I brought my head up slowly and saw that I was indeed in a plush, well-decorated, quite homely room, rectangular and no more than 20 feet long.

I was at one end, near the door. I found myself looking directly ahead at a very large, wooden executive type desk at the other end. This had to be the colonel’s office, without a doubt. The man behind the desk looked quite distinguished, the typical high-ranking officer. He was quite a large-framed person, about 6 foorish, with graying hair and mustache. His desk was littered with lots of odds and bods, an in and out tray, all the normal stuff that you would associate with an office desk, and a glass of what I took to be coffee.

He studied my face. Behind him was the ubiquitous picture of old Uncle Saddam, in full military regalia and looking good. Either side of the desk and coming down the room towards me against the walls was a collection of lounge chairs without arms, the sort that can be put together to make a long settee. They were crazy colors-oranges, yellows, purples. There were three or four of them each side with a coffee table between.

The colonel was in olive drab uniform. On the left hand side from my view, and about halfway up the row, was a major, also in olive drab and immaculately turned out-not boots but shoes, and a crisply pressed shirt. You can tell staff soldiers no matter what army they come from.

The major was paying no attention to me at all, just flicking through what appeared to be papers from the han dover making the odd note in the margin with a fountain pen. He started talking in beautifully modulated, newscaster English.

“How are you Andy? Are you all right?”

He didn’t look at me, just carried on with his paperwork. He was mid-thirties, and he wore half-moon glasses that made him tilt his head back so that he could read. He had the Saddam mustache and immaculately manicured hands.

“I think I need medical attention.”

“Just tell us again, will you, why are you in Iraq?”

“As I said before, we’re members of a search and rescue team. The helicopter came down, we were all told to get off, and it took off and left us; we were abandoned.”

“How many of you were there on the helicopter, can you remember? No problems if you can’t at the moment. Time is one commodity your sanctions have not affected.”

“I don’t know. Alarms were ringing inside the helicopter. We were told to get off, and then everything got very confused. I’m not too sure how many were left on and how many were off.”

“I see. How many of you were there on the helicopter?”

It was the schoolteacher talking down to a kid he knows full well is lying-but he wants the kid to squirm before he confesses.

“I don’t know, because when we got on it was dark. Sometimes there’s only four, sometimes there’s twenty. We’re just told when to get on and when to get off. It always happens so quickly. I didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing. To be honest, I’m not really interested. I never take that much notice. They treat us like shit; we’re just the soldiers who do the work.”

“All right. So what was your mission, Andy? You must know your mission because it’s always repeated twice in your orders.”

It’s standard British army practice to repeat the mission statement twice in orders. It astounded me that he knew. If he understood British military doctrine, he must have had some training in the UK.

“I don’t really know about my mission,” I said. “It’s just a case of: go here, go there, do this, do that. I know we’re supposed to know the mission, but we are not told half the time what’s going on; it’s total and utter confusion.”

My mind was racing, good style, trying to do several things at once. I was listening to this character and I was trying to remember what I’d already said and what I was going to say in the future. The problem was, I was knackered, I was hungry, I was thirsty. This boy was sitting up there all rather comfy and contented, just having a bit of a waffle. He was far more switched on at this stage than I was because I was such a physical wreck.

“Well, what were you going to do once you were on the helicopter?”

“We’re all drawn together from different regiments to form these rescue teams. We haven’t been together long because we’re all from different places. We haven’t formed into teams yet. Look, we’re here to save life, not to take life away. We’re not that sort of people.”

“Hmmm.”

The colonel hadn’t stopped staring at me since the blindfold was removed. Now he sparked up in passable English.

“Where is your officer who commands you?”

I was happy about this question. In the Iraqi system there’s an officer in command even at the lowest level; it was good that they found it incomprehensible for a long-range patrol to be in the field without an officer. I’d been portraying myself as thick and confused, and maybe they’d been taken in. Now they wanted the officer: he was the man in the know. I decided to play on the deserted soldiery bit.

“I don’t know, it was dark. He was there one minute and gone the next. He must have stayed on the helicopter. He wouldn’t bother coming out with us if he knew the helicopter was taking off again. He deserted us.”

“Do you think there could have been eight of you?”

That meant they were aware of the problem at the MSR and were trying to make the connection-if they hadn’t already done so. In my heart I knew it was only a matter of time.

“I don’t know, there were people running around everywhere. We’re not trained for this sort of thing, we’re trained to render first aid-and all of a sudden we’re stuck in the middle of Iraq. There might have been eight, I haven’t got a clue. I was confused and I just ran for it.”

“Where did the helicopter land?”

“I really don’t know. They just put us down. I don’t know where it was. I wasn’t map-reading on the aircraft; it’s the pilots that do everything.”

Could they believe this shit? I felt I was flogging a dead horse, but I had no choice now-I’d gone down that path, and I had to keep going, right or wrong. I didn’t know if they were just fishing or not. I’d just have to play the game out. Anybody else who’d been caught would be doing the same. No need to panic; the conversation was still all very nice.

“Tell me about some of the equipment that you have, Andy. We are somewhat confused about it.”

I didn’t know if he was trying to get me to talk about the berg ens which had been dropped or our belt kit. He was talking as if we were the eight-man patrol that had got bumped, and I was talking as if we were the search and rescue team.

“It’s just standard sort of issue-water, ammunition, and a bit of extra first aid kit and our own personal stuff.”

“No. Tell me about the explosives that you had in your packs.”

Hang about, I thought-it hasn’t been confirmed yet that I was in this patrol.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come on, Andy, let’s sort this out. There is no big problem. Just sit there, take your time, and it will all be done tonight. You were carrying explosives, Andy. We’ve followed you all the way since you were first found. We know it was you and your friends. We’ve been following your exploits.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, you do really, don’t you, Andy? Such a large quantity of plastic explosive. Did you intend to blow something up?”

His tone was still very pleasant and gentle, the GP enquiring about my general well-being. I knew it wouldn’t last. In training, you are taught to try and take advantage of whatever you can whenever you can, because you don’t know if it’s ever going to come your way again. A golden rule is that if you can get something to eat, take it every time. They were trying to be the nice guys and help me as much as they could, so I felt it was time to try and take advantage of the situation.