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• "Anyone who goes to Iraq and says they're not frightened is either a lunatic or a liar. You're on edge the whole time — you don't know what's going to happen.
Driver Mike Walker's fears are justified. He has twice been robbed in his cab in Iraq, and in August he arrived at the Iraqi-Turkish border as Saddam Hussein's troops surged in to Kuwait.
The trip was fraught with problems from the start. Walker loaded up in Antwerp with overlength pipes going to Qatar "for overhead oil lines — nothing to do with guns!" — and drove down to lpsala on the Greek-Turkish border. Bad timing meant a long hold-up for a special vehicle permit: "If I'd got there in the morning, I'd have got through straight away, but I was stuck there for three days, waiting for the paperwork." The delay was enough to land Walker in the middle of the Gulf crisis.
BAKSHEESH
Even with a permit, the journey through Turkey took a day longer than usual. "The police kept stopping me. Even though I had lights on, they wouldn't let me drive at night. Every time I was stop ped, they were wanting baksheesh I got so fed up with it that I started showing the permit and writing down the police car number, saying I would send the number to their HQ in Ankara. Of course they waved me on then."
Walker bumped in to Tony Lyne11 in Ankara, a friend who works for Brooks Transport of Bexley. Both drivers went to pick up their visas for Iraq at the British embassy; Lynell was also awaiting his passport which was not produced with the visas. "The guy who gets the visas told
Tony to go on and he would send the passport down on the bus to Cizre, which is near the Iraqi border," says Walker.
The two arrived at Cizre next morning, but Walker had to continue his journey alone. "Tony's passport didn't turn up. I found out later that the bus driver had heard the news about the invasion and instead of going to the border, he went home for three days."
An hour's drive took Walker to the Iraqi-Turkish border post at Habur. "There was not a single soul there. Normally there are hundreds and hundreds of trucks, because freight and tankers go through there. There were a few Turks standing about and no Europeans at all."
But there seemed to be no problem about getting over the border, and Walker was preparing to drive through when a customs official came out and told him the Iraqis had suddenly closed the border. Walker hung around to contact his agent who made out the carnet again for travelling via Syria and Jordan.
Five hours later, with no explanation, the border was opened up again and Walker set off on the 1,100km run to Arar. The reality of Iraq's military strength hit him as he came through Baghdad and arrived at the Hiliar junction near the ancient city of Babylon at 02:00hrs. "There's some waste ground at a check post at Hiliar, and it was covered with hundreds of tanks and anti-aircraft guns," says Walker. "They were still moving the tanks in. I'd hear a rumbling and then see a tank on a transporter, with no lights on at all. The troops were rejoicing and firing off loads of tracer bullets."
He was stopped by soldiers but was allowed to continue his journey through the desert to the Saudi border. "There are usually a few army camps on the way but they had all gone to the front," he says. Thirteen hours of non-stop driving later he reached the Iraqi-Saudi border, with the temperature climbing to 50°C. There he was told he could not leave Iraq. That, says Walker, was the worst moment of the trip. "I thought then that I could be there for a long time."
BORDER POST
In fact, a bottle of Scotch, picked up on the cross Channel ferry, proved to be his ticket out of Iraq. Walker had been promising a bottle to an official at the border post, "an old guy who I've got to know quite well" — and he eventually waved the truck on. But no one else was allowed through: "There were three or four coachloads of Turks going to Mecca, but they weren't allowed over," he says.
Once in Saudi, Walker was able to ring his wife Pam, who had been anxiously following the news, not sure of where he was. He finally completed his 16,000km round trip on 20 August, leaving the Middle East and picking up a load of car light bulbs in Hungary on the way home.
Walker has been on the Middle East run for 15 years, mainly for Maidstonebased firm Astrans. He has gone back twice since the Gulf crisis started. Obviously money is the biggest draw; the 31/2-week trip to Doha makes him an average £3,000, which is soon gobbled up by the £1,500 a month mortgage on his Poole! home. Walker says he'd rather do long haul work and take the risks: "I've never done Europe but I know I couldn't stand chasing boats all the time."
0 by Gill Harvey