by Chris Ryan
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.
Wednesday 30 January: Escape – Day Seven
Moving silently, I worked my way up to a road. Under it I found a culvert, and I thought I’d crawl into it for a look at my map. But as I came to the end of the tunnel, I heard a kind of growling. Thinking there must be some animal under the road, I tiptoed forward and peered into the pitch darkness. I couldn’t see a thing. Suddenly I worked out what the noise was: it was some local, snoring. I felt slightly annoyed that an Arab had already nicked the hiding place I wanted. He was probably a soldier, and supposed to be on lookout duty. Lucky for me, then, that he’d decided to have a kip. Creeping back out, I climbed up on the side of the road and crossed over.
As I did that, I heard a shout from down by the houses where I’d heard people talking. I didn’t think the yell had anything to do with me, but I ran across the road, made about fifty metres into the rocks and dropped down.
A man came running up the road, which was raised about two metres above the ground. He stopped right opposite me and stood staring in my direction. Evidently he couldn’t see anything, and he ran back. A moment later, a blacked-out Land Cruiser roared past, its engine screaming in second gear, straight up the road to the junction with the main supply route, and disappeared.
For nearly half an hour I lay still, letting things settle. I felt drained of strength, but I couldn’t stay where I was, so I began to work my way round the rocks. On my left was a run of chain-link fencing, quite high. So that side of the complex was protected, anyway.
Coming to a corner of the barrier, I went up onto the main supply route and crossed over. As I did so, I looked to my left and saw three guys manning a vehicle control point. Dodging back up a wadi, I peeped over the side and saw a line of anti-aircraft positions facing towards the Syrian border.
I pulled back again, stuck. The ground there was almost flat. I couldn’t go forward, and I couldn’t go back. Dawn was approaching. My only possible hiding place was another of the culverts under the road. I found three tunnels, each about the diameter of a forty-five gallon drum and maybe ten metres long. The first looked clean, and I thought that in daylight anybody looking in one end would see straight through it. The second seemed to be full of dead bushes and rubbish, so I crawled in and lay down.
In the
confined space, I realized how badly I was stinking. But my surroundings were no better: there was a powerful stench of decomposing rubbish and excrement.
I was desperate for a drink. But when I went to compress the plastic clip that held the buckle on my webbing pouch, I found that my fingers were so sore and clumsy that I could scarcely manage the simple task. Gasping with pain, I used all my strength to force the clips together.
Then came a horrendous disappointment.
Bringing out one bottle at last, I opened it and raised it to my lips – but the first mouthful made me gasp and choke.
Poison!
The water tasted like acid. I spat it straight out, but the inside of my mouth had gone dry, and I was left with a burning sensation all over my tongue and gums. I whipped out my compass-mirror, pointed the torch-beam into my mouth and looked round it. Everything seemed all right, so I took another sip, but it was just the same. I remembered that when Stan had collapsed during the first night on the run I’d put rehydration powder into my bottles, to bring him round, and I wondered if the remains of it had somehow gone off.
I tried the second bottle. It was exactly the same. I couldn’t make out what had gone wrong. Whatever the problem, the water was undrinkable, and I emptied the bottles out.
Now I’m done for, I thought.
I was in a really bad state.
It was eight days since I’d had a hot meal, two days and a night since I’d had a drink.
My tongue was completely dry; it felt like a piece of old leather stuck in the back of my throat.
My teeth had all come loose; if I closed my mouth and sucked hard, I could taste blood coming from my shrunken gums.
I knew my feet were in bits, but I didn’t dare take my boots off, because I feared I’d never get them on again.
As for my hands – I could see and smell them all too well. The thin leather of my gloves had cracked and split, from being repeatedly soaked and dried out again, so that my fingers hadn’t had much protection. I’d lost most of the feeling in the tips, and I seemed to have got dirt pushed deep under my nails, so infection had set in. Whenever I squeezed a nail, pus came out, and this stench was repulsive.
I wondered what internal damage I might be suffering, and could only hope that no permanent harm would be done. With the complete lack of food, I’d had no bowel movement since going on the run, and I couldn’t remember when I’d last wanted to pee.
I yearned for food, of course, but more for drink – and when I did think about food, it was sweet, slushy things that I craved. If ever I found myself back among ration packs, I would rip into the pears in syrup, ice cream and chocolate sauce.
I felt very frightened. First and most obvious was the danger of being captured – the fear of torture, and of giving away secrets that might betray other guys from the Regiment. Almost worse, though, was the fact that I could see and feel my body going down so fast. If I didn’t reach the border soon, I would be too weak to carry on.
Twisting round in the cramped space of the drain, I got out my map and tried for the hundredth time to work out where I was. It was now the morning of Wednesday 30 January. What options were left to me? Already light was coming up, and whatever happened, I was stuck in the culvert for that day. When dark fell again, I could try to sneak back down to the river, cross over and go along the other side – but it seemed a far-fetched hope. In any case, I was terrified of going anywhere near the river. Every time I’d tried it, something had gone wrong. One more attempt, and I might easily be captured. How long could I hold out? I just couldn’t tell what my body was still capable of.
First, I somehow had to get through eleven hours of daylight – eleven hours, when every waking minute was agony. At least I was out of the wind, and less cold, so that I could drop off to sleep.
I started dreaming, usually about the squadron. I was with the rest of the guys. They were all around me, talking and laughing, getting ready to go. We didn’t seem to be in any particular place, but their presence was completely real. Then suddenly, maybe ten minutes later, I’d wake up, shuddering violently, hoping against hope that my mates were still there, and fully expecting that they would be. Then I’d open my eyes and realize that I was alone in the culvert with no one to talk to. It was a horrible letdown.
I wasn’t worried by the occasional rumble of a car going past above me, but soon I began to hear other movement: scurrying, scuffling noises, as if troops were running around. I thought, Here we go. The next thing is going to be somebody at either end of this culvert, and I’ll be caught like a rat in a drainpipe.
From the scrabbling, it sounded as though soldiers’ boots were moving everywhere. I reckoned that the bodies of the men I’d killed had been discovered, the alarm had gone up, and a search party was closing in on me.
Most of the noise was coming from the end towards which my feet were pointing. I tried to turn my 203 in that direction, but the drain was too narrow and I couldn’t bring the weapon to bear. Now was the moment I needed a pistol, or better still a silenced one.
The scrabbling noise came closer.
I tensed myself, certain that a man would stick his head into the end of the pipe at any second. If he did, my only option would be to try to scuttle out the other end . . .
But what did the intruder turn out to be? A goat! A herd was being driven up the side of the road. I watched their legs move steadily past. The scrabble of their feet on rocks, echoing through the tunnel, sounded like a whole company of soldiers on the move. Again I was terrified that they might have a dog with them; if they did, it would surely get my scent.
Tortured by thirst and by noises close at hand, I somehow stuck out the day. That was the lowest point of my whole escape. I’d lost so much weight that lying down became ever more agonizing. However I lay, my bones seemed to be sticking out, with no padding to cover them, and every five or six minutes I’d be in such discomfort that I’d have to turn over. Spine, hips, ribs, knees, elbows, shoulders – everything hurt, and I was developing sores all over. I kept telling myself, You’ve got to clear that border tonight, whatever happens. But first I somehow had to escape from the trap in which I’d landed myself – and if the night turned out clear again, I didn’t see how I was going to avoid the vehicle control point.
Eventually darkness fell. When I poked my head out of the end of the culvert, my morale took a lift again. Until then the nights had been clear, but this one was black as pitch, with the sky full of storm clouds that looked so threatening I even thought it might rain. The very idea of moisture was exciting. If rain did come, and I turned up my face, at least my parched mouth would get some refreshment. Maybe I could even collect water by spreading out my map case.
Wednesday 30 January: Escape – Night Seven
I crept outside. The night was so dark that when I looked in the direction of the vehicle control point, I couldn’t make it out. Moving closer, I found that the guards were still standing there, so I eased away until I could no longer see them, and when I was halfway between them and the anti-aircraft positions, I started walking at full speed.
Thank God for the darkness. Behind me nobody moved, and I got clean away. I’d been going for nearly two hours, parallel with a road, when all of a sudden a blinding flash split the darkness. Convinced I’d walked into ambush lights, I flung myself down. But then from behind me came a heavy explosion, and I realized that an air raid was hitting the installation I’d just left. The same thing happened twice more: a flash, and a few seconds later a really big, deep boom. I kept thinking, If this hadn’t been a dark night, that’s where I’d still be. What effect the bombs were having I couldn’t tell, but the explosions sounded colossal, and I thanked my lucky stars that I’d been able to move on.
Occasionally, far away to my left, I saw anti-aircraft fire going up into the sky, and I guessed it must be coming from the airfields we’d been told about at the beginning of our mission: H1 and H2. They were too far away for me to hear any noise, but I saw arches o
f tracer fire. At least it meant that the bases were under Coalition attack. I knew that ‘A’ and ‘D’ Squadrons were operating in that area, and I hoped it was they who were hammering the Iraqis.
I knew from the map that the Iraqi town of Krabilah should be coming up on my right. Krabilah lay on the border, and there was a Syrian town beyond the frontier. The thought of it kept me going, but only just. By now my feet were so bad that whenever I sat down for a rest they went from numb to excruciating. Upright, I couldn’t feel them much; sitting, I thought they were going to burst. Several times I sat there thinking, I can’t take much more of this. Then the pain would ease off, and I had a few minutes of bliss, with nothing hurting.
The worst bit came whenever I stood up again, and the pain just exploded. Starting off, I couldn’t help gasping with the sheer agony. I had to shuffle my boots along the ground, and I kept thinking, If anyone sees me doddering along like this, I’ll look a right idiot. It wasn’t till I’d taken about ten paces that my feet seemed to go numb again, and I could walk out. Occasionally I’d hit a sharp stone or rock – and boy, was that sore.
Never in my life had I been so exhausted. Often on selection and afterwards, I thought I had pushed myself to my limit – but this was something else. All I wanted to do was stop and rest, but I knew that if I did I would never reach the border before my body gave out.
Towards the end I was stopping and resting on my feet. Because they were so agonizing if I sat down, I took to reading my map standing up – which was not a good idea, as my torch was up in the air instead of close to the ground. I’d walk until I was really knackered, then prop myself against something so that I kept the pressure on my feet.