Read Online Michael Asher by The Real Bravo Two Zero - Free Book Online

fear of being noticed by the AA gunners. Accepting that Bravo Two Zero had been compromised, McNab then gave the order to pull out. According to Ryan, the shepherd-boy would not have noticed them except for the fact that, overcome with the temptation to see what was happening, Vince Phillips moved, craning his head to see if he could spot him. At the time, though, Ryan says, no one was sure if the boy had really seen them at all � it was only later that Vince came clean about it. In Ryan's version, there is no mad rush towards the AA guns, and no desperate attempt by Vince and Mark to intercept the youth. Ryan says that there was no cry of alarm and that it was pretty obvious that the boy had run off (italics mine), which is merely an assumption, not an observed fact, while McNab recounts that he actually made eye contact with the boy and saw the astonishment in his eyes, and that the youth suddenly went running off. McNab also writes that he 'followed the boy with his eyes' as he ran away, yet the LUP is five metres deep and steep-sided, and while you could see someone standing right on the lip, it would be impossible for men lying prone to have seen the boy running off. Not only does McNab's account seem unlikely judging by the ground, but the two accounts are obviously incompatible. I looked forward keenly to returning to the farm the fol�lowing day, hoping that some fresh light would be shed on the matter by the mysterious 'Uncle Abbas'. CHAPTER six ABBAS BIN FADHIL WAS THE head of the extended family living in the settlement on the hill � a family that must have numbered at least thirty men, women and chil-dren. He was a slim, upright man with an open face and a wild beard, who walked with a pronounced limp. His voice was raucous and he tended to shout, as Bedouin will do, but he exuded warmth and hospitality. As I shook hands with him and his relatives and seated myself on a cushion in the vast mudhif or reception room, I won�dered what the day would bring. Abbas ordered tea for everyone, and while it was being served I gazed around me. There were no electric lights in this place, I noted, and neither did there appear to be any running water. The house consisted of little more than this mudhif, carpeted and lined with cushions � obviously no one but guests actually slept there. While we were drinking the tea, Abbas introduced me to two more Bedouin: a tall, spindly-looking man with a Mexican-style moustache, a little younger than Abbas himself, and a handsome youth of about eighteen or twenty The tall man was Abbas's younger brother, Hayil, and the youth their nephew, Adil. As we chatted, Abbas told me that they belonged to a Bedouin tribe called the Buhayat, who had long had a farm in the area. Though he had been brought up in a black tent in the desert and had ridden camels as a boy, his family were now settled here. They raised livestock � mainly sheep � and planted wheat in the wadis after the rains, but had long ago given up their camels in favour of motor vehicles. Abbas said that the mudhif we were sitting in was new, but it stood on the site of a more primitive structure which had been hit by Allied bombers back in 1991. `Thank God no one was killed,' he said. 'But they did hit some Bedouin tents on other raids and killed both people and sheep. Now what was the point of that?' Despite the fact that I was British, he appeared � like the people in Baghdad � to nurse no grievance against me personally. 'I can tell you everything about the foreign soldiers who were here,' he said. 'At the time we thought they were Americans, but if you say they were British, all right. First of all, it wasn't a herdsboy who saw them in the wadi, it was me. I was the one who saw them first.' I squinted at Abbas, wondering whether he might have been mistaken for a boy ten years before. Black-bearded and weathered-looking, I concluded that he was a man who had probably looked forty all his adult life. Excited, I