Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

134 OUT OF CAPTIVITYbejesus out of us and pissed us off—but a victory nonetheless. Winningin captivity took on a new dimension, and understanding that wascrucial to our adjustment.MARCThree days after the bombing raid, the Frenchman told us to pack ourstuff. We were moving out. With the Frenchman’s request for our civilianclothes sizes still fresh in our minds, we figured our release wasat hand. We’d been held captive for approximately thirteen weeks, andwe’d crashed on the thirteenth of February. I wasn’t superstitious butnoticed the coincidence in my journal. Keith had been saying that hewanted to be home for Kyle’s birthday on May 20, and as we gatheredour things together Tom said to him, “It looks like you’re going to makethat birthday celebration after all. Maybe a couple of days late, but closeenough, considering.”We had only forty-five minutes to pack. While at the New Camp,we’d been given a few more personal items—flashlights whose lenseswe had to shroud with leaves to keep them from being too bright andworking as signal devices, a nylon tent top, and all our toiletries andsoap. We stowed our entire lives in the new backpacks we’d been issued.We marched out, retracing on foot the route we’d taken after we’d firstarrived following the twenty-four-day march. We walked past the largercompound and saw Sombra sitting in a truck. We all hoped that, as bada driver as Sombra was, he was taking us to some point where we’d bereleased. He looked at us and said, “Guys, you have to step in the samefootprints as you cross this road. We can’t leave too many tracks.”With that in mind, we marched off into the jungle. We were in acolumn of about forty guerrillas and we noticed their livestock was withthem. Upon seeing the animals, we all realized that if we were beingmarched out with that many FARC and all of their supplies includinglivestock, the likelihood of our being led to a release point was not goodat all. We spent that night sleeping on black plastic on the ground with