Free Escape from Saddam by Lewis Alsamari

people in England should he ever visit. He was giving me a way out of being a simple soldier, looked down upon by everyone, and the look he gave me was quizzical; but of course, he had no inkling of my escape plans.
    “If you say no,” he replied slowly, “then I will inform the authorities that, having been allowed to spend time in England as a result of the government’s generosity, you have now declined to serve your country in return.” He held his hands out and shrugged. “They will decide what action to take.”
    I remained silent as we both considered the ominous threat implicit in his last statement.
    “I take it you want me to proceed with the transfer?” Taha asked finally.
    “Yes, sir,” I replied in a small voice. “Thank you, sir.”
             
    My telephone call to Saad that evening was urgent. I could not tell him explicitly of my fears, of course—no doubt somebody was listening in—but he immediately understood the implications of what I told him. “They are transferring me to
Al-Istikhbarat
in Al-Mansour,” I said as soon as the pleasantries were out of the way.
    Saad fell silent. “How long have you got?” he asked.
    “I don’t know, they haven’t told me.”
    My uncle quickly directed the conversation elsewhere. Some minutes later, however, quite out of the blue, he said, “Next time you’re home on leave, we’ll pay that visit to your family in the north.” There had been no plans to visit anybody, of course. Saad was trying to tell me something else.
    I spent the next few days in a state of the highest anxiety. The summonses to see Taha had come to a halt, and I felt in a state of limbo. I called Saad again a few nights later.
    “You know that thing we were talking about?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I replied apprehensively.
    “I’ve found out another way to go about it. We’ll try it next time you’re home.”
    It was two weeks until my next leave, but I started to make my preparations long before that. Saad’s comment had been ambiguous, but I fully expected that I would never see the unit again. I presented my leave papers to the
arif
for stamping in good time. “Please,” I asked him, “stamp it carefully.” It was a bold request, and he gave me an irritated glance but stamped the flimsy piece of paper slowly and forcefully. I took special care to wait until the ink was dry before stowing it away with my military ID—I could not risk it smudging. The night before I was due to leave, I packed my bag with no feeling of nostalgia: I would not be sorry in the least to leave this place.
    The following morning I did not loiter. At sunrise I left the barracks, and as I passed through the gates I breathed the cool morning air deeply, barely able to suppress the excitement I was feeling. Without looking back at my unit, I walked straight to the bus station as quickly as I could—the hour-long trip took me no longer than forty-five minutes—and boarded a bus to Baghdad. The bus was almost full, but I managed to find myself a seat toward the back.
    We passed the first couple of checkpoints without being stopped. As we approached the third, a number of my fellow passengers were snoozing—we had all been up with the sun to catch the early bus—but I was in no state of mind to sleep. We were still two hundred kilometers from the capital, and already my mouth was dry with anticipation. I did not know what Saad had lined up for me, but the quiet confidence in his voice the last time we had spoken had given me reason to expect that things had been put into motion.
    The driver sent his assistant—a young boy of about fourteen—around the bus to shake the slumbering passengers. “Checkpoint,” he told them. “Have your papers ready so that we can pass through as quickly as possible.”
    Everybody fumbled around for their documents; mine were already held tightly in my fist, although I made sure I did not touch the stamp to avoid any risk of it becoming smudged by the