It was about 6:00 P.M. when I trudged over to the FDC, plugged my laptop into the diesel generator, and started to write an account of the previous night’s tank ambush. It had taken me a while to realize that it even merited a story, probably because I was so involved in the action—I remembered suffering exactly the same problem on September 11. I’d worked out that by prewriting most of my stories in longhand, I could make the best use of my time in the FDC, using it mainly to just type and edit. So by 8:00 P.M. my first-person tank narrative was done, along with a shorter piece about the house raid near Hilla. Pleased, I walked outside to send it all.
“Hurry up,” said Buck. “We going back into EmCon Bravo any second. It might be a couple of days before we go back to Delta.”
I panicked: This was probably my last chance to get something in the paper by the weekend. After that, the tank story would be out of date. Besides, Barrow had told me that the editor wanted as much Iraq material as possible.
“Hey, Captain,” I said as Buck jogged back toward one of the guns.
“Yeah?”
“Where are we? Can I put a dateline on this story?”
“Just say we’re near al-Diwaniyah,” he said, turning away.
By now I was an expert at getting around the problem of “light discipline” on the battlefield. I simply put the computer inside my sleeping bag and crawled in after it. Using the zipper, I created a hole at one end big enough for my hand and satellite phone to poke through. Then I waved the phone around, my fingers over the glowing LED display, until it locked on to a satellite. After that, I loaded up Copymaster and started the erratic process of sending a story to London. Even though my laptop was fully charged, the battery icon was flashing red. I was amazed, however, that the trendy purple-and-blue computer had survived this far. Even though it was wrapped in plastic sheeting, it now looked like a five-thousand-year-old relic from the royal tombs at Ur. Please work, I thought. Just one more time. “Wecome to Wapping,” said Copymaster. “Waiting to Connect…” My laptop gave a strangled beep and a message popped up on the screen: “Change power source immediately!” it said. “Come on, hurry up for God’s sake,” I muttered under my breath. The laptop squawked again and the screen flickered. Oh no. I held my breath. Then, with a wheeze and a sigh, the little machine died.
I exhaled, thumping my fist on the ground.
Just before the laptop crashed, I could have sworn I saw a message pop up in Copymaster’s low-tech blue dialogue box.
“2,134 words sent,” it had said.
I called Barrow immediately to check that my words had made it to London. The moment he picked up, the howitzers started to fire. I knew it was only a matter of time before another chemical alert and an EmCon Bravo radio blackout, so I tried to get the conversation over with as quickly as possible.
“Bloody hell, Chris,” said Barrow as the back blast from one of the guns almost knocked the phone out of my hands.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Did you get my stories?”
I heard the plastic rattle of Barrow’s keyboard.
“Yeah…” he said. “Good stuff. Thanks.”
“Okay, Martin,” I began. “I have to go n—”
“Hang on, Chris. Ben Preston would like a word.”
Oh no. I’d never worked directly with Ben, but given that he was The Times’s deputy editor, I knew he’d been involved in getting me the job in Los Angeles. He’d probably also had a say in sending me to Iraq.
I stood in the mud, listening to Vivaldi, as Barrow patched me through. Even in my chemical suit, NBC boots, and flak jacket, I felt like a schoolboy. I wondered how much more surreal my life could get.
“Chr-is?” said Ben. I pictured him in Wapping: athletic and boyish with short dark hair and modern rectangular glasses. Ben’s father, Peter Preston, was the legendary former editor of The Guardian. It was always worth thinking carefully about what you said to Ben. I shuffled on the spot.
“Hi, Ben,” I said.
“How are you holding up?” he began.
“Not that great, to be honest,” I blurted. “But, y’know, it’s okay.”
I was trying hard to sound nonchalant and professional, like most of the other war correspondents I’d met in the Middle East.
It wasn’t working.
“I hear you’re having second thoughts about being a war correspondent,” said Ben. I wondered if Barrow had told him about my incompetent performance on the opening night of the invasion.
“You’re giving us some great stuff from Iraq,” Ben continued, “and you’re the only person we’ve got on the front lines. But as much as we need you there, if you want to leave, no one’s going to think less of you. It’s a decision only you can make. You can say I ordered you out if you want.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. At last, I knew The Times understood how dangerous the embedded scheme had become. I felt like a madman who’d realized that it was the world, not him, that was insane.
“Okay…” I said warily.
“Could you get out even if you wanted to?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. “It could be more dangerous than staying.”
“Well, it’s your call,” said Ben. “No one’s going to second-guess you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Can I, er, sleep on it?”
“Of course,” said Ben, sounding surprised.
Across the mud bank, I saw Buck making the throat-slitting action. “Kill the goddamn phone!” he was shouting.
16
A.W.O.L.
Sleep on it. I could hardly believe I’d used the phrase. This was how the evening progressed: At 10:00 P.M. a Marine from a nearby infantry unit had one of his legs blown off after tripping over one of our unexploded shells; at 11:00 P.M. the artillery behind us shot white phosphorus into the air, illuminating thirty Iraqi pickup trucks advancing south; by midnight the irregulars had retreated or been killed, but only after the howitzers had scattered yet more unexploded ordnance around our position; and at 1:00 A.M. came a chemical alert accompanied by a rumor that Saddam had authorized the Republican Guard to use “dirty” mortars anywhere north of Karbala, the most northern of Iraq’s Shiite cities. The rest of the night was enlivened by five-hundred-pound satellite-guided bombs, small-arms fire, the occasional incoming shell, and, at 4:30 A.M., another Scud warning. The violence ended at 5:50 A.M., when the sun rose wearily over Friday, March 28: day nine of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I hadn’t slept at all.