Bravo two zero (41 page)

    They picked me up and dragged me back to the cell. When we got to the open door, they launched me against a wall. I crumpled to the floor.

    "Stupid, stupid, you're stupid," the guards shouted.

    They left me alone all night. I started to go through the options in my mind. As far as I was concerned, we would all be dead in another two days. Stan probably even before that, going by how he looked. So what it boiled down to was: I was the commander and it was up to me. It was decision time.

    It was a fact that there were three of us in prison. I had to take it as also true that there were two others in hospital. Dinger had seen Legs being taken away on a stretcher, and there was the possibility that somebody else was also there. At the back of my mind, the correct thing to do was to let the interrogators have something that was going to keep them happy, and in turn keep all of us alive.

    I came to the conclusion that we'd held out long enough. This was eight days since capture, plenty of time for the damage assessment to have been made back at the FOB. It was time now to think of ourselves. OF SEC was no longer our problem. We'd held out long enough. We'd done our bit.

    It was a tough decision. Pride shouldn't have come into it, but it did.

    So, what could I actually give them? I'd keep the Regiment out of it, because that would make the situation even worse. There was no doubt they knew that the boys were screaming around like lunatics. They'd know this from the acts on the ground as well as from the media. They watched CNN like everybody else.

    No one had said a word to me about the Regiment since the time I was captured, and there had been no indication that they suspected Special Forces. I wanted to keep it that way. But what was I going to give them? As far as they were concerned, we were part of the eight-man team that they compromised on the MSR. I had to come up with something congruent with that story. What were we doing there?

    I could hear the screams every hour or so as Dinger and Stan got filled, but I was left on my own. Twice guards came in and taunted me, but they didn't beat me.

    On the second occasion, in the early hours of the morning, I told them that I wanted to see an officer. They didn't understand.

    "Officer," I repeated. "I need to see an officer."

    They seemed to think that I was saying that I was an officer and was disgusted with my treatment. They laughed and came into the cell and gave me a kicking. I heard them coming to attention and making a mock rifle salute, and I realized there was no way I was going to get through to these people. I'd just have to leave it and wait.

    During the day, one of the guards came in and spoke to me in reasonable English. "Andy, you're very stupid. Why don't you help?"

    "But I want to help. I want to speak to an officer."

    "We shall see."

    An hour later, another guard came and shouted through the window. "What do you want?"

    "I need to speak to an officer. I might have something that he needs to know."

    "Maybe."

    Two or three hours later, I was taken into the same block as usual, but to a different room. It was very cold. I was pushed down onto a chair.

    I heard a different voice, one I'd never heard before.

    "Andy, what do you want to tell me? Why have you waited so long? Why have you gone through all this stupid pain for yourself and other people? We cannot understand: why does it have to be like this?"

    "I was told yesterday that there are people in hospital, and I am worried for their safety and ours. I just hope that you will look after these people." "Of course we will. What do you think-that we're just going to kill them? Don't be naive. If you help us, everything will be fine. We told you that in the beginning. So this is the reason you're doing it, because of the other people in your patrol?"

    "Yes. I don't want people to die."

    "Andy, don't worry about them. You must do it for yourself, for your family. Don't worry about the other people in the patrol. You help us and we'll look after you."

    "Well, I'm concerned about the people in hospital. I don't want them to die."

    "Think about yourself, Andy. Do this for yourself. Now tell us, why are you in our country?"

    "I am a member of a COP platoon."

    There was a buzz of chatter in Arabic.

    "What's a COP platoon?" - "A close observation platoon. Every infantry battalion has one. They do the forward recces for the battalion. We were flown in, told to go to the MSR and count the number of military vehicles passing in each direction and to report them."

    I couldn't tell if they were buying it or not. In theory, that was correct tasking for a COP platoon, except that it would never have been behind enemy lines. But it sounded feasible, and there had been Sandhurst and Staff College-trained officers present during the interrogations. Hopefully it would ring a bell with them.

    There was more gob bing off, and the sound of people leaving the room and returning.

    "Why would they want this information?"

    "I don't know: we're only told what we need to know. As I'm sure you know, at the beginning of the orders brief, there is the reminder "Need to know." We're not told these things because we're just the troops on the ground."

    There was the sound of general agreement.

    "How long were you planning to stay in our country?"

    I had to assume that they had got all our kit and had rummaged through it. If nothing had been pilfered, they could assess how long we planned to stay by the quantity of rations.

    "It was going to be for up to fourteen days," I said.

    "How many of you were there?"

    Again this was easy enough to work out by the number of abandoned bergens "There were eight of us."

    "Where did you land, Andy?"

    "If you take off my blindfold and my handcuffs, and give me a map, I'll be able to help you."

    There was a heated discussion between themselves.

    "We'll take off your blindfold and your handcuffs, but you remember, Andy, we consider that you are all very dangerous men, and if you attempt to do anything, we will shoot you. Do you understand this, Andy?"

    "Yes, I understand."

    Even if I'd wanted to do anything, I didn't have the strength left. They took off my blindfold, and in front of me, sitting down, was an officer in olive drab uniform. Another officer, who was sitting in the top left hand corner of this room, was dressed in a camouflaged bomber jacket over a flying suit. Instead of military boots, he wore the Chelsea boots they all seemed to have on.

    The bloke in olive drab was doing the talking. I'd never heard his voice before, but he spoke excellent English. He looked like an Arab version of Richard Pryor, with normal, swept-back Arab hair and a very clean, very smart, very well-pressed uniform. There were three or four other people sitting down, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea out of small glasses. They were all wearing cheap and nasty, badly fitting suits.

    I was facing a window. Beyond it I could see trees and a wall. Sunlight was streaming into the room.

    There was a guard on either side of me. One of them held a pistol to my head in case I started running around doing karate chops or whatever else they considered I would do. On the table was one of our own escape maps.

    "Is it all right if I get up off the chair and come to the table?"

    "Get up."

    The two guards lifted me up and took me over to the table. The gun never left my head.

    I pointed out the general area where we had landed.

    "Yes, Andy, that's correct. We know about that. We know when you landed because you were heard. You landed two nights before, didn't you? You're helping us. This is very good."

    Some of the lies I told them would have to be based on the truth, as all good ones are. This wasn't just training: it was a lesson I had learned in childhood.

    "Show us where you went to hide."

    I indicated the bend on the MSR.

    "Yes, good, we know that. This is good, Andy, you're helping us. How many people again?"

    "Eight of us."

    "Give me some of their names."

    This was no problem. They knew there were eight of us. If they had, in theory, five of us-dead or alive-they'd know our names, because everybody was wearing dog tags. And it appeared that I was helping, which was good-for now. Later on it might get totally out of control, and I'd spend the rest of my days answering questions. But at this stage I had no choice. Was I supposed to call their bluff and see if they would carry out their threat? I had to take it as real.

    I gave the names. They wrote them down.

    "We know this."

    I didn't know if that meant that they had everybody, or if it was all bluff. I played on my concern for the people in hospital and acted scared and humble, but inside my head I was racing to think about what I had said and what I was going to say.

    "Please, look after the people in hospital."

    "Tell us more about the COP platoon. What does it do?"

    "We just report."

    "Does this mean that the British army plans to invade Iraq?"

    "I don't know. We are never told. All we're told is to go out and do the job. We're not told why. We're just squad dies "How many COP platoons are there?"

    "There's one for each battalion."

    "How many battalions here?"

    "I don't know; I've never really bothered to find out. It's of no consequence to me. I'm just a soldier."

    I was so glad that we hadn't had vehicles with us. We were unlucky not to have them when we got compromised, obviously, but we were lucky now because vehicles might have linked us to the Regiment.

    Things were going well at this stage. They seemed happy with what I was telling them. There was a potential problem in that they might come back to the other two and say, "Right, we know what you're doing. You tell us now." However, the chances were slim. The boys had said nothing so far, so why should they suddenly cave in?

    If I didn't tell them something, they were going to let people die. If I did tell them and they found out it was another load of old bollocks, then I might be committing everybody to going through this system again, and they would die. But I couldn't see that there was anything else I could do.

    "Thank you very much for helping us, Andy. Things may get better for you now. If we find out you're lying, they won't. But things might get better. And I'm glad that you have had the sense to help us."

    His words made me feel a complete shit. Had I done the right thing after all, I asked myself? Was this going to go on? Was I going to be used now? Was I going to go on telly and be "the British lad who helped us?" I had visions of Vietnam, of people getting prosecuted and persecuted when they got home. They were marked down as collaborators by people who had no conception of the circumstances in which the so-called "betrayals" took place.

    But here was Richard Pryor telling me we were now best mates, and it was hard to take.

    "You've done well, Andy. This is good."

    I knew I was right to have taken their threat as real. The way they'd been treating us, I wouldn't have put it past them to kill the ones in hospital. They'd had ten years' practice at this sort of thing.

    "Do you want a cigarette?"

    "No, I don't smoke. But my friend Dinger does."

    "Maybe we might be able to give him a cigarette one day."

    "Now that I've told you, is it possible that we can have some clothes and maybe some warmth? We are very cold."

    "Yes, this will be no problem, because now we are friends. You can go back to your cell now, Andy, and maybe things will change. Meanwhile, we'll check on this."

    They put the blindfold and handcuffs back on, and took me back to the cell.

    Half an hour later, they came back and threw me my clothes and removed the blindfold and handcuffs. But they hadn't finished with their little games quite yet. As I tried to get dressed, they kept pushing me over.

    I woke up still wondering whether I had done the right thing. I was lying in the same old corner. You seem to go to the same place all the time, maybe because it makes you feel more secure or more covered up.

    The guards came in, accompanied by a sergeant major. He spoke very good English.

    "Ah, Andy, Andy. Our friend Andy," he said, his mouth full of pistachio nuts. "My name is Mr. Jihad."

    He spat shells on the floor.

    "Good morning, Mr. Jihad." I knew that couldn't be his name, but I went along with it.

    "It's good to see that you've got your clothes back now, and you are feeling better. You are feeling better?"

    "Yes."

    "Unfortunately we can't give you any medical attention because we don't have it ourselves. The children are dying in your bombing; we have to give it to them first. Do you understand?"