Bravo two zero (23 page)

    Time was dragging, but I started to feel better about my predicament.

    There had been vehicles, goats, and goatherds, and I'd got away with it.

    I was still trying to memorize the map, going through the routes in my mind. I was gagging for last light.

    There was a deafening rattle of steel as a group of vehicles thundered across. This time they stopped.

    You're compromised: what did they stop for? You're in the shit.

    No worries, they're picking somebody up. Just keep remarkably still, control your breathing.

    I tried hard to think positively, as if that would stop them coming and finding me.

    7.62 is a big-caliber round. The sound of over a hundred of them reverberating on the steel plate just a fraction of an inch from my nose was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I curled up and silently screamed.

    Fuck! fuck! fuck! fuck! fuck!

    Men bellowed at the tops of their voices. They fired all around the drainage ditch. The mud erupted. I felt the tremors. I curled up even tighter and hoped nothing was going to hit. The cracks, thuds, and shouts seemed never-ending.

    The firing stopped but the shouting continued. What were they going to do now-just stick a weapon underneath and blow me away, or what?

    I was shitting myself. I didn't know what they wanted me to do. I couldn't understand what they were screaming. Did they want to capture me? Did they want to kill me? Were they going to throw a grenade in?

    Fuck it, I thought, if they want me out, they'll have to drag me out.

    I was going to die in a drainage ditch two and a half miles from the border, of that I had no doubt. My nose was more or less touching the underside of the steel plate. I was stretching my neck, but I couldn't see much because of the perspective.

    The muzzle of a rifle came down. Then a bloke's face. When he saw me there was a look of total and utter surprise. He did a little jump back and shouted.

    The next thing I saw was a mass of boots jumping down all around the drainage ditch itself. Three blokes at either end, yelling their heads off. They motioned for me to get out.

    No fucking way!

    They wanted to see my hands. I was lying on my back with my feet and hands out straight. Two blokes grabbed a boot each and heaved.

    I came out on my back and had my first view of Syria in the daylight. It looked the most beautiful country on earth. I could see the mast on the higher ground, tantalizingly close. I could almost have reached out and touched it. I felt burgled or mugged-the feeling of disbelief that this was happening to me at all, mixed with outrage that I was being robbed of something that was rightfully mine.

    Why me? All my life I've been lucky. I've been in dramas that I've had no control of, and I've been in problems that I've created myself. But I've always been lucky enough to get out of them reasonably unscathed.

    They gave a couple of kicks and motioned for me to get to my feet. I stood up straight, my hands up in the air, staring straight ahead. Nice blue sky it was, absolutely splendid. I turned my back on Syria and looked at the ploughed fields and green vegetation, and all the huts and tracks that I'd avoided during the night.

    So much effort wasted. So few hours of daylight left.

    They held their weapons nervously and jumped up and down, making weird warbling noises like Red Indians. They were as frightened as I was.

    They fired into the air on automatic, and I thought, Here we go, all I need is for one of these rounds to come down and slot me through the head.

    Two Land Cruisers were parked to the right-hand side of the bridge.

    Three characters were pacing around on the steel plate; eight or nine others were charging around on the banks of the ditch.

    The countryside looked even more European than I had imagined. I was pissed off with myself. To be picked up in featureless desert would have been bad luck, but to be captured like this on ground that could have been in northwest Europe was bloody bad management.

    The squad dies were all over the place, gibbering and gab bering still very wary. Now that they'd got me they were not too sure what to do with me. It seemed there were more chiefs than Indians; everybody wanted to give orders. There must have been some sort of reward coming their way. I stood motionless in the mud, a pathetic mess. I stared straight ahead, no smile of appeasement, no grim scowl of defrance, no hint of eye contact. My training had taken over. Already I was trying to be the gray man.

    They started firing into the ground. They were in an unbelievable frenzy. It seemed wrong to me that I was going to get shot by accident rather than doing a job or in a contact with me firing back. Nothing death or glory about it: I just didn't want to die because some trigger-happy dickhead was going hyper. Or worse, get severely injured.

    But there's no way you show them that you're scared in a situation like that; you just stand there, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and let them get on with it.

    The firing stopped after about fifteen seconds. One of the soldiers jumped down into the culvert and started rooting around for my kit. He came back with the map, which was unmarked, the belt kit, and the fighting knife. He brandished the blade in front of me and did the old throat-cutting motion. I thought, it's going to be one of them days.

    One of the other soldiers was poking me with his weapon and gesturing for me to get down on my knees.

    Is he going to kill me? Is it time to die now?

    I couldn't think of any other reason why I'd get put on my knees. If they were taking me away, they'd drag me away or motion me somewhere.

    So do I get down and wait for the possibility of getting shot, or do I make a run for it?

    I wouldn't get far. I'd be killed within five steps. I knelt down in the water and thick mud.

    The bottom of the drainage ditch was about 18 inches lower than the level of the fields, so when I finally got down I was more or less at face level with the steel plate. I looked up.

    The penalty kick that one of the lads aimed at my jaw knocked me backwards into the ditch. Water sluiced into my ears, and white blotches of intense light filled my vision. I opened my eyes. Through the star bursts I saw the world closing in with people and a clear blue sky that was about to rain rifle butts.

    Even when you're winded your body's self-protection mechanism makes it spin itself over. Face down in the mud, I curled up into a tight ball.

    There's an old saying in parachuting, if it's a bit windy and you know the landing is going to be fearsome: "Feet and knees together and accept the landing." I had to accept this one; there was nothing I could do to stop it. Compared with being shot, it was almost a pleasant surprise.

    They were like little animals, putting in a bit of a kick, moving off, coming in again, starting to gain confidence. They grabbed hold of my hair and wrenched my head back. As they kicked and thumped my body in a frenzy of pent-up frustration, they screamed: "Tel Aviv! Tel Aviv!"

    They jumped from the bridge onto my back and legs. You feel each impact but not its pain. Your system's pumping too much adrenaline. You tighten your stomach, clench your teeth, tense your body as much as you can, and hope and hope they're not going to start to give you a really serious filling-in.

    "Tel Aviv! Tel Aviv!" they shouted over an dover. It dawned on me what they were getting at. This was not a good day out.

    It can't have lasted for more than five minutes, but it was quite long enough. When they finally backed off, I turned over and looked up at them. I wanted them to see how confused and pitiful I looked, a poor fellow soldier who was terrified and meek and deserving of their pity.

    It didn't work.

    I knew it was going to start all over again, and I rolled into a ball, trying this time to get my arms underneath me. My mind was numb, but I was more or less conscious throughout. The thudding instep kicks to my head and sides were punctuated by telling, well aimed toecap blows to the kidneys, mouth, and ears.

    They stopped after a few minutes and hauled me to my feet. I could hardly stand. I was in a semi crouched position, trying to keep my head down, staggering about, holding my stomach, coughing up blood.

    I swayed and lost my footing. Two boys came either side. They did a rough search-no more than a perfunctory frisk to make sure I didn't have a gun-then they knocked me to my knees and pushed my face down into the mud. They pulled my hands behind my back and tied them. I tried to get my head up so I could breathe, but they were standing on it to force me down. I gasped and inhaled mud and blood. I thought I was going to suffocate. All I could hear was hollering and shouting, and then the noise of more firing in the air. Every sound was magnified. My head raged with pain.

    The next thing I knew, I was being frog marched towards the vehicles. My legs wouldn't carry me, so they had to support me under the armpits.

    They were moving fast, and I was still coughing and snorting and trying to get some air into my lungs. My face was swelling up. My lips were split in several places. I just let them get on with it. I was a rag doll, a bag of shit.

    I was thrown into the rear of a Land Cruiser, in the foot well behind the front seats. As soon as they put me down, I tried to get myself nice and comfy and sort myself out. It felt strangely secure to be in such an enclosed space. At least they'd stopped kicking me and I could breathe again. I felt the warm heater and smelled cigarette smoke and cheap aftershave.

    I got a rifle butt to the head. It hurt severely and took me down. I wasn't going to come up from that one even if I'd wanted to. I was a bag of bollocks. There was massive pain in the back of my head, and everything was spinning. I took short, sharp breaths and told myself that it could be worse. For a second or two it looked as though I was going to be right. I wasn't being filled in any more, which I thought was rather nice. Then two lads jumped in the back and thumped their boots hard up and down all over my body. As the vehicle lurched across the field, they kept up the tempo.

    I couldn't see where we were going because I had to keep my head down to protect myself from the flurry of boots. It would have been a pointless exercise anyway. As far as I was concerned, they were just going to shoot me. I had no control over it; I just wanted to get it over and done with. I'd had the initial shock of being captured, then the demoralizing glimpse of the Syrian border. It suddenly hit home. I was right on top of Syria and I'd got caught. It was as if I'd run a marathon in Olympic time and been disqualified a stride from the tape. I wondered again when they'd shoot me.

    The vehicle swerved and lurched to avoid the crowds. When they slowed down, I could hear people hollering and shouting. Everybody was in a frenzy; they were really happy boys.

    The jundies fired their weapons from inside the Land Cruiser. The AK47 is a large-caliber weapon, and when you fire it in a confined space, you can feel the increase in air pressure. It was deafening, but the familiar tang of cordite was oddly comforting. I started to taste the blood and mud in my mouth. My nose was blocked with clots.

    I was bouncing up and down, the vehicle moving fast over the ploughed ground. The suspension groaned and screeched. All I wanted to do was snuggle up in a corner somewhere and be out of the way. One half of my brain was telling me to close my eyes and take a deep breath, and maybe it would all go away. But at the back of your mind is that tiny little bit of survival instinct: let's wait and see, maybe they won't, there's always a chance…

    The crowds were making the fearsome Red Indian warbling noise. They were jubilant that they'd caught somebody, but I couldn't tell if the warble was a victory salute or a sign of even worse things to come. As we lurched over the field, I tried to concentrate on identifying the troops from their uniforms. They wore British-pattern DPM (disrupted-pattern material), with chest webbing that held five magazines, and high laced boots. They had Para wings, too, and red lanyards, which marked them out as elite commandos. It was only much later that I learned that the lanyards were to commemorate a victory from the Second World War, when they fought under Montgomery's command, of which they seemed quite proud.

    We hit a meta led road and the bouncing stopped. I wasn't much concerned with where we were going at this stage-I just wanted to get there and to stop being filled in by these boys' boots. The soldiers jabbered at me fast and aggressively.

    The vehicle stopped. We seemed to be in the town. Noise surged around us. I heard voices, many voices, and I knew from their tone that it was an angry mob. The sound of hatred is ugly and universal. I looked up.

    I saw a sea of faces, military and civilian, angry, chanting, shouting abuse. I felt like a child in a pram with a gang of adults peering in.

    It scared me. These people hated me.

    An old man dug deep into his TB-riddled lungs and fired a green wad into my face. Other salvoes followed, thick and fast. Then came the physical stuff. It started with a poke in my ribs, a testing prod at the new commodity in town. The poke became a shove, then a slap, then a punch, and the crowd started pulling my hair. I thought it was going to be a case of mob rule. I felt I was going to get lynched, or worse.