by Andy McNab
There was a long, long silence as I sat on my chair. I could hear feet shuffling and pens scribbling. I could smell all the same smells.
Nothing happened for what seemed like an hour.
"Andy," I heard. "Today we want the truth out of you It was The Voice, but in a new guise. Firm now, impatient, no nonsense.
"We know that you've been lying. We've tried to help you. You're not helping us at all. Therefore we will get the truth out of you in other ways. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Yes, I understand what you mean, but I don't know what you want. I've told you everything I know. I am trying to help."
"Right. Why are you in Iraq?"
I went through the same old story. Before I had even finished, he was up and walking around.
"That's all I know," I said, blindly trying to locate where he was in the room.
"You're lying to us!" he screamed in my face. "We know! We know that you're lying!"
My face was pulled up, and The Voice started slapping me hard. Guards on either side held me up by the shoulders.
It stopped, and he shouted at me, from so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. "How do we know that you're lying? Because we have your signals operator in hospital, that's why. He's been captured, and he's told us everything."
It was possible. Maybe Legs was still alive, and in his physical condition he might have said anything. Or everything. But The Voice hadn't told me what Legs had said. Was it a bluff?
"You are lying, aren't you, Andy?"
"No, I'm not lying. I can't help you any more. I am trying to help but I just don't know anything."
I was doing the pleading bit now, because I was flapping good style. I was trying to think of a reason why they should have told me this.
More slaps and I went down. They picked me up and took off the handcuffs. Before I had time to wonder why, they started to strip me. I had sudden visions of them cutting my cock off.
They ripped my shirt off and pulled down my trousers. This is it, I thought: this is where they fuck me.
But they pushed me down on to the chair and held my head forward. I took a deep breath and waited.
It must have been a piece of four-by-two or the end foot or so of an oar. Whoomph! The shock of it hitting me-whoomph! ivhoomph!-I screamed out like an idiot. They worked their way all over my back and head with it. I must have been unconscious before I hit the floor. '
I came to, groaning and mumbling, and they hoisted me up and put me back on the chair.
"You will tell us everything, Andy. We want it from you. We know what has happened. We have your signals operator. He's told us he's your signals operator."
That had to have come from Legs. He was the signals operator. Was he in hospital?
I denied, denied, denied.
They punched and slapped, smashed the paddle in a frenzy on my back.
Then they stopped for five minutes, as if they were resting, getting their strength back.
"Why are you doing this to yourself, Andy? Just tell us what we need to know."
They started up again.
I got my first hit with what felt like a metallic ball on the end of a stick, like some sort of medieval mace. It thumped into my neck and arms and kidneys with terrible precision. I went down again, screaming my head off. This was way out of control. This was when I was going to die.
As I hit the floor, the lads behind me started to give me a kicking. I screamed again and again.
The Voice screamed back at me. "You're lying! You will tell us!"
It went on and on, I didn't know for how long. They'd kick, get me back up, slap me around the face, whack me with the metal ball and wooden paddle. I could hear them breathing hard with the exertion of it all.
The Voice would shout at me, and I would shout back.
"Fucking hell," I bawled, "I don't know, I don't know anything for fuck's sake!"
He gob bed off at the boys in Arabic, and they started up again with another kicking.
I went down time and again.
Pain upon pain.
It hurt, it really hurt.
They stopped kicking and lifted me up. I was dragged out of the room, my chest bare and my trousers still round my ankles. As soon as we got out into the courtyard, there was the reception committee. I was kicked and punched all the way down. I got one kick up the arse, and I really thought they'd split my rectum. I thought my insides were falling out.
I went straight down, howling like a pig.
They threw me into the cell, blindfolded, handcuffed, and naked, and left me. My breathing was very shallow. When I had recovered sufficiently to sit up, I checked myself for broken bones. I clung to the memory of the lecture by the Marine aviator. The Viet Cong had broken every major bone in his body during the course of his six years in jail. In comparison, I was having a picnic.
"I was told the bigger and harder you were the quicker they would leave you alone. This I soon discovered was untrue. They can do whatever they want with you. The only thing they cannot break is your mental state. Only you can let that collapse. My head stayed clear, and every day it said to me: "Fuck 'em." That's what kept' me alive."
My body was in far better condition than his had been, and my mind was definitely clear. So then-fuck 'em.
It was dark. I had been lying there for ages. I hadn't noticed the cold at first: the pain had blocked out such trifles. Now I was starting to shiver. I thought, if this carries on for many more days, I've had it-I'm going to get well and truly done in here.
I could hear screaming and shouting in the other rooms, but I wasn't taking much notice of it because I was too involved in my own little world, my own little universe of pain and bruises and broken teeth.
The others would be getting the same as me, but it was a world away. It was in the distance, it did not concern me. All I did was wait for my turn again.
From then, and for what must have been quite a few days, it just carried on. Hour after hour, day after day, beating after beating, taking my turn with the other two, lying curled up, cold and in pain, waiting for the terrifying noise of the door being kicked open, the worst sound I had ever heard.
"Andy, this is your last chance; tell us what we need to know."
"I don't know anything."
I knew one thing. I knew the other two weren't giving up because otherwise my interrogations would have stopped. I kept saying to myself, It's not going to be me, I'm not going to let them down, I'm not going to be the one to put the others in the shit.
It was a haze. Two or three interrogations per twenty-four hours. Day after day. Always the same stuff. Always a little bit harder to bear.
Then they found new ways of hurting me. Twice they held me down on the seat, pushed my head down, while they flogged me with a whip with thick thongs. And when they had finished, the others joined in with the paddle and ball.
After one session I was sitting on the chair, still naked, my mind a blur of anguish. The Voice talked quietly and conspiratorially in my ear.
"Andy, we need to talk. You're in very bad condition. You're going to die very soon, but you're still not helping us. I cannot understand it.
We'll get the information out of you, you know we will. One of you will tell us, there's no big problems. Why make it harder on yourself? Look, do you want me to show you how bad we can be?"
There was a rubbing sore on the inside of my thigh about two inches in diameter. It was a weeping, seeping thing, red and raw. I heard the chinking of metal and the hiss of a paraffin heater being turned up.
Hands gripped my shoulders and pinned me to the chair.
The back of the spoon was red-hot as he ran it over an dover the sore.
The stench of burning flesh made me gag. I howled like a dog.
Spoon. Scream. Spoon. Scream.
He rubbed it in small circles and little crisscross grids.
I jumped up, so violently that the blokes couldn't hold me. I yelled and yelled in an effort to release th
e pain.
They got me back on to the chair.
"Do you see, Andy? It's pointless. Just tell us what we want to know."
Legs told them fuck all. They wouldn't be doing all this just to get his information confirmed. And they hadn't said what information Legs was supposed to have told them. It was a load of old bollocks. If he could hold out, so could I.
People came in and out of the cells all the time now. The sound track was just screaming and shouting and the horrific banging of the sheet metal doors.
The guards must have had a beasting roster. Teams came in every two hours or so, hollering and shouting and filling us in. We were still handcuffed and blindfolded.
"Stand up! Sit down!"
As you're trying to do it, they're punching and kicking. Sometimes I'd fall into a semiconscious state after just a few punches, sometimes I'd just be there, breathing heavily and taking it. Sometimes they'd come in with a length of hose, which hurt incredibly on my kidneys and back.
My body was becoming even more of a mess, but the worst bit about it was hearing them in Stan's or Dinger's room. Not so much because I was concerned for them-there was nothing I could do to help, and they were big and ugly enough to take it-but because it meant that it was going to be my turn soon.
One time, by way of a change, the interrogation started off all rather pleasantly.
"You're in a terrible condition, aren't you, Andy?"
"Yeah, I'm in terrible condition."
My mouth was so matted with scabs and swellings I could hardly get the words out.
"How are your teeth-they were giving you some problems before?"
"I've got some smashed in at the back. They hurt." I continued to play the humble dickhead. And at this stage I was totally out of the game anyway. My teeth were agony-more painful than the worst toothache I'd ever had, and then some.
"I have arranged for somebody to come in and sort that out," The Voice said soothingly. "We have a dentist here. In fact, he worked in Guy's Hospital in London for nine years. He's one of the best."
My blindfold was removed. The dentist appeared and said, "Hello, Andy."
He got me to open wide, and gently and reassuringly he peered into my mouth. He sounded sympathetic as he took some instruments from a bag.
"Open wide again, Andy, please," he said in perfect English. "Oh, dear, that is bad, but I'll soon sort it out for you."
I had my suspicions, but there was nothing I could do. I opened as wide as I could for him, and the cunt gripped the first stump of tooth with the pliers and twisted hard.
I screamed and blood gushed from my mouth.
"Do you really think we're going to help you?" The Voice laughed. "Do you really think we're going to help you, you despicable heap of shit?
We could just leave you to die, you know-you're so irrelevant to us.
Who do you think is going to help you, Andy? Your government? You can't believe that. John Major doesn't care about lumps of excrement like you. No, Andy, the only one who can help you is yourself. Why are you doing this to yourself? You're going through this for nothing.
You're stupid, a stupid, misguided fool, and your teeth are going to come out one by one."
I couldn't answer. I was screaming. I knew that I was going to die.
And I knew now that it wouldn't be clean and quick.
We had been stripped of all clothing for several days now and left exposed to the damp and bitter cold. We were getting beaten regularly in the cells and tortured to the point of unconsciousness during the interrogations. We were put in stress positions in the cells, blindfolded and handcuffed, and we had to stay that way. They'd come in and beat us when we toppled over. The combined effects were taking more and more of a toll.
There was bombing every night, and sometimes it would be close. On one occasion the place was rattling on its foundations, and the guards were yelling and running around.
I was lying on the floor listening to the noise, and I heard myself screaming at the top of my voice: "Do it! Fucking bomb me! I'm down here!"
I really thought they were going to carry on with it until I was dead. I wanted it over with now. I wanted the pain to stop.
Heavy ordnance makes a buzzing sort of sound as it falls. I fixed my attention on each buzz and willed it to land in my cell. The building rocked and trembled. I felt the pressure waves of high explosive. It was the first time I had ever wanted to die, and I just wanted and wanted them to do it. I had reached the lowest point of my life.
For fifteen minutes one night I found God. The Supreme Being was in the top right-hand corner of the cell, and I had a little discussion with him.
"Come and help me now," I pleaded. "If you help me now, I'll be your best mate for ever. If you're there, fucking do something about this.
We need your help now-all of us. If you're there, do it, and I'll be putting pennies in your pot every day."
I said as much of the Lord's Prayer as I could remember from school, but nothing happened. God did not exist.
I was slowly dying. Your body tells you. The cell was awash with my shit and piss. I slept in it. It covered me.
Sometimes they'd bring me a drink.
One night a gang of guards came in.
"Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv," one of them said.
"No, British," I mumbled, "I'm British."
"Foreskin," he demanded. He'd obviously heard the story and wanted to see for himself.
I motioned that I couldn't do anything because of the handcuffs, and they undid them.
Still blindfolded, I fumbled with my swollen, numb fingers to find my cock. I stretched out the foreskin, and they roared with laughter.
Two of them grabbed my arms from behind. One in front of me was slapping something in the palm of his hand. I heard a slight swishing sound, then all my world was pain. My knees buckled. The guard in front of me had raised something like a riding crop in the air and tonked it down hard on the end of my cock. They hooted as I screamed and writhed on the ground.
They bent over me and prodded and flicked at my bollocks. Again I wondered if I was going to get fucked, but the difference this time was that I was way past caring. But that wasn't what they had in mind. With a final kick to my balls that left me retching with agony, they handcuffed me again and left, still chortling.
One day they came into my cell, screaming and shouting. One of them was carrying a newspaper. The frontpage story that he shoved under my nose was of the Allied bombings the day before. The Iraqis had lined up all the bodies of the children that had been killed. There was a photograph of their distraught mothers weeping over their little forms. The guards slapped and punched me furiously, as if I was personally responsible for what had happened. It developed into the normal filling in, followed by a 10-minute recovery period, and another filling in. When I finally flaked out, they left me.
When I came to, I saw that they'd left the newspaper behind. I crawled over and checked the front page for something that I remembered from previous trips to the Middle East. I found what I was looking for. The only thing in English on the whole page was at the top, near the title: the figure 4.
It was the 4th of February.
That meant they had been torturing us for five days.
I was dressed just in my socks and a big, baggy pair of army-issue skivies I'd been given when I arrived in Saudi. They were black now, smeared with shit and permanently wet with piss.
I lay shivering on the concrete, handcuffed and blindfolded.
Guards came into the cell and poked me with their weapons until I made donkey noises. When I did, they kicked me.
"Bush, pig," they said. "Thatcher, pig."
I had to repeat it. They laughed and giggled and gob bed on me.
Sometimes they sat me up against the wall, pulled back my head, and held my face while they ranted at me. By now it was like water off a duck's back.
There was one major shift in their tactics, however. They didn't hurt my face any more. It was slapped,
but no longer damaged by punching or butting as before.
I was hauled out of the cell in my socks and skivies for another interrogation. It was several days since I'd even been able to stand up unaided.
At first, nothing happened. There was a long, long silence.
There was lots of sighing and: "Oh dear, what are we going to do with you, Andy? You're simply not helping at all, are you?"
"I'm trying to help," I mumbled. "But I don't know anything."
I'd got to the stage where I'd said it so many times I believed it was the truth.
"Andy, you know that we have one of you in hospital. He's had two pints of Iraqi blood, and he should be very proud now to be one of us. We have demonstrated to him that we're not barbarians. We've helped him. But we can't help you, because you won't help us."
Possibly there might be somebody in hospital, and my mind flashed back to an incident when the guards had come in and pointed at my feet and gone "bang bang." At the time, I'd thought they were going to shoot me in the foot. After all, they played lots of games with me, like making me put my mouth over the muzzle of their weapon while they cocked it.
But maybe what they had really been getting at was that one of us had been shot in the foot.
I didn't know whether to believe him or not. "Thank you very much," I said. "I'm glad that you've saved him."
"You need to tell us what was happening, Andy. Why were you in Iraq?
Your friends have all told us what was going on, but we just want to hear it from you. Are you going to help us? We've got no more time for you, you know. We'll let you die. You're nothing to us. Have a think about it."
They took me back to my cell.
Was it true? Had they actually got people in hospital? It couldn't be Legs. He had exposure; he wouldn't have been needing blood. Had somebody else survived a contact? It seemed very unlikely.
During the day I heard Stan and Dinger being taken away. Towards last light they came for me. This time there was no talking. It was just straight in and a good beasting with the plank.
I went down, only semiconscious.
"You're the only one that's not helping us, Andy," The Voice said. "We need the truth from everybody and you're not helping. We have told you that we have your people in hospital and we're willing to let them die."