Andy McNab - Bravo Two Zero

We spent the rest of the night together. Every time we heard doors banging we thought they were coming to separate us, and we said our goodbyes. Finally, some time in the morning, our cell door was kicked open. I was handcuffed and blindfolded and taken away.

I knew I was being taken for another interrogation; I knew the route so well. Out of the door, turn right, up the corridor, turn left, over the cobblestones, up the step, along the pathway, past the bushes, into a room. I assumed it was the same room.

They pushed me onto a chair and held me there.

“Good morning, Andy,” The Voice said. “How are you this morning?”

“Fine, thank you very much,” I said. “Thank you for the blanket. It’s very cold at night.”

“Yes, it is very cold. As you can see, Andy, we do take care of you. We take care of people who help us. And you will help us, Andy, will you not?”

“Yes, I’ve told you, I’ll help as much as I can.”

“There are just a few matters that we need to clear up this morning, Andy. You see, we are not totally convinced that you’re not Jewish. We need proof. Tell us if you are, because this will stop a lot of pain and discomfort for you. What is your religion?”

“Church of England.”

“What is Church of England?”

“It’s Christian.”

“Who do you worship?”

“I worship God.”

“I see. And who is Jesus?”

I explained.

“Who is Mary?”

I explained.

“Andy, do you understand that we worship the same God, you and I? I’m a Muslim, and I worship the same God as you.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Are you religious, Andy?”

“Yes, I am religious. I take my religion seriously.”

“Tell me how you pray in the Christian world.”

“We can pray on our knees, we can pray standing up, it all depends, it doesn’t matter. It’s a very personal thing.”

When I was a junior soldier at Shorncliffe there was a battalion church parade every fourth Sunday. You had to wear your best uniform and boots, and march smartly all the way from the camp to the garrison church. It was a bind, because as a boy soldier you only get one full day off a week, which was Sunday-and that was only if you weren’t behind the CO on the Friday morning cross-country run: otherwise it was another run on Sunday. Even then you couldn’t go home because you weren’t allowed out until nine in the morning and had to be back by eight at night. So all in all I wasn’t best pleased with church parade and never paid much attention to what was going on. Now I was desperately trying to remember all the bits and pieces of the services and make myself sound like the devout est Bible-thumper since Billy Graham.

“When do you fast? When do Christians fast?”

Did we fast? I just didn’t know.

“We don’t fast.”

His tone changed. “You’re lying to us, Andy. You’re lying! We know that Christians fast.”

He told me about Lent. You learn something every day. I hadn’t known that Catholics fasted.

“I’m a Protestant,” I Said. “It’s different.”

He seemed to calm down.

“So tell me about the festivals. What foods do you eat? What foods don’t you eat?”

I was racking my brain faying to remember what happened at times like Harvest Festival and Easter.

“Protestants eat all foods. We actually celebrate the fact that we can eat what we can, when we can. It’s a very liberal religion.”

“So you don’t have to keep away from pork?”

“No.”

“Look, Andy, just tell us if you’re a Jew, that’s all we need to know.

If you’re lying to us, you know you will be punished.”

Another bloke to my half right joined in, also speaking in good English.

He told me he’d been to Sandhurst.

“When is St. George’s Day?”

I didn’t have a clue.

“St. Swithin’s?”

Same response.

“How do you have burials? How do you mourn? How long for?”

I ducked and weaved for the next two hours.

Finally The Voice said, “What would you say, Andy, if I was to tell you that we know you are Jews and can prove it?”

“You’re mistaken. I’m not a Jew.”

“Right. Tell me what you know about Judaism.”

“You’ve got orthodox Jews with long matted hair, and they don’t eat pork. That’s all. We don’t mix with the Jewish community.”

“Well, tell me, have you ever had a Jewish girlfriend? Do you know any Jews in England? Tell me their names and where they live. How would you know if they were Jews?”

“I’ve never had anything to do with Jewish women.”

“Why not, Andy, are you homosexual?”

“No, I’m not homosexual, but in England we have definite racial groups, and there’s not too much intermixing. The Jewish community keep themselves to themselves, and you don’t really have that much contact with them because they’re very insular.”

“How big is the Jewish community in England?”

“I have no idea. We don’t really mix.”

The questions went on and on, and the answers I could give became more and more limited. I was getting boxed into a corner. Then I suddenly had a thought. I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t come to me sooner.

“I can prove I’m not a Jew.”

“How can you prove that?”

“Because I have a foreskin.”

“What? What is a foreskin?”

There was lots of gob bing off in Arabic, and the sound of paper rustling. Perhaps they were checking a dictionary.

“I can show you,” I said helpfully. “If you undo my hands, I’ll show you what a foreskin is.”

Still they couldn’t comprehend what I was talking about.

“How do you spell foreskin?”

I could hear the bloke scribbling away. A soldier on each side clamped a hand on my shoulders, and somebody undid one of my handcuffs.

“What are you going to do, Andy? You must tell us what you are going to do first.”

“Well, I’ll unzip and get my penis out, and I’ll show you that I have a foreskin.”

I stood up and pulled out my cock. I got hold of the foreskin and stretched it as far out as I could.

“See, I have a foreskin! Jews are circumcised as part of their religion. They have the foreskin taken off.”

The room rocked with laughter. They were rolling up. As I did myself up, I was pushed back on to the chair. The handcuffs went back on.

They were having a huge giggle about this foreskin business. They babbled on in Arabic, occasionally throwing in the word “foreskin.”

“Would you like some food, Andy?”

“Yes, thank you very much, I’d love some food,” I said. And as everybody was in such a good mood, I added, “And something to drink, if I could, please.”

A hand came up and put a date in my mouth.

They all carried on laughing as if I wasn’t there, and I was rather pleased with myself because things were going rather well. I didn’t get anything to drink though. I sat there with the stone in my mouth, wondering what I was going to do with it. I didn’t want to swallow it because it would stick in my throat and I didn’t have anything to wash it down with. The Sandhurst officer must have realized my problem, because he gob bed off at the guard and the bloke put his hand under my chin and I spat the stone carefully into his hand.

The room was still buzzing with chat about foreskins.

I had a sudden thought. I didn’t know what everybody else’s condition in the patrol was, whether they had foreskins or not. It dawned on me that Bob looked dark and Mediterranean. If they had his body, they could have taken him for a Jew, and we were getting the good news as a result.

“Of course, Christians as well as Jews get circumcised, for medical reasons,” I said. “Some parents want their children circumcised at birth. So it’s not just Jews that are circumcised.”