One thing I could be sure of was that nothing remained that was compromising to the task. We always refold our maps so that they aren’t on the part we’ve been using, and we never put markings on them. Everything was in our heads.

I was feeling confident-at this stage about the lack of knowledge they’d have on our equipment. If they knew more than I expected, we’d just have to waffle our way through and make excuses. The only problem really was that we didn’t exactly look like your aver age search and rescue team. But by this stage we didn’t exactly look like anything anyway, apart from total and utter bags of shit.

The vehicle stopped, and by the sound of things there was a reception committee waiting. I’d started to feel secure in the car: I’d got adapted to it, and now we were starting all over again.

They were talking in a low mumble, perhaps because it was the early hours of the morning. As the back doors opened there was a rush of cold air. We were pulled out and marched across a courtyard at quick pace. The cobblestones were agony. The cuts reopened, and my feet were soon slippery with blood. I stumbled and started to fall, but they grabbed me and kept on going. We went up a step, turned right along a veranda, and came to a door. I stubbed my foot on the doorframe and cried out. There was no reaction from them at all. They were very professional. It was all well rehearsed.

We went straight in. There was the usual smell of paraffin and the hissing sound of Tiny lamps, and I almost felt at home. They shoved me onto the floor and arranged me so that I was sitting cross legged with my head down and my hands behind my back. I let them do whatever they wanted. It was pointless resisting. I clenched up, fully expecting something to happen. They ripped my blindfold off. The cloth had scabbed to some pressure sores on my cheekbones and the bridge of my nose. I flinched with pain and felt warm blood dribble down my face.

The pain was forgotten the instant I saw Dinger. I hadn’t heard him get out of the car, and I’d had the horrible feeling I was on my own again. They yanked his blindfold off as well, and we got some eye-to-eye. Dinger gave me a little wink. I’d been avoiding eye contact with my interrogators since I’d been captured.

It was fantastic to have human contact again. Just a little wink was enough.

We were in a semidark room that had a medieval feel to it. The walls were bare stone and glistened with damp. It was cold and smelt musty. The windows were bricked up. The concrete floor was pitted and uneven.

I raised my head a little, trying to stretch my neck, and a guard I hadn’t noticed behind me pushed me back down. I saw that his uniform was olive drab, not the commando DPM we’d become accustomed to.

I had managed to see that facing us was a six-foot folding table and a couple of foldaway chairs. Everything looked temporary. The Iraqis drink their coffee and sweet, black tea out of small, fruit juice-size glasses. There were two or three of them on the table, half-full of drinks that must have been old because they weren’t steaming. Two ashtrays were heaped with stubs. Bits of paper were littered around. They’d put their weapons on the table as well.

There was activity by the door, and I lifted my eyes. Two characters came in. One was dressed in a green flying suit with a civilian leather jacket over the top and Chelsea boots with big heels and elasticated sides. He looked like the oldest swinger in town. I looked at the shape of him and had to try hard not to laugh. He was tall, but with a massive pot belly that was straining against the flying suit. He obviously thought he still had a 30-inch waist, the dickhead. He had all this Gucci kit on, and it was obvious he saw himself as a really smart, tasty geezer, but in fact he looked like a bag of bollocks.

The other character was much shorter and smaller framed. He was a skinny; sunken-cheek type, wearing a terrible suit that he must have been issued with and hoped one day he might grow in to.

Guards brought in our belt kit and weapons and dumped them on the table. What did I have in my belt kit that would give me away? Were they going to bring in the berg ens as well?

Mister Tasty handed a large brown envelope to the skinny runt. The back was covered with rubber stamps of nine-pointed stars, and there was Arabic writing on the front. This was a definite han dover-either commandos to military intelligence, or military intelligence to civilian police. Whichever, we were going further down the chain, and it was going to be more difficult than ever to escape.

Nobody spoke to us. All this was going on as if we weren’t in the room. There seemed to be no reference to us, no looks or nods in our direction. We stretched our legs out with cramp, and they came and pushed them back up. I looked at their wrists when they bent down to see if I could find out the time. It was irrelevant, but I wanted some sort of grip on reality. But nobody was wearing a watch, which was ominously professional. And yet they let us witness the han dover which seemed strange.

The Top Gun geezer in the flying suit left the room, and soon afterwards I heard transport moving off.

So this was it-we were with our new hosts.

I started to worry. Soldiers don’t wear suits. Who was this guy? With soldiers you know where you stand, and you can understand what’s going on. Now we were getting handed over to somebody in civvies. I’d heard all the horror stories from the Iran-Iraq war. I knew all about electrodes and meat hooks in the ceiling. These boys had been doing this professionally for years; they’d got it well squared away. We were not a novelty: we were ten years down the line; we were just another couple of punters. I was filled with dread. But there was nothing I could do about it; I had to accept the landing. The only hope was that they wouldn’t want to damage us too much; they’d want to keep us looking nice for a video. Perhaps they would be less physical than the last bunch-but I doubted it.

The skinny runt’s shirt was dirty and the collar a good four sizes too big for him. He wore a big kipper tie and trousers that were turned up at the bottoms. He looked as if he’d borrowed his wardrobe from Stan. He gob bed off some orders in a dull monotone to the guards. They picked up Dinger before we could get any eye-to-eye.

They left and I was on my own in the semidarkness with three or four guards. Some were in olive drab uniforms. Iraqi NCOs wear their insignia on their collars, very much like the Americans, and I could see that one of these guys was a warrant officer, class 1 equivalent, with two stars. He spoke fairly good English.

“You-look up,” he growled.

This was great. Now I could have a proper look around. I looked up with an obedient expression on my face, trying hard to appear pitiful. He was in front of me with two cronies in uniform and one who was dressed in traditional Arab dish dash, nothing on his head, and a pair of canvas pumps.

“What is your name?”

“My name is Andy, sir.”

“American?”

“No, I am British.”

“You’re American?”

“No, I’m British.”

“You’re lying! You’re lying!”

He hit me hard across the face. I rolled with it and went down.

“Sit up. You’re British?”

“Yeah. I’m British.”

“You’re lying. You’re Israeli.”

This wasn’t interrogation as such; he was just having his fun.

“Tonight, many people died because your country is bombing our children. Our children are dying in their schools. Your country is killing thousands of people every night, and it is time for you to die.”

I was sure he was right and I was going to be topped. But they were not the ones who would do it. These weren’t the teddies in charge; these were dickhead administrators doing a bit of freelance.

“What do you think about that?”