Kidnapped!

Sprog 4 and I watched ‘Ross Kemp in Afghanistan’ which a 15 year old boy is bound to love.  I can’t really form an opinion as to whether we should have troops there or not. Would we be there if America hadn’t said so? I dunno. I could only tell my boy that I had a great time out there on the hippy trail in 1973 and met some lovely Afghan people and Sprog 4 replied “Dad, you would make friends wherever you go.” (He’s seen me in action on holiday.) It was a nice thing to say anyway.

But they weren’t all friendly there in ‘73. I had teamed up with a young American couple in the town of Herat and we were all invited for a meal at the shack of two Afghan brothers. After this indigestible feast they said we should visit the temple. We all spilled onto the road to find a taxi waiting outside. We should have known better but we got in. The taxi drove us miles into the desert as me and Jim discussed our probable mistake. We were met at a remote desert abode by another guy and they led us into a woodland area. Jim and I figured it was time to run, they were after raping his girl for sure, (or us?)
They caught us and roughly took us to the house and locked us in a room. The Americans were in complete panic but strangely enough I was cool. If you’re in trouble in England you are theoretically protected by the state, your mum and dad, whoever. But here I was sure they could kill you and get away with it. It made me fearless because I was totally alone.
We could hear them drinking and playing cards in the next room, savouring their prey. I had a Swiss army knife with me and used it to break the catch on the window and out we popped and ran for the main desert track.
We ran along the track for a minute of two and then Jim saw the headlights of the brother’s car leaving the house. “Jump into the ditch!” I told them. The car passed but after another 200 metres they realised we couldn’t have got that far and turned around.
Did you see Lord of the Rings when that dark rider was searching for the hobbits on the road?
After a couple more passes by the car I decided it was better to head into the desert in the direction of the village where we stayed. The Boy Scouts had taught me about star navigation and boy was I grateful.
The three of as stumbled across the desert scrub till we saw a strange light. As we approached we saw that it was two sets of headlights. There were figures milling around the two vehicles. I shouted a hello. The lights went off. Silence. Then a torch suddenly shone on us. “We’re lost” I said “Herat?”  The torchbearer shone the thing into his own face in a gesture on friendship I guessed. He was an old guy with several teeth missing and he was smiling. The lights came back on and they made a huge fuss of sitting the girl comfortably in one of the trucks. We were lucky that they were gents. They had other plans for Jim and I however.
It was loading crates of rifles from one truck to another. I knew this because one of the youngsters opened a crate to show me but was soon put back into place by an older guy. On completion of business they drove us back to our guesthouse and I thanked them profusely.
As we sat in the bar we saw the brothers car draw up outside and as we were pretty safe there I threw them a good old British V sign (fuck off.) Jim asked me what it meant and I told him so he had a go. He just couldn’t do it. It looked like Winston Churchill’s victory V. I guess it takes years of practise. Being British helps too.


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