Rebels wanted to eat his heart

What kind of a bloke goes for a run up a Scottish mountainside with his fiancèe and their chaplain on the eve of their marriage and makes an off colour remark about how he hopes his missus-to-be will not be quite so sweaty the next morning? Then gets held down in an SAS arm-lock by the vicar while his betrothed "pushed my face in the mud"?

The kind of bloke you want on your side. Luckily, Phil Ashby is one of ours. And luckily for him, he was made of the right stuff when, two years ago, while serving with the United Nations in Sierra Leone, he led a daring escape through miles of jungle emerging more or less unscathed after being surrounded and besieged by crazed rebels from the Revolutionary United Front.

In Ashby we have the very picture of the modern war hero. Had the United Nations listened to the advice of the 30-year-old, Cambridge-educated, Royal Marine major two years ago, scores of peace-keepers would be alive today, and Sierra Leone could have avoided another two years of civil war. But the leaders of the largest deployment of blue helmets in the world crossed their fingers and nearly had them hacked off.

Ashby found himself disarming 10 deserters from the RUF in the middle of Sierra Leone, on the outskirts of Makeni, as part of a staggeringly stupid "peace accord", backed by the UN and Britain, aimed at ending a civil war which had made refugees of four million people. He thought disarming the men was a bad idea. The RUF was led by men called "Savage", "Mosquito" and "Killer". They specialised in cutting off the buttocks of women, the hands of anyone they felt like, and raping those they fancied. They were in charge of Makeni and were still armed and very, very, dangerous. Just as Ashby predicted, they didn't take kindly to the UN housing their deserters.

After all, the rebels thought, the whole idea of the Lome Peace Accord which brought Ashby and 20,000 other UN troops to Sierra Leone, was to disarm the democratically elected government's forces, and then sweep unopposed into Freetown, the capital. Ashby saw that taking weapons from RUF men in Makeni would be dangerous. It was the trigger for a rebel offensive which caused the UN to collapse and precipitated Britain's rescue mission which, we all hope, has just ended with general elections.

He was stuck in Makeni with a thinly dispersed battalion of Kenyan peace-keepers, who kept their nerve and fought bravely, even when the bloodied uniform of a Zambian UN soldier, who had been sent to their rescue, was thrown into their compound after he'd been peeled alive by the rebels. Ashby knew that the RUF prized the life of a British Commando above all others and that they'd storm the Kenyans to get, and eat, his heart.

So with two other British and one New Zealand officer, he sneaked out of the Kenyan compound in the small hours after a week under siege and plunged into the jungle. A member of the little-known elite of Mountain Leaders, trained in evading capture among other things, Ashby led his unarmed team through the bush for five days to safety as the UN was routed around them.

Their journey will go into the archives of Great Escapes. Knowing they would be hacked to pieces, and worse, if caught, they travelled about 75 miles at night with almost no water, and hid in thorn bushes by day. When forced to seek the help of locals, or die, they chose well.

Currently, the American-led operations in Afghanistan appear to be achieving very little as Uncle Sam blunders about the mountains of the Hindu Kush in search of red herrings; in contrast, Ashby's sensitivity to the culture of ferocious Kamajorhunters saved their lives.

It is often said that Africa is a poison; once you set foot there it gets into your blood and you never leave. Ashby finished his tour with the UN and provided essential guidance to the British forces which saved Freetown. He was decorated for leading the escape, but never shook off Africa.