We must have put down enough rounds to get them flapping because they didn’t follow immediately. We ran for 900 feet. The sounds of screaming filled the night.
We stopped near a water tower. It wasn’t that long now before first light. Looking straight ahead, we could see the road that we’d just crossed to our right hand side, the mast on the Iraqi side, and another road that we’d have to cross to go west.
We looked at one another and I said, “Right, let’s do it.”
We scuttled on across the fields and stopped short of what we could see was a large depression. On the other side was a built-up area, unlit. The right-hand corner, the end of it, was more or less at a road junction.
The depression must have been used as a rubbish dump. Small fires smoldered in the darkness. We went down into the dip and stumbled over old tins and tires. The stench of rotting garbage was overpowering. We started to come back up the other side. About halfway up the rise we were opened up on by two AKs, from really close range. We hit the ground and I went right.
I ran for what I thought was enough distance to get me level with the junction, then turned left. I wanted to get over the road and carry on running. I ran around the side of a mound and thought I could get up the other side, but what I’d come into was a large water storage area. There were two big pools, oily and greasy. I was flapping, running around like the cornered rat that I was, trying to find a way out. The sides were sheer. I couldn’t get up. I had to retrace my steps. I wasn’t even looking now, I was just running. If they were behind me, knowing about it wasn’t going to change anything.
I got out of the immediate area and stopped at the road. My chest heaved as I fought for breath. Fuck it, I thought, just go for it.
I got past the buildings. I was elated. I felt I’d cracked it. Just the border now. I didn’t worry about Mark. I’d seen him go down. I didn’t hear anything after that, and he didn’t come with me. He was dead. At least it had been quick.
8
I felt it was all behind me. All I had in front of me was a quick tab to the border. The mud built up around my boots. It was heavy going. My legs were burning. Physically I was wrecked. I stopped to get some scoff down my neck. It felt good. I drank some water and forced myself to calm down and take stock. Navigation was easy enough. The mast was right ahead of me. As I walked I tried to work out what had happened during the contacts. But there had been total confusion, and I couldn’t make sense of it. There was still firing behind me.
It was the early hours of the 27th, and I had about 2-3 miles to go. In normal circumstances I could run that in less than twenty minutes with my equipment on. But there was no point just running blindly towards Syria with only an hour of darkness left. I didn’t know what the border crossing was like physically-if it was a fence or a high berm, if it was heavily defended or not defended at all. And even if I did get into Syria during daylight hours, what sort of reception could I expect?
I was about a half mile south of the Euphrates and a half mile north of a town. The area was irrigated by diesel pumps at intervals along the river. The field crops were about eighteen inches high. I had kept off the tracks and moved through the center of the fields, putting my feet down on the root mounds of the plants. Even so, I knew I couldn’t avoid leaving sign. My hope was that no one would be out in the fields the next day, tending what, apart from the frost, seemed to be a healthy young crop.
I was feeling very positive. I’d survived the contacts, and that was all that seemed to matter. The last contact was like a big barrier that I’d got over and got away from, and now I was a free spirit.
In many ways this was the most dangerous time. Probably since caveman times, people have been cautious when they plan an operation, aggressive when they execute it, and most open to error when it’s finished and they’re on the home straight. That’s when people start to get slack and the major dramas occur. It’s not over yet, I kept saying to myself-it’s so near but also it’s so bloody far.
Adrenaline during the contacts and the constant roller coaster of the night’s events had blocked the pain signals from reaching my brain. A soldier of the Black Watch during the First World War was shot four times and still kept charging forwards. When he finally took the position and had time to assess his injuries, he keeled over. You don’t realize what’s been happening to your body because your mind blanks it out. Now I’d calmed down a bit and the future was looking rosy, I was starting to realize how physically impaired I was. All the aches and pains of the last couple of days suddenly started coming through. I was covered with cuts and bruises. In contacts you’re jumping and leaping around, and your body’s taking knocks all the time. You don’t notice them at the time. There were deep pressure-cuts on my hands, knees, and elbows, and painful bruising on the sides of both my legs. I had scratches and scrapes from thorn bushes and gashes from wire; the sting of them added to the ambient pain level. We’d tabbed close to 125 miles over hard bedrock and shale, and the leather was starting to fall off my boots. My feet were in a bad way. They were soaking wet and felt like blocks of ice. I just about had some sensation left in my toes. My clothing was ripped and torn, and my hands were covered with thick grease and grime, as if I’d been working on an engine for the last couple of days. My body was covered in mud, and as I walked along it was slowly drying out. Trickles of sweat fell down my back, and big clammy patches formed between my legs and under my armpits. My extremities were frozen, but at least my trunk was warm because I was moving.
It was still very cold. The mud had a film of ice over the top. The first foot or so of any large pool of water was frozen solid. It was a beautiful crystal night. The stars were glittering, and had it been anywhere else in the world, you’d have gone out and marveled at it. But the clearness of the sky meant there were no clouds to obscure the full moon in the west, and no wind to disperse the noise.
Scattered here and there were little outhouses, some with a light on, some with a generator going. I could see lights from the town to the south. Dogs barked; I skirted around buildings, hoping that nobody would pay attention to them.
Car lights in the distance made me flap. Were they part of the follow-up? Were they going to start searching the fields now? It wasn’t a very good place for me to be. There was only half an hour of darkness left-not enough for me to get around the town or even go straight through it and get into the curls on the other side.
As the lights gradually faded I made a quick appreciation. Like the old Clash song, should I go or should I stay? Did I hide up or did I go for the border and try to get over before first light? What were the chances of the Iraqis following up during the day? There certainly hadn’t been any follow-up so far. Perhaps they thought I’d already crossed the border and was away.
The houses looked so inviting. Should I get into one of these small buildings where you’ve just got the old boy and his fire and stay there with him for the day? I’d have shelter, and the possibility of food and water-and in theory a better chance of being concealed. But you never use isolated or obvious cover. It’s a natural draw point for any hunter force. In films you see all these characters living in hay barns. It’s pure and utter fantasy. If you’re there they’ll find you. None of this hiding under a straw bale business, just narrowly being missed by a probing bayonet.