Bosnian Inferno

by David Monnery

  And a much more likely-looking transport for a group of journalists. From what Razor and Chris had discovered it was beginning to look as though the last stage of the trip was going to be difficult enough without Serb opposition, let alone with it.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked the Dame. ‘Does the engine seem reliable?’

  The Dame looked at it. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I think so. And I wouldn’t say the same for the lorry you lot came in.’

  ‘That settles it,’ Docherty said. ‘We’ll get off tomorrow morning at first light, and have lunch with our fellow Brits in Vitez.’

  ‘I think we should call it Woodstock,’ Razor said, staring at the Microbus.

  Docherty had a sudden image of them all riding round Bosnia, flashing peace signs at burnt-out villages.

  Two streets away, their positions of a fortnight before strangely reversed, Nena was trying to persuade Hajrija not to make the journey. ‘It’s because of him, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Rija, this is no time to go chasing after a man.’

  ‘I am not chasing after a man,’ Hajrija shouted back, thoroughly angry. ‘I am coming with you because you are my friend, and the last time I let you go off alone…’ She stopped herself. ‘OK, I like him, but that’s just a bonus. It is not why I am coming. Zavik is my home too, you know…’

  ‘You have no family there any more.’

  ‘I have friends. It’s my home. I have a right to know what’s going on there…’

  ‘OK, enough,’ Nena said. ‘I just don’t want you to put yourself in danger, for me or the Englishman…’

  Hajrija burst out laughing. ‘What do you think I was doing in Sarajevo,’ she wanted to know, ‘modelling swimsuits?’

  12

  They left Visoko at dawn the next day, with Razor in the driving seat, Docherty beside him, and the other four in the back with their gear. The previous day’s clear skies had been filled with hurrying clouds, and except for those few occasions when the sun shone through, the road down the Bosna valley twisted and turned in perpetual twilight.

  There was not much conversation to lighten the journey, with each of the travellers engrossed in thoughts of what had passed and what was to come. But neither were there any roadblocks to slow their passage. Traffic was virtually non-existent on the main highway – only two lorries went up the valley as they went down – and the signs of life were few: smoke from a farmstead on the other side of the river, a man trudging through snow high on the valley slope, a dog barking outside an abandoned roadside café.

  After driving about twenty miles they left the Bosna valley and its highway, turning left up the Lasva valley. Nearly ten miles of steady climbing later they came into the small town of Vitez, where the British UN Protection Force was based. The depot was on the higher side of the town, an affair of temporary barracks and vehicle pound, surrounded by wire fencing still new enough to gleam.

  Razor pulled up at the gate, where two Cheshires in UN berets waited, their SA80s held pointedly close to the firing position. Through the gates the new arrivals could see Warrior infantry carriers and Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles, all painted UN white.

  Docherty climbed slowly out of the van, approached the two sentries and introduced himself. They were impressed enough by the SAS credentials to let him through to see the duty officer, but insisted on the vehicle and its other five occupants remaining outside the gate. Serving under the UN flag did not seem to have filled these soldiers with a warm glow of security.

  Five minutes and two go-betweens later Docherty reached the office of the unit commander, Lieutenant-Colonel William Stewart, a tall, fair-haired Yorkshireman. As luck would have it he was also an ex-SAS officer, whom Docherty had served with nearly twenty years earlier in Oman, when Stewart was a hyperactive young lieutenant who had only just been badged.

  ‘Docherty!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the hell are you doing here? I heard they’d put you out to grass months ago.’

  Even in his forties, Stewart found it impossible to sit or stand still. As Docherty explained that his SAS patrol was on an undercover mission, and that they would appreciate some unofficial help, Stewart paced up and down his cramped little office like a caged tiger. ‘We need Arctic gear for two, and the latest intelligence on the roads between Vitez and Bugojno,’ Docherty said. ‘And some breakfast wouldn’t go amiss,’ he added.

  ‘I dare say we can manage all that without breaking the UN Charter,’ Stewart said. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you’re up to in this neck of the woods?’

  The answer should have been no, but Docherty told him anyway.

  Stewart was envious. ‘We spend most of our time here wishing we could do more than just watch it all happen. It’s like holding the coats of two men who’ve decided to beat each other to death.’ He reached for the door. ‘Let’s go and fill your order.’

  An hour later they were on their way again, having been supplied with Arctic clothing for the two women – both of whom, fortunately, were tall – an optimistic assessment of their road as far as Gornji Vakuf, and a fry-up in the Cheshires’ mess. Cholesterol-rich it definitely was, but the men hadn’t had a better meal since Split, and the two women hadn’t eaten as well for months. A couple of Cheshires at the next table couldn’t keep from commenting on the two women’s appetite, and were met with looks from the SAS men which would have silenced Cilla Black.

  Razor’s benign mood had been further lifted by the news that Tottenham had won on the previous Saturday. Sunderland and Celtic, however, had both lost.

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember Tottenham’s games against Rangers in ’62?’ Docherty asked Razor, as the latter steered the Microbus up the long incline leading out of town.

  ‘I was only four, boss.’

  ‘I was eleven. I can’t remember which European competition it was, but they were really big games. English and Scottish club teams had hardly ever played each other before then, and then those two were drawn against each other and there was this enormous expectation, enormous curiosity, because no one really knew whether English teams were much better than Scottish teams, or much the same, or vice versa.’

  ‘I take it we won.’

  ‘Oh aye, you won all right. Five-two, I think, down in London. But Rangers played well enough to make people think they could turn it round at Ibrox. They had some great players then – Willie Henderson, Jim Baxter. And then the second leg was only about five minutes old when Jimmy Greaves ran half the length of the field and scored. People who were there said the silence was so deep you could hear sheep farting in the Outer Hebrides. Spurs won that one three-two.’ Docherty smiled to himself. ‘I always remembered those games because I felt so torn. Being a Scot I wanted Rangers to win, and being a Celtic supporter I wanted to see them thrashed. I guess it was the first time I understood how loyalties could cut across each other.’ He looked out of the window. ‘But it was a long time before I realized what a good thing it was that they did. Because people with only one loyalty have nothing to restrain them.’

  ‘Like here in sunny Bosnia?’

  ‘Aye.’

  A few miles further on they turned left, on to a small road which climbed across the mountains towards Bugojno. In normal times this would have been closed to traffic, but the UN Protection Force needed it open for resupply purposes, and the necessary vehicles and equipment had been brought up by road from Split two months earlier. Piled snow on either side of the twisting road offered evidence of the use to which they had been put.

  In the back of the Microbus the euphoria provided by breakfast soon dissipated. As they got nearer to their destination Nena was finding her anxiety for her children beginning to grow, and Hajrija was finding no reason to worry less about Nena. Her friend still seemed locked inside that mental shell she had grown to protect herself during captivity, and Hajrija didn’t know how to react. Should she try breaking it open from the outside or wait for Nena to free herself?

  And there was also the En
glishman to think about. Feeling desire for a man didn’t seem very appropriate after what her best friend had just been through.

  Sitting opposite each other by the back door, Chris and the Dame were also in very different states of mind. Since the bus ride from Vogosca the Dame had been unable to shake the picture of all those traumatized women and girls out of his head. Memories of his sister’s wedding reception kept coming back to haunt him with their pettiness. If people only knew how bad it could get, then they wouldn’t waste love in the stupid way they did. They would cherish it, look after each other, thank God that their sisters and wives were not on a bus to somewhere like Vogosca.

  Facing him, Chris was watching the sky above the snow-covered moorland, and occasionally catching sight of a hovering bird of prey too far off to identify. He wanted to stop the van, get out and climb into these unknown hills, and feel as free as the birds that circled above them.

  They reached Gornji Vakuf around eleven and turned off the main road to Split, following another, wider road north-west towards Bugojno. The most recent hard intelligence available at Vitez had placed the Serbs within a few miles of Bugojno, and there was an unconfirmed report that long-range shelling of the town had begun in the last few hours. The small UN unit stationed there had been incommunicado for almost twenty-four.

  The SAS men found out why a few miles short of the town, when they came upon the UN unit’s two vehicles and five men eating an early lunch in a convenient picnic spot beside the highway. The town, the men from the Cheshires told them, was now under almost continuous bombardment by Serb artillery, and they had been ordered out by the overall UN command. The five Cheshires seemed pleased enough to be out of immediate harm’s way, but, as one of the younger men put it succinctly: ‘What’s the fuckin’ point of it all?’

  The major in charge had more recent information on Serb movements in the area, but warned them not to take anything for granted. ‘The bastards could be in the town square by now,’ he said cheerfully. When Docherty asked him about Zavik the major raised a knowing eyebrow, and said that there had been no news of the town for weeks. ‘Which could mean that they’re all still hung over from Christmas, or it could mean that the Serbs have burned the place to the ground. Who knows? I just want to get back to the Falls Road,’ he concluded, with only the faintest trace of irony.

  Another few miles down the valley they could hear the big guns firing up ahead. Razor stopped the Microbus on a convenient rise and all six of them got out on to the road for a panoramic view of the distant town. Smoke was already rising from half a dozen buildings, and every few minutes another flash of white light would be followed by the sound of a shell exploding.

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s a way round,’ Razor muttered.

  ‘Not on this map,’ Docherty replied.

  ‘The shells are landing about every three minutes,’ Chris said, looking up from his watch as another white flash erupted, ‘and they just seem to be lobbing them in at random. Our chances of being hit by one are not much worse than our chances of being knocked down by a London bus.’

  ‘Oh well, that’s all right then,’ Razor said sarcastically. He looked round at the Microbus. ‘Boss,’ he said more seriously, ‘I think everyone should get in the back with the bergens up against the windows. And keep your heads down, no matter how good the architecture down there used to be. If I see a one-winged, purple-crested parrot flying out of the smoke I’ll give you a shout,’ he told Chris. ‘OK?’

  They did as he suggested, and huddled together between the rows of seats in the back. Razor started off down the hill, trying to gauge times and distances. The town didn’t look so big, and it shouldn’t take much more than five minutes to reach its centre, find the road which they wanted, and drive back out again. If he entered the town just after a shell landed, then with any luck there would only be one to avoid before they made their exit.

  ‘You’re a genius, Razor,’ he murmured to himself, easing his foot down on the brake as the Microbus drove past the first houses. At that moment there was a loud explosion, a far louder one than he’d expected, and half a house not fifty yards away seemed to rear and crash down into the street ahead. Razor moved slowly forward, poised on the accelerator, and when the dust had cleared sufficiently for him to see a path through the rubble, rammed his foot down. And then he was racing along the empty street towards the town centre, where a mosque’s minaret contested the sky with a Christian spire.

  The road signs were still up, and he was swinging across the small square towards the Kupres road, thinking the worst was over when several bees seemed to whizz past his head. Pretty solidly built bees, to judge by the holes they had left in the windscreen.

  Razor pulled down the steering wheel, first one way and then the other, careering in violent curves down the road away from the square. He thought he heard other shots, but no more bees came through the cab, and a minute later the Microbus was back in open country, beginning a slow climb towards a distant cleft in the valley’s side.

  He could feel the adrenalin pumping through his veins. ‘Is everyone OK back there?’ he called out anxiously, risking a glance in the rear-view mirror in search of Hajrija. She was there. And everyone else.

  ‘What did you see?’ Docherty wanted to know.

  ‘Nothing. Not a soul,’ said Razor. ‘Maybe they were all in their basements, or maybe the Serbs are just firing at an empty town.’

  ‘Who fired at us?’

  ‘No idea. Didn’t see them either.’

  ‘We’d better stop and make sure there’s no real damage.’

  Razor brought the van to a halt just above a hairpin bend, and they got down to make an examination. Three bullets had passed through the vehicle, all of them in through one of the door windows at the back and out through the windscreen to Razor’s right. If Docherty had still been sitting in the passenger seat there wouldn’t have been much left of his head. As it was, the only lasting consequences of the attack were an increased draught of cold air and an obscuring of the view through the affected windows.

  They got back on board, Docherty resuming his front seat. For the next six miles the road clambered out of the valley in ever-tightening spirals, the Microbus’s wheels slipping and sliding far more than Razor liked. The way down was even more treacherous, and their progress often slowed to no more than a crawl. It was only when they reached their intended turn-off that the way became easier, and not for a very comforting reason. Tracked vehicles had used this road not long previously; the Microbus had obviously entered Serb-controlled – or at best Serb-contested – territory.

  According to the Cheshires they had met outside Bugojno there was a checkpoint in the village of Dragnic, another six miles up this road. They were planning to abandon the Microbus half a mile short of the village and take to the hills, literally. It would be a twenty-mile hike to Zavik, across a 6000-foot range of snow-covered mountains, but Docherty had no doubt that Hajrija and the four men could cover the distance in reasonable time. Nena, though, was a different matter. She had told him she could do it, but…

  He was still worrying this over in his mind when the tell-tale drift of smoke came into view, curling up above the next rise.

  ‘I see it,’ Razor said, as Docherty pointed forward.

  ‘Stop short of the next crest,’ the PC said. ‘And we’ll go take a look.’

  They did, inching their heads above the skyline to see the roadblock a quarter of a mile ahead: a car and a transit van nose to nose in the middle of a river bridge, and on the bank beyond a blazing fire surrounded by several men in the familiar broad-brimmed hats.

  ‘I love barbecues,’ Razor said.

  ‘Shit,’ Docherty muttered. This had added another five or six miles to their walk.

  They had no other choices. They couldn’t ram a path through this roadblock, and there was no way they could get within killing distance of the enemy without being seen. At least not before nightfall, and that was five hours away. Who knew wha
t might appear on the road behind them in the meantime?

  Docherty glanced to the right, where the ground fell brokenly towards the same river, and then rose up beyond it in pine-covered slopes. That was the way they had to go.

  He and Razor inched their way back from the crest, then hurried back down to the van. ‘Bad news, folks,’ Docherty said. ‘We’re on foot from here on.’

  They unloaded their gear.

  ‘What about Woodstock?’ Razor asked.

  Docherty thought for a moment, wondering whether to bury the Microbus in a snowdrift, or drive it back to the top of the last rise and give it a push. ‘We’ll leave it here,’ he decided. ‘They’re not going to follow us across country.’

  ‘Ready?’ he asked, looking round at them all. Chris was smiling with anticipation, the Dame poker-faced as ever, the two women tensely determined. ‘Dame, you take lead scout,’ Docherty said. ‘Chris, you’re Tail-end Charlie. Nena, I want you and Hajrija between me and Razor, OK?’

  They hoisted the bergens on to their backs and started off in order of march across the sloping meadow, all but Nena holding an SMG cradled in their arms. The snow was about a foot deep, and the going was slow. At this rate, Docherty thought, it would take about a week to reach Zavik. He hoped the forest would be easier walking.

  They found a dry way across the river without much difficulty, and were soon under the cover of the trees, where the going was not appreciably easier. After half an hour they seemed to have covered only about a quarter of a mile.

  Docherty called a halt. ‘Any ideas?’ he asked.

  ‘The plan was to get off the road about six miles further up, right?’ Chris said. ‘And then take this track Hajrija knows across the mountains and in through Zavik’s back door?’