Ambulances and private cars met the helicopter on the tarmac of Aden airport and rushed us all over to Republic Hospital. Unlike the deserted clinic in Mudiyah, the corridors of this hospital were congested with patients, visitors and staff. Margaret and Claire were taken to a room for examination while everyone else waited in the corridor. When a doctor arrived, I gave him the X-rays. He spoke a little English and, to my amazement, demanded to see proof of insurance before he would examine the two women.
‘They have insurance,’ I explained. ‘We all had to have insurance to come on this trip. Our papers were taken by the kidnappers. We have nothing with us – no passports, no money, no papers.’ My patience was wearing dangerously thin.
‘Need insurance papers for treatment.’ This guy must have trained in the US, I thought angrily. ‘These women have been shot. You will get paid. They have insurance. They need medical treatment – now.’ I was shouting at him, pointing to the bullet clearly visible in Claire’s X-ray and ready to wring the guy’s neck – except that we needed him. Whether he believed me or just wanted this crazed American woman in her grubby clothes out of his face I don’t know, but at last he turned to take a look at Margaret’s blood-soaked thigh. Intent on finding a way to contact either the American or British embassy, I left the room and made my way down the crowded corridor.
‘English? Does anyone speak English? Telephone? English?’ For several minutes I received only blank stares as I pushed my way through the throng, trying to find someone who could help me locate a phone number and place a call.
‘British man here. From embassy. He come back soon,’ a voice came from somewhere in the crowd of puzzled faces. I searched among the faces staring at me, looking for the speaker. At that moment David Pearce, the British consul, came striding down the corridor to take charge.
While Claire and Margaret remained in the hospital, the rest of us were transferred to the Movenpick Hotel, where a senior manager of Explore, Peter Crane, and various Yemeni officials waited to greet us in a private reception room. They expressed their sorrow at what had happened and told us that arrangements had been made for us to stay at the hotel while they sorted out flights home for us. Peter Crane’s eyes filled with tears as he spoke to us. I felt badly for him, sensing he needed help as much as we did.
The fate of our five fellow travellers was still a mystery. They were not at the hotel and no one seemed to know where they were. Gill in particular was desperate for news of her partner Chris. Just as we were being given keys to our rooms, a member of the hotel staff told me I had a phone call at the reception desk. It was Margaret Scobey, deputy ambassador at the American embassy in Sana’a. To my great relief, she assured me the embassy had been in constant communication with my family in New Zealand and that they already knew I was unharmed. The moment Ms Scobey mentioned my family, I began to cry. The hotel receptionist tactfully placed a box of tissues on the counter beside me and withdrew to a back office. Ms Scobey explained that, although she was in Sana’a, the embassy doctor Chuck Rosenfarb was already on a flight to Aden and would contact me as soon as he reached the hotel.
It was after 9 p.m. when I finally escaped to the privacy of my hotel room. A flood of phone calls followed. Most important were calls from two of my five brothers, overjoyed I was alive and amazed to hear my story. I called my best friend Marilyn in Rochester and left her a voice-mail message, then took a few calls from the news media in New Zealand and the United States. By midnight, I desperately needed some sleep and asked reception not to forward any calls except from family members. I had nothing with me but the clothes I was wearing. One sleeve was stained with Margaret’s blood, and desert dirt grimed my shirt and pants. I washed everything I was wearing in the bathroom basin and hung my clothes to dry over the shower so they would be clean and a little more respectable to wear next day. At that moment, just as I realised there was no bathrobe in the hotel room, there was a knock at the door. It was Dr Rosenfarb from the American embassy. I had completely forgotten he was coming to see me. Great. A personal visit from the American embassy and I’m stark naked with all my clothes soaking wet. I was consumed with a fit of laughter when the doctor knocked again, no doubt concerned about my state of mind.
With a towel around me, I opened the door a crack, explaining to the doctor and another embassy official with him that I very much appreciated their visit, but I was not exactly dressed for company. They probably wondered if my state of dress reflected post-traumatic stress disorder, but, after I assured them I was fine and did not need anything to help me sleep, they agreed we should postpone further conversation until the morning.
Never have clean sheets and a bed felt so good as they did that night. Never has life seemed so fragile and time so precious. Exhaustion quickly overcame me. I fell asleep before I had time to reflect further on all that had happened, not waking until the call for early-morning prayers.
Next morning, I learned that the remaining hostages had been returned to Aden very late the previous night. We gathered in a conference room after breakfast to hear their story. Only Laurence, Chris and David Holmes had survived to tell it. Margaret Whitehouse and Andrew Thirsk were dead.
When the security forces approached Abu Hassan’s campsite on the morning of 29 December, Hassan made the decision to resist. He instructed several of his followers to go to the wadi and bring back five of the hostages. Margaret, Laurence and Chris were chosen because they happened to be at the front as we began to file down the wadi, but Hassan had apparently asked for Andrew and David by name. Yellow Pants tried to send Margaret back to stay with the rest of us, but Purple Skirt insisted she go ahead. Once they reached the campsite, the five hostages were taken in one of the Land Cruisers to the defence post set up the previous day. It was about half a mile further down the dirt track from where we had camped the night before. A small hill provided the kidnappers a lookout point and shelter. Hassan positioned himself there with five men, including the chubby one who had reminded me of a Mexican bandit. Hassan hoped that the presence of the hostages, forced to stand in front of the kidnappers, would stop the army advancing. Bandit opened fire with his shoulder-mounted grenade launcher. The soldiers returned fire and the battle was on. A kidnapper operating the machine gun hammered out rounds from the Russian-made weapon on its bipod support. Hassan also began firing his rifle toward the troops. As the intensity of fighting increased, two younger men urged Hassan to retreat. He told them to go back to the rear line at the camp where Purple Skirt was in command. I realised, when I heard this part of the story, that it was these young men, in retreat from the front line of the battle, whom I had seen walking towards us as we stood on the berm.
Hassan, Bandit and the machine-gun operator fell back toward the road behind the hill, forcing the hostages to carry ammunition belts and explosives. Noticing that Bandit had been wounded, Hassan pulled David Holmes aside and demanded he call the British embassy on the satellite phone. Of course, David had no idea of the embassy’s number and telephone directories are not usually on hand in the middle of a desert shoot-out. David feigned a heart attack and fell to the ground near the gunner, who resumed firing the machine gun between the legs of the hostages.
‘I’ve been hit,’ Andrew called out, falling on his back as a bullet struck him in his abdomen. Margaret Whitehouse instinctively stepped forward and knelt beside him, pulling out a handkerchief to try to stop the bleeding.
‘Bless me,’ she cried as a bullet struck her in the heel. As she attempted to help Andrew, both of them were shot again, in the head and legs, by high-velocity bullets. As Margaret collapsed, a round of seven bullets from the machine gun blasted through her left groin. With only two hostages left standing and the troops almost on top of their position, Hassan retreated once more, intending to join Purple Skirt at the camp. He grabbed Chris as a shield and pulled him along while the machine-gun operator grabbed hold of Laurence. As Hassan was pushing him, Chris accidentally stepped on his foot, causing Hassan to lose his balance. Chris ran for some nearby rocks, and Hassan pointed his gun towards him but did not fire.
Meanwhile, Laurence, enraged by his wife’s death, turned on the machine gunner, who had by now abandoned his heavy weapon. ‘You’ve killed my wife. You’ve killed my wife,’ screamed the mild-mannered teacher, grappling with the younger man and trying to wrest a pistol from him. The pistol went off – leaving two neat holes through the front of Laurence’s shirt, but just missing his chest. Chris bravely ran back to help Laurence overcome the gunner. Soldiers reached them moments later, capturing Hassan and pinning down Laurence’s assailant. Laurence revealed to us that one of the soldiers offered him the pistol, as if to indicate he should shoot the machine gunner in revenge for the death of his wife. Only David, still lying on the ground nearby, noticed that the wounded Bandit was pulling out a hand grenade. David shouted to the soldiers. More shots rang out, killing Bandit before he could activate the grenade.
While the security forces had overrun the front line and captured Hassan, the kidnappers holding the remaining 11 of us at the campsite were still engaged in battle at the rear. The officer in charge demanded that Hassan tell his men to surrender. Taking Hassan with them, the soldiers pushed toward the camp where the 11 of us still stood in the crossfire.
Chris explained that they did not know what happened next in the gun battle because the five of them – including Margaret who was already dead and Andrew who was close to death – were taken in military trucks back to the main road and then on to a military base. Andrew died en route, and his and Margaret’s bodies were removed for separate transport to Aden. The three survivors were driven to Aden.
At the end of the two-hour battle, four tourists, two kidnappers and possibly one soldier were dead. Two tourists and several soldiers were wounded. Three kidnappers were captured alive, but a dozen more, including the murderous Grey Shirt, had escaped into the wide open desert.
As controversy over the rescue grew in the outside world, we survivors cloistered ourselves in the Movenpick Hotel. We had a floor to ourselves to which other hotel guests and the press were denied access. Even in the public areas of the hotel, the press maintained a remarkably sensitive distance from us, a few reporters cautiously striking up low-key conversations with those who were ready to talk. Mostly, we just wanted to talk to each other, helping fill in pieces of the bizarre and terrifying events we had experienced together. Many people were wonderfully kind to us. An American missionary and his wife, a nurse, brought us clothing. Embassy staff anticipated the need for us to borrow some cash for personal items we might need. A friend in Rochester and a work colleague also took the initiative to wire a few hundred dollars to me.
In groups of twos or threes, we made trips over to the Republic Hospital to try to offer some consolation to the widowed and wounded Claire. Margaret and Claire shared a room that was reasonably private and quiet. Both faced uncertainty about when they could be evacuated to London for better medical care and what long-term damage the bullets had done. While Claire was understandably despondent, Margaret displayed the same calm good spirits that had impressed me throughout our trip.
On the second day after the rescue, an American approached me as I was leaving a conference room in the hotel. He introduced himself as Mark Sofia, an agent with the FBI. He explained that the FBI had immediately sent investigators to Yemen and he would appreciate it if I would be willing to answer a few questions. I sat down with Mark and a second agent, Brad Deardorff, in their hotel room. They were both courteous and acutely aware of the traumatic events I had been through. I explained as best I could everything that had happened during the kidnapping and sketched out a rough map showing the key features of the terrain and where I thought we had been taken on the first and second days. My recognition of the constellations during the night allowed me to indicate a ‘due north’ direction on the map and thanks to frequent reference to my watch during the kidnapping, I was able to assign a fairly precise time to key events. Mark and Brad asked if I would approach the other non-American hostages to see if any of them would also be willing to provide information, and I agreed to ask. Several were willing to do so.
The Yemeni authorities also conducted interviews with each of us individually. In the conference room that had become a gathering place for us to meet and receive updates on our situation, the British consul David Pearce explained to us the procedure for the police interviews. We were asked to stop by a table at an unused end of the hotel’s dining room during a certain time of day. Several police officers sat around a table.
A man with thinning reddish hair translated for several other police officers, who took down notes. All these formal inquiries were conducted professionally and with respect for our ragged nerves. One British newspaper claimed that Laurence Whitehouse was asked to revoke his statement expressing uncertainty whether his wife was killed by army or terrorist bullets. The paper went so far as to claim that Laurence was denied permission to leave Yemen unless he changed his statement. Laurence told me that the story was a lie and he was never pressured to change anything he had said.
During the kidnapping, it had not occurred to me that there would be any formal investigation, let alone a trial of the kidnappers. My expectation, while I was held hostage, was that we would be released as a result of negotiations between the Yemeni authorities and the kidnappers. I assumed that any negotiated agreement would allow the kidnappers to go free.
Although David Pearce and the tour leader Dave Nott did their best to keep us informed about what was being done to get us home, stress began to show among some of the hostages. David Holmes complained bitterly that the Yemeni police had still not returned our luggage to us. Relations between Gill and Chris seemed tense, Gill perhaps feeling angry that Chris had gone off without her as we left the wadi, leaving her alone during the terrible ordeal. Laurence was devastated by Margaret’s death and sat weeping, telling us how bravely she had put herself at risk to tend to Andrew, how she uttered the words ‘Bless me!’ when she was shot – the same words she used when she missed hitting a ball at tennis. All of us took turns sitting with him and tried to offer some comfort. During that time, I found myself drawing closer to Pat, whose composure and attitude seemed most compatible with my own. Sharing quiet conversations and a few jokes with her was a wonderful source of support. Dave Nott was also under considerable strain as he tried to make arrangements to get us all home. At one point, I took Dave aside and bought him an ice cream from the hotel’s coffee shop, giving him a chance to talk through his worries and feelings about what had happened. I’m a great believer in the therapeutic powers of ice cream.
After a second night in Aden, on New Year’s Eve we were flown by Yemen’s domestic airline to Sana’a and transferred to the Taj Sheba Hotel. From my room that evening, I could hear the music of a noisy New Year’s Eve party in the hotel’s ballroom. It seemed strange that life was still going on as normal for so many people when my own life had entered a twilight zone. I love to dance and felt tempted to join the party, just to reclaim some aspect of my normal life, but the possibility of being photographed by a reporter kept me in the privacy of my room. Gill felt the same way, wanting to use the hotel swimming pool but not doing so for fear of being photographed.
On New Year’s morning, all the hostages except me and the two wounded women boarded a flight to London. As I waved goodbye to the minivan escorting them to the airport, I felt immensely relieved to be alone at last. As a certified introvert, I had found the constant group interaction of the last few days highly stressful. I needed time to myself. The bodies of Ruth, Peter, Margaret and Andrew were sealed in metal caskets and, accompanied by David Pearce, were returned to London via Amman by Jordanian Airlines. The last of our tour group to return home were Margaret Thompson and Claire Marston. Margaret described their medical evacuation flight from Aden back to London on 3 January as the flight from hell. Along with the pain of her injuries, she suffered from food poisoning, which made her sick through much of the journey.
My flight to the United States via Frankfurt was not scheduled to depart until close to midnight on 1 January. Margaret Scobey would escort me to the airport in her private car. In the meantime, Dr Rosenfarb, his wife and 12-year-old daughter kindly met me for lunch and took me to visit the Old Quarter so that I could replace a few of the souvenir items stolen from my luggage. Surrounded by the noisy crowds of Yemenis in the markets, I found myself instinctively regarding every one of them as a potential threat. Every loud noise set me on edge and every face framed in a khafiya reminded me of the kidnappers. How different it seemed now from when I had been in the same markets just a week earlier, on the first day of the tour. In spite of feeling edgy in the crowds, I was glad to have this chance to be among the people of Yemen again: to go home with this last memory of the vibrant, colourful culture I had originally come to see.