Escape From Interrogation

Skint was a helicopter pilot in the war . One of the things he liked to do was cutting back the thick jungle canopy , to provide the infantry on the ground an open window to the sky and more importantly , a view to see the troops below who needed a sky taxi ride back to base camp .

There the army had installed a hospital tent and a make shift barracks .  b

 The jungle was thick and densly covered by a thick foliage of green . When things were quiet Skint went lawn mowing through the jungle . It created light and openings here and there for easy escapes back to base camp .

He had a rare gift of being able to pin point exactly with precision the rotor blades to the leafy growth on the tops of the trees in the middle of the jungle . 

He was known as The Lawnmower by the troops on the ground . During one of the lawn mowing operations the chopper got into trouble . 

Lucky for Skint it wasn’t that high and when the chopper came down he managed to escape with his life .

There was no one about and because his radio was on board the chopper Skint had no means of communicating 

his position back at base camp . 



He started to walk through the jungle in the hope he could make it back to base . He never saw the small group of enemy jungle fighters hidden around the area where he stood and before  he knew what hit him he was surrounded by enemy soldiers who placed a blindfold over his eyes and a rope around his wrists . 

He was now their prisoner and at the mercy of his captors . 



Skint was walked through the jungle like a dog on a lease . 

At the end of their journey on foot he was placed inside one of the enemies helicopters .

When it lifted off the ground the captors began to question him about who he was and what mission he was on . 

Skint refused to say anything and suddenly without any warning Skint was thrown from the choppers side hatch . Without any idea of how he was going to survive the fall he thought to himself , 

Now this is going to hurt when I hit the ground . 

He free fell for what seemed miles until with a kind of relief he splashed into the ocean.

Pulling the blindfold from around his eyes he checked for some familiar landmark . He saw a small island nearby and decided that was the place he had to get to . 



Skint wasn’t a strong swimmer and he had a fear of sharks . 

He swam with all his strength and somehow made it to a small island,  in where he staggered from the surf and threw himself on the warm sand . 

There he sat , motionless for a while thinking in the peace of a safe shore .

He thought about the chopper and what had just happened . 

He said a silent prayer for still being alive . 

Finally he walked from the sandy shore to the cover of the trees in a green jungle full of singing birds that he had never heard or seen before . 



He was still in shock and grief from where he had just been and walked slowly in a kind of daze into the jungle where the dapple light went . 

Shadows fell through the trees and suddenly before he could relax with those memories he was brought back to earth again . 



There he stood looking at a wild boar with its eyes shining madly at him in the shadows . Eyeing him up and down as if he was the last strands of food on the chain . Skint stood very still and the boar charged until it was about two feet away . There was a ripping sound of a bullet fired from a gun and the boar fell dead at Skints feet . 

The shot was fired from a second group of soldiers who surrounded him . 

He was blindfolded again and led away for a second time into a chopper that lifted off into the air. 

More questions were asked of him . 

Skint played the fool . 

The enemy threatened to throw Skint out of the chopper if he didn’t answer them . Skint had no idea of how high the chopper was up in the air and made a few mental images what was going to happen next . 

They could have been of either six feet or sixty feet off the ground , he didn't know. Then he felt this hand on his back and another that pulled him to the hatch door of the chopper Next thing he was  pushed out of the helicopter .

He came back to cold reality very soon as the chopper was only two feet off the ground. What a shock that was . 

He heard the enemy soldiers all laughing at his predicament He thought to himself , 

It’s a soldiers duty to try and escape and so before any further he made a run for it .

He had no idea where he was running to with the blindfold still over his eyes . He never got far . Skint was pulled up fast with a tackle around his ankles that sent him tumbling to the ground . 

He was carried away by a group of men and put into a car that took off at pace . The ride was bumpy and Skint was jumpy . He wondered if he threw himself from the car if he would survive . Just as he was ready to give it a try the car pulled up to a stop . 

Skint was taken from the car and brought into what seemed to be a tent . The blindfold was taken off and Skint was sitting in front of a number of men who had black hoods over their faces . He wasn’t sure who or where these hooded men were and whatr they were going to do next . 

They started questioning and Skint asked ,. 



“What exactly are you trying to prove ? “ 



The hooded men left the tent and Skint found himself in isolation .  The next day the hooded men returned and again the interrogation commenced . 

This time Skint had a pair of handcuffs placed on his hands and feet . 

Again Skint asked the question , 



“What exactly are you trying to prove ? “ 



An answer returned , 

“The cuffs are to restrict you to move.” 

After a number of questions he still refuses to talk and so he felt the punches and the slaps . He was kicked and then he heard the click . 

He knew what that click was . 

The blindfold over his eyes was removed . 

Then he had to embrace the gun in his face . 

Skint was now able to cope with the situation much easier as he had resigned himself to the fact that very soon he would be killed . 

Then he though about the after death thing and wondered if they would just leave him there dead . He thought about his loved ones at home and the boys back at base camp . 

He watched the hooded men as they drew straws to see who would fire the shot into his head . He though about all his blood that soon would be all over the ground where he sat . 

Suddenly Skint’s facial expressions changed and right there and then he spoke his final words to his captors , 

“When it’s over and done and the chambers been spun , you can all walk away but hooded men never get anywhere because its my lucky day “. 

It was much too late for the enemy .

The entire area had been invaded by soldiers from Skint’s regiment . 

A volley of shots were fired and all the hooded men lay dead in a pool of their own blood . 

The enemy had been overcome and as if miracle Skint survived and walked away a free man alive to tell the tale of his escape from interrogation . 





By Paul McCann