The One That Got Away - Junior edition Page 10

  Whenever I passed a house, the dogs would start barking, and the noise would ricochet down the valley. One lot of dogs would alert the next, and they’d start up before I even reached them. Those tell-tale alarm calls progressed along the river ahead of me, and to my ears they sounded as loud as the wail of a siren.

  The dogs were a real nuisance. As I was skirting one village, above me on a mound, I looked up at the houses – square, dark silhouettes with flat roofs and no lights showing – and saw a whole pack of them coming down, barking their heads off. Through the night-sight I watched them make straight for me. One ran up to within three metres, with four or five more close behind it. If I stopped, they would stop, and also they’d stop barking. But the moment I threatened them or moved, they’d bark like hell again and creep on some more, stalking me.

  I kept looking anxiously up at the houses, expecting lights to come on at any second. I felt like the Pied Piper, with all the dogs following me. I stopped, picked up a rock and hurled it. The pack ran away for a few metres, only to close in again. As I cleared the houses, they followed for a couple of hundred metres. They stopped, and stood or sat, watching and barking until I was out of their sight. Then, when my nerves were in tatters, they turned back and trooped home. The one saving grace was that their owners seemed to pay no attention whatsoever. So far as I could see, nobody ever came out of a house to see what the noise was all about.

  For a while I stayed as close to the river as I could, partly for navigation, partly so that I could get more water when I needed it. But then, deciding I was too close to the inhabited stretch, I drew away to the south again and returned to the edge of the desert. There I started cross-graining through the wadis, which were running down towards the Euphrates at right-angles to the way I was going. I wanted to try to stay far enough from the river and its habitations, but at the same time out of the wadis, so that I wasn’t forever scrambling up and down.

  By five in the morning I was starting to worry about finding somewhere to lie up for the day. At 0530 it was still fully dark, but when I came to the top of a cliff looking out over the river, something made me decide to scramble four or five metres down the face. There I found a ledge, and at the back of it a nice flat area, with a crack going back underneath the cliff. That seemed as good a hiding place as any, and I lay in it until day broke.

  Monday 28 January: Escape – Day Five

  When the light came up, I found I could look straight down into the river. On the opposite bank there was a small village. The houses were simple, single-storey structures, mostly built of breeze blocks, with flat roofs. They stood in areas of dirt, with no sign of a garden. Soon, as I watched through binoculars, people started to come out and walk up and down, going about their daily tasks. There seemed to be very few men, but plenty of women, all dressed in black robes from head to foot and heavily veiled. Groups of them came down to the water’s edge to fill their buckets. Surprise, surprise, the place was alive with dogs.

  I was looking for any strange activity which might suggest that the area was on the alert – military vehicles driving about, or troops on the move, but I saw nothing of note.

  Two men spent the whole day fishing, paddling up and down in a boat. On each pass they let themselves drift maybe a hundred metres downstream. The speed at which the boat picked up confirmed that the current was strong, and I felt glad that I hadn’t tried to swim across. In daylight the water looked a dark brown colour, and a good deal of rubbish was floating about inside my bottle; but the sight of the shining fish reassured me. If they could live in the river, I thought, the water couldn’t be too bad.

  All that day – Monday 28 January – I lay on the ledge, with my webbing under my head as a pillow. I felt secure, almost peaceful. It was the sort of place, I thought, in which an eagle or a peregrine falcon would nest. There was no movement close to me, and my main enemy was boredom. I spent hours studying my map, trying to work out exactly where I was. Again I managed to convince myself that I was well to the west of my true position, and a great deal nearer the border.

  I tried not to think about food, but inevitably, with all that time on my hands, it had become a major preoccupation. Each one of those houses opposite had food in it, even if it was only flour or bread. If it weren’t for the dogs, I could nip into one under cover of darkness and steal a loaf. In my mind I kept seeing the sachets of fruit that I’d left in my bergen. What wouldn’t I give for some pineapple in syrup? When I get out of here, I thought, I’m going to eat a gallon of ice cream.

  The day passed. From my perch on the cliff face, I watched the shadows lengthen in the village opposite. Gradually the grey-brown fields beyond the houses faded into the dusk. As evening came on, I wanted to get going again, and had to hold myself in check.

  Monday 28 January: Escape – Night Five

  When darkness fell at last, I moved out, climbed to the top of the cliff and started walking. That night, thank goodness, people disappeared into their houses and after dark there was nobody about. But to keep out of the way, I pushed up towards the wadis, between a line of pylons and the main road. Up there, I found myself in steep country. I kept coming to what looked like small quarries, so I’d have to climb down, walk across a flat floor, then scramble up again and along the top. It was really tiring, and my feet were seriously sore.

  After studying the map all day, I thought I’d worked out where I was – a big bend in the river with a village on it. This looked only about a day’s walk from the border – a fact which lifted my morale and gave me strength.

  Again I walked all night. The occasional car went along the main supply route, which was three or four hundred metres down to my right. Some had headlights on, others were driving blind. At some point late in the night the headlights of a car illuminated a motorway-sized sign. I was too far away to read the names, but I decided to move down to the road and check what it said.

  It was then that I saw the only wild animal in the whole of my trek. As I dropped towards the road I looked through the night-sight. There, on top of a mound, stood a big fox, staring down at me. I knew what he was from his sharp-pointed face and sticking-up ears. For a whole minute I watched him, and he never moved; then I went on, and left him in possession of his territory. In that fox I recognized a fellow creature of the night. I bet that, like me, he lay up all day and came out only when darkness fell. He can’t have been as short of food as I was, but I found it hard to imagine what he lived on, because never in all my time on the move or lying up did I see any form of rodent.

  Closing on the sign, I peered up at it. It was written in English as well as Arabic:

  AL QAIM 50

  NEW ANA 50

  New Ana was behind me, and I’d known for some time that I was heading for Al Qaim – but fifty kilometres! I had thought I was almost there. That was a massive blow to my morale. Sitting there in despair, I thought, I’m never going to finish this walk. When I got out the map and pinpointed my position, I saw I was still eighty or ninety kilometres from the border – at least two days short of the spot I thought I’d reached.

  I couldn’t believe it. I felt as if I’d had a kick between the legs, and sat down on the side of the road, staring at the sign. But the evidence was there, and everything fitted together, as I worked out where I was and where I’d been. The reality was intensely depressing.

  There was nothing for it but to keep going.

  Weighed down by exhaustion, thirst and fear, I started moving along the line of the main supply route. I was only a hundred metres from it when I heard a drone from somewhere along the road behind me. I went to ground and lay listening. The noise was coming from miles away to the east, but it grew steadily until it seemed to fill the night. A four-ton wagon went past – but still the heavy drone was increasing. I moved down to the edge of the road and hid in some rocks, looking along the highway through the night-sight. For minutes I couldn’t see anything. Still the noise built up.

  Then, as I scanned for the twe
ntieth time, I saw a black dot, which grew bigger and bigger until it became a massive vehicle, filling the sight. With a tremendous roar it came level, and suddenly I realized I had a Scud missile going by me! The TEL vehicle was a huge articulated truck, with the missile canopied-up under tarpaulins on its trailer, and a convoy of smaller trucks behind it. They were all heading out towards the Syrian border. In one of them, with an open back, I could see a whole gang of soldiers.

  That’s what I’m here for, I thought to myself. To find Scuds! I never imagined I’d get as close to one as this. Should I have opened fire on it? I couldn’t have destroyed the missile, but a grenade from the 203 into the front of the truck might have put the launcher off the road. I would have given away my position, though, and the guys in the convoy would have been on top of me.

  If only I could report back what I’d seen: this was exactly the information the Coalition needed. I whipped out my TACBE, switched on and spoke into it, but as before I got no response. The Scud disappeared into the distance

  On the move once more, I crossed the main supply route, so that I was between the road and the river, which at that point were maybe fifteen kilometres apart. Now the ground was really flat, and again I started crossing ploughed fields. It was time to look for a lying-up position, but here in the farmland I couldn’t see any rough, broken areas. So I planned to move back across the road and regain the higher ground beyond. Then I came to a culvert – a tunnel underneath the highway about two metres high and three wide. It was obviously built for pedestrians and animals to walk through.

  I was feeling so exhausted and let down that I decided to lie up in the tunnel. It was a bad decision, but I can see why I took it. I was thinking, You’re going down. You’re not going to last much longer. Why not take a vehicle and drive to the border? The culvert would make a good base for such a hijack.

  I sat there in the tunnel having this discussion with myself. My lazy side was saying, Just do it: grab a vehicle and drive out. The other side was saying, What happens if there’s two people in it? How are you going to make them stop? What if there’s only one man, and he just drives on? Once you’ve been seen and reported, that’s you finished.

  I went through the scenario again and again. I imagined myself standing on the road, putting one hand up, levelling my weapon – and the car accelerating past. Then I’d have given my position away and lost all the advantages I’d so painfully built up. If Stan had still been with me, the idea would have been even more tempting – but even if we got a vehicle, the chances were that we’d drive into a control point.

  I decided not to risk it. But I’d landed myself in a hell of a place. While I’d been dithering, the sky had begun to lighten, and it was already too late to move on. Safe or not, the place was very uncomfortable. The wind was blowing straight through that culvert like it came from the North Pole. Soon I was absolutely frozen. I tried moving rocks to make a little shelter, but the wind still whistled through the gaps. In the gloom I could see that bushes were growing in the floor of the tunnel, and I thought that maybe I could pile some into a barrier. But when I grabbed one, I got a handful of vicious thorns. There seemed to be no way of improving my shelter, so I simply lay down, determined to stick it out.

  Just at full daylight, I heard the sound I wanted least in the world: goat bells. I’d had enough of goats and goatherds already. Looking through the tunnel towards the river, I saw the lead animal come into view, heading confidently into the culvert, obviously on its way through. I just had time to scoot out the other end of the tunnel and up the sloping embankment of the main supply route. As I ran towards the top of it, a car was approaching at speed, so I flung myself into a shallow ditch which led down the bank at an angle from the road-edge.

  There I lay on my back, trapped, looking straight down over my boots to the top of the culvert exit. In a few seconds the lead goat emerged below me, not three metres away. More and more goats came into view, pushing and jostling. Their stink rose all round me. Last came the goatherd, an old man wearing a long, woolly coat over several other layers, with a white shamag wrapped round the top of his head. He was leading a donkey, which had a blanket over its back. Five or six dogs jostled at his heels. As he walked out, the top of his head was barely a metre below my boots.

  I lay rigid, with the 203 down my front, praying that he would not look back and that the dogs wouldn’t get wind of me. Had they done so, I’d have had to shoot him. I didn’t want to kill an innocent civilian, but I was desperate. If I had shot him, I would have been in a dire position: I’d have had to run off into the wadi system with the pack of dogs after me, and even if I’d made a temporary getaway, the old man’s death would have put down a great big marker. Obviously he came out that way every morning, and people would be expecting him back.

  How the dogs failed to smell me, I still cannot imagine – unless my scent was obliterated by the stink of the goats. I held my breath as the party moved slowly away, up into the wadis. The old man never looked back, and the jingle of bells faded among the rocks.

  I couldn’t go back into the culvert, because it was clear that at some time during the day the flock and their keeper would return. Equally, I couldn’t move down anywhere below the road, because the farmland was too open, and too full of people at work. Besides, I felt sure that there must be a village, or at least a few houses, not far off.

  I lay still and watched the goats until they were out of sight. My mind was racing. There was only one way I could go – up into the wadis. But traffic had started to build up on the motorway; every other minute a vehicle came past, and if I began moving up onto the high ground, a driver might see me. I kept imagining what would happen if somebody spotted me and raised the alert. The hunt would be on, and because it was still just after dawn, the searchers would have all day to catch me.

  I decided to take my chance and make a go for it between cars. I rolled over onto my belly, slung the 203 on my shoulder, slithered down the embankment and began crawling up the dry river bed. Every time I heard a car coming, I went to ground, scared stiff that I would be seen. After a hundred metres I scuttled upwards and got round into the beginning of the wadi system, maybe 500 metres from the road. Then I walked on again until I found a hollow in the ground, and lay down in that.

  There I was, stuck again for the hours of daylight. It wasn’t a very good hideout. Although I couldn’t see the road, I had a reasonable view downhill maybe 200 metres, but behind me the outlook was blocked by a mound. If anyone had come along, I wouldn’t have seen him until he was on top of me. This kept me fully on edge. Any sound made me whip round, even if it was only the wind passing over the rocks.

  I calculated that this was Tuesday January 29, and a map check showed that I was still at least seventy kilometres from the border. Working backwards, I realized that due to hypothermia Stan and I had miscalculated on our last night together, and we’d gone in a much more northerly direction than we’d supposed.

  By this stage, even keeping still had become painful. Because of the cold, I had to lie on one side or the other with my knees tucked up to my chest. I’d lost so much weight that my pressure points had become very sore.

  I could see that the day was going to be a long one.

  Tuesday 29 January: Escape – Day Six

  There was something spooky about my surroundings. The wind blowing through the rocks of that huge wilderness took my mind back to another desert, another time. Africa . . . the Kalahari. My thoughts floated away to the time when ‘B’ Squadron was deployed on a three-month training exercise, my troop staff sergeant was killed, and we all became caught up in what felt like voodoo or black magic.

  For the various parts of the exercise, the squadron had spread out over a wide area. The Air Troop went free-falling; the Boat Troop splashed around in the swamps; the Mobility Troop drove around the Kalahari desert; and the rest of us went climbing in the Tsodilo Hills. That was my first trip abroad with the squadron, and it brought home to me how dan
gerous our training was.

  On our first evening in the country, before the troops split up, we had a lesson on snakes from an African called Lazarus. He started releasing snakes from a sack to show us the various kinds which we might come across.

  He brought out a spitting cobra, holding it by the throat, and said that if you gripped it like that, it couldn’t spit. ‘Watch that thing,’ growled the SQMS, ‘because if it does spit, and the stuff gets in your eyes, you’ll have problems.’ Sure enough, as Lazarus came past me the cobra spat, and although I closed my eyes, some spit landed on my arm and the side of my face. I wiped it off immediately, but wherever a drop had touched me, it took the pigment out of my skin. I was left with pale dots all over my cheek, and a patch the shape of the British Isles on one arm.

  As a grand finale Lazarus produced an Egyptian cobra – a massive creature about four metres long – which he set down on the ground. We were gathered round in a circle, and he said, ‘Stand still, and let it go through your legs.’ Everything was fine until one guy moved and the cobra chased him. The man ran up onto a water bowser, and the snake wrapped itself round one of the axles, baring its enormous fangs as Lazarus heaved on its tail, trying to drag it off. In the end he got it back into his sack, but it was amazing that none of us had been bitten.

  After that little introduction, our troop moved up to the Tsodilo Hills. Our camp was maybe half an hour’s walk from the base of the biggest hill – an outcrop of bare, blue-grey rock which rose in tiers from a dead-flat plain. Some of the tiers, which went up in vertical rock faces, were anywhere between thirty and sixty metres high. It looked like an enormous, sharp staircase.