Chris Ryan - The One That Got Away - Junior edition

First, though, he got his guide, Samutchoso, to communicate with the spirits. After the man had gone into a trance, the answer came back: ‘The spirits of the hills are very angry with you, so angry that if they had not known your intention in coming here was pure, they would long since have killed you. They are angry because you have come here with blood on your hands…’

To win forgiveness, van der Post wrote a letter addressed to ‘The Spirits, The Tsodilo Hills’, in which he humbly begged pardon. He promised to bury the note at the base of the great cave painting which he had found. He then got all his companions to sign the letter, sealed it in an envelope, and placed it in a lime juice bottle, which he duly buried in the cave. After that he had no more trouble: his Land Rovers started without difficulty, and the expedition moved on.

His experience sounded like our own, and the death of that one animal seemed to have put us under the same spell. We decided to go and look for the cave, and I walked around the mountain with one other guy, Merv. We found the cave easily enough. I thought it looked a bit creepy, and didn’t fancy walking in; but Merv decided it was all right — so we went in, and at the back we found a green bottle, corked up, with a piece of paper inside.

Back at the camp, we reported on what we’d found. People made a few jokes, but Harry (an Everest climber, who had spent a lot of time in mountains, and felt sympathy for the people who lived in them) suggested that we should write a note of our own, apologizing for the death of the animal, put it in another bottle, and leave it in the cave.

When our message was ready, Merv and I went back to the cave with it. The old bottle was still there — but something very strange had happened. Although the cork was still in place, the paper inside had been shredded, as if by a hamster. Of course, we were spooked. Then we thought that some of our own guys must have been messing around. We left our bottle beside the first one, and went back to the camp — only to find that nobody else had been near the cave.

Whatever had happened, the atmosphere was becoming tense. Next morning we went up the mountain again and studied the place where Joe had fallen. Things somehow didn’t look right. All three of Joe’s ‘friends’ had come loose at once, but there seemed to be no reason for it. We sent for Ian, the expert. He agreed that the friends should never have come out.

By now everyone was becoming nervous. The place had an unpleasant atmosphere; we felt as though we were being watched. Even off the mountain, mishaps kept occurring. A herd of goats came through the camp and wrecked the tents, knocking everything over and chewing up our clothes. One of the Mobility Troop fell off his motorbike and broke his collarbone. The Boat Troop was attacked by a hippo, which bit off one of the twin tails of an inflatable boat. The bang scared the animal off, but the boat was finished. When the RAF flew a Hercules over the top of the mountain and tried to throw out a wreath for Joe, it blew back into the aircraft. So they flew over again, and twice more it came back in. You could, at a stretch, say it was because of air turbulence, but it seemed weird. Only when they were three or four miles from the mountain did the wreath finally stay out and float away.

All this could have been coincidence — but there was no doubt that the Bushmen believe in the power of the mountain spirits. By the end of the exercise I was well on the way to doing the same. I began to feel that there were forces at work which we simply didn’t understand.

One of the guys came with me to consult a witch doctor in the nearby village and find out what fate had in store for us. After we’d dropped a few boxes of rations in payment, a skinny, middle-aged man wearing nothing but a loincloth came out of his mud hut carrying a small leather bag. He swept a patch of earth clear with one hand and tipped six or eight bones onto it. He sat staring at them for thirty seconds, muttering to himself. Through the Botswanan who was with us, the message came back that we had nothing more to worry about, and we started to feel happier.

With our squadron exercise finished, we drove away, and as I looked out of the back of the Land Rover at the mountain, I still had the feeling that there was something there, watching us, glad to see us go. We were told not to mention the story back in Hereford, for the sake of Joe’s family. But that was the first incident for me in which I’d seen someone killed, and it stuck in my mind for ever.

Remembering Africa helped pass the day. But cold, hunger, thirst and the pain of lying on rock continually reminded me I was in Iraq. Somehow the hours dragged by. At about five in the afternoon I moved up to the top edge of the mound and lay there gazing into the distance. Ahead of me, in the direction I needed to go, ridges of bare rock rose one behind the other, greyer and greyer as they stretched to the horizon. Nearby the ground was rolling, and on my left hills climbed steeply towards a high plateau. Looking west, I could see an old stone fort perched on one of the ridges running up from the river valley; it was very high up, with excellent views all around. I worried slightly that it might be a manned border post, but somehow the sight of that man-made structure gave me a lift. At least it was different to the barren wastes of the desert.

I realized that as I grew weaker I was covering the ground more slowly, not making the progress I expected. All the same, after studying the map on and off during the day, I reckoned that one good night’s march would take me across the border.

Then a simple event gave my morale a tremendous boost. Once again the goats came into view below me, and I held my breath as they grazed nearby. Then I saw their herder. Keeping well down behind a rock, I watched him. The goats wandered down the lower side of the mound, away from me, but the man whipped round my side of it, out of sight of the road. As I looked down, from about a hundred metres away, he whipped up his dishdash, squatted down and went to the toilet. Then, quick as a flash, he ran back to catch up with his flock.

Back with the squadron in Saudi Arabia, the SSM had said something to me. ‘You’ll never see an Iraqi go to the toilet. They’re very shy about it.’ But here it was, happening right in front of me, and I lay there doubled up with silent laughter. Wait till I get out of here! I thought. I’m going straight to the SSM to tell him what I’ve seen!

My morale had been down, but suddenly it was back up again. I couldn’t stop laughing and wanted to get started.

I needed water urgently. On the map I’d found a pumping station, and I felt I must have a good chance of getting a drink there. Surely a pumping station would have clean water coming out of it? This was my sixth night on the run, and in six nights and six days I’d had nothing to eat but two packets of biscuits. I was seriously dehydrated, and my feet were in ribbons. Even so, I felt pretty good, and had that sense of excitement mixed with apprehension that you get before a race or a big football match.

All I had to do was go down to the pumping station, get water, and carry on. By then I’d be only about ten kilometres from the border, and I would either cross it that same night, or reach it the next day.

Things didn’t work out as easily as I had hoped. I waited till dark and then started walking, but after only a hundred metres I came round a corner and several dogs began barking. Through the night-sight I could see two tents and one vehicle. It was obviously a Bedouin encampment. But nobody came out for a look round, so I moved carefully away to the left, boxed the position and carried on.