It was only the woman who tried.

She clamped on to my arms and pulled me back, using her weight for leverage, letting loose a torrent of Somali. For a few minutes, my body was strung between them, with Abdullah yanking my legs while the Somali woman proved herself a stubborn anchor. We were being towed along — the two of us, linked like train cars — inch by inch across the floor of the mosque. My shoulder sockets ached to the point where I thought they would pop.

Finally, she could hang on no longer. I managed to lift my head and look back to see her sprawled on the floor and weeping openly. Her head scarf and niqab had been torn off in the struggle, leaving her exposed. I could see that she was my mother’s age, in her early 50s, with a gentle plump face and high forehead. Her hair had been braided in tiny cornrows over her head. She still had one arm outstretched in my direction. Three men with guns now surrounded her.

Someone lifted my shoulders, maneuvering me roughly over the stairs outside the mosque and into a courtyard. My abaya had ridden up over my waist. My jeans, which were already baggy because I had lost so much weight, were slipping toward my ankles as Abdullah jerked me forward, holding my legs on either side of his chest as if pulling a cart. As we moved over the courtyard, my body skimming the dirt, I felt my frayed underwear sliding off as well. I was naked, basically, stomach to knees.

I felt something wet hit my stomach and realized I had been spat on. We were moving through a crowd, past a metal gatepost marking the edge of the courtyard and the entry to the road. I reached out and caught the post, latching on to it with both hands.

Abdullah turned to see what had stopped his progress. Beyond him and through the gate, I could see a blue truck waiting with its engine running. Another gunshot echoed from inside the mosque. Nigel, I thought. They’ve killed Nigel. The thought was like a suck hole, a thing that could kill me. I spotted a woman’s narrow face looking down at me from the crowd, her expression unreadable. I screamed at her in English: “Why won’t you help me?”

She looked stricken. “I don’t speak English,” she said in perfect English.

Suddenly, the knuckles on one of my hands exploded in pain. Someone had kicked it to loosen my grip on the pole. I howled and let go. Then I was being pushed to my feet and toward the truck. I saw two other men hauling Nigel through the door of the mosque and in our direction. The sight of him brought a wash of solace and a hammer blow of anxiety. It had been all of 45 minutes since we slipped through the window. We made it out but not truly out. We crossed the river only halfway. Things would get worse from here. Everything that followed would be aftermath, punishment.

Nigel and I would remain hostages for another 10 months. We were freed, finally, on Nov. 25, 2009, 460 days after we were taken, and only after our families managed to raise just over $1 million for a ransom and the services of a private security company. They held fund-raisers, accepted other donations and borrowed where they could. (Later, we learned, to our relief, that the three Somali men who were kidnapped with us had not been killed, but rather released unharmed.)