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

Dead 295impressed us with his humanity and generosity—the coconut was justone small example of this.That night, we enjoyed the pork and bedded down. Because we wereon the move, we set up our hooches in the middle of the FARC guards.Just to our left was where Eliécer and one of Pidinolo’s young aides,Duber, were sleeping. Long after we’d turned in, I was awakened by theclick of a rifle’s safety being switched off. A second later, that weapondischarged and a bullet whizzed over us.The next sound I heard was the voice of one of the young kids. Hewas screaming.“¡Duber se mató! ¡Duber se mató!”We couldn’t believe that one of those young kids had shot himself.The three of them were the picture of innocence, or at least as innocentas a FARC guerrilla could be. Over all the shouting, we heard thePlumber, who was on guard duty, asking, “Who, who?” Then we heardthe words that we’d been dreading for almost a year:“¡Eliécer se mató! ¡Eliécer se mató!”My heart jumped into my throat. I knew immediately that Eliécer hadmade good on the suicide he’d threatened so many months before.The guerrillas assembled and we were told to remain where wewere. After a few minutes of conversation, we heard the FARC movingaround. I heard the sound of a single spade turning up the dirt andthumping it on the ground just a few yards from where we lay. Thisquiet rhythm went on until it was interrupted by something heavy beingdragged out of the hooch next to ours.I lay there thinking of Eliécer and how just a few hours before, he’dfed us coconut. Cutting up the coconut for us was a simple gesture, butit demonstrated the kindness we’d come to know in Eliécer. As everyone of his fellow FARC members was enjoying their food, reveling inthe meal, he was thinking that we were captives, we were trapped. Wewere unable to enjoy the food without the right tools. The coconut hadbeen exactly the kind of offering that we expected from him.