Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat. Alex Crawford

of this one-sided battle, this pitiless massacre.

      I am stunned, reeling from this news. There is a small crowd still in the Square and they greet us noisily but wearily as they see us pull up. I fire questions at them. Where did the tanks go? Where are the injured soldiers? What happened the afternoon before, after we left the Square? They reply quickly – the army kept coming back, there was more fighting, more bloodshed, they took their people and their machines and they left.

      Dr Salah has gone into the mosque to try to find out the whereabouts of someone he knows, when another doctor approaches our vehicle. ‘You must leave,’ he says. ‘Leave now. We have word the army is coming back. It is dangerous for you here. Go. Go now.’ We don’t need telling twice. We bolt back into the vehicle. ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’ But we are a man down. Dr Salah is still in the mosque. We can’t leave without him.

      We shout for him: ‘Come on! Come on!’ I am filled with fear at the thought of being caught here in the Square again by the regime’s army but appalled at the idea of leaving behind our lovely new young friend to the mercy of the Gaddafi security forces. He only drove us here because I asked him and now we might be abandoning him. No. We can’t go. But, for God’s sake, Dr Salah, hurry up, please hurry up. We’re screaming now. We’re all anxious, very anxious. We don’t want to get caught in the middle of the fighting here again. As the seconds go by, I wonder what we will decide to do if he doesn’t come back soon. Will we be brave enough to stay or will we leave him? He has no way out of here if we go.

      But the decision is taken for us. Dr Salah appears. Relief. Huge relief. He jumps in and we rush to his car and head back to the hospital, hearts pumping.

      I am not sure how long it takes, but it feels like a horribly short time. We are hardly back in the hospital when we hear the noises we have become so familiar with. It’s the dreaded rumble of a large convoy of military vehicles and tanks heading back towards the Square. There are a lot of them – about fifteen or twenty vehicles. Some are trucks just packed with soldiers and, as they are driving along, some are shooting their weapons, spraying bullets along the side of the road. We can’t see what they are shooting at but we soon see the results of the indiscriminate firing. I think about the people still there that we saw just a short time ago and how they will be fighting for their lives now – again. And I think how accurate their warning was to us. How lucky we have been once again. How did they know? Spotters? A tip-off? Instinct?

      We know that many of the rebels have been worried about Gaddafi agents being in their midst, worried about informers posing as Opposition fighters so they can better glean information about battle plans and insurrection which they can then pass on to the regime. If the rebels have been infiltrated, could the Gaddafi military machine also have sympathizers inside its ranks who might be doing some tipping off too? It has certainly worked that way in other conflicts. In Afghanistan the newly trained army and police are constantly being infiltrated by Taliban and militants who use their positions – and training – to turn on their trainers, mentors and ‘colleagues’.

      Cars and ambulances are soon screeching up to the front entrance of the hospital, loaded with casualties. One man is brought in lying on his stomach with a large anti-tank bomb sticking up into the air, having lodged grotesquely in the back of his thigh. It is unexploded and he is still conscious, muttering ‘Allahu Akbar’ repeatedly as the medics run with him on a mobile stretcher straight into the lift so he can be taken up to the operating theatre. ‘He will be all right,’ one doctor tells me as he sees my horrified face.

      A young boy is brought in screaming, writhing around a stretcher as adults try to hold him still to tend to the wound on his head. The doctors say he was shot as he sat on his front doorstep playing with his friends. Was that the indiscriminate spraying we saw earlier? The hospital staff show us at least two ambulances which have been strafed with bullets, through the windscreens, along the sides and through the rear windows.

      While we are watching the injured being unloaded from one of the wrecked ambulances, with crowds of hospital staff around them all wearing white coats, there is more firing. Some of the bullets seem to land in the centre of the crowd of doctors. They scatter, leaving the injured man at the entrance marooned on his stretcher. It is a knee-jerk reaction and, within moments, a few return and drag the casualty to relative safety inside. Nowhere seems safe any more.

      Tim and I go outside to make a satellite phone call. We have to be outside for the signal to work. But while we are trying to make the connection a Gaddafi jet roars overhead, sweeping low over the hospital. Christ! Is he going to start dropping bombs on his people from the skies now? When we get through to London – while we are telling them the news of the latest attack – there is firing above us. It seems to be coming from the hospital roof. Is there someone up there? Who is shooting, and are they shooting at us? Have they seen us? Are we being targeted or is this shooting, so close by, just coincidence? We run back inside.

      There are tanks firing now and the noises sound very close to the hospital. The shelling is making the windows rattle. Nurses are busy trying to barricade the windows and give themselves more protection by leaning stretchers up against them.

      Martin has gone to try to find a window higher up so he can get a better view of the area. He hopes to spot some of the military vehicles and get a clearer idea about what they are doing. There are clouds of smoke coming from the direction of the Square. Those poor, poor people. I can barely stop myself weeping for them. And I am scared for us too, very scared. I hate being apart from Martin or Tim now. I am constantly wondering and worrying about where they are. The doctors occasionally see me wandering around on my own and without prompting they say: ‘He’s gone upstairs to film’ – talking about Martin, or ‘He’s in the office’ – referring to Tim. I must look terribly lost and worried. I certainly feel it.

      Dr M is still with us, popping in and out of surgery to find us and check on us. He is still working hard at trying to find someone to drive us out. Still no joy at all. He has been back to the Square himself to try to locate his own car and shows us pictures of it on his mobile phone. It has been blown up or incinerated by some sort of bomb. We don’t know what destroyed it but we do know it’s probably not going to pass an MOT test again.

      Like us, the doctor and his son are stuck. I am constantly amazed, we all are, by his composure. He is here in the most horrible of circumstances with his young son. It’s bad enough being here as an adult, looking after yourself and hoping. But to also have the worry of making sure your child is OK too? Yet he is calm and charming and constantly worrying about us.

      I find myself down one of the corridors trying to get back to our ‘office’ and the others when I turn a corner and see the formation of about twenty doctors all in their white coats kneeling down in the corner praying. They are praying for help. I stop, sensing I am intruding. But this feels like a public demonstration, an affirmation of faith. This is INSHALLAH in big, capital letters. It is in God’s hands.

      Chapter Four