‘Everything went quiet and a tin boat all covered in reeds came putting towards us with guys screaming something in Arabic. An idiot up the front was waving at us to put our hands up but every time I did I my head went under. That’s when it went to shit again, man. Jim pulled out his nine mike-mike and took a shot at the boat. Damn, they must have shot him 50 times with their damn AKs. I held my arms way up in the air while that shit was going down. They came over to me and dragged me into the boat, shouting something over and over. They took my pistol and pulled Jim’s bleeding body into the boat and took off down this real narrow creek into some real thick reeds.
‘As the reeds were getting thicker and thicker we came to a spot where they just opened up like a gate, and as we drove through they closed behind us.
‘Inside was an unreal set-up, man. They had floating walkways everywhere and dozens of huts made out of reeds on sticks above the water. The whole thing was under a huge roof made from reeds. Man, I can tell you; we have flown missions over those swamps 20 times and we have never seen anything like this.
‘When the boat pulled up to a floating dock a group of men took me into a hut and threw me onto the floor. They rolled me over onto my back and tied my feet and arms with some rope. Some dude wearing black pyjamas walked over to me and just started to kick me and kick me over and over again. Oh yeah, and just to top it off he was wearing US issue combat boots. This SOB must have kicked me 20 times all over my body. When he was finished he said something and these two dudes sat me up against a pole in the middle of the room.
‘Every time the dude in the black said something one of the others translated it and asked me these stupid-ass questions. I just did as I was trained and just gave them my name, rank and serial number. It really got them pissed at me, man. One of them left the hut and came back in with a piece of cane about two foot long, and every time I didn’t answer their question as they wanted he whacked me with this stick. Damn that thing hurt.
‘After a few minutes I heard choppers flying all over the place and every once in a while mini guns being fired off with a few 40 mikemike rockets exploding off in the distance away from us. They must have done this a hundred times because there wasn’t a single shot fired by these swamp rats. The translator knelt down beside me and said that fugitives hiding from Saddam Hussein lived in these swamps for nearly 20 years and could never be found so there was no way my friends would discover us no matter how hard they looked.
‘I knew very different. Saddam didn’t have billion dollar satellites at his command or a squadron of high altitude spy planes fitted with the latest of surveillance and infrared detection systems. I knew that the second the sun went down US Special Ops would be all over this place looking for me and Jim.
‘For the rest of the day they left me lying on the floor in the middle of the hut. There was a never-ending group of people coming in and out to have a gawk at me and every once in a while someone would take a shot and kick me again. Hell, man, even the bitches and kids kicked me.
‘As it started to get dark a group came in and untied me and made me take off my flight suit, dog tags, watch and boots; they even took my issue underwear. They gave me these stinking rags to wear and tied my hands up again behind my back. I was taken back to a small tin boat covered in reeds with four men inside all carrying AKs. As soon as I got in they started up the motor and we left the camp heading up a narrow creek.
‘Even though we were going real slow I was surprised how they knew which way to go. It was getting darker by the minute and yet they kept on making turns up different streams like they had done it a million times before.
‘As I predicted, man, it wasn’t long before I could hear lots of choppers followed by machine gunfire coming from where we just left. I knew that by now SF would be in the camp looking for me and Jim and killing everyone who stood in their way. That place may have been around for 20 years as the man in the shack said but let me tell you, man, it ain’t there anymore.
‘We drove in the boat for another hour or so through the dark and pulled up on a bank. We waited there for a while when a car stopped about 60 metres away from us. The goons took me over to it and talked to someone briefly before gagging me and throwing me in the trunk. The next thing I knew was I was taken to a warehouse someplace and put into a shipping container full of oil drums.’
‘Bloody hell!’ I said, ‘it must be a favourite place for them. They held me there for a few days as well. How long where you there for?’
‘Only one night and then they brought me here. While I was there they seemed real edgy about something and I got the feeling they wanted me to be gone as soon as possible.’
‘Did you notice a heap of blood stains?’ I asked him.
He nodded and I showed him my bandaged arm and told him how they removed my tats and what happened with Hadji Mohammed.
Apparently the photos of my tattoos and the removed skin were all over the internet and international news before Ben was captured. Apparently, even though they killed Hadji Mohammed for disobeying someone further up the food chain than himself, they still used the tats for a little bit of shock and horror tactics in an attempt to enforce their demands.
‘So, man, how the hell do think we can get out of this place? We sure as hell can’t do anything while we’re stuck down inside this damn concrete septic tank. We sure as hell can’t dig our way out and there are far too many of them to try to take ’em out bare-handed, especially since they are the dudes with the guns.’
I asked him how long he thought it was until Ramadan.
‘Shit, man, it’s at least a month away. Or more. Maybe six or eight weeks,’ Ben said.
At last there was something going my way. These idiots must have realised that it would take time for the Australian Government to make any decision in relation to withdrawal and if they did decide to they would take at least three to four weeks to move out. Even though I knew that there wasn’t a hope in hell of them doing anything of the sort the fact that I knew I had time to heal up a little and plan an escape before my due execution date was at least something.
‘So, man, give it to me straight,’ said Ben. ‘You’ve been living this shit longer than me and put up with a hell of a lot more than me. What chance do you think a black man with a Jewish name is going to have surviving all of this?”
I said, ‘Mate, let me tell you, we have a far better chance now that there are two of us. We just have to be patient and wait until the right occasion. We can’t be foolish and try to run at the first chance we get. We need to plan this and make it happen properly. It’s not going to happen unless we can get hold of an AK right from the start and more than likely a car or something to get away in. I have no idea of where we are in relation to Baghdad. Do you?’ I asked Ben.
‘Negative. But I think we must be somewhere down near Diwaniya or even as far as An Najaf because we didn’t drive far enough from the swamp to the container and the container to here for us to be any further north. So what do they do here other than keep us in a hole?’
‘I have no idea, mate; I haven’t been here long enough to work it out but I think the woman is in charge of escorting us to and from the building. She is a mean bitch so watch out for her. I also think she will bring us whatever food they are going to give us. But I doubt whether it would be a good thing to try to take her on as she always has at least two or three armed ragheads with her everywhere she goes. To tell you the truth I’m hoping they move us again. This place would be far too dangerous for us to try anything. Hopefully they will move us to somewhere we can do something, but for the moment I think we should just sit still, do whatever they tell us and see what happens.’
That night we talked about a thousand things from military experience to families. Where we came from and how we were raised. It was a good break and I managed to take my mind off the situation.
Ben removed the bandages from around my arm and cleaned the mutilated muscle. We took a little water out of the bucket and r
insed the bandages off, hanging them over a rung on the ladder to dry as much as possible. It was a good chance for my open wound to dry out a little. I also asked him to do the same for my ankles. When he removed the bandages he just shook his head and commented, ‘Man, you sure are one tough SOB. If all you Aussies are like you this war will be over in no time.’
I just looked at him and said, ‘Mate, if only you knew how much of a real girl I am you would laugh.’
Suddenly we heard someone opening up the truck doors and talking out loud. It was clear they were having an argument over something when they came into the back of the truck as Negara was shouting something over and over at whoever she had with her. As soon as they opened up the trapdoor she started yelling at us to climb the ladder. I grabbed the still damp bandages from the ladder and followed Ben out through the hole in the truck’s floor.
Before we got out into the open one of the goons with Negara shouted something at her and quickly turned his AK on Ben. Negara swung her AK up in an attempt to stop him but it was too late and a single round was fired, shooting Ben sideways into his chest. He never even had time to make a sound before he fell to the floor dead. It all happened so suddenly and shockingly it was as if it were all a bad dream. I couldn’t help but stare at the endless flow of blood oozing from the huge exit hole left in his back.
Negara started to scream something out, abusing this idiot for what he had done, as a large group of people came running from the mud building across the opening towards us, all shouting like a group of uncontrolled rabble. As soon as they got to us Hydar pushed me back down into the hole. As I was going down the ladder I could see the group gathered outside the truck body all shouting and screaming at the brainless bastard who shot Ben.
My mind was going a million miles an hour trying to understand what had just happened. One minute Ben and I were having a calm conversation and within less than a minute he was dead. My whole body began to shake uncontrollably; I had to think hard to make sure everything was real and not a bad dream. Was Ben real? Did all of this really happen? Or was he just someone I dreamt up while I was down in this hole? I moved over and look a very long drink of water and splashed some onto my face, trying to make sense of it all, when the trapdoor opened up again and I was shouted at and gestured to come up the ladder by Negara. As soon as my head cleared the hole I could see Ben’s lifeless body still lying where he was killed.
The old man who made me read my statement gave me another letter to read and sat me down in the pool of blood beside Ben’s head as the same young cameraman again set up the video camera. Two men wearing balaclavas walked into the truck body and stood behind me holding up the same banner that was hung on the wall inside the mud hut, while Negara lifted her AK to her shoulder and took aim at my head. The old man stood outside the view of the camera and ordered the camera to start and for me to start reading.
Again the spelling was difficult to understand and I was finding it hard to compose myself in light of what just happened. I started to breathe erratically and shake, so when I did try to talk I just stuttered. My hands were shaking so badly and I was in such a state of shock I couldn’t register what was on the paper given to me. The old man shouted something at me over and over again and then motioned to Negara to shoot me. As soon as he did she pulled the trigger and a round exploded.
One of the men behind me started screaming and fell onto my back, pushing me over into the huge puddle of blood. As he tried to get up he slipped and fell onto Ben’s body. The other man wearing the balaclava bent down to lift him up and I could see fresh blood flowing from a wound in the man’s groin. He pulled his balaclava off and started shouting at Negara. His hand had hold of his groin while the old man tried his best to pull his pants off to assess the injury. Negara was trying to look over the old man’s shoulder at the gunshot wound while the injured man was more interested in keeping his private parts to himself regardless of the damage done.
As I was slowly lifting myself up from the bloodied floor I noticed a group of men outside all trying to cram into the small truck body and get involved with the commotion. As usual in Iraq everyone had to get involved, just making matters worse and turning the whole ordeal into some sort of macabre circus.
Finally Negara was forced out of the truck and the man’s wound was exposed. Although I wasn’t told exactly what damage was done I got the feeling, by the grimaces on the faces of the other men, that his plans of having a family someday had come to an end. As he was carried out of the truck I was ordered back down the hole and was again locked in.
I sat in shock, completely baffled by what had just taken place. One second I was talking to Ben and the next he was dead. I was then sitting in a pool of blood with a gun aimed at my head, shaking uncontrollably, when someone had his balls blown off by a woman who couldn’t shoot straight all while some young man was recording it all on a home video. Fuck! Why doesn’t stuff like this end up on Aljazeera News?
After what I think must have been a few hours I heard someone open the outer doors of the truck up and remove Ben’s body. They must have tried to clean the blood up a little as some pinkish water trickled through the gaps under the trapdoor. It was then that I realised my clothing was completely caked in Ben’s blood. My wounds were still uncovered and my ribs were aching like hell from where the wounded man fell on me. Again I moved over to the water and took a drink, dressed my old injuries and cleaned myself off. I simply removed my bloodstained clothes and threw them against the concrete wall. I hardly had the water to wash them in and I decided that even if I was ordered to I would refuse to wear them until they were cleaned.
As I sat there it became even more obvious to me that my life meant absolutely nothing to any of them. The old man ordered my execution simply because I couldn’t read a piece of paper regardless of the fact that I was in no fit state of mind to do so. Negara pulled the trigger the very second she was told to and no-one disputed any of it.
18
Hadji Mustafa
Guided Surface-to-Surface Al Hussein Missile
Made in Iraq. A ballistic missile; the result of upgrading the Soviet-made Scud to achieve a longer range. The weapon was widely used by the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq and the Gulf War in 1991. Iraq was the first of the two to use long range artillery rockets during the Iran–Iraq War, firing limited numbers of old USSR Frog 7s. Iran responded with Scud-Bs bought from Libya. The Iranian missiles could hit a target 300 kilometres away, therefore key Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, came within the range of Iran. So Iraqi engineers designed a program to upgrade the original Scuds into a series of ballistic missiles whose range would surpass 800 kilometres. The range was extended by reducing the original 945 kilogram warhead to 500 kilograms and increasing the propellant capacity. The warhead carried high explosive, and had chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities. The Al-Hussein was 12.46 metres long and had a diameter of 0.88. The guidance was internal, without terminal phase. The accuracy for the impact was estimated in a radius of 1000 metres. Its flight time was of about seven minutes for the maximum range.
It must have been the next day when the old man came to my enclosure to get me out. As they unlocked and opened the trapdoor I saw he was with two men, one of whom was dressed in an Iraqi Police uniform. I noticed them staring at the fresh blood stains on the floor as I was ordered out of my hole in the ground. The old man instantly shouted at me and started to rave on and go bright red with anger. The man in the police uniform asked me where my clothes were. I told him they were completely covered in blood and I had no way to wash them. He translated my reply to the old man but the old bastard continued to rant and rave. The policeman gestured for me to come completely out of the hole and stand to the side of the truck. He then shouted across the open field towards the mud building where a man appeared carrying a pair of trousers.
As I stood there wearing nothing but my wound dressings the other man walked around me taking note of my injuries. Suddenly he spoke to me in very
clear English. He softly introduced himself as Hadji Mustafa and explained to me that all of the old man’s family were killed in the swamp by the helicopter gunships in retaliation after Ben’s ordeal, and the young man who shot Ben also lost his whole family. The man who had had his groin shot by mistake was his own brother’s son, who was supposed to be married this coming spring. Obviously that wasn’t going to happen anymore! He asked me if I was mistreated while I been here. I just looked at him with complete disbelief and pointed at the bloodstained floor and said, ‘What the fuck do you think?’
After my pants arrived and I got dressed I was taken over to the mud hut. To my disbelief when I walked into the main entrance I saw Ben’s body dressed back in his uniform. All but his boots were placed back on him — they were being worn by one of the brain-dead goons standing beside him under his light blue man dress.
Hadji Mustafa came to my side and whispered into my ear to be very calm and do as I was told. He said, ‘Do not do anything to provoke these men. They will have no hesitation in killing you. If you do as they say you will leave here with me and go to another place where you will be treated better.’
I had no option but to believe him and do what I was told. I was taken into the same room where I made my first recorded statement. The flags and banners were still hanging on the wall and the same young man had his camera set up.
Again I was told to sit on the floor and given a piece of paper to read. While I was going over it Ben’s body was dragged into the room and stretched out on the floor in front of me. The old man made some sort of loud statement and Hadji Mustafa told me to start reading.
As I did a man held out my contractors ID card in front of the camera for a few seconds.
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