Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat. Alex Crawford

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