After a week in our new home with our temporary guard dog on patrol, I was getting into a routine. Each night, as I settled down in my bed to a good read, I could hear the comforting sounds of the guard talking to Otilia, letting her know he was about to release the beast to carry out its patrol round the garden.
Hearing the heavy breathing as it sniffed out its territory under my bedroom window helped to nurture feelings of security. Dad had really got this right. Our new home and my bedroom were comfortable and felt safe. I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ New Adventures of Tarzan. Reading his books gave me an escape from the real world. Without television, this was the best way to travel into adventure-land. Favourite books came and went, such as Reach For The Sky, the story of the wartime flying ace Douglas Bader, but I always had a soft spot for the jungles of Africa and the adventures of Tarzan. A book lasted much longer for me than it did for my parents. I still hadn’t fully mastered English, which had a much more extensive and complex vocabulary than the South American Spanish I had grown up with. Invariably, I dropped off to sleep just before an exciting bit, which meant I had to read the whole chapter again the next night to get the gist of it.
I was reading another gripping Tarzan story, one night, how he’d just managed to see off some raiding party of native cannibals, when I must have dozed off. I woke with a shock to the ear-piercing sound of the air-raid-style siren alarm. Trying to regain my senses, I could hear Otilia shouting. My room was in darkness and her incomprehensible screams startled and confused me further. I leaped out of bed just as I caught sight of a dim torchlight shining through the doorway that led straight onto the garden. The door had been opened. Was that what had triggered the alarm?
I suddenly thought of the fierce dog off the leash and, frightened out of my wits, I ran for the door that led to the hallway and Dad’s room. I didn’t make it. The rough hand of a man gripped me firmly round my neck. I panicked, but instead of fighting my way clear I froze. I caught a strong, grimy stench of alcohol and tobacco. The callused hand pulled me backwards and now a thick arm pinned me back against a broad chest. I tried to scream but all that came was a pathetic yelp. A large hand went over my mouth and, for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The attacker shoved me against the wall next to the door, knocking the wind from me. I prayed that someone would hear, although I could barely hear anything at all above the din of the siren.
I stood, petrified, as the intruder kept me up against the wall while he turned and scanned the room with his flashlight. To the right was the door leading to the hall, opposite the route to the garden. As the torch locked on the open doorway it illuminated two green eyes. It was the guard dog! I gasped, now even more terrified. Its huge body nearly filled the doorframe and its teeth were bared.
I felt my attacker’s hold loosen, as he clearly weighed up his options. Whatever his original intent it now seemed to come second to self-preservation. Amid the din I could hear a guard shout. The dog remained stock-still. More shouting came from within the house. It was chaos.
The man moved towards the doorway, pushing me in front. I seized the chance to break free from his grasp and scrambled over the bed. The intruder ran to the garden door and somehow managed to kick his way past the dog and, jumping up on a fence next to the house, then made it up and on the low, sloping roof above my bedroom.
The alarm suddenly stopped but the sound of mayhem continued. Frozen with fear in the darkness and not knowing whether to run or sit still, I listened to the fearsome barking of the dog and the muffled thudding of the intruder’s feet above my head, dislodging tiles that came smashing to the ground just by the door.
The sight of a figure made me jump once more but fright turned to relief when I saw it was Barandiga, torchlight in one hand, revolver in the other. ‘OK?’ he shouted. I nodded. He closed the door and focused again on the man I could still hear scrambling up the roof.
Feeling a little braver, I went to the window. Even though we were separated by glass, the presence of the dog, barking manically, teeth still bared, just feet below my window was terrifying to behold. Barandiga had his torch trained on the roof, gun raised. He was shouting almost as frantically.
I could hear the wail of approaching sirens. The sound of our alarm had triggered a response from military police in barracks located not far from the estate. The sky was ablaze with the reflection of flashing blue lights as more men streamed into the garden. Before any of them could get into position I saw Barandiga take aim again. He shouted something and then fired. Instinctively, I ducked but remained peering over the window ledge. Two more shots rang out. A body fell past my window and landed with a dull thud on the ground. The dog leapt forward and sunk its teeth into an arm for good measure. The intruder was beyond struggling.
‘Phillip!’
I jumped again. It was Dad, bursting into my room from the hallway.
‘Are you OK?’ Dad asked. He pulled me away from the window and smothered me, shielding me from the events outside. It was too late though. Those images would join the other violent episodes stored in my memory banks to be replayed when I least wanted them. The whole incident had lasted seconds but, as I replayed the trauma over in my mind, it seemed to go on forever.
Dad took me into the room my parents shared and fussed over me, checking that I was hurt and wanting to know what happened. When the intruder opened my door it must have set off the alarm and he was dismayed that the rest of the security had seemingly been so easily breached.
Dawn brought with it some relief. An air of calm descended which seemed unthinkable just a few hours earlier. By the time the sun rose the intruder’s body had been removed and a blanket placed over the blood spilled on the grass. The mood was understandably sombre until Monique shattered the gloom and surprised us all by emerging from her bedroom, asking Dad why there was a blanket in the garden. Amazingly, she had slept through it all.
Seemingly endless rounds of visits from doctors and psychiatrists consumed the next few days, as they all tried to assess whether or not I would be permanently traumatised. An army colonel was put in charge of the investigation, as there was little faith in the local police. Having a senior officer at the house also meant that we would be surrounded by army trucks and soldiers until they’d found who was responsible. Dad must have hated all the fuss; he always preferred to keep a low profile. As I did whenever I felt under stress, I retreated to my sketchbook to draw, which helped to dispel my anxiety. Dad and the colonel chatted to me while I drew pictures, subtly trying to coax additional information out of me about the attacker.
The following day the colonel arrived at the house, beaming. He announced to Dad that they had caught the gang responsible. Some of his soldiers had come across a group of men sitting in a car just up the road from the house. They detained them and, after interrogation, the men had confessed. The investigation was scaled down after that, but the colonel remained a regular visitor to the house, keeping Dad updated and exchanging information.
He turned up off-duty one evening with his wife. It was the first time I had seen this man in civilian clothing. It was hard to believe the smartly dressed gentleman sat in front of me, relaxing with a glass of whisky, was the same man I had seen a day before in uniform, wearing a holstered side-arm. Even more interesting was that I now recognised this colonel as someone I had seen in one of our regular visits to Medellín. He had often sat with the group of men at the centre-front table and seemed to know the individual who had taken such an interest in me. From the snippets of conversation I overheard while he chatted to Dad, it seemed he was normally based in Medellín where he had been on the trail of members of a gang. It seemed a strange coincidence that he would now be here. Did that group of men have something to do with the man who broke into my room attempting to take me?
In the weeks that followed, the atmosphere in the house returned to normal. The proper guard hut was completed and the security presence around the house was beefed up. Our own dog returned, giving us the reassurance that at least it could distinguish us from any would-be attacker. For me, though, the house was never really the same again. It had gone from being our own little oasis, a paradise away from the mean streets of Bogotá, to being yet another location where terror had visited. Why did they always seem to come for me? Was I just unlucky? Were they opportunistic thugs targeting a rich family or did they know who I was? And if they tried once, would they come again?
Such thoughts meant my nights were disturbed for a significant time afterwards. I didn’t just have nightmares about being snatched but had other visions too; that woman in red crying in pain, people grabbing me, a feeling that someone was always chasing me. My parents did their best to reassure me we were safe now. They blamed the attack on the turbulent times we were living through and the lawlessness that had gripped large elements of the population. It would settle down, they promised.
I wanted to believe them but I couldn’t stop thinking that once again Barandiga had saved me – from what, though, I wasn’t entirely sure. As I prepared to go back to England and to school, at least I knew that as long as he was around I was safe.
*
The imposing building seemed to me like Colditz Castle, as described in the story of Douglas Bader. Its red walls rose before me. A sign outside might as well have read, ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ Instead it said, ‘Floreat Luctona’, which I later learned meant ‘May Lucton flourish’.
We were at Lucton School in rural Herefordshire. I had passed the entrance exams and this would be my new home whenever I was in England, once the registration was completed and I’d finished my last term at St Hugh’s. This visit, made with my parents, was to get a feel for the place where I’d see out the remaining years of my education.
We met with the headmaster Keith Vivian, a large man with huge, shovel hands. He towered over me and told me, somewhat unconvincingly, how happy I would be there. As we wandered around the grounds, I had a deep sense of foreboding. I thought it might be nerves I was feeling about going to a new place where, once again I’d be fighting to keep pace with other boys who were really three years older than me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it though. I just had a sense that something bad was going to happen.