I looked at either side of the stable. Which way should I go?
In the end, the decision was simple. In the corner opposite the door was a metal manger set across the angle. It was about four feet from the floor. I may have had only one foot, but I had two knees, and I was soon using them to kneel on the edge of the manger while reaching up with my fingers for the top of the wall.
All those hours of trying to break the battalion record for pull-ups finally paid off. Fueled by a massive determination to free myself, together with the all-consuming craving for a drink, I pulled myself up onto the top of the wall and swung my legs through the gap in the truss and into the next stall.
Dropping down was less easy, and I ended up sprawled on my back. But I didn't care; I was laughing again. I turned over and crawled on my hands and knees to the door.
It was locked.
My cries of joy turned to tears of frustration.
OK, I thought, getting a grip on things, how about the window?
More bars. Squeezing myself up against them, I could see that there were bars on all the stable windows.
OK, I just have to keep going. One of these damn stables must have a door that's open.
Having done it once, it was easier the second time. I even managed not to end up horizontal on the floor. But the next door was also locked.
What if they were all locked? Was I wasting my energy and, worse still, breathing out precious water vapor in a fruitless attempt?
I clambered onto the manger in the corner and went over the next wall. The door to that stall was also locked. I sat in the corner and wept. I realized that I must be dehydrated, as I wept without tears.
What would happen, I wondered, when the lack of water became critical? I'd been thirsty now for so long that every part of my mouth and throat was sore, but I didn't feel that I was dying yet. How would my body react over the next day or so? What would be the first sign that it was shutting down? Would I even realize?
I thrust such thoughts out of my mind. Come on, I told myself. Maybe the door will be open in the next stall.
It wasn't.
My fingers hurt from pulling myself up, and on that occasion, I had twisted my ankle when I dropped down. Thankfully, it wasn't a bad injury, but it was enough to send me into another bout of despair. Was this how it would happen? Would I become an emotional gibbering wreck? Would I eventually just curl up in a ball in a corner and die?
"No!" I shouted out loud. "I will not die here."
Willpower alone pulled me up over the next wall. Beyond it I found not another stable but an empty and disused tack room at the end of the row. I used the saddle racks to ease my way to the floor and save my ankle from further punishment.
The tack-room door was locked. It would be.
And I could see there was nowhere else to go. The far wall of the tack room went all the way to the roof. It was the end of the building, the end of the line.
The door had a mortise deadlock, I could see through the keyhole. Why, I wondered, had someone bothered to lock an empty room?
I leaned against the locked door in renewed frustration. For the very first time I really began to believe that I would die in this stable block.
My stomach hurt from lack of food, and my throat felt as though it was on fire from lack of water. I had expended so much of my reserves just getting to the tack room that the thought of going all the way back to where I'd started, and then beyond, filled me with horror. And there was no saying that I would be able to. The mangers would now all be on the wrong side of the walls.
I looked through the small window alongside the door. The light was beginning to fade as fresh, delicious, glorious rain fell again into puddles that were tantalizingly out of my reach. It would soon be dark. This would be my third night of captivity. Without water to drink, would I still be alive for a fourth?
Suddenly, as I looked through at the gloom and rain, I realized there were no bars on this window. The bars had been placed over the stable windows to keep the horses' heads in, not to keep burglars out. There were no horses in the tack room, so no bars.
And the single pane of this window was glass, not plastic like the others.
I looked around for something with which I could break it. There was absolutely nothing, so I sat on one of the saddle racks and removed my shoe.
The glass was no match for a thirsty man in a frenzy. I used the shoe to knock all the glass from the frame, careful to leave no jagged shards behind.
The window was small, but it was big enough. I clambered through headfirst, using the end of my stump to stand on the frame while I pulled my complete leg through to stand up on the outside of the building.
What a magnificent feeling. Stage four was complete.
I hopped out from under the overhanging roof to stand in the rain with my head held back and my mouth wide open.
Never had anything tasted so sweet.
12
Escaping from the stable building was only the first of the hurdles.
I didn't know where I was, and I could hardly hop very far, I was hungry with no food and, perhaps most important of all, I had no idea who had tried to kill me.
Would they try again when they discovered that I was still alive?
And would they come back here to check? To dispose of the body?
Why had they not made sure by bashing my head in rather than leaving me alive to die slowly?
I knew from my own experience that killing another person wasn't easy. It was fine if you could do it at a distance. Firing a rocket-propelled grenade into an enemy position was easy. Taking out an enemy commander from half a mile away using a sniper rifle and a telescopic sight was a piece of cake. But sticking a bayonet into the chest of a squirming, screaming human being at arm's length was quite another matter.
Whoever had done this had left me alive in the stable for their own benefit, not for mine. They had intended to kill me but had wanted time and dehydration to do their dirty work for them.
In that respect, I had an advantage over them. If, and when, we met again, they might hesitate before killing me outright, and that hesitation would be enough for me, and an end for them. Another Sandhurst instructor floated into my memory. "Never hesitate," he'd said. "Hesitate, and you're dead."
The falling rain did not give me anywhere near enough water to quench my roaring thirst, so I tried one of the taps that were positioned outside each stable. I turned the handle, but no water came out. Not surprisingly, the water was off.
In the end, I lay down on the concrete and lapped water from a puddle like a dog. It was easier and more fulfilling than using my cupped hands to try to lift it to my mouth.
Hunger and mobility were now my highest priorities.
What I needed was a crutch, something like a broom, to put under my arm. I crawled on hands and knees back along the line of stables until I came to the one I had been held in. I pulled myself upright, slid the bolts on both parts of the door, and opened them wide. I had become used to the fresh outside air, and the rank, disgusting smell in the stable caught me unawares. I retched, but there was nothing in my stomach to throw up. Had I really lived in there for two days? How bad would the smell have been if I'd died there?
There was no broom in the stable, I knew that, but I had decided to take the ring, the chain and the padlock away with me. If I did go to the police, I would have them as evidence. I also collected the bits of the plastic ties. One never knew, perhaps they were distinctive enough to point to whoever had bought them.
I looked around my prison cell one last time before closing the door. I slid home the bolts, as if wanting to lock the place out of my memory.
I hopped along the line and opened the next stable, looking for a broom, but I discovered something a whole lot better.