Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat. Alex Crawford

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СКАЧАТЬ closer and closer. Some men are dragging anti-aircraft guns away, others are positioning machine-guns on the corner of the hotel. ‘Do you want to go to the mosque?’ one fighter asks us. I turn to Martin. ‘What do you think?’ He says: ‘Crawfie, Gaddafi’s troops aren’t going to respect a mosque.’ I know he’s right. We have reported on the Pakistan army storming a mosque and killing militants inside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. ‘But we are definitely going to be hit if we stay here,’ I reply. It seems like the least worst option.

      The man has a small combi van outside ready and waiting. We all pile in. It is just a short drive around the Square to the opposite end, where the small mosque is situated, but bullets are whistling around the van. We can see fires are already alight around the Square where rockets have landed. There are freshly dug graves of those rebels who have already died in the fighting on the grassy patch in the centre of the Square. The mosque is blaring out anti-Gaddafi rhetoric in between religious exhortations. It doesn’t look much like a safe haven. Outside there is a gaggle of people shouting, chanting, praying, calling on others to join them in the fight.

      As we sprint out from the van into the mosque, I see straight away that they have turned one of the two small rooms inside into a field hospital. There are about three doctors dressed in green medical gowns waiting for casualties. They have three mobile beds already set up. That’s pretty much all they can fit inside the room.

      The mosque is really small, one of the smallest I have ever been in. There is an open courtyard roughly four metres square. There is another small room about the same size opposite the medical room. We open the metal door and see there are already a couple of people inside sheltering – young boys, barely men. Bags of flour and sacks of wheat are propped up against the walls and cooking utensils piled up on top of them. It’s a storeroom. Right at the rear end of the courtyard, beyond these two rooms, is the praying area.

      We don’t even have time to find a seat inside the storeroom before the first injured are brought into the mosque and, within minutes, more and more. The tiny clinic is very soon overwhelmed. The doctors have little equipment or medicines to treat the injured – saline drips, morphine, bandages seem to be all that is available. And the injuries are horrendous. There are men with the backs of their heads blown away, but they’re still conscious, muttering ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they are carried by friends. How does that happen? How can they still talk when their brains are exposed? How are they still conscious when I can see inside their skulls?

      Martin and I are rushing around filming what we can, each with one camera, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to even cross the small courtyard. Bullets are pinging off the floor. We can see machine-guns firing just outside the mosque. We can hear the tanks so, so close now. The sound is deafening. The noise of battle is everywhere – above us, to the sides of us, behind us. And it’s all sorts of noises – the big, thundering boom of the tanks, the crackle of machine-gun fire, the whistle of single shots, the whoosh of rockets. An incredible, terrifying cacophony. It is loud and threatening and very, very frightening. We’re not on the front line. We are in the middle of the battle.

      The casualties are getting worse. I am sitting in the corner of the clinic watching as the doctors are seeing injuries no medic in any state-of-the-art hospital with all the latest equipment could save. They certainly can’t be saved here with these meagre medical supplies. I am quite sure the doctors cannot have seen injuries like it. I certainly haven’t. They are battlefield injuries – arms blown off, legs half off, skulls smashed open. One man is so peppered with wounds I can’t actually see anywhere he is not hit. His clothes are deep red. The smell is strong. Blood has a particular smell. Death has another. They are both in my nostrils and all over my skin. I am feeling useless, utterly useless. I can’t help these people. I can’t tend to them. All I can do is watch these people dying in front of me.

      A large man comes in carrying another of about the same size over his shoulder. He must be more than six foot tall. He’s big and strong. He puts the very limp, badly injured man down on the floor of the clinic as the doctors try to plug holes and wipe whatever they can. One of the medics is screaming: ‘Saline! Saline!’ It’s constant and repetitive and takes me a while to work out what he is saying because the pitch is so high. He sounds absolutely panic-stricken. I’m thinking saline is not going to even start helping this guy. I look outside and the big man who has brought the casualty in is bent over a chair standing on its own in the courtyard. He’s retching and vomiting. Is it exertion? Fear? Pain? Maybe a combination of all three?

      I go back into the storeroom. I feel like crying. Am I the only one? I can’t be. I’m sure we all do, but something stops us. Tim and Martin are sitting there with about half a dozen other people. One young man is sitting in a motorcycle helmet reading the Koran. Others are just staring blankly ahead. Everyone has this sweat of fear on their face.

      I look over at Martin and see he’s returning my gaze. He’s thinking: Is she thinking what I’m thinking? I am. We know each other so well that I’m positive the same dreadful thoughts are coursing through his mind too right now. This is as hopeless a situation as we’ve ever been in. We’re going to die.

      I can’t see a way out, and Martin – who has been in so many wars in so many countries – can’t see a way out either. Boom, boom, boom. I can feel the presence of the monstrous Gaddafi tanks right outside where we are sitting, crouching, cowering. And the stone walls feel terribly thin and flimsy, more like raffia paper. They are no defence, no cover at all. Gaddafi’s soldiers seem to be all around us. We feel cornered, hemmed in, and utterly defenceless.

      The blasts from the tanks are so loud they are damaging my ears. The noise is crashing and thunderous and vibrates through us. Please don’t turn that tank into this wall, please, I’m pleading.

      The rebels outside are fighting for their lives – and ours. Their city is under violent, barbarous attack from Colonel Gaddafi’s forces and, frankly, they have no choice. They fight or they are crushed.

      In the storeroom there are people just like us, about half a dozen who have just been caught up in the fighting or who have fled here to shelter. We don’t have a single recognizable weapon between us. There is a young boy next to me. He’s probably the youngest – about 15 years old, the same age as my son, Nat. He’s crying, his hands gripping his ears to try to stifle the noise. The oldest is a man of about 55. He is staring ahead into space, clutching a briefcase which has his laptop in it. The laptop has saved his life already, taking a bullet which then ricocheted past his thigh. It took a chunk of his skin with it and he’s bleeding, but it’s only a surface wound. That’s not what he’s going to die of.

      Martin and I are just staring at each other across the room, not saying anything, but we’re reading each other’s thoughts. He looks terrified. Just like I feel.

      I suddenly want my family. I want to be near them, to know they are safe. I miss them and their love in this well of hate in which we have found ourselves. Christ, I have got too much to live for to die here in a foreign country away from them all. I look over to Tim and see he’s looking down at the floor. He’s a picture of despair.

      We’re all thinking the same thing, but we’re all too frightened to voice it aloud right now. We’re not going to get out of this alive. I see Martin very definitely put down his camera. No point. Shit, he has given up, I’m thinking. Tim is telling me to stay inside, stay in the storeroom, stay still, stay with him and Martin, conserve my energy. He’s holding his BlackBerry. We’ve both got pictures of our children on our phones. But we know if we look at them there’ll be no holding back the emotions.

      Is Tim saying goodbye to them in his head, saying goodbye to those he loves? Oh God, I’m scared to my very core. Am I ever going to see my children again? Am I going to die here in this grubby little storeroom frightened out of my wits?

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