Chris Ryan - The One That Got Away - Junior edition

There was nothing for it but to keep going.

Weighed down by exhaustion, thirst and fear, I started moving along the line of the main supply route. I was only a hundred metres from it when I heard a drone from somewhere along the road behind me. I went to ground and lay listening. The noise was coming from miles away to the east, but it grew steadily until it seemed to fill the night. A four-ton wagon went past — but still the heavy drone was increasing. I moved down to the edge of the road and hid in some rocks, looking along the highway through the night-sight. For minutes I couldn’t see anything. Still the noise built up.

Then, as I scanned for the twentieth time, I saw a black dot, which grew bigger and bigger until it became a massive vehicle, filling the sight. With a tremendous roar it came level, and suddenly I realized I had a Scud missile going by me! The TEL vehicle was a huge articulated truck, with the missile canopied-up under tarpaulins on its trailer, and a convoy of smaller trucks behind it. They were all heading out towards the Syrian border. In one of them, with an open back, I could see a whole gang of soldiers.

That’s what I’m here for , I thought to myself. To find Scuds! I never imagined I’d get as close to one as this. Should I have opened fire on it? I couldn’t have destroyed the missile, but a grenade from the 203 into the front of the truck might have put the launcher off the road. I would have given away my position, though, and the guys in the convoy would have been on top of me.

If only I could report back what I’d seen: this was exactly the information the Coalition needed. I whipped out my TACBE, switched on and spoke into it, but as before I got no response. The Scud disappeared into the distance

On the move once more, I crossed the main supply route, so that I was between the road and the river, which at that point were maybe fifteen kilometres apart. Now the ground was really flat, and again I started crossing ploughed fields. It was time to look for a lying-up position, but here in the farmland I couldn’t see any rough, broken areas. So I planned to move back across the road and regain the higher ground beyond. Then I came to a culvert — a tunnel underneath the highway about two metres high and three wide. It was obviously built for pedestrians and animals to walk through.

I was feeling so exhausted and let down that I decided to lie up in the tunnel. It was a bad decision, but I can see why I took it. I was thinking, You’re going down. You’re not going to last much longer. Why not take a vehicle and drive to the border ? The culvert would make a good base for such a hijack.

I sat there in the tunnel having this discussion with myself. My lazy side was saying, Just do it: grab a vehicle and drive out . The other side was saying, What happens if there’s two people in it? How are you going to make them stop? What if there’s only one man, and he just drives on? Once you’ve been seen and reported, that’s you finished .

I went through the scenario again and again. I imagined myself standing on the road, putting one hand up, levelling my weapon — and the car accelerating past. Then I’d have given my position away and lost all the advantages I’d so painfully built up. If Stan had still been with me, the idea would have been even more tempting — but even if we got a vehicle, the chances were that we’d drive into a control point.

I decided not to risk it. But I’d landed myself in a hell of a place. While I’d been dithering, the sky had begun to lighten, and it was already too late to move on. Safe or not, the place was very uncomfortable. The wind was blowing straight through that culvert like it came from the North Pole. Soon I was absolutely frozen. I tried moving rocks to make a little shelter, but the wind still whistled through the gaps. In the gloom I could see that bushes were growing in the floor of the tunnel, and I thought that maybe I could pile some into a barrier. But when I grabbed one, I got a handful of vicious thorns. There seemed to be no way of improving my shelter, so I simply lay down, determined to stick it out.

Just at full daylight, I heard the sound I wanted least in the world: goat bells. I’d had enough of goats and goatherds already. Looking through the tunnel towards the river, I saw the lead animal come into view, heading confidently into the culvert, obviously on its way through. I just had time to scoot out the other end of the tunnel and up the sloping embankment of the main supply route. As I ran towards the top of it, a car was approaching at speed, so I flung myself into a shallow ditch which led down the bank at an angle from the road-edge.

There I lay on my back, trapped, looking straight down over my boots to the top of the culvert exit. In a few seconds the lead goat emerged below me, not three metres away. More and more goats came into view, pushing and jostling. Their stink rose all round me. Last came the goatherd, an old man wearing a long, woolly coat over several other layers, with a white shamag wrapped round the top of his head. He was leading a donkey, which had a blanket over its back. Five or six dogs jostled at his heels. As he walked out, the top of his head was barely a metre below my boots.

I lay rigid, with the 203 down my front, praying that he would not look back and that the dogs wouldn’t get wind of me. Had they done so, I’d have had to shoot him. I didn’t want to kill an innocent civilian, but I was desperate. If I had shot him, I would have been in a dire position: I’d have had to run off into the wadi system with the pack of dogs after me, and even if I’d made a temporary getaway, the old man’s death would have put down a great big marker. Obviously he came out that way every morning, and people would be expecting him back.

How the dogs failed to smell me, I still cannot imagine — unless my scent was obliterated by the stink of the goats. I held my breath as the party moved slowly away, up into the wadis. The old man never looked back, and the jingle of bells faded among the rocks.

I couldn’t go back into the culvert, because it was clear that at some time during the day the flock and their keeper would return. Equally, I couldn’t move down anywhere below the road, because the farmland was too open, and too full of people at work. Besides, I felt sure that there must be a village, or at least a few houses, not far off.

I lay still and watched the goats until they were out of sight. My mind was racing. There was only one way I could go — up into the wadis. But traffic had started to build up on the motorway; every other minute a vehicle came past, and if I began moving up onto the high ground, a driver might see me. I kept imagining what would happen if somebody spotted me and raised the alert. The hunt would be on, and because it was still just after dawn, the searchers would have all day to catch me.

I decided to take my chance and make a go for it between cars. I rolled over onto my belly, slung the 203 on my shoulder, slithered down the embankment and began crawling up the dry river bed. Every time I heard a car coming, I went to ground, scared stiff that I would be seen. After a hundred metres I scuttled upwards and got round into the beginning of the wadi system, maybe 500 metres from the road. Then I walked on again until I found a hollow in the ground, and lay down in that.

There I was, stuck again for the hours of daylight. It wasn’t a very good hideout. Although I couldn’t see the road, I had a reasonable view downhill maybe 200 metres, but behind me the outlook was blocked by a mound. If anyone had come along, I wouldn’t have seen him until he was on top of me. This kept me fully on edge. Any sound made me whip round, even if it was only the wind passing over the rocks.