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

Author:Tebbutt, Judith [Tebbutt, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571303038
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2013-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

In the early hours of the morning I felt the ground shake. I awoke in darkness to harsh vibration, discordant noise. My bed was being kicked, very purposely so as to wake me. As I stirred I was dazzled by the harsh glare of torchlight in my eyes, and for a moment I could see nothing else in front of me.

Then I found some focus and realised the Navigator was standing there. He didn’t say a word, but held out a black binliner, and pointed sharply at my things around the room, then prodded a finger down into the depths of the binbag.

‘You want me to put my things in there?’

He nodded. ‘We go,’ he said.

‘Where are we going?’

To that, no answer. And so anxiety came spiralling down on me again. I got out from under the mosquito net and began to fill the bag with the sum of my worldly goods – my book and pen, my radio, my torch, a little bottle of shampoo. When no one was watching, impulsively, I plucked off the six pegs that were holding my curtains together: it just seemed to me that they could prove a handy addition to my cache. Then I was told to sit, and they took down the mosquito net, folded up the blue-and-yellow mattress, gathered up my water receptacles. In the dark I could barely make out the figures flitting around me: the effect was phantasmagorical. But Vain Man was directing operations, ensuring everything was stripped down and carted. Silence prevailed. No one spoke. The pirates’ feet seemed to be soundless on the floor. Actions were seamlessly orchestrated, one man’s job to pick up and bear off this, another that.

Then I was led out into the compound. As usual most of the pirates were asleep, either undercover or outside in the compound, their sheets wound up and around their heads, like shrouds. The door in the metal gate was opened, I stepped out and there the Fat Controller’s four-wheel-drive awaited me, its door open. I was bundled inside, clutching my black bag. Pirates got in the back beside me, with their guns.

The car rolled away, headlights off, moving slowly through the village. Through the glass I saw a restaurant, a hairdresser’s, a donkey tied up, houses with four-wheel-drive cars parked up outside. All was quiet, dark, deserted. After a little while I noticed piles of stones along the sides of the track, seeming to lead out of the village. We were headed that way, but not at speed. Once we were past the dwellings the car lights went on. But soon we entered another settled cluster of houses. We hadn’t gone so very far, and seemed to be nearing our destination. I knew now I was going to be confined to new quarters. I’d got accustomed to the compound, got settled there. This new disruption was frightening to me.

It was an eerie feeling, knowing oneself to be transported somewhere ‘in secret’, and a kind of mental torture,

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