A Long Walk Home: One Woman's Story of Kidnap, Hostage, Loss - and Survival

The names of my first husband and of clients I knew as a social worker have been changed.

The pirates are identified by the labels – the nicknames – I mentally gave them as I encountered each individual. Eventually I discovered the names of some of them. Those who go by more than one name are:

The Big Man is also, depending on my mood, described as the Fat Controller.

This book is the story of how, over a period of one hundred and ninety-two days, I was torn away from the life I knew and loved, and dragged down to the depths of despair; of how I endured enforced isolation and near-starvation at the hands of Somali pirates, and of how I made a choice to survive by any and all means that I could muster.

It’s commonly said that ‘we all have a book inside us’ – a story to tell. But I have to confess that I am a reluctant storyteller. I know the reader will understand how dearly I wish that the events described in these pages had never happened.

However, my decision to write my story was born out of wanting to pass on an account of what I experienced to any future grandchildren I might have. I want them to know and understand that anybody, in the face of grim adversity, can rise to the challenge and overcome it. I should know, for I was one of those people – though the wisdom was dearly acquired, and the personal cost considerable. But by the same token I would also wish for them to know what an intrepid, brave and heroic grandfather they would have had, and also what a mentally strong and resolute man is their father.

The first real choice I had to make with regard to this book was whereabouts I would begin to write it. For various compelling reasons I didn’t want to do that writing at home, since home had been the sanctuary of my married life, the place where my
husband
and I could shut out the world and simply enjoy each other’s company. I didn’t wish to contaminate the place that had so long been our haven with the bitter memories of my captivity.

And so, sixteen weeks after my release, during a stay with my sister and her family, I woke up in my niece’s bed and began to write. Six months earlier, I had been languishing, lost to the world, somewhere in the arid depths of Somalia, held under armed guard by pirates in a squalid room nine feet long. I was sitting on a flea-infested mattress in the oppressive heat of my gloomy cell, semi-starved, fraught with nervous anticipation. I had been told, yet again, that I was going to be released ‘soon’. Did my captors actually mean it this time? I was told so many lies from day to day that I could have quite easily lost faith in any idea of ‘the truth’. And yet, behind it all, what kept me going was that I had a hope to cling to, an affirming flame in the dark, precious and inextinguishable.

But I am getting ahead of myself. My story really begins before the calamity that came along and cast me into that
dungeon
in the desert. It begins with the life I had, the one I knew and loved, and with the reasons why it was so dear to me.

Love is, among other things, to wish for the happiness of the person whom you love, to delight in seeing that happiness in that person. And I hadn’t seen my husband quite so blissfully happy for some time – so deeply contented with where he was and what we were doing together. It was 3 September 2011, and we were on safari in the Masai Mara, Kenya.

Ordinarily David was one of those people who needed a few days’ grace to relax properly into a holiday. But this time round his mood was really buoyant from the moment we boarded the plane at Heathrow. He had insisted on wearing his full safari outfit to travel – head-to-toe khakis and bush hat – so any passer-by in the airport could have guessed what part of the world we were headed to. Our son Ollie liked to rib David about sartorial matters generally, and his bush hat in particular, but another thing I’d always loved about my husband was that he didn’t care too much what other people thought about his personal preferences. He was very comfortable in his own skin.

Now we had reached our Kenyan destination, Serian Nkorombo Camp, which the brochure had billed as a ‘luxury tented encampment’. I have never been overly keen on tents, but the versions offered at Serian – five of them in all, nestled close to the river and to each other – were huge and comfy, with hard floors and bucket showers. Our journey had left me feeling shattered but David, as always, set to unpacking immediately while I sprawled across the bed. He was methodical in the placement of his socks, shorts, T-shirts et al. in their appointed place. And I loved watching him go about this. In no time he had
showered, prepped his camera, and donned khaki shorts – or, to be precise, he had unzipped the detachable lower part of his khaki trousers. Finally he turned to me.

‘I’m just going to have a look around outside, OK?’

‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘My turn to unpack …’

He stepped out, and once I had done my own settling in I too went out to see what there was to see. I found David sitting, cradling his camera, by the banks of the fast-flowing Mara River. All was peaceful but for the sound of the rushing waters. There was golden light in the sky. He was watching the wildlife, richly in evidence. Some baboons on the far bank were grooming one other. Further downriver, where the waters were calmer, hippos bathed in the sun, yawning and groaning, some play-fighting with each other. Here and there I could make out the ridged backs of crocodiles. David, drinking it all in, wore a great smile on his face. This was so clearly everything he had hoped for.

Though we had shared more than a few wonderful holidays, I sensed that for David this one could be the pinnacle. But then we were in Africa, and Africa had played a huge and crucial role in our lives – in our coming together as a couple in the first place. We had been blessed by the place, it was our luck.

And David was so much at home in these ostensibly rather wild surroundings. He didn’t mind roughing it, had always liked camping and the outdoors. As a boy he joined the Sea Cadets in Haverhill, even though there was no sea. Whereas my instinct for the outdoors had never stretched much further than my garden. When he was twenty-three, in the December of 1976, David had chosen to leave England for two years and work in Zambia. I had gone there four months earlier, only twenty-one myself, following my then husband and his new job, dutifully
and rather unhappily. But it was in Zambia that David and I met, whereupon everything changed for us both.

David was a venturesome soul. Not to say that he wasn’t equally happy at home with me, and his guitar and his beloved music and books, perfectly at ease not seeing anyone. But the experience of travel took him out of something and into what was – for him if not most others – a kind of comfort zone. Our very first holiday as a young couple was to Tunis, where I balked a little at the sight of open sewers and dead dogs in the street, but David regarded the local conditions as ‘part of the experience’ and took the view that there were always other and better things to see. Our next holiday was on a Swedish campsite beset by a horrendous rainstorm for seventeen hours solid. Our tent became an island in a newly formed duck pond. But I got used to a bit of adversity, and if David was always able to put up with more than I could then at least my powers of resilience improved from sharing these experiences with him. And of course, after thirty-three years together, in which we had both worked hard at our respective careers, we were able to treat ourselves to a bit more comfort than we’d been able to afford in the days of starting out together. This tent in Serian Nkorombo Camp was certainly a world away from – and a good deal drier than – the waterlogged dome in which we’d huddled at the site outside Gothenburg.

‘What do you make of it then?’ I asked David as we took in the sights and sounds of the Mara.

He smiled at me. ‘I think we made the right decision …’

On our first night at Serian we realised we would be the only guests in the camp overnight. All I wanted to do was have a bite
to eat and go to bed. David, though, was feeling sociable. He’d always had a facility for mixing with all sorts of people, making conversation even in unpromising situations. We met the Serian Camp manager, who told us he was writing a book about Africa, and so he and David instantly established common interests – books and Africa – and conversed at length. David told him of the previous safari we’d taken in 2006 where we’d ventured into the South Luangwa Valley – for David a sentimental journey, since during his time in Zambia he’d gamely led a group of fellow employees on an Outward Bound course at the Luangwa Game Reserve. (They were driven to and dropped at Point A in the bush and told to find their way back to Point B. Somehow, using crude maps and navigating by the stars, David managed it.) On that safari we had flown in and out of Lusaka Airport, just as we had both done separately back in 1976, and to my eyes the place had hardly changed in thirty years. The 2006 trip had been a purposeful revisiting, an opportunity for us to share something of how we met with our son Ollie, who travelled with us and celebrated his twentieth birthday in Malawi.

David was content to stay up chatting with the manager, about Africa and all it had meant to him. His interest had first been kindled as a schoolboy when he read H. Rider Haggard’s
King Solomon’s Mines
. Of course the clichés of ‘the dark continent’, ‘untouched by civilisation’, have long been available to
over-imaginative
Westerners. But David was no armchair expert; he decided to discover Africa for himself. As he would tell it, he went out to Zambia in 1976 as a boy and two years later returned a man – his own man, out from the influence of his parents. And of course he came back with me – which he was wont to describe, with a grin, as ‘a bonus’. But that time had been formative for him in many ways: he always spoke to people about Zambia with
real fondness. And he was always on the lookout for opportunities to revisit Africa.

I was tired and decided to turn in first, and a solicitous camp attendant guided me back to our tent with a lantern. Nkorombo was a beautiful camp, well lit, security guards much in evidence and helpful. Remote as the place was, I felt perfectly safe – and excited about how this week would unfold.

We had been keen travellers throughout our married life, and our choice of holiday destination was usually initiated by David. In 2010 he suggested to me, with his familiar look of enthusiasm, ‘Let’s do a safari next year …’ Our experience in 2006 had been wonderful, the itinerary planned with the help of a specialist travel company called Safari Consultants, and we knew we would use them again. So I was happy to approve David’s proposal for 2011.

I especially fancied the idea of seeing gorillas in Uganda. David, though, had a longstanding passion to explore the Masai Mara. We compromised – as we always did. Marriages, after all, are made out of compromise to a big extent. Living with another person changes you: you cease to be a free agent, you renounce a little of what was your personality, but you gain something much more considerable. I know I wouldn’t be the person I am, or anywhere near, without David.

This time our compromise was that we would do ‘the passion thing’ for David: the Masai Mara it would be. The gesture in my direction was that we design not too exhausting a schedule – no constant hopping of planes between far-flung stop-offs, as we had committed ourselves to in 2006 (one of our three internal flights on that occasion being on a six-seater aircraft that gave
us all a mid-air scare when it briefly developed a frozen propeller). This time we would be on safari for one week, and in the second week we would enjoy a beach holiday – home comforts and pure unadulterated do-nothing R&R. My beach suggestion was Zanzibar, where one of my brothers had got married and given me a great account of the place. David put the idea to Safari Consultants, but they advised us that Zanzibar would entail most of a day’s travelling. Might we consider the Kenyan coast? There was a place called Kiwayu Safari Village where intrepid travellers could truly ‘get away from it all’.

David and I looked at the Kiwayu website, watched the promotional video, read some glowing customer reviews. Previous guests had included Mick Jagger and Tracey Emin. For all that, I still fancied Zanzibar. But David was persuaded by Kiwayu. The northernmost island of the Lamu Archipelago off Kenya’s northern coast, Kiwayu sat thirty or forty kilometres south of the border with Somalia. Neither David nor I thought anything of this proximity at the time. If we had, I don’t believe it would have altered our decision.

By the time September 2011 came round we were both in great need of the holiday, and were looking forward to it avidly. We thoroughly intended to have a proper break, to relax and ‘come together again’. Like so many couples we had hectic work lives and had fallen somewhat into the habit of passing one another like ships during the week. Weekends were all too easily lost to the mundane chores of keeping the household running, and we were lucky if we shared Sunday evening together in peace. David’s work as Finance Director at the publishing firm of Faber and Faber was never less than demanding. The nature of my job – as a social worker in a medium-secure psychiatric hospital – dictated often long and stressful days.

It was in David’s nature to fret before we went away – to fret, in fact, over most aspects of life. A compulsive checker, he would routinely wake me up to ask if I’d switched off the oven or locked the front door. So whenever we travelled it was accepted that he would oversee all logistics and arrangements, and hold our passports and money in the wallet he’d bought especially for that purpose. Come the morning of our departure I’d tumble out of bed to find him dressed and smelling of aftershave before I’d brushed my teeth. And once we got to where we were going, he would continue to try to ‘organise’. It wasn’t from a lack of faith in me so much as a need to be in charge of things. He had always been the loveliest kind of control freak.

As such I was surprised, but pleased, when David decided this time to leave his mobile phone at home. It was unprecedented. Previously he had always kept that umbilical link to the office in case they really needed to contact him. But now he was cutting the cord, truly adamant about getting away from it all. We agreed we would take my mobile in case of emergency, so Ollie could contact us or we him. Ollie was in Glasgow, having lately started a new job that he was enjoying, but we expected he would be down south while we were away, visiting his girlfriend Saz (short for ‘Sarah’).

His abandoned mobile phone aside, David was customarily rigorous in every other respect of his preparation. He informed me that he had taken out Air Ambulance insurance, in case of any emergency that would require African ‘flying doctors’ to come and airlift us from the scene. We were able to have a laugh about that, David with his schoolboyish giggle that belied his sober demeanour. Ollie joshed David too (‘For heaven’s sake, Dad …’) but David was simply obeying his usual instincts.

‘It’s best to be safe,’ he told us both.

A fortnight before we were due to fly, David and I were sitting on the sofa on Sunday evening, sharing what was left of the weekend, watching
Countryfile
on the BBC. David looked at me meaningfully.

‘Jude – if anything happens, you’ll be OK.’

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, and could only wonder at where that thought had come from.

‘David, what do you mean, “If anything happens …?”’

‘I mean, the holiday, Africa, you know? If anything were to happen – I just want you to know you’ll be OK. If I died now I’d be happy because I know you and Ollie are going to be looked after. And I know you’d get through it, you wouldn’t be frightened –’

‘David’ – I cut him off as lightly as I could, knowing that his heart was, as ever, in the right place – ‘I don’t really want this conversation. Nothing’s “going to happen” …’

He took my point, we left it at that. The following week Ollie came to visit and we were in the kitchen, chit-chatting – I was washing up – when I heard David tell Ollie, ‘Now, Ollie, if anything should happen to Mum and me on holiday then –’

Ollie groaned good-naturedly. ‘Oh no, here we go again …’

‘No, listen. If anything should happen, our will is in the safe. And you know the code, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Dad …’ Ollie was skating over it, to a degree, knowing as I did that this was just one more example of the care David always took over things – and us – but one that it was probably better not to keep in the forefront of our minds. And I didn’t think about it again, at least not before we embarked on our journey to Kenya.

After two nights in our luxury tent at Serian Nkorombo Camp we moved the short drive away to Serian’s ‘fixed camp’ on 5 September. These lovely new surroundings were still very much close to nature. David was delighted by three pipistrelle bats he found roosting in the ceiling of our room, and he hushed me as he gently moved close to snap photos of the sleeping creatures.

Each morning we made ready to head out on safari by 6 a.m., fortified by hot porridge and tea. It could be notably cold in the morning, sometimes raining, but whatever the weather we would clamber up into the back of the high-wheeled truck we had to ourselves – with our guide Steve, and driver John – and wrapped ourselves in snug Masai blankets. I pulled the brim of my hat down to my eyebrows, stuck up the hood of my thermal jacket, donned thermal gloves and altogether resembled a pensioner fit to be wheeled down Blackpool Promenade on a brisk November morning. David conceded to the blankets, but underneath he remained every inch the dauntless outdoorsman in khaki shirt and shorts.