Fuckers. The break-out is over as quickly as it started. Two soldiers step forward and unload their automatic weapons into the trees. The people running are brought down without warning - shot in the back and killed. Many more people who were still standing in line in the queue up ahead have been caught in the cross-fire and are dead too. I know that the same thing will happen to me if I try anything.
The soldiers regroup and retake their positions. One of them makes a call on their radio and then, after a short delay, a van appears from alongside the building up ahead and drives out towards the road. It stops on the other side of the track at the point where the shooting took place. People standing in the queue are forced at gunpoint to gather the bodies of the dead and load them into the van. Helplessly I watch as two sobbing women are made to drag the corpses out of the forest and carry them across the road. An older man and a teenage girl are sent down to collect the body of the man from my truck who was shot in the head earlier.
40
The torrential rain has continued and shows no signs of stopping. The grey clouds overhead are darker than ever and the light is fading quickly. Don't think I can stay standing like this for much longer. I can't feel my feet or my hands anymore. The skin on my face is raw and I'm numb with cold. I haven't had anything to drink all day but my bladder feels full and the pain is excruciating.
I'm scared. Every time one of the soldiers near to me moves I catch my breath, not because I'm afraid of them, but because inside I'm screaming with frustration, desperate to fight and to kill the evil scum which is holding us captive here. But I know that I can't. There are too many of them and they are too heavily armed. If I dared show my intentions they would destroy me in seconds. I can't let that happen but it's getting harder and harder to keep these emotions under control. I know that elsewhere along the line other people have been unable to hold back and have paid for it with their lives. Just a few minutes ago I heard a single scream of rage followed by a hail of bullets in the gloom behind me. The silence around us now is somehow even more frightening than the sounds of fighting and death which preceded it.
As the day has dragged on it has become impossible to see either end of the line. In the low light I can only see as far as about thirty people ahead of me and a similar number behind. I'm sure that the queue has grown hundreds of people longer. Twice in the last hour or so convoys of empty trucks have driven past us. Logic says they've brought more people here and they're now back out on the streets again looking for others.
The girl in front of me is swaying on her feet again. I can't let her fall. I shuffle forward slightly and put my hand out to steady her.
'Come on,' I hiss under my breath, 'not now. Try to hold on…' I don't even know if she can hear me over the driving rain.
Something's happening up ahead. I can't see anything but I can definitely hear something. I peer into the gloom, desperate to try and see what's going on. Are people finally starting to move? For a few seconds longer I'm unsure but then an unexpected ripple of movement works its way along the line to a point where I can finally see what's happening. We're starting to shuffle forward. A sudden wave of awkward, stumbling movement reaches me and for the first time in hours I start to walk. My legs are agonisingly stiff and every step takes a massive amount of effort and coordination. For a moment I stupidly feel relieved when the pain in my aching legs begins to fade slightly, but then I start to think about what we might be walking towards and the panic returns. I know that making a run for it is out of the question for now. Just putting one foot in front of the other is difficult enough. I don't have the strength or the energy to be able to move any faster.
The soldiers continue to march alongside us, keeping their distance most of the time but occasionally hitting and shoving those of us who move too slowly or who stumble out of line. Just ahead another one of the men who travelled in the same truck as me drops to the ground. He's old and tired and he lies on the gravel track sobbing. I keep walking - I have no choice - and I listen as one of the soldiers yells at him to get back to his feet and keep moving. I wish I could do something to help. I daren't look round. I hear a single gunshot close behind me and I know that his suffering is over. My fury now feels harder than ever to contain. Despite my exhaustion the urge to turn on these soldiers and fight them - to kill them - is growing stronger by the minute and is almost impossible to suppress. It's only the obvious fact that any reaction would inevitably be the last thing I do that keeps me in line.
We've stopped again.
Almost as quickly as the movement began it now ends. I have no idea how far we've moved. I don't know how much closer to it I now am but I assume the people at the front of the queue have finally been led down the track towards the entrance to the building.
41
Christ it's cold.
The cloud cover has lifted slightly and, for a while at least, the rain has finally eased. The building up ahead has been illuminated by a series of bright floodlights which shine up from the ground and make it look like some bloody gothic cathedral or fortress. Although I can see it more clearly now I still have no idea what the purpose of it is. Is it some kind of quarantine centre? None of this makes any sense. If they've brought us out here to kill us then why not just do it? Why waste all this time and manpower keeping us in line and collecting up bodies? For some of the poor bastards here in the line with me a bullet in the head would be a relief. But maybe that's what this is all about? Maybe they just want us to suffer?
After hours of inactivity we've now made three sudden stop-start shifts forward. This time I counted the number of steps I took. I think we moved about a hundred paces forward. Logic says a similar number of people have just disappeared into the building up ahead of us.
Another convoy of recently-emptied trucks thunders past. Another few hundred people added to the end of the queue.
The noise of the trucks quickly fades into the distance but I can hear something else now. I can hear a plane, and the sound of its powerful engines many miles above us makes me realise just how quiet the rest of the world has become. The plane is moving with incredible speed. It must be a jet or something similar. I'm wary about making any sudden movements and looking to the sky but I can't help myself. Keeping my head as still as possible and just moving my eyes I search the heavens. And then I see it. A dark metal blur which races at a phenomenal velocity across the horizon from right to left. Even some of the soldiers have become distracted now.
Now there's a second noise. A belly-rumbling roar which I can feel through the ground beneath my feet. This noise comes from a different direction. It seems to swirl and drift in the wind before becoming louder and more definite. It's coming from behind us. I look up and watch as a single flash of light sears through the darkness miles above our heads, racing towards the jet in the distance. Was it another jet? A missile?
It can only last for a few seconds but the delay feels like forever. I watch the white light in the sky as it hurtles towards the jet and then crashes into it, taking it out with incredible, pin-point precision. For a second a huge ball of expanding orange flame hangs in the purple sky. It has all but disappeared by the time the thundering rumble of the explosion reaches us.