THE sudden rip of gunfire punctures the calm of the rolling countryside.

Confusing shouts follow. Armed men in fatigues, their faces covered with black ski masks, surround our jeep. They yank open the door, haul me out at gunpoint, and throw me to my knees.

"Keep your head down," one gunman yells, pushing my face toward the grass.

There is no time to protest. A gun is cocked against the nape of my neck. A man shouts into my ear: "Shut the [expletive] up!"

This is a game, I try to remember. This is only a game.

As one of three Monitor correspondents who regularly work in Afghanistan, I'm taking war-zone survival training. The five-day course run by Centurion Risk Assessments at a bucolic English country estate, puts us through our paces with the help of former British Royal Marines.

The glamorous mythology of the war correspondent's derring-do in far-flung places is embodied by the words of a young Winston Churchill when he wrote that "nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."

But there's nothing glamorous about this country drive turned hostage-taking as a canvas bag is dragged over my head and its drawstring pulled uncomfortably tight. We are marched away in a human chain, for what might be a few minutes. But sightless and directionless, two minutes feel like 20. I feel a new set of hands on my shoulders, which throw me to the ground. My hands break the fall, but they are kicked away until I'm flat on my stomach.

Soon the searching begins. Hands are exploring my arms and pockets, plucking off my watch, searching for other bits of jewelry. I am flipped over on my back for another search. Back on my stomach, they splay me out like a starfish. (Later, all five women in our class of 21 acknowledged the fear at this point that they might be raped.)

There is silence, except for the occasional crackle of an AK-47. I smell grass through the tiny holes in my hood. Long strands of hair are stuck in my face and mouth. My mind raced to Daniel Pearl and eight colleagues killed in Afghanistan. My family thousands of miles away. The fear that I could end up here, in some far-off land. Did I say I wanted this job?

Ten minutes or maybe 15 go by, but it feels like hours. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to breathe in my tight hood, and am convinced that I will soon pass out. I try to loosen the hood. A hand bangs me on the crown of my head, hard enough to sting for a while, unexpected enough make me wonder how far this game will go.

My breathing is getting choppy, my head is going fuzzy, and, on the verge of tears, I realize that even in a real situation, I wouldn't be beyond begging for mercy – or just a little more air.

"Please just loosen the strings a little. I really can't breathe," I plead, making the forbidden climb onto my knees. Someone yanks me up and drags me a few paces toward the woods. Is this it? I wondered. But the hood is taken off, and a mix of relief and fresh air flutters through my body.

I watch the faces of the captives as they are unhooded in the sunlight, looking pale and squinting. The last one is a slight man, dragged in backward by two men and then turned around to the crowd. They have placed a crudely drawn Mickey Mouse mask on top of his hood – he had tried to escape twice.

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