Former hostage Brian Smith (C) and David Holmes (R) and Smith's companion Val Jarvis, who was not a hostage, contemplate before answering a question from the media at a news conference at Gatwick airport January 1, after arriving back from Yemen. The survivors of a hostage gun battle in Yemen on Friday denied they had been put under pressure by the Yemeni authorities to change their stories in any way afterwards. The hostages, looking drawn but calm, said they were amazed to be alive and effusively praised each other's courage and calm when they were used as human shields amid a hail of bullets.

KD/JDP