Haunting sound of bat on ball sharpened the dreams (14 June 1999)

14 June 1999

Haunting sound of bat on ball sharpened the dreams

Robert Philip

During the 1,943 days he was held hostage in Beirut, John McCarthy spent many a long night lying among the scuttling vermin, cockroaches and ants of his squalid cell dreaming of just such a day as this; sitting on a pavilion balcony overlooking an English cricket field, a glass of ice cold beer to hand, surrounded by the laughter of friends, a lunch of poached salmon and Chablis awaiting.

His prison surroundings constantly changed, from a 6ft by 3ft pit where he spent the early days of his capture by Islamic extremists in solitary confinement, to a disorientating 'ice cube' of white tiled floor, walls and ceiling, to a bizarre six-week stay in an apartment furnished with bed, bath, carpets, WC and, the ultimate luxury, a light switch he could turn on or off at will, to the three-year living hell of being blindfolded and chained to a radiator by his ankles and wrists at the side of his fellow captive, Brian Keenan.

Seventeen times they were bound, gagged, wrapped in a sack-like shroud, tossed into a car boot or cattle truck and thrown bodily into their newest hiding place. The identity of their guards changed, the vile forms of torture changed, but the dreams never did.

"Actually, I seldom fantasised about this sort of occasion when I was locked up," mused McCarthy, gazing down upon the Oval where Pakistan and Zimbabwe were squabbling over World Cup semi-final places. "I usually imagined myself at a game on a village green or at a garden fete. I yearned to be part of an idyllic English scene again. The memory of the smell of freshly-cut grass was particularly poignant. I also passed countless hours picturing myself sitting on the veranda of my London flat watching England v Australia at Lord's on TV as so many people do, with the sound turned down and listening to the radio commentary on Test Match Special. The sharper the image I was able to conjure up, then the greater was my elation. The down side to that, of course, was that the greater my elation, so, correspondingly, was the greater my deflation when I realised I wasn't home in London at all but was still a prisoner in a Beirut basement.

"You can't afford to get too close to the past, if you understand what I mean. You have to be able to back away from the memories or they tear you apart. Towards the end we were allowed a radio - though we had to play it with the volume low - and occasionally the World Service would broadcast highlights of a Test match. The sound of bat on ball from thousands of miles away, was very, very haunting."

Did he also, I wondered, revive the wondrous dreams of boyhood in which England need a six off the last ball to win the Ashes with nine wickets down and McCarthy striding out to the crease? "I'm pretty useless at sport, to be honest, so I don't think I was ever destined to be an Ian Botham-type hero. If I was a latent cricket genius then I'm sorry none of the masters at school spotted my talent, because if I had become a cricketer instead of a journalist it might have kept me out of the trouble in which I later found myself in Beirut.

"Actually, I chose the right career, I just happened to choose the wrong country. I wanted to work abroad, but why the hell didn't I go to Hong Kong, say, rather than Beirut? But, yes, all those boyhood dreams you speak of did come flooding back. You know the kind of thing; England 0, Brazil 0, two minutes to go in the World Cup final at Wembley . . .

David Beckham pulls a hamstring and Keegan turns to me and says 'Right, McCarthy, it's up to you'. I go on as substitute and score the winner by beating eight defenders before chipping the goalkeeper from the edge of the penalty area. The sort of goal only George Best could have scored. But I have to say my powers of imagination are somewhat greater than my prowess."

After being taken hostage at the age of 29 in April 1986, McCarhty spent the next 5.5 years being subjected to unimaginable human indignities and frenzied physical beatings, whilst existing in the constant fear of having a terrorist's bullet implanted in his head. Eight years after his release, does he find it easier to talk about his ordeal? "In a way, it was never that difficult to talk about. I suppose I've just become more used to going over it. But if you started veering towards certain subjects, then I guess I'd become pretty emotional and I don't particularly want to do that at a cricket lunch when everyone's here to enjoy themselves."

Now 43 and recently married, McCarthy is an unlikely superhero; small, slight and public school-accented, it is hard to imagine him coping with the vile deprivation and obscene cruelty to which he was suddenly introduced. Yet a hero he is, for although Rory Bremner and his two cohorts, John Bird and John Fortune, were also among the throng of guests in the hospitality box it was McCarthy, who used to tap out the latest Test match scores in home-made code to Terry Waite through the wall in the adjoining cell, with whom the attendant gathering was in awe. As John Waite, cousin of the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy put it: "All hostages are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by their experience."

"It is a strange way to become famous," smiles McCarthy. "At school, I never made it beyond the under-14 team at cricket, yet only recently I was invited to play in a charity match in the grounds of Paul Getty's home. Before the game, I found myself inspecting the pitch with David Gower and Allan Lamb, who were rattling on about the quality of the grass and whether the wicket would take spin. I nodded wisely and kept quiet because all I was thinking to myself was 'what a fabulous lawn, I'm glad I don't have to cut it'."

McCarthy's batting and bowling performance in the match which followed was the highlight of his cricket career, "which isn't saying much," he grinned ruefully. "Rory was the commentator - which means we had about 50 different commentators from Richie Benaud to Fred Trueman - and I can hear his voice yet, drifting over the ground saying 'and McCarthy's over is proving rather expensive' as Liam Botham thrashed me for fours and sixes to every corner of the pitch.

"When it came to my turn to bat, I made a dazzling five before I was clean bowled by Devon Malcolm, which is a privilege in itself. I know that after everything I'd been through in Beirut a charity cricket match might seem fairly trivial but, God, was I nervous. There was quite a sizeable crowd and although I suppose I had become accustomed to being in the spotlight, this wasn't the spotlight in which I was used to being."

During their years together in Beirut, McCarthy and Keenan improvised all manner of sporting diversions; they fashioned a draught board out of a chequered blanket, sculpted chess pieces from the foil wrappers of Cheddar cheese triangles, played catch with a rolled-up sock, and wiled away hour upon hour trying to land screwed-up cigarette papers into the neck of a bottle.

"We became soul mates," said McCarthy of the Irish university lecturer with whom he forged a lifetime's bond. "He is like a brother to me, closer even. No, I didn't try to convert him to cricket, but I'm positive that with his incredible intellect he could master the intricacies of the game without any problem at all."

Still working as a broadcasting journalist while campaigning against torture and intolerance, McCarthy is currently working on a book with Keenan chronicling their travels in Chile together following their release.

John Waite was correct in his observation that all hostages are ordinary people made extraordinary by their experiences. Even after reading Some Other Rainbow, the bestseller he wrote with former girlfriend Jill Morrell, it is impossible to fully comprehend the mental and physical torment John McCarthy suffered at the hands of his captors for the best part of 2,000 days and nights.

Having passed a laughter-filled day at the Oval in his pleasurable company, I was left with the heart-wrenching feeling that the evil inflicted upon him could not have happened to a nicer man.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph