The Easy Day Was Yesterday (3 page)

As I struggled for air beneath the pillowcase, I was dragged to my feet and forced to run. Again the wet pillowcase clung to my face and limited my air supply, so every 10 paces I just ran out of air and fainted. My escorts flapped the opening of my pillowcase until I came around, and then I ran 10 more paces before collapsing again. My feet ached. I’d been wearing boots almost continuously for the past four weeks so my feet were soft, and running blindly on gravel bloody hurt. I’m glad the interrogators didn’t ask me any further questions at that time. I guess I would have hung on knowing that this was just an exercise, but I was a wreck. I also realised that fighting an interrogator was foolish and I’d probably be lucky if I passed this process.

Six hours later and I was back in the interrogator’s chair. After the swim in the pool I was given a pair of very loose cotton pyjamas bottoms that had no elastic in the waist so I had to hold them up with my handcuffed hands. This interrogator was a woman and introduced herself as Comrade someone or rather. She was very official and barely looked up as the guards pushed me into the room.

‘Lance Corporal Jordan, I’m going to ask you some questions and you will answer them.’

She looked up at me expectantly, but I said nothing.

‘Is that clear?’

‘Jordan, Lance Corporal, 25th of March 19…’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she said, cutting me off from giving the reply required under the Geneva Convention. She studied me for a few minutes while I watched her. She was quite a nice-looking woman and I wondered if that was part of this interrogation session.

‘What are you doing with your hands?’ she asked, but didn’t wait for my reply. ‘Put your hands above your head.’

If I did that, my pants would fall down. So I spread my legs and raised my arms above my head. My spread legs secured my pyjamas. ‘Put your feet together,’ she ordered, continuing to study me. Damn. I put my feet together and tried to lock my pyjama bottoms by squeezing my legs together. They fell a little, but still concealed my kit.

‘Jump up and down.’

I should have told her to get fucked, but this was a test, and I was probably on thin ice given my last effort, so I just did it and that was the end of my pyjamas. They went straight to my ankles. So there I am jumping up and down with all the kit bouncing around. I would also say in my defence that it was very cold this particular evening.

‘Stop jumping. Are all Australians built like that?’ Again, she didn’t wait for answer, but shook her head. ‘Right, you were captured at this location. What were you doing there?’

Away we went and I started my usual Geneva Convention reply while periodically being forced to jump up and down with the Comrade watching me. After an hour of this I was marched back to the waiting area and forced to kneel on my board.

My board was my home for the duration of the interrogation phase. It was where I spent my time between sessions. It was about 30 centimetres wide and 150 centimetres long. Under foot I could feel that it was made of two lengths of rough-cut timber nailed to two cross members underneath. I couldn’t see the other guys but knew they were in the room with me and were also kneeling. Prior to my arrival in the holding room, the guard tapped the bell twice which meant we had to kneel.

A few hours later I was abruptly dragged from my board and frogmarched outside. I was keen to get outside as identifying the position of the sun in the sky would help me with direction and the time of day. It had been dark when the Comrade got a look at my kit and now the sun was high in the sky. I was forced to walk quickly over the rough road for about three or four minutes before suddenly being ordered to stop, with the added warning, ‘Don’t move!’

I heard something being shifted; it sounded like a steel lid being opened. Then they grabbed me and pushed me down until I fell into a hole and I heard the steel lid sound again. I was able to spin around and sit in a tight ball, but when I lifted my head, I hit the steel lid. As I raised my eyes, I could see the shadows of my guards looking down at me and the steel grate trapping me in this hole. Then someone called down to me, ‘I want the names of the men in your patrol. You would be well advised to give them to me. When you do, I will let you out. Do you understand me?’

‘Jordan, Lance Corporal … ah fuck,’ I mumbled as a torrent of water smashed into me. I must have been sitting under a hydrant or something, as the pressure was intense. I dropped my head and took the jet in the back of my neck. I concentrated on each breath, as the pillowcase quickly become drenched, making it difficult to breathe. Then I thought of that boiling hot meal I had a few hours ago and how I had wiped my hands on the pillowcase and it occurred to me that this water would wash away those stains. Bizarre, but this was enough to make me laugh. I thought this situation was pretty hilarious, but my laughing stopped when I noticed that the water was getting pretty bloody high now. The top of the water was touching my chin and I thought they’d have to turn it off soon. I looked up at them as my interrogator yelled, ‘Well?’ Give me the names, Jordan!’

I couldn’t be arsed with the spiel, so I said nothing and the water kept coming. Now it was so high that I had to push my mouth up through the grate to get some air. Every part of me was under water except my pillowcase-covered mouth. I could see the silhouette of the interrogator looking down on me. He was probably yelling, but my ears were under water and the noise of the water jet smashing into my forehead ensured that I couldn’t hear a thing. Just as my neck muscles started to protest at the strain, the hydrant was turned off and the water started to subside. The grate was removed and my trusty guards dragged me out so fast I nearly left my pyjama bottoms in the pit.

Eventually, after 72 hours, the same guys who took us hostage rescued us and it was all over. One person had failed this phase, but the rest of us passed and moved onto the next course in the selection process. The best thing about the interrogation process was that it set a new benchmark for doing it tough and, for the rest of my time in the SAS, it would remain an unbeatable benchmark. If I could survive the interrogation phase, I could pretty much do anything.

So now this ugly, old, angry prick is going to have to try harder if he thinks I’m going to play his game. Obviously he doesn’t know that abuse is the easiest form of interrogation to reject. However, the previous stuff with the SAS was training and the reality was that they weren’t going to kill me, although they seemed to want to at the time. But this was real and I needed to get my game head on and get out. I noted the sheepish man to the left of the angry man trying to calm him and wasn’t happy when words like ‘terrorist’ and ‘mother fucker’ were used and he certainly didn’t like it when I was called a ‘cunt’.

Again the angry man pushed his recording device in my face and demanded to know if I had my passport on me. I turned my head and ignored him. He yelled something in Hindi and told me I’d committed a terrible criminal offence, and then they left the room to discuss the matter.

‘Ujjwal, hide all your money,’ I said as I fumbled through my pack to hide my passport and money.

‘Paul, maybe we should run for it,’ Uhwal suggested with a note of concern in his voice.

‘There are too many cops around, mate. If one of us gets caught, we are both done. Besides, we haven’t actually done anything wrong.’

Then a local man entered the room. He told Ujwal that this had happened before and he should just pay the immigration officer 500 rupees each and we’d both be released. I knew it. The yelling was designed to force the price up a bit, but I’d pay the 500 rupees and then kick myself in the arse later.

We waited a little while longer and the local came back again and told Ujwal not to make the payment as they were talking about taking us to the police station. The angry man came back into the room and had a photographer with him. He tried to take my photo, but I kept turning my head. The angry man yelled at me to turn and face the camera and, as I turned to refuse, the flash went off and they both retreated outside again. Excellent. Now the prick has a photo of me.

They came back after a few minutes and told us we were going to the police station. When we left the immigration office I again thought of running, but there were a couple of police too close to be certain of success and if they caught me I’d really be in trouble. We were both placed in separate rickshaws and travelled about two kilometres further into India to the police station. They made Ujwal pay for the rickshaws. I noted that the angry man hadn’t come with us. The short, sheepish man had come and had been joined by another, stern-looking man who wore an expression of someone who had been insulted and was preparing for revenge.

We pulled up outside an old, dilapidated building. The only thing suggesting its role as a police station was the ancient World War II jeep parked out the front with a blue light bolted to the roof. We were ushered into the Police Station Commander’s office where Sub-Inspector Jai Shankar was sitting behind his desk. He looked at me with some amusement as though he couldn’t wait to hear the serious crime I’d committed. He was a well-presented man, immaculately dressed as if awaiting a uniform inspection. He had short, well-trimmed hair and a pencil-thin moustache. The sheepish immigration officer outlined very quietly what we’d done and then Ujwal told our side of the story. As Ujwal spoke, the Sub-Inspector glanced at me from time and then, when he was almost finished, the Sub-Inspector’s face assumed an expression of disgust. His pencil-thin moustache started to curl with the shape of his upper lip and a light sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. He turned to the sheepish immigration guy and the other guy with the pissed-off look on his face and let them have it with both barrels. He stood and screamed at them while poking his finger in their chests. They both shrank and, for a minute, I thought the Sub-Inspector was going to start beating them. The look on the face of the pissed-off guy quickly changed into one of pleading: ‘Oh God, please don’t hit me, master!’ I reeled back and nearly fell off my chair wondering what the hell had just happened. ‘Ujwal, what’s going on?’

‘He’s yelling at them for bringing you here because now he must follow due process. He’s saying that they should have just pushed you back over the border, but now they have caused you too many problems.’ They both looked like scolded children as they agreed to their mistake. Bit bloody late, you pair of arseholes, I thought.

The Sub-Inspector picked up his vintage desktop dial phone and spoke to the Superintendant of Police (SP) Siddiqui and explained the situation. He told the SP that we were not carrying any illegal substances and had strayed by accident across the border into India. The SP insisted on due process being followed. At the same time, the angry man tried to enter the police station to speak to me, but was told by the local police to bugger off. I later learnt that he wasn’t an immigration official after all, but an informer for the SP. Had this bastard not been around, the immigration officer would’ve taken the 500 rupees and I’d be back in my hotel room by now. Apparently the angry man wanted to see me to ask for money to get me out of this situation. So the prick got me in the shit and then was denied access to get me out of it. In hindsight I should have attempted to control things better and slowed the situation down so I could determine accurately who was who. Instead I tried to be a smart arse — but then there had been nothing to suggest that the guy wasn’t an immigration officer.

I sent a text to Sallie Stone, my partner and General Manager of the company I worked for, and told her I’d been detained at Jogbani police station but that everything would probably be okay. She thought I was an idiot and had a chuckle about my stupidity. Fair enough, I deserved to have the piss pulled out of me.

I’d been at the police station now for two hours and was starting to get mildly concerned. I pretended to be sick, hoping this might push things along a little, but it didn’t. Ujwal continued to work like a champion trying to get them to see sense, but something was holding the process back. Finally, the Sub-Inspector came to Ujwal and me and said that he was taking us back to my hotel in Nepal to check my passport and Nepali visa, and to confirm with the hotel staff that I really had been conducting journalist training in Nepal and that I actually wasn’t a terrorist.

We got into the back of the old jeep parked out the front and headed back to Nepal. I sat in the back with the Sub-Inspector while Ujwal sat in the front with the elderly sergeant driver. Once we were on our way, the Sub-Inspector turned to me and said in a very serious manner, ‘Mister, we will first visit the Nepal police out of courtesy, then go to your hotel to check your story. This is normal due process.’ I nodded in agreement. He continued, ‘When my investigation is complete, you must return with me to the border so I can inform the SP that all is in order, then you can go. Do you understand this requirement?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do not worry Mister, all will be okay,’ he said, smiling at me.

I thought my concern must have been written all over my face, so I relaxed my facial muscles slightly and began a conversation about the police, his rank and his equivalent in Australia. As we crossed the border I asked the Sub-Inspector to show me where the border markers were. He pointed to a raised boom gate jammed up behind a building and a clump of mango trees and said that we were now in no man’s land. I told him that the hidden boom gate had been impossible to see from the rickshaw which had approached from the other direction. He agreed.

Just over the border, the Sub-Inspector stopped at the Nepali police station and explained the situation. The Nepali Inspector looked at me as if I was a condemned criminal and agreed to follow us. By the time we arrived at the hotel I had an entourage of about 20 police from two different countries.

At the hotel, the staff went into meltdown at the sight of all these cops. They walked around me quietly and stared more than usual. I raced to my room to pretend to get the passport that I actually had with me. The Sub-Inspector examined my passport thoroughly and then asked for it to be photocopied. The hotel workers were interviewed and confirmed that I’d been living there while working for three days teaching journalists.