look good for the  cameras. They had to  bin their
pullovers. He also organized them so  that they came out in strict order  of
rank. I couldn't believe it. Five minutes out of an  Iraqi jail and he  gets
his military head on again.
     Mark  and  I were  unaffected by this crap because we knew we  wouldn't
leave the aircraft until the media had dispersed. We were getting in amongst
the  sticky buns and coffee when the captain announced that our pair of 727s
would soon be getting an escort of F15s and Tornadoes.
     No sooner had he  said it than two American F15s came up alongside, one
flying  slightly  higher  than the other. They  maneuvered  until they  were
flying right over the wings of our aircraft. The Yanks were up and giving it
lots  of "Yo!" One pilot responded by taking his mask off  and giving it the
old  "Way to go!" arm swing in the air. He fired off chaff  and banked away.
It really was a fantastic sight.
     Then  the  pilots got  their acrobatic hats on. One  spun off and did a
victory roll and landed up over the other  wing; then both F15s  landed over
the starboard wing.
     Now it was the  turn of the R.A.F Tornadoes. They came up so close that
I  could see the pilots' eyes. One  flier took off  his mask and mouthed the
word "Wankers!" with, of course, the accompanying wrist action. John Nichol,
the R.A.F prisoner who had shaken my hand, went up forward and spoke to some
of  them on the radio. They fired off chaff and were spinning around the sky
as well--and doing it all a bit better than the Yanks, I thought.
     "These  jet pilots think  they're the only ones that can do that," said
our captain. "So, fasten your seatbelts, please, and hang on tight."
     With  that he  banked  the aircraft steeply and  put  us into a perfect
barrel roll. The other Swissair jet came up level with us, and both aircraft
flew in concentric circles, meeting up again in the middle.
     There  was another big roar  as we passed into Saudi airspace, and then
all the jets came down,  hoiked down  the chaff, and were  off, afterburners
flaming in the brilliant blue sky.
     We landed in Riyadh to a tumultuous welcome. Every pressman and his dog
was there, and every bit of top brass--Stormin' Norman  included. Mark and I
peeked out from behind the blinds and saw that some of our people were there
too. It was just a matter of waiting. The Saudis disembarked first, followed
by the orderly exit of correctly dressed Americans. The rear door was opened
and the stretcher cases were loaded into the ambulances.  Our people came on
board.
     "We're going to throw you in the back of one of the ambulances," one of
them said. "You'll then go straight around the corner into a C130. We'll fly
out, land  at  another airfield,  and pick  up a  VC10 which  will  take you
straight to Cyprus, where you're going to hospital."
     We got onto the C130, and the rest of the Brits  joined us. We flew for
about twenty  minutes, landed, and picked up our connection  for Cyprus. The
interior of the aircraft had been thoughtfully rearranged  so that the seats
faced one  another. We were  each given a day sack,  in which was a Walkman,
spare batteries,  shaving foam, a razor, underpants, soap, and a watch  with
both digital and analogue time.
     It  was  dark  when we landed at R.A.F Akrotiri. Again, our own  people
were there to meet us. Each  of us was allotted a sponsor we knew. Mine  was
an old mate, Kenny. His first words were: "Am I ever pissed off that  you're
still alive. I was down to take over your job next September."
     There were lots of  handshakes, and  a bottle  of gin  was  circulating
rapidly. A fellow sergeant called  Mugger  was in overall  charge of the SAS
recovery mission.  He was  running  around  Riyadh with  a  borrowed Warrant
Officer crest on his wrist to give his  requests  added authority, as nobody
from, the Regiment was wearing anything that showed who or what they were.
     "I  wish you'd  been delayed even more," he  honked, "because I've been
running around doing the RSM bit. It's fucking great."
     We were put on a bus  and taken straight to a segregated secure ward at
the military hospital.
     The massive, hulking frame  of Stan loomed out of the darkness, closely
followed by Dinger,  fag in hand. Stan had hepatitis and  wasn't feeling too
good, but Dinger was firing on all cylinders.
     "I've phoned  Jilly,"  he  said. "I've got it all  squared away;  don't
worry about the phone cards. Our blokes have rigged up a link through to the
UK."
     Mugger  went down  to  the  town  to  organize  a  few videos  for  our
entertainment, and the B  Squadron sergeant major turned  up with a hospital
trolley loaded with booze for  a piss-up. We were  smuggled out  of the ward
and down to the library, where we set about getting blitzed.
     Gordon  Turnbull, the R.A.F psychologist and counselor, had  arrived in
Cyprus to oversee the recuperative phase.
     "What have you got there?"  he asked Mugger  as he  spotted him heading
for the library.
     "Videos for the lads."
     "Mind if I have a look?"
     Turnbull  nearly had a  heart attack. Mugger had bought  us Terminator,
Driller  Killer,  and Nightmare  on  Elm  Street.  "You  can't do  this!" he
shrieked. "Those blokes are all traumatized!"
     "Traumatized?" said  Mugger. "They're  pissed out of their brains. Come
and have a look."
     Turnbull saw us and blew a gasket.
     "Don't worry about it," Mugger said. "They were all  fucking barking to
start with."
     I helped Mark into the bath, and a big lump of  skin the size of a bath
plug fell out of the hole in his foot. I then went in search of our  special
phone.
     The armed  guard sneaked me down  to the cellar and took  me to where a
couple of scaleys were guarding the phone to keep away freeloaders.
     The link worked perfectly, and I got through to Jilly straightaway.
     I staggered  to  bed after lots of "I  love  you."  As my head hit  the
pillow, I worked out that this was  the first proper bed I had slept  in for
eight weeks, three days.
     For the next couple  of days we had X rays and tests,  and the dentists
had a provisional go at  my teeth. We had  posttraumatic shock sessions with
Gordon  Turnbull,  which  lasted only  a few minutes each. Poor Gordon, he'd
thought it was Christmas with all these  traumatized blokes coming back from
captivity. He was good at his job, but the mentality of the blokes made them
far  more  interested in  taking advantage  of everything  else  that was on
offer. Our blokes had organized for us to get down to  the town, and the Red
Cross had given us a float of money. We  wanted to buy our duty frees before
it all disappeared.
     The Red Cross went round asking  if  we had any special requests, which
they would then go into the town and buy on our behalf. |
     "Why don't you just give us the money, and we'll | buy our own  kit?" I
said to a distinguished-looking I lady in her late fifties. <j
     "You can fuck off," she smiled. "Do you think I was | born yesterday?"
     However, she  eventually  relented.  I bought  jeans,  .: T-shirts  and
videos, and a suitcase  to put it all in. Everybody  had a good old shopping
frenzy.  After an |  hour  we started  running out of money, and Kenny f was
flapping because we put a 600 pounds dent in his  plastic. He knew he'd have
a long wait before we paid him back.
     The Belgians had a medical team  there as part of their contribution to
the war. They had a big going away barbecue, and Mugger got  us all invited.
The night passed in a blissful haze.
     The following day it was confirmed that I had hepatitis.  Being made to
eat our own shit just might have had something to do with it. Other  medical
checks showed that my shoulder had been dislocated,  I had ruptured  muscles
in my  back,  scar  tissue  on my kidneys,  burns on my thighs, and  loss of
dexterity in both hands, but I was keen to get back to the UK.
     We packed our kit on March  10 and jumped aboard a  VC10. Unfortunately
it  wasn't  going  straight  to  Brize  Norton;  we'd  caught  the  military
equivalent of a number 22 bus.
     We flew to Laarbruch first to drop off a lot of the R.A.F personnel. We
stayed at the back with  the blinds down while whoever was in charge of  the
air force  in Germany greeted his boys off the plane. Without a doubt it was
a big  homecoming.  After the ceremony the top brass got into  his car.  His
next port of call, and also our  next destination, was an hour or so's drive
away, so we  now had to wait on the pan at Laarbruch to give him time to get
to Bruggen. When we  landed, he  was at  the other end to greet  the  second
batch of  R.A.F prisoners. The  whole ceremony was  repeated. We sorted  out
some crates of Grolsch and slowly got pissed.
     We flew into Brize Norton, and as the aircraft closed down its engines,
we could hear the familiar sound of  our own 5Agusta  109 helicopters coming
in to land. They came down right alongside  the aircraft. My squadron OC was
on board, and Mark's sister, who lived  and worked in London. After  a brief
reunion we boarded the helicopters and lifted off for Hereford.
     The camp was deserted. Two of the squadrons were still in the Gulf, and
other teams were scattered as ever on various jobs.
     The adjutant came out to the helipad.
     "Welcome back," he said. "Come into the office."
     He popped a bottle  of champagne. As he poured it, he  said  to Mugger,
"Right, you need to be back here for half six tomorrow, because we're taking
you straight back out. You're needed in Saudi."
     "Fucking  hell!"  said  Mugger,  completely crestfallen.  He  had  been
looking forward to a few nights at home with Mrs. Mugger.
     To the rest of us  the adjutant very generously said: "There's  no  big
rush at the moment. Take a couple of days off."
     The  families officer  offered  me  a lift home. As  my house came into
view, I asked him to stop.
     "I'll walk from here," I said. "I need the exercise."

        14

     We had the luxury  of  two days off. On  Monday Jilly and I  went for a
walk around the town. I was dressed in familiar old  clothes that were a lot
looser-fitting  than  the last  time I'd worn  them. We wanted just  to  bum
around, doing nothing in particular,  but  ended  up  bumping into  loads of
blokes with suntans and swapping horror stories.
     On Tuesday  Katie came to stay and we spent our time watching the Robin
Hood video and practicing our high kicks. On Wednesday it was back to work.
     The Regiment wanted to find out  what had happened and why, and whether
there were any lessons to  be learned for future operations. The  five of us
sat down with maps and aerial  photography and  pieced together every detail
of our movements from the time we got the warning order to the moment of our
release.
     We visited widows and families. Stan and Chris  spent time with Vince's
wife and his brothers, giving them details of what  had happened and  trying
to console them. I  visited Legs's wife and found her  very switched on  and
down to earth.  Meeting her  was a help  to me. I could  talk things through
without having to do the "never mind" bit.
     On March 16 we got away for  a  couple  of days to  Aberdovey,  a place
Jilly and I had  gone to when we first met. The first time we went there she
told me it was the most wonderful holiday ever. She expected the same again,
but we both sensed that this time things were different. We couldn't put our
finger on  anything specific, but things were a bit  strained.  We cut short
the  trip and  went to see Bob's mother  and  sister in  Bognor. The loss of
their son  and brother  had  hit them hard. They hadn't even known he was in
the Regiment--nor had his divorced father, who'd had to stop working  in the
restaurant he managed in London. He was physically sick with grief.
     The  debrief took about three weeks. We  then  had a visit from  Gordon
Turnbull again and a  two-hour session in the officers' mess, chatting away.
He and one of his colleagues got us to do a simple tick test to evaluate our
levels of stress. The higher you scored above 10,  the  worse your emotional
turmoil. We all scored 11. Gordon got 13.
     We decided that the wives and girlfriends had been more -traumatized by
the  events than  we  had.  They'd had  a lot  to go  through:  the pain  of
uncertainty, which they hadn't been  allowed to share with anybody, and then
the sadness  of  being told that we were almost certainly dead--only  to see
some of  our faces on TV a -few days later.  Gordon Turnbull held a  session
specially for  them, explaining in particular the symptoms of  posttraumatic
stress disorder.
     Once  the  debrief was  consolidated, it  was  announced  that we would
address the whole Regiment. We did a lot of rehearsals because we  wanted it
to go well. It is an unheard-of event for all available personnel to turn up
to a  debrief, but  when we stood up, it was  in front  of  a sea of  faces.
Everybody  was  there,  from  the   heli  crew  to  the  search  and  rescue
coordinator. General  Sir Peter  de  la  Billiere--DLB as  we know  him--was
seated in the front row with an array of army high command.
     We spoke for two hours. I gave the initial brief of the planning phases
and  then went on to the compromise, up to  the split. Then each person told
his  story, and  what lessons he had  learnt. Chris was last on.  He  had  a
remarkable story to tell.
     When Start went off with the old goat  herder in  search  of a vehicle,
the plan  had been that if he didn't return by 1830, Chris  would  move out,
leaving  behind Stan's  belt  kit  and  some ammunition. This  he  duly did,
heading  due  north on a bearing, aiming for the Euphrates.  It was 36 hours
since their water had run out.
     Chris had only been going for a quarter  of an hour when he saw vehicle
lights behind him in the area of the LUP. He started to run  back,  thinking
that  Stan had managed  to get a vehicle and was coming to RV with him. Then
he saw a second set of lights. His heart sank.
     Chris  walked  for the rest  of  that night. It  was a clear sky --good
ambient  light  for the night sight--but  still very  cold.  At about  0430,
looking through the sight, he saw the  river below  him. There were bits and
pieces of habitation dotted amongst  the irrigated  land, and  the  sound of
dogs barking. He was desperate for water, however,  and started to move down
towards the river. Without warning, he found himself up to his waist in mud.
He floundered around,  and  it was a  long time  before he managed  to  drag
himself clear. Exhausted and cautious, he crawled the rest of the way to the
water's edge. He filled his  bottles, drank, and then filled them again. The
water was thick with