Ian Stewart

Ambushed: A War Reporter's Life on the Line

ABC Books, 2003.

In Regent's Park, we wandered through neatly manicured gardens where the occasional tulip was already in bloom. We strolled past wide tracts of open parkland, where teenagers and young adults played soccer. Mute, I watched in covetous wonder at the ease and grace with which the athletes moved. My mind wandered back to high school and university when I had played football and rugby. God, I hope I'll do that again, I thought, still staring at the soccer players gamboling across the green pitch

The author had been reporting on the conflict in Sierra Leone in January 1999 when he was hit by a bullet that lodged in the back of his brain. While receiving treatment for his injuries his sister and father had taken him for an outing in a wheelchair. But a visit to the zoo brings back disturbing memories.

We were approaching the aviary, when from a distance I spotted several large, black birds at the top of the enclosure. One jumped a few feet along the tree limb it was standing on; its wings flapped once lazily. My heart pounded hard and I struggled to catch my breath. Suddenly the raw London air felt hot and humid; beads of perspiration formed on my forehead. In my mind I heard gunfire echo through the crowded zoo. I looked away from the large black birds and cast a frightened glance over my shoulder at my dad, who was pushing the wheelchair.

"Those are vultures. Let's not go over there, OK?" I said urgently, my chest tightening in a noose of anxiety. For the rest of the day, my nose was filled with the smell of cordite and rotting flesh on a Freetown street, and my mind replayed images of vultures tugging voraciously at human cadavers