One night during the bombing we took a hit near the compound. From the beginning we had maintained that if ever there was a crack in the structure big enough for us to get through, we would go for it. If bombs were falling that close and you didn’t start moving, you’d probably end up being killed by your own ordnance anyway.

They took casualties that night. We could hear the screaming and shouting, the pressure waves, all the windows in the area shattering. The town of Ali Baba was really getting the good news. There was shouting by the gate to the outer courtyard, and then the sound of the gate being pushed open. We could guess what was going to happen. Sure enough the guards came in, and they gave it to Russell and David.

Then they came to our cell, two lads waving their Tiny lamps and hollering. They had their helmets and webbing on. Their weapons were slung, and they carried batons.

We stood up as they charged into the cell. They could kill us with those batons: it only takes a good twat around the head to do the business. In the films the hero gets beaten unconscious, then comes to a few minutes later and goes off to save the world; but in real life if you put your arm up to defend yourself, it will be broken. Something in our eyes must have told them that we were prepared to fight. They stopped in their tracks and stared at us. We stared them out, and they edged towards the door. They stood in the doorway, shouting and pretending to cock their weapons, but they backed off and slammed the door behind them. We couldn’t believe it. We might have laughed if we hadn’t had to listen to the moans and groans from the other lads further down.

We went through the same scenario one other time, but this time it wasn’t a bomb that sparked it off but an American. They seemed to have an irresistible urge to communicate with their fellow countrymen, even if to do so resulted in a good hiding. The Americans in our block knew now that there were others around, and that set them off.

David called out: “I’d kill for a Burger King.”

A guard who happened to be in the washroom overheard him, and minutes later the blokes tore in. But it was Russell, not David, who carried the can. His cell was nearer to the washroom, and they must have come to the wrong conclusion. He got a severe going over and was dragged off to a punishment cell. They came back and gave David a few slaps as well, and then they came to us.

There were three of them, in helmets and wielding batons. We greeted them with a look that said: “Come on, then.”

They backed off, shouting, “We’re going to split you up.” The threat was more horrifying than a beating would have been.

Miraculously, nothing happened. We could only surmise that the boys didn’t report the incident in case their lack of bottle came to light.

We became a sideshow. The guards would bring in friends and local dignitaries, and stamp about and show their authority, cocking their weapons and pointing them. One big fat bastard came in one day -with his Makharov pistol. He cocked it, brought it up, aimed it at Dinger, and pulled the trigger. The hammer came down on an empty chamber. The guards loved it. The fat bastard started laughing, all his mates started laughing, and we joined in. Then Dinger somehow managed to turn the whole thing to his advantage and ended up getting a cigarette out of it, which made his day. We continued doing our ground studies of the map every afternoon, trying to memorize every detail so that when we escaped and got out of the built-up area we’d have some form of identification of where we were. I think we got so good after a while that as soon as we saw a road sign we’d have known exactly where we were.

Map studies took up a lot of time, but in idle moments we just sat there and waffled. I went through my life story several times, until everybody knew Peckham and my three ex-wives almost as well as I did. Stan would talk about his time in Rhodesia with his family. They had donkeys and used to paint their hooves in bright colors. He told us one particularly good story about the day he’d watched as a herd of elephants came and ate all the windfall apples from an orchard. The fruit was so old that it had started to ferment, and it wasn’t long before the elephants had flaked out on their haunches, completely pissed. While they were sleeping it off, a group of monkeys appeared and ate the remaining apples. They Went up into the trees to rest after the feast, and it wasn’t long before they also were pissed. One monkey was so gone that it fell off its branch, bringing down two other monkeys with it. They landed on the head of a pissed-up elephant, which then came to and started charging around the place.

Another story had a much darker side. Stan’s family had a houseboy who lived with his family in a small bungalow on the estate. One night, a group of rebels got hold of him and shot him because he worked for the white man. They dragged the body back to the bungalow and left it on the doorstep as a warning to the rest of the family. The warning was heeded. Soon afterwards, Stan joined the army and became part of the rapid reaction force. When independence was declared, Stan left the country in despair.

We tried to educate Stan in the finer points of punk music. It took us three days to remember all the words of the Jam song “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight,” and then we tried to teach it to him. He soon gave up. “I don’t understand all this British shit,” he complained. “Don’t you guys know any Rolf Harris?”

Poor Stan. He had a thing about storing food: even if he was hungry, he would try and save it for a rainy day. He’d spend a lot of time and ingenuity hiding it from the guards, and then we’d wake up in the morning and insist that he share it. After all, what else are friends for?

We also passed the time doing exercise or assessing our injuries. I worried a lot about tooth decay. The guards nearly always spat in our food, and I imagined foul Iraqi bacteria attacking my broken stumps and rotting them, and then all my other teeth falling like dominoes.

We kept tabs on the date, and I felt especially low on the 24^th. I couldn’t help myself thinking about how I would have spent the day if I’d been in England. Would Katie have been with us for the day, or would I have just phoned her to wish her a happy birthday?

Towards the end of the month the major began turning up much more often, normally just before last light. He talked to us a lot about how wonderful it was to be an Iraqi since the revolution. There was a comprehensive health-care system, he explained, and everybody got a handsome pension at retirement age. Saddam also provided free education for all, up to and including university level-even if that entailed studying overseas.

“Our children read Shakespeare at school,” he said one time, showing us a copy of Hamlet. “Last night I was going home, and a bomb dropped behind me. To be or not to be-it is Allah’s will, no?”

None of us said anything, and after a while he muttered, “You know, you have been well treated here.”

It was our best clue yet that the war was nearly over. We didn’t tell him what his guards were up to when his back was turned. That would only have made matters worse.

“Just remember that what happened before is nothing to do with me’ he repeated. It must have been obvious to him that the war was going against them, and he was covering his arse.

One night we heard the gates opening and the sound of moaning and groaning. I hated hearing the gate open at night: it made me feel very insecure. It was clear from the sounds that a prisoner was being brought in and put into a cell. There was lots of mumbling, and suddenly a long, loud burst of screaming. We made contact with him the following night. His name was Joseph Small, call sign Alley Cat. He was a major, an aviator in the US Marine Corps. Poor bastard, he had been shot down on what he was able to tell us was the last day of the ground war. He had a bad parachute landing that left him hanging in a tree. He had sustained an open fracture of the leg, and all the Iraqis had done was give him an open-cast splint and let him get on with it.