Authors: Adrian Levy
Finally, on 9 July, as they hung around the government guesthouse feeling ‘hollow and lost’, as Julie put it, Jane caught sight of a thin, limping man being led into the compound, surrounded by a sea of American and Indian officials. He was barely recognisable as the man she had met in the Meadow. He was covered in cuts and bruises, both feet were heavily bandaged and he seemed overwhelmed. Someone brought him over. He was shaking uncontrollably, and Jane thought she could only imagine what he must have been through. The instant
he saw the women’s expectant faces he shrank back, unable to make eye contact.
The women tried their best not to crowd him, seeing from his physical condition (and guessing at the mental scars) that he had gone through hell. ‘Was anybody injured?’ Julie asked. ‘No,’ he replied in a barely audible whisper. The women squeezed in a little closer. The other hostages were in relatively good spirits, he continued, although Keith was suffering from altitude sickness as a result of them being made to climb over a very high pass. Jane asked how they were bearing up psychologically. She brightened visibly when John told her that Don had become a bridge between them and the kidnappers, the most capable man he had ever met. ‘He told me that the militants called him
chacha
, or uncle,’ Jane recalled. Despite his age, they had been impressed by his agility and speed on the mountain paths, John added. They had also commented on the fact that he wore a beard, joking that he must secretly be a Kashmiri Muslim. ‘It was just such a huge relief to know he was OK,’ said Jane.
John told them how they had walked long distances at extreme elevations, sometimes at night. The most frightening thing had been the fear of falling. However, they had all survived relatively unscathed, and had been provided with some food. Staying in the
gujjar
huts had been a miserable experience that John had no wish to repeat, he said, but the kidnappers had in the main been polite and accommodating. ‘What do you think are their chances of a release?’ Julie asked, getting to the point. It was the question the Indians would never answer, and the one John had dreaded being asked. He could not bring himself to tell the women that he believed he had fled as they were being marched to their death. He was ‘reasonably optimistic’, he said quietly. The al Faran leadership had ‘promised’ none of them would be harmed. But his heart was not in it.
The conversation petered out. A brusque woman from the US Embassy bustled over, saying it was time for John to leave. Just before the FBI and Tim Buchs whisked him away, Jane took him to one side. ‘She asked me how I had escaped, and I told her I’d taken advantage of my sickness and the darkness. She asked me how Don had felt
about escaping, and I said that he felt as I did, that it was the only way out. Jane then looked deep into my eyes and said gently, “Why couldn’t you just bring Don with you?” I was silent. I was bowled over by this, the hardest question of all. It was impossible to look her in the eye and tell her the truth. I could have. But I didn’t.’
Jane, Julie and Cath returned to their quarters feeling more alone than ever, certain that John Childs’ actions had significantly reduced their loved ones’ chances, although no one in authority would confirm it. Julie rang home to update her mother, trying to keep things upbeat. ‘The American told her that no one had been harmed in any way,’ Anita said. ‘They were being fed and well looked after. It was not knowing if he was hurt that was the most distressing. Julie had been crying, worrying about him being hurt. Now she knew at least he was all right.’
But back in Srinagar, sitting glassy-eyed before the television, the women were confronted by another newsflash. A young German woman, Anne Hennig, looking ashen and terrified, was telling reporters in Pahalgam, between heavy sobs, how she had just scrambled down from Chandanwari, the mountain village that served as the first-night stop for the Amarnath pilgrims. A group of gunmen had appeared from nowhere that morning, and abducted her boyfriend in broad daylight from a trekking path, she said. She had no idea where they had taken him, or who they were. What was his name, a reporter asked. ‘Dirk,’ she said. ‘Dirk Hasert, a twenty-six-year-old student from Erfurt. Please help him.’
A few hours later, a petrified Anne joined Jane, Julie and Cath in Srinagar. The women flocked around, trying to comfort her. They knew exactly what she was feeling. Another room at the government guesthouse was now occupied, as they were all plunged into despair.
Across Church Lane, between the
chinar
trees, a soft light was still on in the second-floor bedroom of a five-storey building. A low-watt bulb burned into the early hours, illuminating a frugal room in which an old man sat at a bureau, his grey-haired head cupped in his hands. General Saklani understood exactly what was going on. An al Faran search party looking for Childs had scooped up the next best thing.
On 8 July, almost fifteen miles above Pahalgam, in a clutch of stone huts known as Zargibal, a single column of militants arrived, travelling head to tail like hunting dogs. Sitting in a tree-filled dip at nine thousand feet, a couple of hours’ trekking distance from where John Childs had escaped his captors, the hamlet served as a way station for pilgrims heading for the Amarnath Cave. The gunmen’s arrival must have been sometime after 11 a.m., as a local
chai-wallah
, Abdul Bhat, who operated a seasonal stall here, recalled that his stomach was rumbling, but lunchtime prayers had not yet been called.
At first he thought they were Indian Army soldiers, but when he saw their clothes, a mixture of ragged, unwashed
kurtas
and second-hand khaki, he realised straight away that they must be ‘guest
mujahideen
’, as Kashmiris respectfully called foreign militants. Trying not to stare, he guessed they were most likely members of the Movement, since these days this mountain area was their heartland. For the past two years it had felt as if Sikander and the Afghani were everywhere. But, he wondered fearfully, what were the
mujahids
doing
here
now, in broad daylight, with soldiers all around?
Mr Bhat was as much for
azadi
, or freedom for Kashmir, as the next man, members of his family having gone ‘over there’ in 1990, entering Pakistan-administered Kashmir to train at ISI camps. But if these gunmen were caught in Zargibal they would be shot on sight, and the hamlet destroyed by the security forces for harbouring them. Mr Bhat had no idea that these were militants from the al Faran kidnap party, driven to take extraordinary risks by the Turk, who was determined
to recapture the escaped American hostage, to rescue both his reputation and the fortunes of Operation Ghar.
The gunmen were desperate, having been out on the mountainsides for eight hours, first going down to Chandanwari and then back up the trekking route in the direction of the cave, with John Childs still nowhere to be seen. Silently, Mr Bhat cursed them. ‘Anyhow, they’ll be dead sooner rather than later,’ he thought as he brought down his hatch, striking the bolt. Kneeling so he could not be seen, he held his breath. He didn’t want any trouble.
He was clutching a cup of green tea in the dark when a sharp knock made him jump. Someone shouted in heavily accented Urdu through the wooden slats: ‘We’re looking for a foreigner. American.’ Mr Bhat froze. He could tell from the voice that this man was probably a Pashtun from the Pakistan–Afghan border, where the most feared fighters of all originated. He squeezed his eyes shut. ‘He might be limping,’ the man continued. Mr Bhat said nothing. ‘We’ve seen a tent.’ He gulped. The
tent
. They were talking about the one pitched just outside the village belonging to a blond, curly-haired foreigner. He had arrived two days back, and everyone in the village had taken to him. As Mr Bhat blurted out, ‘I can’t help you,’ he wondered if there was anything he could do to help the outsider. He was not an American. He was no one’s enemy. Should he raise the alarm? Should he try to signal to the foreigner to beware? ‘We’ll be back for you later,
dada
,’ the militant snapped, before bringing his rifle butt down on the hatch with a loud thwack.
The foreigner in the tent had arrived alone on the afternoon of 6 July, saying he was on his way up to the Hindu cave. He had stopped for tea, surprising Mr Bhat, who had never spoken to an ‘
angresi
’ before. Most of those who passed through were in the company of guides and pony-
wallahs
, who steered them straight to Pissu Top and then on to the cupric blues of Sheshnag Lake. But this traveller had sat down and chatted in broken Hindi, a language Mr Bhat knew a smattering of too. The foreigner had asked for the date of the full moon, and Mr Bhat had replied that it was not until 12 July, six days’ time. ‘Then I’m too early,’ the blond man had said with a grin. ‘Hans
Christian,’ he continued, introducing himself with a proffered hand. ‘I am Hans Christian Ostrø from Oslo.’ Mr Bhat touched his heart. ‘
Aadaab,
’ he said, by way of a Kashmiri greeting. Well, that’s what a Kashmiri Muslim would say to a Hindu, but Mr Bhat was unsure what customs this blond-haired outsider kept. He followed Hans Christian to the edge of the hamlet and watched, amazed, as he quickly erected a black one-man tent close to the trekking path. ‘Hans,’ he had said to himself, trying not to stare too much at that blond hair.
Over the next two days, Hans and Mr Bhat had got into a pattern. Hans would rise at dawn, and set off on his own up the mountains, towards Sheshnag or on a circuit around Mahagunas Top. In the afternoon he returned to drink Lipton
chai
with Mr Bhat and chat about the world. He was a natural entertainer. ‘I remember him picking up two five-gallon jerry cans of fuel, balancing them on either end of a pole that he spun around his head,’ Mr Bhat recalled. The villagers gave him the nickname
nar gao
, ‘the Ox’. At night, Hans had cooked for himself. A vegetarian, he shunned the mutton-based Kashmiri diet. A few locals, Mr Bhat among them, had come over to his fire to watch. He whittled wood for them, making whistles and toys, and let them handle the large army knife he kept tucked in his belt, explaining that it was a bayonet that he had kept after recently concluding his military service. He pulled a hard-man face, turning red and making everyone laugh. ‘He said he would defend us against the Indian soldiers who slunk through daily, stealing chickens and throwing their weight around,’ Mr Bhat said. He had even aped attacking one passing army patrol from behind, clowning behind the Indian soldiers, who seemed not to notice him, in what the villagers regarded as a suicidal gesture.
‘The Ox’, they called him, but there were many sides to Hans. On his second night he had called everyone together and started to dance in a jerky, classical Indian style. Afterwards he explained that he was Bhima, son of the Hindu wind god, and that he had the strength of a hundred elephants. Bhima’s job was ‘to protect the pious so they could live in the forest without fear’, he told them earnestly. This was
kathakali
, he explained, a dance from Kerala, in India’s far south. He
had been studying it before coming up here, and after this trek he was going home to Oslo to put on a show. His first venture as director/producer/promoter. It reminded the village elders of the
bhand pather
, the travelling Kashmiri folk players who had wandered the valley back in the days before the war, when Muslims could enjoy a Hindu pageant without feeling like traitors.
As the guest
mujahideen
party moved off, Mr Bhat was sure it was not Hans they were looking for, but hoped the foreigner would have the sense to run anyway. There was another thump on his hatch. He winced. ‘Hello, Mr Bhat. You in there? It’s Hans Christian. What’s going on?’ Mr Bhat wanted to cry out, ‘Run away! There are gunmen here!’ But as he strained to peer through the gaps in the wooden shutter, he saw the gunmen running back. They knocked Hans to the ground. ‘Hey, what’s up?’ Hans yelled as somebody took a swing at him. Mr Bhat cursed his own cowardice. He watched as the
mujahids
grappled with the foreigner, who put up an impressive fight, throwing off the first two who came at him and felling a third with some deft punches: left, right and then the belly. A fourth militant was about to shoot when someone slapped him, shouting that they needed to take this man alive. ‘Hans fought like a black bear,’ Mr Bhat recalled. ‘He whipped out his army knife and took cover behind a hut.’ For the next hour there was a standoff, with the foreigner and his knife pitched against half a dozen heavily armed militants. For a while it looked as if Hans might even outsmart them, but then Mr Bhat saw two men working their way behind him. They clubbed his legs from beneath him with a shovel, and Mr Bhat watched, horrified, as several militants sat on Hans’s chest, roped his arms together and dragged him down to his tent, which they rifled through before leaving the village, climbing towards the heights.
After they had gone, Mr Bhat came outside, and for the first time in many years he swore out loud. ‘
Chacha-chod!
’ he spat, using the Kashmiri word for uncle-fuckers. ‘I hate this fucking war!’ he shouted to his neighbours as they made their way out of their hiding places towards the tent Hans had pitched to face the seven peaks of Sheshnag. A pair of flip-flops still lay on the ground, as if someone was asleep
inside. Mr Bhat peered in, hoping that he had somehow got it all wrong, and Hans would be smiling back at him. But clothes were strewn around, photographs torn and jumbled, a packet of instant porridge, a small gas stove and a bottle of honey. A jar of Horlicks had been emptied onto the sleeping bag.
Mr Bhat tried to make things tidy, although in his heart he knew that Hans would not be returning. Hidden beneath a brown woolly hat he found a Norwegian edition of
Opening Doors Within
, a volume of meditations by Eileen Caddy, a British New Age guru, and a book of poems by Khalil Gibran. Mr Bhat could not read in any language, but from the bottom of the sleeping bag he fished out a bulging black notepad with red linen trim. Written in Norwegian, the first page read: ‘The books of Katharsis Theatre, Hans Christian Ostrø’. Beneath was a biro sketch of a dancing figure, arms raised, with a budding rose drawn over its heart. Intense currents of swirling script raced across and up the sides of the following pages, interspersed with more biro scribbles: ghostlike faces, lips, hands and eyes. The writings, mostly in Norwegian with a few English words scattered about, were a combination of jottings about
kathakali
, notes on Hindu myths, diary entries and quotes from the great Indian polymath Rabindranath Tagore. Interspersed between them were private, deep-felt thoughts about regrets, old girlfriends and missed opportunities. Mr Bhat deduced that these things were personal, and shut the book immediately.