Free A Long Walk Home: One Woman's Story of Kidnap, Hostage, Loss - and Survival by Judith Tebbutt

invitation, and I was glad of the respite from the beating sun, as well as the space and the change of scenery, such as it was.
    We stayed there for, again, what seemed like hours. The Leader picked his now customary moment to get up and walk away out of sight. Marvin dozed off near to me, the Navigator and Money did likewise beneath a tree. I began to feel a cooling breeze, for which I was grateful, and I unzipped the black jacket far enough for the breeze to work its way around my body. Such was the improvement, I decided to risk incurring the usual wrath by untying the cord around the jacket’s hood and pulling it down – all the time keeping a wary eye out for any stirring among my captors. There was none, and so I sat, mercifully bareheaded for the first time in days.
    There was a limit to the consolation I felt. My body was wet with sweat, my hair plastered to my head. My face was caked inblood from the nosebleed and the cut above my eye. I was sure I was a wretched sight. And I had to begun to worry seriously about septicaemia, given the various cuts to my feet and the rash of bleeding bites around my body, now most exquisitely sore on the rubbed skin around the waistband of my trousers.
    My mind began to wander. This time, should I – could I – attempt an escape? I started to shift my leg along the ground from left to right, making a rustling noise in order to gauge how deeply my captors were sleeping. Nobody stirred. From lying down I sat up, carefully zipped up the jacket and replaced the hood, then leaned my back against the tree trunk – and coughed sharply. Again, no reaction. They seemed to be sleeping soundly.
    I got to my feet, stepped out from the shade and began to walk down the incline towards the winding path, which would lead, I was sure, to a village. My plan, swiftly formed, was to find and don a
burka
as soon as I reached the village, so that every part of me save for my eyes would be cloaked from view, and I could remain undetected while pondering my next move. I was quite sure, though, that this would involve my locating a car or truck with its keys conveniently left in the ignition – whereupon I would drive to the capital, Mogadishu. As I understood it there were UN camps there, places where I would be greeted, welcomed, given food and clean clothes. Tomorrow’s headlines would read ENGLISH WOMAN MAKES DARING ESCAPE FROM KIDNAPPERS: FULL STORY, PAGE 5. By which time I would be reunited with my beloved husband and son …
    ‘You eat!’
    I jerked my head up sharply. Marvin stood over me, his frame occluding the sun and casting a long shadow. His hands were proffering to me the makeshift beaker of sweet tea and the packet of revolting Encore biscuits.
    It was probably a fortunate thing that he had propelled me back to reality – to the fact that, far from hastening away from the scene, I hadn’t even got to my feet. I accepted the unappetising offerings, much more concerned by how quickly and deceptively my imagination had raced away from me.
    I spent the rest of the day brooding over my escape plan, realising the chance was lost and that, in any case, I had no idea where I would go, or whether the effort might not expose me to even greater danger. It was such a struggle to rationalise what was happening to me while I felt myself to be on the edge of existence, unsure what the next day or hour or minute would hold – whether, even, it could be my last. The grim feeling persisted that the only way out of this nightmare was one that would, in time, be dictated to me.
    *
    Around dusk my attentiveness had waned, for when Marvin and the Navigator began to dismantle the camp – packing things away, folding up tarpaulin, carting items down the incline to where the boat was moored – I realised that Money and the Leader were nowhere to be seen. Marvin approached me, pulled down the sheet that had hung over my head, and folded it up. The procedure was swift and silent and soon it had erased any