seemed to be wrong. Surely that couldn’t be Krabilah, such a long distance off? My heart sank: was the border still so far away? Or was the glow I could see that of Abu Kamal, the first town inside Syria? If so, where was Krabilah? According to the map, Krabilah had a communications tower, but Abu Kamal didn’t. The far-off town did have a bright red light flashing, as if from a tower — and that made me all the more certain that the place in the distance was Krabilah.
My morale plummeted once more. Like my body, my mind was losing its grip. What I could make out was some kind of straight black line, running all the way across my front. Off to my left I could see a mound with a big command post on it, sprouting masts. Closer to me were a few buildings, blacked out, but not looking like a town.
I sat down some 500 metres short of the black line and studied the set-up through the night-sight. Things didn’t add up. With Krabilah so far ahead, this could hardly be the border. Yet it looked like one. I wondered whether it was some barrier which the Iraqis had built because of the war, to keep people back from the border itself.
Whatever this line ahead of me might be, all I wanted to do was get across it. I forced myself to hold back, though, to sit down and observe it.
There I sat, shivering, watching, waiting. A vehicle came out of the command post and drove down along the line. Directly opposite my vantage-point two men emerged from an observation post, walked up to the car, spoke to the driver, jumped in, and drove off to the right. It looked as if the Iraqis were putting out roving observers to keep an eye on the border. I couldn’t tell whether this was routine, or whether they suspected that enemy soldiers were in the area. After a few minutes I decided that the coast was clear, and I had to move.
At long last I came down to the black line. Creeping cautiously towards it, I found it was a barrier of barbed wire: three coils in the bottom row, two on top of them, and one on top of that. I had no pliers to cut with, so I tried to squeeze my way through the coils. It was impossible. Barbs hooked into my clothes and skin and held me fast. I unhooked myself with difficulty, and decided that the only way to go was over the top.
Luckily the builders had made the mistake, every twenty-five metres, of putting in three posts close to each other and linking them together with barbed wire. Obviously the idea was to brace the barrier, but the posts created a kind of bridge across the middle of the coils. I took off my webbing and threw it over, then went up and over myself. I cut myself in a few places, but it was nothing serious.
I couldn’t believe I was clear of Iraq. The barrier seemed so insignificant that I thought it must only be marking some false or inner border, and that I would come to the true frontier some distance further on. The real thing, I thought, would be a big anti-tank berm, constructed so that vehicles could not drive across. Maybe this was why I had no feeling of elation. I felt nothing except utter exhaustion.
With my webbing back in place, I set off yet again on the same bearing. Never in my life, before or since, have I pushed myself so hard. I think I was brain-dead that night, walking in neutral, moving automatically, stumbling grimly onwards.
In the end I could go no further. I simply had to sit down and rest. I took my weapon off my shoulder, and just as I was lifting the night-sight from where it hung round my neck, I seemed to click my head, and felt what I can only describe as a huge electric shock. I heard a noise like a ferocious short-circuit —
The next thing I knew I was sitting in the same place, but I couldn’t tell if I had been asleep, or unconscious, or what. Time had passed, but I didn’t know what had happened to me.
I got my kit back on and stood up. This time my feet were real torture, and I was barely able to totter forwards until they went numb again.
It was still dark. The night seemed very long.
Nothing for it but to keep going.
Was I in Syria or Iraq?
Couldn’t tell…
Better steer clear of the odd house then, because each one had a dog.
What would I do when it got light?
Didn’t know…
Couldn’t think…
Should be in Syria…
I woke up a bit when I found I was crossing vehicle tracks. Then after a while I thought I heard something behind me. As I turned to look, the same thing happened: a big crack of static in the head and a blinding flash. This time I woke up on the ground, face-down.
On my feet again, I checked my weapon to make sure I hadn’t pushed the muzzle into the ground as I fell, and went forward once more. Now I was walking towards a red light, which never seemed to get any brighter.
Things were becoming blurred now.
I was in and out of wadis, staggering on.
Then I was on a flat area with more tracks.
Then I came to the wall of one wadi and had another attack: a big crack in my head, the same
The next thing I knew, I came round to find my nose blocked and aching. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been unconscious, but dawn had broken, so I presumed that an hour had gone by, at least. In my compass-mirror I saw that blood had run down my cheeks and neck, matting in the stubble. Somehow I’d fallen flat on my face.
I propped myself against the rock wall. If ever I had come close to dying, it was then. I seemed to have nothing left. My strength had gone, and with it the will to move. I lay back with my head resting against the rock, feeling almost drunk.
Now that daylight had come, I knew I ought to lie up. But no — I couldn’t last another day without water. For minutes I sat there in a heap. Then I got out my precious flask and drank the last little sip of whisky. It tasted horrible, like fire. I was so dehydrated that it burned all the way down into my stomach, and left me gasping and desperate. I wished I’d never drunk it.
Then suddenly, to my indescribable relief, out of the wadi wall came Paul, a member of the Bravo One Zero unit. He was dressed in green DPM, not desert gear, and he stopped about seven metres away from me.
‘Come on, Chris,’ he said, ‘hurry up. The squadron’s waiting for you.’
It seemed perfectly normal that the squadron should be there. Painfully I levered myself to my feet with the 203 and shuffled down the wadi, expecting to see the rest of the guys lined up, sorting themselves out, ready for the off.
Of course, when I came round the corner, there was nobody in sight.
To this day I swear I saw Paul walk out in front of me. I even heard the sound of his boots as he came towards me over the gravel in the wadi bed, and for a few moments I thought my nightmare was over. I thought help and salvation had come.
Far from it. It was just a hallucination. My mind was playing tricks on me. I was still on my own. It was another crippling blow to my morale. I sat down, trying to get myself together.
It was early morning on Thursday 31 January.
I’d been on the run for seven days and nights.
It was ten days since my last proper meal.
Six days since I’d finished my biscuits.
Three since I’d had any water.
My body wasn’t going to last another day…
In a futile gesture I pulled out my TACBE, switched it on and let it bleep away. Then I looked up and realized that about a kilometre away there was a barn or house — a combination of both, standing out on a rise in the middle of scruffy fields in which rocks poked up out of the bare grey earth.
As I stood watching, a man came out of the house and walked away with a herd of goats. The people living in that barn must have water. I decided that I had to get some, whatever the cost. If I was in Syria, the people might be friendly. If I was still in Iraq, I was going to have to threaten to kill them, get a drink, and carry on.
I’d made up my mind: I was going in there, and I’d kill everybody if need be.
