His emergency beacon looked okay. That was the life-saver. But he couldn’t activate it. Not yet. He needed to find Granger. He might be lying somewhere badly wounded.
Gunnymede faced the hut entrance and took a step forward. The men parted. Physically, he felt better. When he got to the opening he looked outside. Half a dozen children hanging around a narrow path between huts stopped what they were doing to look at him.
Gunnymede made his way between huts until he reached open ground in the centre of the village. Several women were caught off guard and wrapped their scarves around their faces as they grabbed children and hurried away. Gunnymede carried on to the edge of the village. The men followed at a distance. He walked beyond the huts to where he could take a look at the surrounding landscape. Everything was parched, the land nothing more than sandy gravel. Goats roamed nearby, nibbling at sparse, brittle vegetation.
He activated his watch compass. The village might be the one they’d seen the evening before. If so the attack was a couple of clicks south east. He couldn’t see anything in that direction. There was nothing more for it. He had to go back to it.
He felt his spare pistol mags in a clip on his belt. Some comfort at least. He was far from fit but confident he would brighten once he got going. Before he could take more than a couple of steps a sound floated to him on the wind. An engine. The villagers took to their heels and scurried into their huts. Within seconds they’d gone.
A pickup truck broke over a rise five hundred metres away. Three more closely followed. The backs were filled with men. Gunnymede knew it was Daesh. It couldn’t be anyone else in this area. He had serious problems and not many options. Hiding in the village was a waste of time. There was nowhere to go outside of it either. Fighting ensured his death. The only sound option was capture. That also meant death of course, but perhaps not immediately. Where there was time, there was hope. Getting caught by these clowns was a subject that had not escaped discussion back in Dubai. The general consensus was to kill as many as possible but to save the last bullet for oneself. The logic was obvious since, based on history, a western soldier wouldn’t survive if captured by Daesh.
Gunnymede removed his pistol from its holster. It would be quick and easy to put it to his head and pull the trigger. Life would be over in a second. He’d be spared the torture. But Gunnymede wasn’t the type. He was too much of an optimist. As the vehicles closed, in he dropped it to the sand.
The trucks came to a stop either side of him. The fighters climbed out, curious about the man standing alone in the open who was clearly a western soldier.
The Daesh fighters were heavily armed with AKs, RPGs, grenades, knives, axes and machetes. Bearded. Unwashed. Sun-baked. Grim. Intolerant. These people were getting battered from one side of the Iraq Syria plains to the other and didn’t look like any had been on R&R of late. Much as they knew he was the enemy and hated his very being, their self-control kept them from tearing him apart. Discipline was still evident amongst the ranks of this lot at least.
A man stepped from one of the trucks wearing a bloody bandage around his forehead. Gunnymede recognised him immediately. Saleem.
As soon as the Arab saw Gunnymede he smiled, recognising him from the night before. A reversal of fortunes. The irony was not lost on either man.
Saleem looked him up and down. ‘It’s you, innit?’ he asked in a London accent, his voice deeper than one might expect from his frame size. Saleem was a few inches shorter than Gunnymede, thinner, wiry and tough with a menacing coldness that could not be concealed even behind his broad grin. ‘I can’t believe it’s you. How lucky is this? Allah has the best sense of humour, I swear. So you survived. Amazing. Just you, me and Mustafa ’ere.’ Saleem indicated a man Gunnymede recognised as the driver of Saleem’s vehicle the night before.
Mustafa stared at Gunnymede with cold malevolence, a fresh, bloody wound down the side of his face.
‘You Brit or American?’ Saleem asked.
Gunnymede kept silent.
‘You gonna play the strong silent type?’ Saleem asked, smiling confidently as if it was a puerile challenge.
‘Brit,’ Gunnymede said.
‘What unit? You ain’t a regular. Not out here with just your mate.’
Gunnymede decide to keep quiet.
Saleem smirked with obvious contempt for Gunnymede’s silence. ‘These people help you? These villagers?’
‘I got here just before you did,’ Gunnymede said.
‘Is that right? Where’s your gear then? Your pouches with all your little toys an’ stuff? Not like you lot to go walking off without your rifle. I came ’ere looking for you. I thought this lot would ’elp you. They’d do anything for a chance of a food parcel.’
Mustafa whispered into Saleem’s ear. Saleem nodded.
Mustafa barked a command and most of the men set off into the village. Shouting followed. Women screamed. A gun was fired.
‘Don’t worry,’ Saleem said, as if reading Gunnymede’s concerns for the villagers. ‘We need these people for what little farmin’ they do. We’ll punish one or two. The leader will be hung. That’s all.’ He looked for Gunnymede’s eyes. ‘Look at me,’ he said.
Gunnymede obeyed.
‘What you doing here?’
Gunnymede merely blinked.
‘You’ll tell me,’ Saleem said, confidently.
He barked an order and the remaining men grabbed Gunnymede, searched him, putting his gear into their pockets. His hands were tied behind his back and he was shoved towards one of the pickups, his back turned to the vehicle, legs picked up and thrown over the
