The One That Got Away - Junior edition

CHAPTER 11 Them or Me

My morale had been down, but suddenly it was back up again. I couldn’t stop laughing and wanted to get started.

I needed water urgently. On the map I’d found a pumping station, and I felt I must have a good chance of getting a drink there. Surely a pumping station would have clean water coming out of it? This was my sixth night on the run, and in six nights and six days I’d had nothing to eat but two packets of biscuits. I was seriously dehydrated, and my feet were in ribbons. Even so, I felt pretty good, and had that sense of excitement mixed with apprehension that you get before a race or a big football match.

All I had to do was go down to the pumping station, get water, and carry on. By then I’d be only about ten kilometres from the border, and I would either cross it that same night, or reach it the next day.

Things didn’t work out as easily as I had hoped. I waited till dark and then started walking, but after only a hundred metres I came round a corner and several dogs began barking. Through the night-sight I could see two tents and one vehicle. It was obviously a Bedouin encampment. But nobody came out for a look round, so I moved carefully away to the left, boxed the position and carried on.

As soon as I could, I swung down to the right, heading for the pumping station. I followed a line of telegraph poles, which made navigation easy. But by then my feet had become really sore, and I had to keep stopping. I forced myself to do 150 metres between rests. Every one of them was a major effort.

According to my map, I was heading for a point at which the telegraph lines crossed a run of pylons. In due course I saw the pylons, coming in on my right. The wadis to my left were getting deeper, the sides steeper. Then I saw that instead of crossing the telegraph line, the pylons were set out parallel with it. The map wasn’t making sense, so I decided to just cut down to the right and head for the river.

I peeled off the high ground and started on another bearing, confident that I’d hit the river sooner or later. As I went down I spotted a square, white building with a flat roof — the pump house. Coming close, I saw that the end facing me was open, and that a lot of pipes ran in and out of it. There was one main pipe, which I guessed was bringing water from the river, and several smaller ones.

By then I seemed to have grown careless. Whether or not it was the result of exhaustion, I don’t know. When you’re that tired, it’s all too easy to sling your weapon over your shoulder instead of carrying it at the ready, and just saunter along. Going from very cautious to careless happens gradually, without you noticing.

In any case, I walked straight into this place, lulled by the fact that it was silent and no machinery was working. I wasn’t crash-banging about, but I didn’t case the building as carefully as I might have. I even got my torch out and shone it around, because I could hear water dripping from a pipe. There it was — a steady drip, glistening in the torch beam.

Then, as I started getting my water bottle out, I looked up and noticed a little glassed-in hatchway on the back wall, with a red glow coming through it. Standing up to peer through, I saw a small electric fire with a bar glowing. Across from it lay an Arab, huddled down in a parka and sleeping bag, asleep on a camp-bed. He was separated from me only by the thickness of the wall.

I cursed myself. What was I doing in this building anyway? I tiptoed out, without any water, and crept away. It took a fright like that to wake me up. Things had started to seem too easy. I was making good progress. The border was only a short distance ahead. Nobody had challenged me for a while, and I’d started to switch off my defence mechanisms.

Getting over the fright, I moved on in a state of maximum alert. I held my weapon at the ready, and moved very slowly, scanning constantly. But I was hardly clear of the pump house when, from high ground to my left, an air-raid siren went off. The noise started low, wound up to a high note, then swung down again. I hit the ground, thinking I had tripped some alarm, and lay there listening. Up and down went the metallic scream, high and low. As I searched through the night-sight, scanning the high ground, I made out anti-aircraft positions with gun barrels showing against the sky. Black figures were running around them. Then I saw tall towers, maybe fifty metres high, with what looked like cables slung between them. They seemed to be part of a communications network, and when I heard a drone start up, I thought the noise was coming from generators. I reckoned I’d walked into some sort of signals base. How had I got in among all this without seeing anything? I certainly hadn’t crossed any fence or other barrier, but somehow I had landed in the middle of the complex.

I knew I wasn’t far from the river. Vegetation started only a couple of hundred metres below me, and I thought that must mark the bank. I lay still until the all-clear went up — a noise like a Second World War siren — and everything quietened down. Whatever had caused the alert, it hadn’t been me. When I reckoned it was safe to move, I got up and set off cautiously towards the river — only to see a group of five men walking towards me. Back on the ground, I lay still until they had passed and disappeared.

Even though I was desperate for water, I decided I had to get out of this thickly populated area. I had seen from the map that the river bent round, and thought I could hit it at another point not far ahead. But now I seemed to be in the middle of numerous scattered positions, and I would have to weave my way through them.

I crept onwards. To my front I saw something sticking up into the sky. Peering through the night-sight, I realized that it was the barrel of an anti-aircraft gun. As I looked down, I saw the rest of the weapon right in front of me.

I pulled back, boxed it and moved on, threading my way forward between buildings which showed up here and there, pale in the moonlight. The place was extremely confusing, as it didn’t seem to be laid out in any regular pattern. The dirt roads were neither straight nor at right-angles to each other, but coming in from all directions. On the ground, insulated land-lines were running all over the place. I thought of cutting them, to put local communications out of action, but knew that it would only draw attention to my presence.

My map was far too large-scale to show details that would have been useful to me, and it no longer bore any relation to the ground. At one point I could see a big cliff coming round in front of me, like the wall of a quarry — but of course there was no sign of that on my sheet.

Then — wonder of wonders — I reached a stream, with vegetation growing beside it. The water looked crystal clear, and the moonlight shone through it onto a white bottom. I thought, I’m in luck here. A spring of clean water, flowing down into the Euphrates. The whole place was so dangerous that I didn’t go down for a drink; I just filled my bottles, popped them into my side-pouches, and moved quickly away.

Just as I left the stream I saw a file of seven men walk across my front, two or three paces apart. They were moving carefully, obviously on patrol. I froze, thinking, If they’ve got a dog, it’s going to pick up my scent now. But no — they disappeared, and I moved out on a bearing, going very slowly.

Again I came across an anti-aircraft position. This time I was so close that I peered over a wall of sandbags and saw three men lying on the ground in sleeping bags. I felt a surge of fear, rising like acid from stomach to throat. The thought flashed into my mind that if I’d had a silenced weapon, I could at least have taken out anyone who spotted me. But nobody had: the men were all asleep, and within a few seconds I was creeping slowly away.

The next thing I hit was a laager point — a circle of vehicles defending some position. Mounds of rock or minerals stood about — it looked like a quarry. As I came creeping round the side, I walked right up to a Russian-made Gaz 80 jeep, only four or five metres away. Again I got a bad fright. I couldn’t see through the vehicle’s windows; for all I knew it could have been full of people. For a few seconds I held my breath, 203 levelled, waiting for it to erupt.

When nothing happened, I turned to go back. I found I’d passed other vehicles and wandered into the middle of this park without seeing it. There were four-ton trucks with the canvas backs off, some with the canvas on, buses and double-deck car transporters. None of them had armour or weapons fitted, but this was a big collection of general transport. How I’d penetrated in among all these without noticing them, I couldn’t explain. With hindsight, I realize that my concentration was coming and going, functioning one moment but not the next. At the time I just felt confused.

No matter how I’d got in there, I had to get out. Ahead of me were houses, with light coming from one window. Silhouetted figures were moving across it, and I could hear voices calling. I pushed off to the right, sometimes walking on tiptoe, often crawling on hands and knees.

I boxed that particular group of buildings. Then, ahead of me, lay a single big, whitewashed house with a steeply pitched roof and a pale-coloured wall. To the left were two other buildings with lights shining from them and people outside, talking and shouting. I think there was also music playing on a radio.

The big house was easily the most impressive I’d seen, and by far the best maintained. High on one wall was a large portrait of Saddam Hussein. It showed the dictator bare-headed, wearing military insignia on his epaulettes. For several seconds I stood looking at it, thinking, You’re definitely in the wrong place now, mate! What made me stand there gawping, I can’t explain. Again, as in the pumping station, I seemed to have grown blasé. After surviving so many close encounters, I felt that nobody could see me, and I needn’t be so careful any more.

As I stood there, a man came round the corner, only fifty metres away — a dark figure, silhouetted against the light. I felt a surge of fear, but instead of bolting I simply turned away and walked casually round the side of the house. In two steps I was out of sight.

Then I ran.

As I sprinted, I told myself, For God’s sake, get a grip.

The man had seen me. I knew that. But he didn’t seem to have followed up. Round the back of the building I spotted a ditch running along the side of the road. I dived into it, and as I lay there two family-type vehicles came rolling down. The big house suddenly burst into life: security lights blazed on, and people poured out to meet them. A man got out of the vehicle, and four of the other guys bodyguarded him into the house. As soon as the party was inside, the lights went off, so that the place was plunged into darkness again. It crossed my mind that this could be Saddam himself. The house was an impressive one, and well maintained. Was this his secret hideaway? Then I realized that he would never draw attention to himself by having his own portrait on the wall; more likely, this was the home of the local governor, or some similar official.

I seemed to have strayed into a nightmare, with unexplained people and events popping up all over the place. By now I’d been in this complex — whatever it was — for five hours, trying to find my way out. Time was cracking on.

According to my route plan, I should already have been on the border. Something had gone wrong with my map-reading. It looked like I would have to lie up without food for yet another day. Oddly enough, I never felt desperate with hunger, never got pains in the stomach. My biggest worry was that I was gradually growing weaker — less able to walk, less able to concentrate.

My immediate plan was to creep back up to the road and go somewhere beyond it, clear of the buildings, so that I could sneak another look at the map. But before I could move, I heard footsteps and voices coming down the path towards me. By the sound of it, there were two men at least. I was crouching in a corner beside a mound, without cover, and they were coming right on top of me.

My survival instinct took over — instinct sharpened by years of training. Whoever these guys were, it was going to be them or me.

To fire a shot in that position would have been fatal, so I quietly laid my 203 down and got my knife open in my right hand.

As the first man came level with me I grabbed him and quickly cut his throat. He went down without a sound.

When the second man saw me, his eyes widened in terror and he began to run. But somehow, with a surge of adrenalin, I flew after him, jumped on him and brought him down with my legs locked round his hips. I got one arm round his neck in a judo hold and stretched his chin up. There was a muffled crack as his neck broke, and he died immediately.

I could feel hot, sticky blood all down my front. There hadn’t been a sound. Now I had two bodies to dispose of. To leave them where they were would let everyone know I was there. But if they just went missing, the chances were that nobody would raise the alarm for a few hours at least.

Luckily the river was less than a hundred metres off, and a gentle slope covered by small, loose rocks led down to it. Luckier still, the bank was screened by a stand of tall grass. Each body made a scraping, rattling noise as I dragged it over the rocks; but I got both to the edge of the water, one at a time, without anyone seeing me. Then I loaded them up with stones inside their shirts, dragged them into the water and let them go.

Knowing my bottles were full, I didn’t bother to drink any of the dirty water in the river. I was on high alert, and it had taken an hour to get rid of the bodies.

I had to clear the complex before daylight.