‘He’s bound to come after them,’ I breathed, ‘and if he does, we’ll do him.’
We didn’t want to fire a shot, for obvious reasons, but both of us had knives. Mine was a folding knife — a good one, but with a small blade. Stan had a k-bar bayonet on his webbing with a six- or seven-inch blade.
But Stan, being a gentleman and a good soldier, wasn’t happy. ‘Shouldn’t we take the chance of seeing if he’s got a vehicle? We could nick it and drive off.’
‘No, we’ll do him.’
The young man stood up.
He looked quite a big guy — about the size of Stan, and hefty with it. Immediately I changed my plan. ‘Stan,’ I whispered, ‘give us that knife. You grab him and I’ll do him.’
‘No,’ Stan muttered. ‘You’re not having it.’
‘Then you’d better do him…’
Suddenly it was too late. With the guy nearly on top of us, Stan jumped up and grabbed him.
‘Sit down, mate!’ he said loudly. ‘How’re you doing? Good? Right! Sit down!’
The guy jumped, and let out a stream of Arabic, but Stan forced him down on the bank-side. I sat down too, staring at him. He was in his twenties and dressed like the village idiot in a big old overcoat of what looked like dark grey tweed. His hair was messy and he had several ragged jumpers on under the overcoat and slip-on leather shoes. He kept looking at me, but I didn’t say anything.
Stan did all the talking. ‘Car?’ he asked. ‘Tractor?’ He made driving motions with his hands. ‘House?’
He drew in the air, but our visitor didn’t understand a word of English. All he said was ‘Aiwa’, which means ‘Yes’.
‘Where’s there a vehicle?’
‘Aiwa.’
‘How far to walk?’
‘Aiwa.’
‘Listen,’ Stan said after a bit. ‘I’ll go with him and see if we can get a tractor.’
It seemed incredible to me that Stan should want to go off with a total stranger. I reminded him that we were aliens in a foreign country, where we had no business to be. I knew we’d get no friendly help from the Iraqis. ‘Suppose this was World War Two,’ I said, ‘and we were a couple of German paratroopers, lost in the Welsh mountains. We meet this farm lad and try to chat him up. Of course he’d say he’s going to help us. But what does he want really? To get us in the nick. Nothing else.’
Even that didn’t change Stan’s mind. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the risk and go with him.’
‘No, Stan. You’re staying here.’
‘Chris, I want to go.’
I thought he was crazy. But I couldn’t force him to stay. ‘OK,’ I told him. ‘I can’t order you, because we’re on our own. But listen, mate: I don’t want you to go. It’ll mean us splitting up. You’ll be on your own. You’re making a big mistake here.’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave my weapon and webbing with you. Then I won’t look so aggressive. I’ll just walk next to him.’
I could see he was determined. ‘All right,’ I told him, ‘I’ll wait here for you till six-thirty, last light. If you’re not back by then, I’m off on this bearing.’ And I gave him the northerly course we’d already decided on.
‘Fair enough,’ he said.
‘Go on, then. When you’re out of sight, I’ll take your weapon and webbing fifty metres up that dry stream bed, and hide them there.’
So Stan stood up with the Arab and said, ‘Come on, cobber. Let’s go.’ The two of them started walking off, with the Arab whistling for his goats to follow. I crawled down to the bottom of the wadi where I sat and watched them. When they’d gone a couple of hundred metres, I suddenly thought, No! This is wrong! and I yelled out, ‘Stan! Stan, come back here!’
Back he came, almost running.
‘Think about what you’re doing,’ I told him. ‘Leave your webbing if you like, but at least take your weapon.’
‘I don’t want to look too aggressive.’
‘Sling it over your shoulder then, and carry it down the side of your body — but have it with you. And if you change your mind, put one into him and we’ll sit the day out together.’
But Stan was overboard about his new friend. ‘No, no, Chris,’ he said. ‘He’s all right. He’s offered me food.’
‘What food?’
‘It’s only a few berries, but I trust the guy. He seems friendly. If we get to a vehicle, I’ll give him a sovereign.’
Away Stan went with the Iraqi, meandering down the dry stream bed. For nearly a kilometre he remained in sight. He’d wrapped his shamag round his head, and from a distance he looked quite like another Arab. I could see the two of them trying to chat together, matey as anything. In the end they went round a bend to the left and disappeared.
Now I’m on my own, I thought.
Time crawled by. After a couple of hours I took Stan’s webbing and tucked it into the side of the stream bed, where I’d told him it would be. On top of it I left four of the extra 203 rounds which I’d taken from Vince. Then I had nothing to do but wait for dark.
As the hours dragged past, I grew more and more jumpy. Several times I imagined I heard something. Whenever that happened, I’d look out, hoping to see Stan returning.
Dusk came on. By 1730 I was very anxious. I’d have to make a decision soon. I was hungry, thirsty, cold and on my own. Six o’clock came. I took one last look back down the wadi. Night had come down, and there was still no sign. I kept hoping I’d see the lights of a vehicle heading out — but there was nothing.
It was a tough decision. My last friend had disappeared. He could still be on his way back. But when 1830 came, I thought, This is it. You can’t sit around here any longer.
So I checked my compass and started walking north.
Alone.
Saturday 26 January: Escape — Night Three
For fifteen minutes I tabbed it steadily over level, open ground, with darkness settling in on the desert all round me. Then I happened to look over my shoulder, and I saw a set of headlights coming up the wadi I’d just left. Stan’s got a vehicle after all, I thought. Brilliant!
I started running back as fast as I could. I must have been halfway back to my start-point when suddenly I saw that it wasn’t one set of lights coming towards me, but two. Immediately I thought, He can’t have two vehicles. He must have been captured, and this is the enemy. If he’d been on his own, he’d never have brought two vehicles. So I turned and ran north again.
Already I was out of breath. Behind me, the vehicles had driven up the side of the wadi and were heading straight across the open desert towards me. The clouds parted and the moon shone through, lighting the place up like day. It may have been my imagination, but my smock seemed to have become luminous, shining like an electric beacon. The old adrenalin had started up, and my heart was going like a sledgehammer. Then I saw a little bush with a shadow behind it, and threw myself down into that tiny patch of black.
As I lay there panting, I frantically sorted out my kit. I checked the magazine on the 203, and piled spare mags in a heap beside me. I opened out the 66 so that it was ready to fire. I even bent together the ends of the safety pins on my white phos grenades, so that I could whip them out quickly if need be.
For a moment I got a breather. The lights swung round, whipping wildly up and down as the vehicles went over bumps and headed back into the wadi. I heard the banging of doors. Obviously some guys had got out to have a look round the place where the goatherd had found us in the morning. I squinted through the night-sight, trying to make out what they were doing, but the glare from the lights shone everything else out. Then the vehicles moved off again and started driving about the floor of the wadi.