Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat

The man has a small combi van outside ready and waiting. We all pile in. It is just a short drive around the Square to the opposite end, where the small mosque is situated, but bullets are whistling around the van. We can see fires are already alight around the Square where rockets have landed. There are freshly dug graves of those rebels who have already died in the fighting on the grassy patch in the centre of the Square. The mosque is blaring out anti-Gaddafi rhetoric in between religious exhortations. It doesn’t look much like a safe haven. Outside there is a gaggle of people shouting, chanting, praying, calling on others to join them in the fight.

As we sprint out from the van into the mosque, I see straight away that they have turned one of the two small rooms inside into a field hospital. There are about three doctors dressed in green medical gowns waiting for casualties. They have three mobile beds already set up. That’s pretty much all they can fit inside the room.

The mosque is really small, one of the smallest I have ever been in. There is an open courtyard roughly four metres square. There is another small room about the same size opposite the medical room. We open the metal door and see there are already a couple of people inside sheltering – young boys, barely men. Bags of flour and sacks of wheat are propped up against the walls and cooking utensils piled up on top of them. It’s a storeroom. Right at the rear end of the courtyard, beyond these two rooms, is the praying area.

We don’t even have time to find a seat inside the storeroom before the first injured are brought into the mosque and, within minutes, more and more. The tiny clinic is very soon overwhelmed. The doctors have little equipment or medicines to treat the injured – saline drips, morphine, bandages seem to be all that is available. And the injuries are horrendous. There are men with the backs of their heads blown away, but they’re still conscious, muttering ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they are carried by friends. How does that happen? How can they still talk when their brains are exposed? How are they still conscious when I can see inside their skulls?

Martin and I are rushing around filming what we can, each with one camera, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to even cross the small courtyard. Bullets are pinging off the floor. We can see machine-guns firing just outside the mosque. We can hear the tanks so, so close now. The sound is deafening. The noise of battle is everywhere – above us, to the sides of us, behind us. And it’s all sorts of noises – the big, thundering boom of the tanks, the crackle of machine-gun fire, the whistle of single shots, the whoosh of rockets. An incredible, terrifying cacophony. It is loud and threatening and very, very frightening. We’re not on the front line. We are in the middle of the battle.

The casualties are getting worse. I am sitting in the corner of the clinic watching as the doctors are seeing injuries no medic in any state-of-the-art hospital with all the latest equipment could save. They certainly can’t be saved here with these meagre medical supplies. I am quite sure the doctors cannot have seen injuries like it. I certainly haven’t. They are battlefield injuries – arms blown off, legs half off, skulls smashed open. One man is so peppered with wounds I can’t actually see anywhere he is not hit. His clothes are deep red. The smell is strong. Blood has a particular smell. Death has another. They are both in my nostrils and all over my skin. I am feeling useless, utterly useless. I can’t help these people. I can’t tend to them. All I can do is watch these people dying in front of me.

A large man comes in carrying another of about the same size over his shoulder. He must be more than six foot tall. He’s big and strong. He puts the very limp, badly injured man down on the floor of the clinic as the doctors try to plug holes and wipe whatever they can. One of the medics is screaming: ‘Saline! Saline!’ It’s constant and repetitive and takes me a while to work out what he is saying because the pitch is so high. He sounds absolutely panic-stricken. I’m thinking saline is not going to even start helping this guy. I look outside and the big man who has brought the casualty in is bent over a chair standing on its own in the courtyard. He’s retching and vomiting. Is it exertion? Fear? Pain? Maybe a combination of all three?

I go back into the storeroom. I feel like crying. Am I the only one? I can’t be. I’m sure we all do, but something stops us. Tim and Martin are sitting there with about half a dozen other people. One young man is sitting in a motorcycle helmet reading the Koran. Others are just staring blankly ahead. Everyone has this sweat of fear on their face.

I look over at Martin and see he’s returning my gaze. He’s thinking: Is she thinking what I’m thinking? I am. We know each other so well that I’m positive the same dreadful thoughts are coursing through his mind too right now. This is as hopeless a situation as we’ve ever been in. We’re going to die.

I can’t see a way out, and Martin – who has been in so many wars in so many countries – can’t see a way out either. Boom, boom, boom. I can feel the presence of the monstrous Gaddafi tanks right outside where we are sitting, crouching, cowering. And the stone walls feel terribly thin and flimsy, more like raffia paper. They are no defence, no cover at all. Gaddafi’s soldiers seem to be all around us. We feel cornered, hemmed in, and utterly defenceless.

The blasts from the tanks are so loud they are damaging my ears. The noise is crashing and thunderous and vibrates through us. Please don’t turn that tank into this wall, please, I’m pleading.

The rebels outside are fighting for their lives – and ours. Their city is under violent, barbarous attack from Colonel Gaddafi’s forces and, frankly, they have no choice. They fight or they are crushed.

In the storeroom there are people just like us, about half a dozen who have just been caught up in the fighting or who have fled here to shelter. We don’t have a single recognizable weapon between us. There is a young boy next to me. He’s probably the youngest – about 15 years old, the same age as my son, Nat. He’s crying, his hands gripping his ears to try to stifle the noise. The oldest is a man of about 55. He is staring ahead into space, clutching a briefcase which has his laptop in it. The laptop has saved his life already, taking a bullet which then ricocheted past his thigh. It took a chunk of his skin with it and he’s bleeding, but it’s only a surface wound. That’s not what he’s going to die of.

Martin and I are just staring at each other across the room, not saying anything, but we’re reading each other’s thoughts. He looks terrified. Just like I feel.

I suddenly want my family. I want to be near them, to know they are safe. I miss them and their love in this well of hate in which we have found ourselves. Christ, I have got too much to live for to die here in a foreign country away from them all. I look over to Tim and see he’s looking down at the floor. He’s a picture of despair.

We’re all thinking the same thing, but we’re all too frightened to voice it aloud right now. We’re not going to get out of this alive. I see Martin very definitely put down his camera. No point. Shit, he has given up, I’m thinking. Tim is telling me to stay inside, stay in the storeroom, stay still, stay with him and Martin, conserve my energy. He’s holding his BlackBerry. We’ve both got pictures of our children on our phones. But we know if we look at them there’ll be no holding back the emotions.

Is Tim saying goodbye to them in his head, saying goodbye to those he loves? Oh God, I’m scared to my very core. Am I ever going to see my children again? Am I going to die here in this grubby little storeroom frightened out of my wits?

I pull myself back from this dangerous frame of mind. It’s the only way I can function. The only way I can carry on. I want people to know what’s happening. I want people to know what it’s like to be under attack from this massive military machine. Shit, I think, I’ve got to tell people about this. I’ve got to tell whoever will listen how no one here had a chance. My phone is still working. I’m clutching it, gripping it in my hand. They’ve got their weapons. This is mine. I’ve got to get this news on air.

I make continuous phone calls to London. They can hear the explosions in the background throughout but I don’t think they realize just how close everything is, how much danger we are in. Sometimes the explosions are so loud I can barely hear the questions from the presenter.

‘Where are they from?’ Mark Longhurst asks. ‘Are the soldiers from the Khamis Brigade?’ I realize I have no idea. I can’t get out. Most of the time I can’t get out of this storeroom. There are bullets flying everywhere. Everyone in the storeroom is in a state of frozen fear. We’re just waiting for what feels inevitable.

Suddenly the metal door of the storeroom is flung open and there’s shouting as a man in Gaddafi uniform is dragged in. He is screaming in agony. He can’t walk. His ankles have been blown apart. He’s dropped in front of us. There is no more room. We are all perching on the grain sacks and some of us are on the floor and he is lying there taking up the rest of the space. A doctor is trying to calm the crowd outside, trying to shut the door on them. They’re furious and frightened too. They want to lynch the prisoner. The soldier knows it and the doctor is the one person who can save him from an immediate and violent death. The doctor calls me to stand at the door. ‘Show them your face,’ he says. Then he says to the men clamouring outside: ‘Look, we have a woman in here and other foreigners. Stop this.’ There’s a bit of angry discussion, but they go away, back to battle. There’s still much to be done. Fighting is still raging outside.

The Gaddafi soldier is sobbing, making an awful noise as the medics rig up a drip and start injecting him with painkillers. They are trying to wipe his ankles. There are just holes where once there used to be bone and they are pouring liquid on the wounds to clean off the mess. He screams from the pain as they do it. They keep telling him to be quiet, to be brave. We are all just looking at this man writhing in agony in front of us, this man who until a few minutes ago was part of an army which is still trying to kill us all. I ask the doctors if they will put a few questions to him on my behalf, and they agree. The soldier has Khamis Brigade ID and says he came in with fifty tanks from different directions to attack the town. They have surrounded Zawiya, he says. ‘We were told there was Al Qaeda here,’ he adds, ‘but I can see you are Libyans and good people.’ He is Libyan too and pleading for his life now. He knows his only chance of survival is within the control of these people treating him.

The young lad next to me is sitting on his haunches, his head in his hands. He is still sobbing quietly. He looks just like the child he is now. I start filming him and then am immediately disgusted at my actions. Jesus, have you no heart, Alex? I reach out and touch him, hug him. I think how my own son would feel. What is he thinking now? Does he know what is happening out here to his mum? The young lad doesn’t know me but responds. He seems comforted by this human touch, calmer straight away. One of the men spots this interaction and comes up to the boy, attempting, I think, to help lift him out of his misery. He jostles him affectionately, like an uncle might. ‘What are you crying for?’ he says, slapping the boy on the back. ‘Everything will be fine, inshallah [God willing].’ It is utterly unconvincing to the adults watching, but everyone smiles and nods gratefully at this optimism. It’s all we have.

I try to wrestle Martin out of his mood dip, Martin who is always so brave, always so fearless but also a realist. ‘Come on, Martin, show me how to get the light on this camera. It’s so dark.’ He shrugs. What’s the point? he seems to be saying. The boom of tanks is still so loud. But he shows me how to switch the light on in the camera. Come on, Martin. Come on, mate, hold on. I can’t do this on my own. He is rallying, and that gives me some more courage.

I am getting texts now from worried friends and colleagues, and from Richard, who has been watching my reports back home in Dubai. ‘For God’s sake, keep your head down,’ he writes. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I know my voice will give away my true feelings and I am terrified and feeling utterly trapped. We can’t run away anywhere. All we can do is sit and wait. Wait for what we all believe to be the inescapable. I write back: ‘We are in the mosque. It’s the best place to be.’ He writes back: ‘Keep going, it’s riveting stuff.’ He seems strong and supportive.

From Sky’s London head office I am getting messages telling me not to mention the mosque or where we are, in case we become a target. For the same reason, I am not to say there is a Gaddafi soldier with us in case we become a target, nor to give away who we are with. I’m thinking, but we’re targets already! We are all targets. They are trying to kill us all.

I look across at Martin and Tim and I know they sense this as much as I do. The Gaddafi men will be in here soon. It can only be a matter of time and then that’s it. Over.

It’s hard to judge how long this will go on. It feels like for ever. I think it’s roughly three hours. Then the door opens and a young man comes in. ‘They’ve gone,’ he says. ‘It’s over. Come and see.’ I put my head outside the storeroom first and see people streaming out of the front door of the mosque complex. Cautiously, I look outside. There’s a tank immediately outside the front door, half on the green verge of the Square’s central grass embankment. There’s smoke coming out of the turret. I think the rebels must have managed to fire a grenade inside it. Jesus, that’s close. It’s just outside. I haven’t stepped far from the mosque’s entrance when firing begins again. I turn and run back into the sanctuary of the storeroom. ‘Not over yet,’ I say breathlessly to the others. The fighting goes on for at least another hour or so.

I keep broadcasting and keep hearing my colleague in Tripoli giving a rather different, regime-approved version. ‘The authorities here say there is no fighting in Zawiya. They have regained control. It is once again in the hands of the government,’ she is saying. Then the director in the London studio cuts to me in Zawiya and there is the sound of firing once again. ‘I can tell you the fighting is still going on quite fiercely,’ I say. It very definitely nails the lies being put out by the Gaddafi regime.

Then the same young man comes in. ‘It’s over, it’s over, I promise you this time, it is over. We have beaten them back.’ This time no one believes him. But I cautiously step out and now it feels very different. There are a lot more people outside. They are falling to their knees, weeping and praying and giving thanks. I run back inside to tell the others. Martin is immediately up and out, camera in hand, with me following in his wake. Outside the feeling is euphoric. They are hugging one another, crying and gasping in joy and relief. We feel the same. Have they really beaten back Gaddafi’s army? How the hell have we all survived? Oh my God, we have survived. Some of us are still alive.

We spot tanks at either end of the Square. We’re being dragged, pulled, coaxed by everybody around us to see what’s gone on. They want us to see the dead Gaddafi soldiers round this tank and that tank. They’re not Libyans. They’re mercenaries – from Chad, from Niger, from Algeria. There are more here. And more here. The bodies are lying around, on the ground and outside the tanks, half in, half out. Look at this tank on fire. Look how we fought and beat them. See this other tank we destroyed. See what they had inside the tanks – drugs.

Martin tells them they aren’t drugs. It’s Nutella. No, it’s drugs, they insist. I tell you, it’s chocolate spread, Martin says, then gives up and continues filming the ‘drugs’. I am on the phone to London describing the scene when there’s more firing. People scatter. Everyone is very jittery. My phone cuts out at that point. I don’t know where the shots have come from but they have stopped. Maybe someone fired off a couple in fear or by accident, but it doesn’t seem to be an attack. I am punching the office number into the phone. I know they will be thinking the worst. Bad timing. I get through to the news desk and can hear the producer in the gallery saying: ‘We just lost Crawfie and she said there was firing starting again.’

‘She’s here,’ the news desk editor Jules Morrison updates. ‘Just putting her through.’

The presenter, Andrew Wilson, says: ‘You gave us quite a scare there, Alex.’ His voice sounds comforting amid all this turmoil and fear. I have known him for two decades and he has been in many, many close scrapes himself. He’s covered many wars, knows what we are going through, and I can sense his genuine awareness. I feel like he is sending me messages despite the official strictures of our on-air conversation. ‘Are you all right? Take cover and get to safety,’ he says. We decide that is sound advice. Our good doctor is still with us. ‘Let’s get an ambulance and get to the hospital,’ he suggests.

Yes, let’s get away from here. It still seems too volatile, victory or no victory.

An ambulance appears. This doctor has connections. We clamber into the front, him still in his green gown, while another doctor, also wearing a medical gown, drives. The doctor’s son is in the back. Martin is filming through the ambulance’s rear window. As we drive along we can see the citizens of Zawiya coming out of their homes, filling the streets. I am surprised. I didn’t think there were so many people still left in the town. I turn and look through the windscreen and see Gaddafi soldiers in a row across the width of the street. The driver heads fast towards them. One soldier raises his gun and shoots at the ambulance. We can hear the scream of the bullet. But the driver keeps his nerve, swerves and turns into the hospital. Tanks are parked just outside the complex.

We bolt out of the ambulance and into the hospital and a strange tranquillity. Oh my gosh, it feels quiet. My ears are tingling and feel like they have cotton wool stuffed in them. Is this what they mean by shell-shocked? My ears are still bristling from all the percussive noises they have been subjected to.

We move into one of the doctors’ offices. Everyone is still reeling from what has happened. But we are in survival mode now. Tim says: ‘Have you rung home? You should.’ I say no, but I have sent a text to Richard: ‘We’re out of the mosque. In hospital now.’ It’s short and doesn’t say we’re safe – a point not lost on Richard. It feels better here but we are not out of trouble yet and I wouldn’t be able to reassure him of very much at this point. But we’re in a different place and temporarily out of the firing line.

Chapter Three

UNDER SIEGE

We have no idea how we are going to get out of Zawiya but we know we have to – and with the pictures. If we don’t make it out with the pictorial hard evidence, then this really has all been for nothing. The pain of the people of Zawiya – and our pain – will have been for nothing. That is not an option.

The medics and the people at the hospital – some fighters, mostly civilians – are worried, too, about the destiny of our film which shows the true fight for their city. We keep having to disappoint them by saying no, we haven’t got any of the pictures out yet. No one has seen what is happening here but I keep reassuring them that I am telling the outside world but only by telephone right now. They look crestfallen, let down. We haven’t brought a Began or any other way of transmitting pictures. (A Began is a small portable transmitter, about the size of a laptop, which transports images via satellite.) There’s no Internet in the town, so that form of transmitting pictures is also out. We have to either smuggle the pictures out, or preferably ourselves and the pictures. The question is: how?

We are offered medical gowns as a disguise. There is a fear in the hospital that the army is not beyond storming this place to look for us or recover its injured or dead soldiers. We take the gowns gratefully and greedily – grasping at anything which might offer us some protection, however slight. We rush to put them on, but we feel odd and look faintly ridiculous.

The doctors have even given us medical facemasks in an attempt to hide our European look. Martin and I try these on with the rest of the new kit while Tim is outside making a call on the satellite phone. And then we take them off again. Deep down we realize that if it gets to the stage of the army entering the hospital it’s probably curtains for us all anyway.

Some of the Opposition fighters are already wearing medical gowns and many of them don’t inspire us with confidence. One in particular, we think, is trying to persuade us to hand over our precious pictures. Is he just masquerading as a rebel? Is he really a government stooge? Are we becoming paranoid? A few of the rebel fighters appear to be staying in the hospital because they feel a little bit safer. But, to be honest, everyone is a ‘rebel’ here.

There isn’t a single person we talk to who doesn’t castigate Gaddafi, his forces or his sons. They are coping with the consequences of his heartlessness. They are patching up the broken bones, torn ligaments and cracked skulls of their neighbours in Zawiya, their relatives and their friends. If they were rabidly or even slightly pro-Gaddafi before this onslaught, it isn’t hard to understand why they have done a handbrake turn, changing their minds and attitudes.

We are repeatedly urged by those in the hospital to see and film the growing number of injured – in the Intensive Care Unit and in the general wards. Martin and I are taken to the basement to see a row of dead Gaddafi soldiers. The bodies are in a quite horrible state but the medics want to show us they are not Libyan. ‘These are not Libyan faces,’ one tells us. ‘See, they are from Chad or Niger – mercenaries.’

I’m not sure how they are so certain about their nationalities, but there’s no question they do look very different from the Libyan faces we see all around us. The medics keep on stressing this point to us – that these people are not from Libya. It is important to them. Fellow Libyans would find it much harder, find it abhorrent to fire on their own. At least that seems to be their thinking. But, in their minds, Gaddafi is showing his utter contempt for Libyan life, demonstrating his savagery and confirming his madness by buying in mercenaries to kill his own people. They insist Gaddafi forces have entered the hospital in the past and taken away their injured and dead. It sounds preposterous. I am ashamed to say I write this off as paranoia. I don’t quite believe it. But again I note the growing feelings of paranoia inside myself at the same time. I have been in Libya for a little over two days. These people have lived with the dictator for forty-two years.

We go about our various tasks. Tim is urgently trying to find someone who can drive us out of Zawiya and is in constant communication with the London office. Martin is still being taken round the wards to see the range of horrible injuries. I go down to the front entrance, where the accident and emergency department is. I just want to see what’s going on there.

There’s a crowd at the hospital entrance, gatherings of doctors and nurses and plenty of other people too. The hospital has turned into the main meeting area aside from Martyrs’ Square. The entrance is also packed with hospital beds on wheels – ready for the next round of casualties. Martin has joined me by now. Then we hear the rumble of traffic. We see a convoy of military vehicles driving along the road running parallel to the A&E’s entrance. The army is heading back into Zawiya to give the people in the Square another pounding. Within minutes we hear the sound of shelling and rockets firing. All those people we left behind – in the mosque, in the Square, in the hotel – are under attack again. We can’t have been here in the hospital for much more than half an hour. It crosses my mind that if we hadn’t jumped in that ambulance when we did, we would still be in the thick of it.