CHAPTER 4
Solitary confinement does strange things to your head. I was in the small, bare cell for only three days, and compared to my previous accommodation it was positively luxurious, but after the events of the past week each day seemed like a lifetime. I went through periods of genuine rage: rage against the corrupt Red Beret who had thwarted my plans; rage against the arifs on guard outside who pelted my door with stones to keep themselves occupied; rage against anything and everything. I hurled my shoes at the wall, and if I heard laughter from the base in the evenings as my fellow soldiers started winding down, I literally yelled with frustration. As the evening wore on, a few less charitable soldiers used the door of my cell for target practice with their slingshots and stones.
Other times were spent more introspectively. I examined the graffiti that previous incumbents of the cell had carefully carved into the wall using their belt buckles, and as I did so, my mind became focused, obsessed even, on deciding what the best way was to deal with my situation. I was desperate to call Saad and let him know what had happened; but more important, having got away lightly with one escape attempt, I was emboldened to try another. I had to get away before I was enlisted at Al-Mansour. As I was denied all leave until that point, I would have to be more robust in my plans and make my escape directly from the unit. I also knew I did not have the leisure to consider things at length. The arifs would know what Taha had instructed, and I would be under more careful observation. They would not expect, though, that I would make any attempt to break out the night I came out of solitary, especially considering what I had just been through. I decided to use that to my advantage.
I was let out of the cell at six o’clock, and I made my way straight to the living quarters, where I had my first shower since leaving for Baghdad ten days ago. I wanted to call Saad and tell him in some roundabout way that he would be seeing me in the next few days, but the waiting line for the telephone was too long. I couldn’t exactly start packing a bag in preparation to leave, so I wandered to the outskirts of the unit. The barbed-wire fence stood between me and the desert, and about a hundred meters away, halfway to the road, was a pile of old, burned-out military vehicles that had been dumped there. In the distance, patches of bamboo rose out of what I knew were small pools of water. I gazed for a while, calculating the distances, and then examined the fence. It had been dug deeply into the ground, but I found one small area where it looked as though a small animal had been burrowing. The barbed wire had slightly curled up from the bottom, leaving a small opening. It was by no means big enough for me to get through, but if I could find something to cut it with, I could make the hole just big enough.
I did not want to be caught loitering, so I went back to the dormitory. Keeping myself to myself, I rooted around in my locker and found my old leave papers. They were crumpled, and some of the stamps were not as clear as they could have been, but this time they suited my purposes well. I took a black pen and, as carefully as I could manage, doctored one of them so that it appeared to have a current set of dates on it. It would not stand up to close scrutiny, I knew, but I had to trust to hope that it would be glanced at briefly if at all. My plan was to break through the fence, make my way to the road, and flag down a car to give me a lift to the bus station. Once there, I would board a nighttime bus to Baghdad in the hope that the checkpoint guards would be less thorough at that time.
I needed one more thing. I wandered out along the edge of the parade ground until I came to the unit workshop, where small repairs were done. It was still open, and a few soldiers were working inside. I wandered up to someone I vaguely knew who was sweeping the floor. “You’re working late,” I commented.
“Fucking arif,” he said with venom—he was clearly on some sort of punishment. I stood by a workbench chatting with him. He kept looking around to check that nobody could see him slacking, and while his head was turned, I surreptitiously grabbed a pair of pliers and slipped them into my pocket. “I heard you got solitary,” he said.
I gave him a rueful smile.
“What was the reason?”
“There has to be a reason?” I feigned surprise. He laughed and started sweeping again as I wandered out.
And then I waited.
The dormitory lights were switched off at ten, and I lay there for at least an hour until the usual round of banter died down. Gradually people started to fall asleep, and the quiet babble of the few radios that were still switched on faded away. Every few minutes somebody would get up to go to the lavatory, but by about eleven o’clock it sounded as though most people were deep in slumber. I lay on my back, my eyes pinned open, my breathing steady but deep, as I prepared myself for what was to come.
Noiselessly I removed my covers and slipped out of bed. I had placed my uniform neatly under the bed, and now I gathered it up in my arms. The jacket contained everything I needed: my papers, what little money I had, and the small pair of pliers; I had also packed a small nylon bag containing an apple and a flashlight. I left my Kalashnikov where it was. Although it would have been comforting to have it with me, I knew it was too cumbersome for what I had in mind. Swiftly I walked out of the dormitory, knowing that anyone who was still awake would assume I was going to the lavatory, and stood silently at the door that faced toward the parade ground.
All was quiet. A light shone onto the center of the parade ground where the Iraqi flag was raised, but there was no wind so it simply drooped limply at the top of the flagpole. Beyond it I could just make out two guards chatting to each other. I took advantage of the fact that their attention was diverted and walked toward the bare room that was used as a mosque. Every part of my body screamed at me to run, but I knew that if I did so I would only draw attention to myself. I moved swiftly, but even so it seemed to take an age to move those few meters.
Once inside, I removed my pajamas and put on my uniform; then, clutching my nylon bag, I slipped out again. Keeping close to the walls, and stopping at any corners to check whether I could hear footsteps, I hurried toward the boundary of the camp. When the buildings ended, I got down on all fours and crawled toward the barbed wire. It took me a few moments to find the hole, as I did not dare turn on my flashlight and attract attention to myself in the darkness, but once I reached it I stopped to regain my breath and look around.
At one corner of the perimeter fence stood an observation post. Searchlights shone down from them, but for now they were all directed inside the camp, and although I couldn’t make them out from that distance, I knew that the observation post was occupied by heavily armed guards. Beyond the fence, the desert was still. I stared out to allow my eyes to become accustomed to the dark and could just make out the pile of burned-out vehicles that I had decided to head for. I took the pliers from my pocket and went to work on the barbed wire. It took a good fifteen minutes of effort to make the hole big enough to squeeze through. In places I managed to break the wire; elsewhere I simply rolled it up as far as I could force it, doing my best to ignore my bloodied hands and all the while checking behind me to be sure no guards were anywhere near. My luck held, and I slowly managed to wriggle my way through to the other side.
Once I was out of the unit, I saw no reason not to hurry. I crawled under the barbed wire—as they had taught me—heading as fast as I could in the direction of the vehicles, twisting my head occasionally to keep one eye on the observation post and its searchlight, knowing that if it were to fall on me, I would be lit up like a firework—and shot down just as noisily. But its beam stayed safely inside the camp, and I continued crawling.
Suddenly I heard a gunshot crack loudly into the air. I froze, not daring to move an inch. It was followed by another one, which seemed to ring through me, and then silence. I remained still as I allowed myself time to regain my composure, and I told myself over and over again that what I had heard was nothing out of the ordinary. Guards fired random shots into the air every night: it quieted the stray dogs that fought each other in the area surrounding the unit, it maintained the threatening military presence, and it gave them something to do. We just learned to sleep through it.
I started crawling once more, doing my best to keep quiet so as not to attract the attention of the wild dogs. The distance to the burned-out vehicles was deceiving in the darkness, and it took longer than I expected to get close. When I reached them, I would stop for a few minutes to gather my thoughts before moving on to the road. I was only a few meters away when guns started firing yet again. This time the sounds were different: not the familiar sound of single shots being fired into the air but the steady repetitive thud of a machine gun. I looked back: the searchlight on the observation post was moving frenetically, illuminating not only the inside of the compound but also the surrounding desert. I started to crawl more quickly toward the vehicles; then suddenly I heard the high-pitched whiz of bullets speeding past my ear. Some of them became lost in the desert; others hit the metal chassis with a sickening clank, and I could see the occasional spark caused by the impact. I raised myself up onto my knees and started to head around to the other side of the military vehicles, where I would be protected from the shower of ammunition.
All of a sudden, I felt my right leg collapse beneath me, and a sudden, pounding pain coursed through it. I let out a shout before putting both hands over my mouth to silence myself. I felt my pulse pumping in my leg as my face creased with the pain.
“You’ve been shot!” I stated the obvious fact to myself in disbelief under my breath as I fumbled for the wound with one hand, my other hand still covering my mouth as I bit deeply into the fleshy part of my palm. The inner thigh of my trousers was wet with blood. I felt around the other side to see if there was an exit wound. There didn’t appear to be, which meant the bullet was still lodged somewhere deep inside my leg. My every instinct was to shout out, but I knew that to do so would be suicide, so I bit harder on my palm as I forced myself to battle with the pain and lunged to safety on the far side of the vehicles.
I sat on the ground, trembling as I waited for the firing to stop. I did not think I had been seen—the searchlight had not illuminated me—but it seemed they had probably discovered my absence earlier than I would have thought possible. Perhaps they were firing randomly into the darkness of the desert, knowing that was my most likely means of escape. Or maybe they were using their binoculars to survey the desert landscape more carefully. Generally they used them to pass the time spotting wild dogs at which they could take potshots, but tonight they appeared to know they had a more interesting target. In either case, I had no option but to make it to the road as quickly as I could and desperately try to flag someone down. I had no idea whether the guards from the base were out looking for me on the road, so I had to trust once more to the luck that had not served me well so far. By now my leg had gone numb, but it was still bleeding heavily and making me feel dizzy and lightheaded. I knew I had to stem the bleeding, so I took my beret and stuffed it down my trousers, covering the wound with it. I then removed my belt and, panting heavily, tied it tightly around my leg, hoping that the pressure would ease the flow of blood until I could get proper medical attention. When that would be, I had no idea.
I could not linger long. The pile of scrap cars was an obvious place to hide, so I knew I had to move away as quickly as possible. I went back down on all fours, and as my leg hit the ground it felt as though it had been stabbed with a needle-sharp dagger before going numb again. Then I crawled for my life, through the dirt and the dust toward the road. How I made it there I don’t know. The final few meters were the worst, as I had to climb up a bank of rubble, boulders, and old, discarded bits of car engines; it took all of my rapidly sapping strength to pull myself up. When I finally reached the side of the road, I collapsed into an exhausted heap.
By now my leg had started to throb again; when I checked the beret I felt that it was saturated with warm, sticky blood. I was on a main highway, so cars were passing with some frequency. I couldn’t risk being spotted by one of the military vehicles that I was sure would have been dispatched to find me, so I crouched down and huddled myself up with my head bowed in the hope that an incurious passerby would mistake me for a rock or not notice me at all. All the while I kept looking for a taxi.
It took fifteen minutes for one to approach, the slowest fifteen minutes of my life. When I did eventually see the familiar white light, I pushed myself painfully to my feet and furiously waved my arms. As the car slowed down, I saw that the interior of the taxi was highly decorated, as was the custom of the south: a picture of Hussein, the disciple of Muhammad, was surrounded by little fairy lights and multicolored garlands. The car came to a stop, and the driver wound down his window. He was an old man, his face deeply lined and weathered, and he wore a traditional white headdress. “I need to get to the bus station,” I told him from behind clenched teeth. “As quick as you can.”
The cab driver looked my uniform up and down. “What are you doing sitting on the side of the road?” he asked suspiciously.
I had not even considered what I would tell him, so I said the first thing that came into my head. “I was cleaning my gun in the barracks and I shot myself,” I lied.
“Why aren’t they taking you to the hospital?”
“No vehicles,” I gasped. It was not as unlikely as it sounded—it wasn’t a life-or-death situation, and that’s how badly ordinary soldiers were treated. The cab driver seemed to accept my story. “Please, take me to the bus station.”
“Okay,” he nodded. “Get in the back.”
“I need to lie on my leg to stop the bleeding,” I told him.
“No!” he shouted. “The blood will get everywhere. Wait there.” He got out of the car and retrieved a blanket from the trunk. Silently I urged him on, terrified that the sight of a car stopping for any period of time by the side of the road would attract unwanted attention. He laid the blanket over the backseat before allowing me to climb inside. He drove off to the sound of my heavy, shaking breathing in the back. “Why don’t I just take you straight to the hospital,” he offered. “It’s okay—I won’t charge you.”
How could I tell him that the hospital was the last place I wanted to be? Hospitals meant impossible questions and awkward answers—he might as well drive me straight back to my unit. “No, please,” I said weakly, “no hospitals. The bus station is fine.” I don’t know quite what I was thinking—there was no way I would be allowed onto any bus in this state. But amid the pain and the confusion, I remember thinking to myself that Allah had sent me this taxi just when I needed it the most, and that he was protecting me and would continue to do so.
The taxi driver drove on in silence for a few moments. “Ibnee,” he said suddenly, “son, you need to get that wound looked at. I don’t know why you won’t go to the hospital, but you must have your reasons. But at least let me take you to a doctor I know in the next village. He is discreet, and he’ll look at the bullet for you.”
By now, I was sick with the pain, and deep down I knew that the wound needed urgent attention. I did not know for sure if I could trust this man, but I didn’t really have much choice. “Okay,” I whispered. “Take me to the doctor.”
The village was a good half hour away, but once we got there it did not take the driver long to find the house he was looking for. All the while I remained lying down in the back of the car, steeling myself against any bumps in the road that would aggravate the pain of my injury. When the car came to a halt, the driver spoke again. “Wait there,” he told me. “I’ll go in and get him.”
I lay in the backseat for ten minutes becoming increasingly nervous. What was taking him so long? Were they making phone calls? Where they alerting the authorities? By now, though, I had put my trust in the driver, and there was little I could do in this strange place. Eventually, to my relief, he came back with another man. The stranger peered into the car, but because of the darkness I did not get a good look at his face. He opened the door before quietly and efficiently removing the belt I had strapped around my leg and then my trousers. I shouted out in pain as he pulled the beret away from the wound and briefly examined it.
“You didn’t shoot yourself” were his first words to me. “You’ve been shot.”
“No,” I insisted, “I was cleaning my gun…”
“My friend,” the doctor interrupted, “if you had shot yourself at that sort of range with an AK-47, I would not be removing the bullet. I would be removing your leg. There’s not even an exit wound. This bullet rebounded off something before it hit you—that’s probably what saved your life.”
I remained silent, too scared to admit that he was right as I remembered the sight of the bullets sparking against the metal of the burned-out military vehicles.
“I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from,” he continued, “although I have my suspicions, but your very presence here puts me and my family in danger. I’ll remove the bullet for you, but I’ll do it here, not in the house. You don’t ask my name or anything about me. When I’ve finished, I never want to see you again. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Wait there, then,” the doctor told me. “I’ll need some implements.”
He returned with a small bag, a flashlight, and a steel bowl of orange liquid. The taxi driver held the light in place over the wound while the doctor rubbed his hands with the liquid, which he then smeared over the bullet hole. It stung horribly as he applied it, and I tensed my leg. The doctor removed something from the bag. “This will hurt,” he told me. The object in his hand was a large pair of metal calipers with flat feet pointing outward. “Ready?” he asked. I nodded, and swiftly he plunged the feet of the calipers straight into my leg, then pulled them apart so that the wound was held wide open. The pain was indescribable—ten times more intense than the actual feeling of being shot—and I shouted out.
“Be quiet!” the doctor barked urgently as he poured more of the orange ointment straight into my leg. It burned almost as if he had poured boiling water. “This will help stop any infection,” he informed me. Once more I shoved my palm into my mouth and bit hard.
Leaving the calipers in the wound, the doctor rooted around once more in his bag. He pulled out a thick swab, which he soaked with the contents of a bottle of clear liquid. “Hold this to your face and breathe it in,” he told me. “It will help the pain.”
I breathed deeply. The smell was sweet and pungent and made me feel slightly queasy.
“The bullet went in at an angle,” the doctor told me. “You’re lucky it didn’t hit the bone, but it has lodged itself several inches into the leg. It may take some time to remove. Are you okay?”
I nodded quickly and breathed a little deeper. The doctor brought out a pair of long, pointed forceps. I felt him tentatively insert the tips of the forceps into the wound. As the cold metal touched my bleeding flesh, I felt my whole body shivering and shrieking with pain. The bottom half of my leg went numb once more, and my head started spinning.
It took nine or ten minutes to pull out the bullet. All I remember was the light of the flashlight and the constant, muttering prayers of the taxi driver: “La hawlah wallaa kuwatta illa billah. There is no greater help than that of Allah.” I did not even see the bullet when it came out. The doctor flicked it onto the road almost contemptuously before stuffing a clean swab inside the wound, soaked with yet more of the agonizing orange ointment. He slowly removed the calipers and, taking a needle, slowly but carefully made a few small stitches in my leg. Then he dressed the wound with a clean bandage, ignoring my short, heavy whimpers with the professionalism of a man who had clearly done this sort of work many times. When he finished, he quietly packed up his tools and walked back inside, muttering a brief farewell to the taxi driver.
The driver closed the back door before sitting in the front. He said nothing for a moment, as though deciding what to do next. “I don’t want to know the details,” he said, “but tell me where you need to get to.”
“Baghdad,” I told him. There was no point keeping anything secret from this man now.
He nodded. “You can’t make the journey in this state. You need rest. Come to my house—you can sleep the night in the guest room.”
“What about tomorrow?” I asked. “Can you take me to Baghdad?”
He closed his eyes as though I had asked him the one question he wished I would not ask.
“I’ll pay you double,” I pleaded.
The taxi driver looked straight out of the window. I knew I was asking a great deal, but it did not seem to me that I had very much choice.
“Very well,” he said finally. “I will take you to Baghdad.”