The Meadow

by Adrian Levy

  John too was in a bad way. His heels were burning, worn to the bone by his hard boots. He longed to take them off and plunge his feet into the snowmelt, but the only time the kidnappers ever stopped was to drink, piss or pray. ‘Then they set off again. Up. Up. Up.’ By the time they stopped that night, at another tented encampment, everyone was exhausted. And Keith was ebbing. Don asked the kidnappers if they had any medicine, but there was nothing. Don, John and Paul watched, bemused, as one of the gunmen was sent off across the mountainside to catch a sheep. This youth was not country-born, and the animal easily gave him the slip, darting between the boulders. But then another militant joined the pursuit, cruelly knocking the sheep out with his rifle butt. They dragged it over, grabbed its head and drew a long blade across the skin of its throat. An arc of blood sprayed out, the four hostages transfixed by the scene. The animal snorted and whiffled as life surged from the flapping wound in its throat.

  John shrank back. For the next hour he could barely watch as the two militants dismembered the animal, stuffing bloody body parts and skin into rucksacks. ‘I was utterly convinced now that this would be my fate too.’

  Later, after the gujjar women had roasted parts of the sheep over a smoky fire, John refused to eat. He was starving, but he couldn’t get the animal’s horrific end out of his mind: ‘As far as I was concerned, they had staged a mock execution.’ After dinner, he crouched in a dark corner of the hut, huddled silently against the wall under a dirty blanket, his body warmed by a small clay kangri pot containing hot coals. The militants gorged on the animal as if it was their last supper, while Don, Keith and Paul chatted quietly.

  Don, as usual, remained rational. The sheep-slaughtering had been brutal, but they had to eat, and meat would build up their strength. Keith murmured that it would only be a matter of hours before the Indians launched a rescue attempt. But for John, who said nothing, the event had been a turning point. He felt he had glimpsed what the militants were capable of. He tried to talk to the two British hostages about escaping, but they were still for waiting. The kidnappers had enough weapons to kill an entire village, Paul whispered. Counting the sentries outside the hut, there were now well over twenty militants in the party. ‘I hope you’ve got your map with you,’ joked Keith. Talking about escaping was fruitless, the two British hostages felt. Anyhow, they’d be rescued. There would be Indian soldiers. Helicopters. ‘There won’t,’ said John.

  After dinner, the militants sated, everyone had fallen asleep apart from John. His girls would surely have been told of his abduction by now. Distressing snapshots of the past few days came into his head: a huge cache of ammunition he had caught sight of high in the mountains, and the two-way radio set through which the leader had communicated with his distant controllers. The kidnappers were well supported, fairly disciplined and equipped for the long haul, John concluded. It could go on like this for weeks, and then end bloodily. He watched the militants rouse themselves for the last prayer of the night; standing, hands cupped, the fire casting shadows that weaved and ducked, as the men praised the greatness of God. For a few minutes John got down on his knees too. ‘If they could pray, then so could I. But I wondered what kind of God would condemn us to this fate.’

  7 July, dawn. ‘We were up as soon as it was light,’ said John. As they came down from the ice pass of the previous afternoon, the landscape softened a little. They paused to rest beside a river. On the far bank, between colossal red pines that stood erect as organ pipes, the occasional stone shelter could be seen.

  John’s heels were cut to the bone. But as he sat on a log in the early-morning gloom, contemplating whether he would be able to get through another day, he spotted something that took his mind off the pain completely: Don was wandering off. ‘I’d just watched him tell the guards he wanted to pee, as we had been instructed, and then he walked away at speed. This was it. I could see what was in his mind. I could see him go. Don was off. No mistaking it.’ John sat immobile, his heart in his mouth. No one else had noticed apart from him. Don was gathering pace and confidence as he got further away from the tents. He was almost out of view. ‘I wanted him to do it,’ said John, ‘but I knew that if Don got away it would be the end of my chances. In one way I was willing the militants to look up, to spot him and bring him back. That’s the unspeakable truth.’ Eventually one of them did just that, spying Don some way off and shouting to him to come back. ‘Don knew he’d been caught. He simply stopped, acted nonchalant, and turned. Pretended nothing had happened. He waved as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Then he walked back into camp. We exchanged glances, but we never spoke about it.’

  That day, John was convinced the leader drove the hostage party even harder, as if to punish them all for Don’s offence. Keith hobbled along, delirious and dehydrated. John kept pace with him, limping on his butchered feet. When they stopped, John calculated that they had gone ten precipitous miles or more, which was like thirty on the flat. It was almost three days now since the Meadow, all of them spent walking, the nights passed in muttony shelters or flapping tents. John felt as if he was losing his mind.

  Some gujjar children brought them bread and rice. John sat and ate alone, away from the other hostages, forcing the food into his mouth with his fingers, and secretly pushing some down his socks. ‘I had to act while I still had a chance,’ he said. As usual, the leader sat by himself on a log, his expressionless eyes focused on the fire. John stood and walked over to him. Everyone in the party stilled. The leader’s hand moved to his weapon, but John sat down anyway. He pulled out a photograph of his children. Don had done his thing; now it was John’s turn. ‘I just want to go home to my daughters,’ John said, looking deeply into the leader’s eyes as he handed over the photograph. He was the only hostage with kids, he said. ‘The leader looked at my daughters’ faces. He studied them, but handed the photo back to me with the look of a soldier who had learned to bury his true feelings.’ John returned to his previous position, watched by the other three hostages. There was no winning the kidnappers over.

  Late in the afternoon, the party crossed a wide valley with a trekking path and a substantial river running along its base. Suddenly Don became agitated. Looking up and down the valley, he whispered that he knew where they were: ‘Hey, I know this place. Jane and I walked up here just last week.’ They were crossing the main trekking route to Amarnath Cave. John did not share his excitement. If the kidnappers were prepared to bring the hostages in circles, and this close to a busy tourist trail, they were clearly feeling secure. As they plodded on towards a group of huts a few hundred metres up the left flank of the valley, and within sight of the path, Don whispered that he estimated that from here it would be a simple twelve-hour trek back to civilisation. Even less to the army camp at Chandanwari, where they could raise the alarm. Keith and Paul nodded. John, who had seen tents and white-skinned travellers in the distance, said nothing. By the time they stopped at a gujjar hut protected by a high wall, his mind was working overtime. ‘Everyone was exhausted. The leader promised us that the next day we would be resting here. But I now worked on a plan.’

  For the first time since being snatched from the Meadow, the hostages knew roughly where they were. This was, John concluded, his moment, if he could overcome certain problems. Between where they were now and the Amarnath trekking route lay several gujjar settlements. Having watched the kidnappers buy food and exchange information with local herders, he distrusted them. Each gujjar household represented a potential klaxon, an intruder’s footfall setting off a cacophony of dogs. But John kept his thoughts to himself. Night was closing in, and as they huddled together for warmth on the apron of the filthy hut, John, Don, Keith and Paul talked about the things in the world they missed most.

  8 July, 2 a.m.: an hour since his last toilet visit. John sat upright. Now was his time. He eased himself out from under the blanket, trying not to nudge or knock anyone as he lumped some clothes into the shape of a sleeping body. His comrades and the guards ins
ide the hut slept as he tiptoed between them, his boots over his shoulder. John felt a pang of remorse for his fellow hostages. Don had been generous, and Keith was a straight-up guy. Paul was likeable, if hot-headed: ‘He was just about ready to kill everyone by the time I left them.’ They deserved better, but Don’s actions of the previous morning had convinced John that it was every man for himself: ‘Due to my weakened physical condition I was certain that I would be the first to be killed if the kidnappers’ demands were not met.’ He took in his sleeping companions one last time. ‘I will seek help and come back for you,’ he said under his breath. Then he turned. Slipping on his boots without tying the laces, his trekking jacket over his shoulder and gripping his stomach as if he was contorted with cramps, he pushed aside the tarpaulin door, opened the tin gate and, nodding at the dozing sentry, walked into the night air.

  Seconds later he was squatting down behind a tree, heart clattering. ‘So far so good, the sentries having presumed once more that another bout of diarrhoea had kicked in.’ But then, looking down, he realised his white jacket would make him an easy target in the dark for a gunman. ‘No, no, no,’ he thought. All the dates and dried fruit and bits of bread and balls of rice he had been squirrelling away over the past four days and nights were stuffed in its pockets and lining, but he had no choice but to discard it, along with his emergency supplies.

  He hung the coat on a bush and moulded it into a human shape, hoping it might win him a few extra minutes. Then he grabbed a handful of dirt and rubbed it over his face and into his hair, turning his grey skin streaky brown. He took a deep breath. And then he bolted.

  At first he loped gently, crouching, lupine, trying to minimise his footfall as he put a little distance between himself and the militants. Then he became upright and, forgetting his torn feet, ran full tilt, pelting towards a copse, arms pumping.

  His walking boots were still unlaced, and in the darkness he kept tripping over them. Should he stop to tie them up? No. Don’t stop. He was sure he could hear the sentries behind him, crashing through the undergrowth, clattering over the pebbles, the alarm raised when he had failed to return from the bushes. There was no time to stop now. As he tore on in his heightened state, the undergrowth smashed and crashed around him like cymbals and snares. Could they hear him? He was sure they could. Now his metabolism picked up, releasing adrenaline, nutrients, glucose, cholesterol, his heart thudding as he began to climb. This was the idea he had put all his hopes in. Up, and not down. Down to the trekking path and the white-skinned campers was the obvious way an escaping hostage would go. He was heading up, in the opposite direction, where nothing lived. Only a fool would climb higher into the deep freeze. Breathing deeper and longer, John could no longer feel his destroyed feet, as blood drawn from his skin and gut flooded his muscles and tissues. ‘My head was filled with the desire to live.’ Up higher and higher, colder and colder. Without the jacket he was freezing, his blood chilling as he pushed himself on.

  His stomach churned. He told himself that this was a by-product of fear, and that one’s outlook was always different at fourteen thousand feet above sea level. The pain was better than the spasms caused by his dysentery. His eyes dilated as they became accustomed to the darkness. The big expanse of night had shades, and was mottled light and grey. He could see the trees above as he climbed through the Jurassic dark that clung to these ancient woods and ridges. He tried to imagine himself running around the school track in Simsbury on a calm spring day, putting himself anywhere rather than here.

  Suddenly something shimmered in the corner of his vision. John almost screamed out loud before realising that a vortex of birds had lifted up ahead. His sudden stop meant that he jammed his foot, twisting his ankle. The throbbing pain was almost too much to bear, and he stopped to take off his boots. He had to give his heels a break. Hobbling along in his socks, he found himself clear of the last few trees and crossing open, stony ground. He could see the trekking route far below, snaking alongside the icy East Lidder, tents dotted here and there. He thought he could see the hut where his companions were being held too. But much as he wanted to reach out to his own kind of people, he could not, would not, go down. He was still certain that someone was behind him, and he knew he would never be able to outrun his pursuers if he stopped now. He could hear stones clattering. Turning his back on a route he knew led down to the safety of Pahalgam, he pushed on even higher, shouting at himself as he went: ‘You need to climb, further up! Hand over hand when the legs don’t work! You need to get higher before dawn breaks! Go, John, go!’

  Three minutes. Five minutes. Twenty minutes. Boots back on. Screaming pain. Many, many minutes. Gradually the hollow tap of his soles on stones and gravel became a crunch as they crackled on frosted grass, and then a cindery rasp as they broke the crust of snow. Now he was really cold. An abrasive wind whipped through his thin Gore-Tex shirt, stinging his back and chest. He had to rest for a moment. Ahead, he could see that a vast sheet of ice had partially melted and come away from the rock, forming a peeling sheet. ‘I climbed inside, wedging myself down into the bottom, cupped between the rock and the ice so nobody could see me.’ Bathed in sweat and shivering with cold, he ate a morsel of the last of the stale lavash bread he had concealed in his socks. But he knew, as his heartbeat slowed and his skin prickled, his fingertips darkening, that if he stayed here he would die.

  After some time he struggled out again. ‘I ran up a ridge as fast as I could, until just before the sun came up. From my eyrie up there, I now had a view back down the way I had come.’ He decided to stop. By his reckoning, two hours had passed since he had left the dhoka beside the Amarnath route. He guessed that he had to be well above fifteen thousand feet. To the east, he could see the seven magnificent peaks of Sheshnag. He could also see that the horizon was beginning to bleed red. In less than an hour, sunlight would hit this spot where he crouched. ‘I decided to stay here until the end of the day, then after dark I would work my way back down.’

  However, a disturbing thought crept over him as he sat up there, struggling with his bearings and the wind-chill. He tried to envisage the map. ‘Take in your general position from the dawn,’ he murmured, willing himself to remain conscious. Later, he reassured himself, he would be able to check his direction by looking at how the moss grew on the trees, since it disliked direct sunlight and thrived on the northern sides of trunks. But, dehydrated, hypothermic and disoriented by his quick ascent, he came to the conclusion that he was no longer in India at all, and had strayed into Pakistan: ‘This was as bad as things could get.’ The more he thought about it, the more certain he became. After all, it was not as if there was a wall dividing the two nations at this elevation. All of his effort, and he had simply run into the arms of his enemies, the land of fundamentalism and betrayal. His mind was racing.

  A noise from below rose towards him. It sounded like a scratch or a rasp. Maybe he was imagining it, but in an organic landscape of wood and stone, he thought he had recognised the sound of gunmetal on rock. Someone was out there, looking for him. They were armed, and not far away. ‘Come on, John,’ he said to himself, summoning his last molecules of strength. ‘Make a move.’ He inched further along the ridge, his more badly injured right foot dragging behind, crawled, wriggled, and then clambered to his knees. Then pushed his bruised and tender frame upright, hand over hand, and dug in behind a larger rock to shelter from the spanking wind. The only sound he could hear was the shrill descending whistle of the bearded vultures circling above.

  Back in the gujjar hut, Don, Paul and Keith were under armed guard. A sentry had raised the alarm at around 3 a.m., twenty minutes after John had failed to return from his nocturnal toilet trip. When they had discovered the white trekking jacket hanging limply from a bush, the whole hut had been turned over as the militants searched frantically for him, ripping at clothes, hunting for concealed weapons and ammunition, looking for any clues as to his plans. Having screamed himself hoarse and sent his bloodhounds off down the m
ountain in search of the American, al Faran’s leader made a call on the radio.

  Sikander, waiting at a secret location down in the valley, had taken it. The Indian government had not yet made contact, and there was much debate going on across the border in Pakistan about how long they should wait before ramping up the pressure. Sikander now found himself listening in disbelief as the Turk told him that the worst had happened. One of the Americans had run off, and a desperate hunt was under way, the Turk’s men heading towards Chandanwari, sure that the hostage would have headed straight back down the mountain towards the nearest village. Sikander didn’t need to point out that an American hostage was worth twice as much as a European, and now, just four days in, they were down to one of them.

  Sikander blamed himself for putting the Turk in charge. After the siege and the inferno at Charar-e-Sharief there had been no time to find another commander to lead Operation Ghar. From the start Sikander had been worried about this decision, concerned that the mujahid’s explosive temper, fanaticism and lack of discretion made him a liability. Now here he was, listening to a man he had never trusted, a fighter supposedly renowned for his cunning and strength, explaining how his well-trained team had been outwitted by an American civilian, a stranger to these parts, even before the hostage drama had picked up pace. Sikander would relate this night’s events over and over to two close comrades, citing it as the point at which events tilted against them, and repeating what he had told the Turk over the radio that night: ‘Make up for it. Make it right.’

  Sixty miles from where Sikander sat, wrestling with how to get Operation Ghar back on track, a military chopper lifted off the tarmac at an air force base near Srinagar, carrying the Governor of Kashmir’s Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. D.D. Saklani, a regal and highly decorated retired military officer. Dismissing the ground crew with a practised flick of the wrist, Saklani smoothed back his silver hair as he silently counted the multiple crises that preoccupied him that morning, 8 July. Four Western hostages were being held by Pakistani militants somewhere up in the mountains, and there were now an estimated 150,000 yatra pilgrims ascending to Amarnath, seemingly undeterred by the deadly bomb attack in Pahalgam three days before. In response to that incident, the vigilantes of the Hindu RSS were still charging around the trekking town, showing Kashmiri civilians their cudgels. And that, Saklani thought, was before he even got to grips with what he wearily described to close friends as ‘the everyday hatch, match and dispatch’ of life in this wartorn valley, in which he seemed cursed to have served most of his professional life.