The foreword to Paul Moorcraft’s Inside The Danger Zones: Travels to Arresting Places sees the author trying to explain exactly why he decided to write a book about his adventures as a freelance war correspondent.
Based on the following extract from the book’s opening section, we don’t think it was to attract a female following the likes of which would make Edward Cullen run and hide:
“The helicopters dropped altitude and hovered just above us. A guerrilla opened up with a Dasheka anti-aircraft gun. If by some miracle the Hinds hadn’t seen us before, they could hardly ignore us now.
Pointlessly, I shouted ‘shut up’.
He was only sixty yards away but he couldn’t have heard me above the gunfire, even if he had spoken any English. In vain, I ransacked my severely limited Pushtu vocabulary for a translation.
The MiGs blasted away. As they came out of their bombing runs they sometimes shot out anti-heat-seeking missile flares, which left a mosaic of cloud patterns against the deep blue sky. Chris was cursing like a banshee. Action all around, and from our gully we could not film properly.
‘Bend over,’ he shouted.
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‘Is this some last perverted wish, Chris?’ I asked, with more bravado in my voice than I felt.
‘No, you fool, I haven’t got the tripod. Bend over and kiss your arse goodbye.’
‘You forget the tripod, I have my face full of crap and my backside napalmed. Great holiday.’
Chris laughed. ‘If it was easy everybody would be doing it.’
I bent over, nose into the shit, and Chris put the camera vertically on my back to film the gunships right above us. What a way to go, I thought, acting the human tripod as we filmed – in full colour – our own demise.”
The Horrors of War.
Paul later states that, before leaving on his various foreign excursions (all of which are equally, shall we say, memorable), he had “wanted to experience war”. That’s great Paul. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to go and experience a prawn mayo sandwich, or something that doesn’t require us to brush our teeth twenty-eight times afterwards.
Might still need to do it twice after the prawns, though.
Inside The Danger Zone: Travels to Arresting Places is published today and you can find it here for £9.99. Any book sales go towards buying Paul a new toothbrush.