by J E Higgins
He had just gotten over the surprise of what had happened when he looked up to see the young foreigner staring back at him with his own gun pointed at him. His face burned red with anger, and he moved in her direction intending to do her serious harm for this indignity.
The loud crackle of the gun firing and a bullet tearing up dirt just short of his foot stopped him. He looked up to see the gun being angled at his crotch. Behind the gun stood a woman with the cold, dark stare he had seen in predators just before they killed their prey.
He heard the clicking of the weapon’s hammer being pulled back in preparation to fire. He saw absolutely no hesitation in her eyes. Understanding his life depended on the next move he made, the man lifted his hands surrendering. He nodded his head in capitulation and backed away.
Accepting his surrender, she lowered the weapon slowly making sure his gesture was real. She then released the magazine and ejected the round in the chamber before throwing the gun to the ground.
The collective response around her was a universal bowing of heads. Everyone returned to their positions on the firing line. She had passed their test, no one would be questioning her ability.
Oleg looked stunned.
To her surprise, this small cadre proved a vastly different type than what she had seen. They were motivated and quick learners who soaked up her teachings with eager enthusiasm. They gained a reasonably good grasp of patrol movements, even going on extended patrols that took them around the greater circle of the campsite. They completed a few field craft maneuvers and basic drills in how to react to ambushes. Eventually, they worked on building skills on silent killing ─ something the Croatians practiced with enthusiasm.
The first live fire and maneuver with real bullets caused her to cringe. It looked like a cross between a cheap American action movie and a Muslim wedding celebration. Lack of any injury or death could only be explained by divine intervention. However, in short order, they went from a band of wild bandits to a group that could move and communicate with a fair degree of tactical proficiency. Soon, they were moving toward objects with a clean and coordinated cover by fire in which every other man fired a quick burst toward the perceived enemy while the man to his left and right moved up a short distance toward the objective. This leapfrogging pattern was repeated until they were able to move through their enemy’s position.
Sauwa was able to advance to developing better attire for the field. Luckily, Oleg was able to procure some netting, old burlap, and some dark colored paint. It was her answer to the lack of combat fatigues. Cutting up the burlap and fraying it, they dipped the burlap in the different paint colors to better blend it in with the forest vegetation. They tied the burlap strips to the netting. Initially, Oleg had offered steel hooks and wire. The hooks and wire had the potential to shine so she opted for thin strings of brown rope which were more practical for concealment. They weren’t the best camouflage suits, but they offered better protection than the bright T-shirts they had been wearing.
After two weeks of training, the trainees were beginning to show promise. As agreed, Marko arranged a recce to Jablancia, about fifteen kilometers from their location. They planned the patrol for sunset, allowing them to move more openly in the darkness. Initially, Marko had wanted her to take the squad with her, giving them some experience using their new training.
Thankfully, she, along with Oleg, persuaded Marko that such a mission was premature. It could prove more costly than beneficial. Instead, Marko agreed to let Sauwa go with Oleg and another trainee, a former outdoorsman named Sasha. Sasha supposedly knew the whole area like the back of his hand and would be able to guide her through in the dark and in areas with no defined trails.
Sunset was less than an hour away. Like a non-commissioned officer in the South African army, Sauwa had ensured Oleg and Sasha spent the day getting ample sleep and being well fed.
In the hour before they were ready to step-off, she used the time to check gear for anything reflective, and that the Croatians taped down or packed tightly anything that would jingle or make noise. The team painted dark colors on the front of their faces while adding the lighter colors to the sides along the circumference. She checked that they didn’t make their coloring too dark or unnatural or that the paint job on one-half was different from the pattern on the other side. These were all things that could potentially compromise a stealthy patrol. The final touch came when everyone donned their camouflage field jackets. The jackets weren’t the best but, pulled up over their heads, they did the job of breaking outlines and blending in with the surroundings.
Sauwa also finalized the last details of the patrol with Oleg and Marko. After some argument, because Oleg wanted to use the more familiar trails over the less defined areas in the bush, a route was mapped out that seemed to work just as well. It would take them along the river line, to help guide them for the first six kilometers where they would be in territory still deemed to be relatively safe. Afterward, they would veer off two kilometers inland into the bushes where they would pick up a familiar area that they would follow the rest of the way to the town.
Sunset was in its beginning stages when the team stepped off. Staying within the tree line, the three moved along the river. She had taught hand and arms signals that would help reduce the need for conversation. Yet, like any tactical movement, verbal communication was still occasionally necessary. Keeping a seven-meter dispersion, the team moved through the grass and shrubs.
Sauwa was impressed. For the most part, the two guerrillas had taken her lessons to heart as they carefully observed their surroundings.
Bosnia was a land of mountains and high rolling hills. It had been a bone of contention that Sasha and Oleg wanted to take to the high ground of the hills to be able to observe better. In the darkness of the night, they were adamant they would be safe. Sauwa had to calmly explain that the hills offered no concealment, and they would be visible at a distance with the moonlight shining down on them.
“It’s called skylining,” she said.
Even walking along the side of the hills, they were still in the open on grassy fields and would be noticed by anyone in the area. They needed to keep to the base of the hill, out of the moonlight, and well concealed in the darkness and vegetation.
Arriving at the river break Oleg had chosen for the turnoff point, Sauwa brought the team to a halt. In the remaining sunlight, she could still use her hands to communicate. She had trained the Croatians to slowly drop to one knee, their weapons facing outward with every other man facing the opposite direction.
She had appreciated Oleg as an interpreter during the training, and he was proving now to be an adept student when it came to her instructions. He remained silent, constantly switching his attention between watching her and watching the surrounding terrain. In similar fashion, Sasha kept his attention focusing forward and on the river.
Sound travels better at night. She closed her eyes, listened for alien noises, and heard nothing. After ten minutes, she decided the patrol was safe to continue and put herself and the team in a tactical triangular formation. She reduced the distance to three meters, keeping them apart but close enough to hear each other and see general outlines.
The patrol started off slowly, their feet rustling as they marched through high grass and navigated bushes that grabbed at their arms and legs. Between their inexperience and the darkness, the Croatian’s frustration built as they struggled to understand Sauwa’s hand motions. Somehow, she managed to convey what needed to be done without having to talk.
She had trained them to stop every two hundred meters for a five-minute pause to listen for sounds warning them of any enemy in the area.
Oleg grabbed her arm and pointed to a contorted looking tree. It was the marker for the location where they were to turn and make for the town. Rotating positions, Sasha became the point man. According to Oleg, he knew the area better than anyone. He had spent years as a professional hunter before the country’s collapse. He was also one of the
trainees who didn’t seem to have a problem with not talking. With a nod from Sauwa, the lanky ex-hunter took off into the woods. She and Oleg followed behind.
Sporadic clusters of small trees and lush bushes broke up the otherwise open grassy fields of the high hills. As the space between hills narrowed, the team found themselves having to move higher up the slope. The further up they went, the thinner the vegetation and the more the moonlight exposed them.
While the moonlight helped the guerrillas see, it made the threat of skylining more of a danger. Sauwa moved the team back into a single column and took up the middle following closely behind Sasha. She directed him to stay as low on the hill face as possible where the moonlight wasn’t focused and closer to the bushes where they could blend in with the landscape. It was a tactical game not easy to play.
8
The guerrillas arrived near sunrise. They were exhausted from the hours moving up and around the labyrinth of hills and the shrub line of the lower country. Sauwa estimated they had another thirty minutes before daybreak. The town was just in sight, the few lights still working provided enough illumination to give them a good outline of most of the town.
The moonlight had largely dissipated leaving the surrounding hills nearly black. Sauwa searched for a good location for their operation in the short time remaining. During an initial recce of the area, she wanted to get a good lay of the general landscape and military activity that went on. But, unfamiliar with the area, she didn’t want to risk moving and finding herself in exposed terrain when the sun came up. As if reading her thoughts, Sasha touched her shoulder. He murmured something in Croatian. Oleg sidled up close to her from the other side and whispered into her ear. “He said, he knows these hills very well and knows where best to go to stay hidden.”
She sighed, keeping her eyes focused on the town ahead. “Are there places I can get a good look at the town and its people?”
Oleg didn’t have to repeat the question. Sasha murmured again. Oleg turned back to Sauwa’s ear. “He says he knows what you need; he has hunted and trapped all over these hills. He will take us to where you can see and not be in danger.”
Having no other option and not knowing what she was facing yet, Sauwa agreed. Sasha moved around her and knelt down scanning the town. Reaching his arm behind him he tapped Sauwa on the thigh, a sign to follow him. She rose to her feet. He stepped left and walked into a thicket of bushes. Sauwa followed closely behind with Oleg on her tail.
The morning dew dripped from the plants onto their clothing. Combined with the cold, sunless air, all three felt miserable. Sauwa kept close to Sasha who moved like a predator. It was clear he was now a man in his element. Meanwhile, she continued to look at the town, which came in and out of sight, vanishing behind tall grass or thick bushes as they progressed. She only hoped Sasha remembered the threat not hunting wild game and keeping his mind on not getting caught by armed enemy soldiers.
After three hundred meters, she grabbed hold of Sasha’s shirt, stopping him in his stride. He turned back to face her and could see her cupping her ear. A reminder that they still needed to stop and listen, especially now that they were deep in enemy territory. They paused, listened. There was no sound aside from the singing of a few birds signaling the start of the day.
Sauwa ordered the movement to resume by giving a slight shove to Sasha’s arm. The lanky man moved forward, but this time with hesitancy. Apparently, the pause for listening had been a sobering reminder of what they were doing. His steps were more deliberate and cautious. Not that he hadn’t been before, but now it seemed his nerves were getting the better of him. Sauwa began to worry. It was their first actual mission. They weren’t just traipsing about in a relatively safe territory. She looked back at Oleg, concerned he might be falling into the same state of mind. He seemed to be handling himself better than his colleague, yet he had also shown signs that he realized the dangerous situation they were in.
The team pressed on, listening at appropriate intervals. However, where the Croatians had been slightly exasperated by the constant stopping, they now seemed to embrace the security stops, holding their breaths, waiting for any noise that told them the enemy was near. The first three stops had been quiet. On the fourth, they caught the sound of twigs snapping, then heard more sounds indicating movement was nearby. They heard a man’s voice ─ the language clearly Bosnian ─ confirming their worst fear. The voice seemed to be giving orders.
Hunkered in a thicket of bushes, the trio waited silently. Sauwa took a series of slow, deep breaths to get her heart rate down and keep her nerves in check. Behind her, she could feel Oleg shiver. Ahead of her, Sasha tensed, becoming a statue.
She curled her camouflage cover around her and knelt down as low as possible in the hopes it would cover her legs and feet. She wanted to ensure the Croatians had done the same, but it would be too much movement while the Bosnian soldiers were so near. The trio waited in complete stillness with as little noise as they could manage ─ something Oleg was having serious difficulty with. Tension rose when the Bosnians began to pass them. They listened to the sounds of many feet and the feel of their bodies scrapping against the very bushes that shielded Sauwa and her companions. A slight metallic clanking, distinctive to rifles, cut through the oppressive quiet, sending a chill down the spines of all three. Sauwa had been in this position many times in her life, more so since coming to this country. It was a frightening experience every time.
The patrol moved with a laziness that suggested men just coming off of a mission or ending the last round on a long security check. In either case, the tired sound of the few voices speaking and the way their feet dropped suggested they were not highly alert.
Light appeared along the eastern crest of the hills. Sauwa could feel the slight vibrations of Oleg shaking. She wanted to turn and slap him but resisted the urge hoping the men just a few feet away would not notice.
Finally, the last man passed them. The Bosnian voices faded as the patrol trudged away. When the voices were little more than a whisper, all three guerrillas took massive sighs of relief. Sasha clutched his chest as if he were about to have a heart attack, and Oleg fell onto his back gasping like a dying man. Sauwa raced to reassert control. With a finger pressed tightly to her lips, she indicated the need for them to stay quiet. Both men composed themselves remembering the present danger.
The Bosnians were gone.
She pushed Sasha to continue. Nervously, he moved to stand up, dropping once, when he heard a twig break, but he controlled himself and found his feet. Sauwa rose along with him, keeping close. Oleg remained on his back. She waved her hand to have him move, but he just lay on the ground shaking his head defiantly. She kicked his foot to punctuate her order. Slowly, the Croatian rose. She knew all too well that given the choice, he would have run back to camp. She gave him a second to understand such an option was no longer open. He could only press on with them.
Sasha and Oleg moved more slowly, their nerves clearly getting to them. They jumped at every sound they heard. In their eagerness and inexperience, Sauwa worried they would rashly open fire and alert everyone to their presence. But the few other enemy patrols they did run across were at a considerable distance and easy to avoid. Gradually, the Croatians began to relax.
True to his word, Sasha brought them to a spot along the face of a hill that offered a wide view of the town below and the surrounding area. Though along the side of a high elevation hill, the spot was nestled deep in the bushes and hid them perfectly. Lush as it was, the foliage also gave the protection needed for them to move about more freely. Using her binoculars, Sauwa observed the town.
Jablancia looked like what she had come to expect of Bosnia ─ bombed out buildings and piles of rubble. In happier times, it had probably been a nice place to visit ─ a collection of uniform, concrete, two and three-story buildings intermixed with small and mid-sized houses. The town was wedged tightly on one side of a plateau encircled by the river below and surrounded by high
hills. It was connected to the outside world through a few bridges protruding from various points of the town that crossed over the winding river.
To her surprise, the atmosphere of the place was somber but more relaxed than she expected. Whatever fighting had gone on in the past had taken place a while ago. People went about their daily routines as if the war didn’t exist. Soldiers half-heartedly walked the edge of the plateau periodically glancing around to keep up with expectations but not seriously contemplating a threat coming up the jagged ledge and steep hill. Beyond the few guards, the edges of the plateau were left relatively defenseless. The only serious effort made for their defense was at the entry points of the two concrete bridges that were still intact. The third bridge had been demolished by artillery fire, most likely from the Serb military.
The bridges were hives of activity with makeshift military vehicles and patrols of foot soldiers coming and going in between civilians doing business outside. The checkpoint consisted of a wood guard shack bundled under walls of sandbags next to another smaller wall of sandbags built up in a defensive position. A heavily powered, belt-fed machine gun was mounted on top. The guard’s gate seemed to be more a gathering point. It was devoid of any real command structure, uniform protocols, or visible leadership. The guards were not a trained element operating with a practiced system but went about their jobs as if they had no clear understanding of what they were doing.
Occasionally someone who appeared to be in a position of authority showed up to check on the guards. From the look of the uniform, Sauwa assumed he was a junior officer. The officer did cursory checks and gave the hollow snaps and points of a commander going through the motions of asserting his authority. Otherwise, he performed cosmetic checks pretending he knew what he was doing. The guards changed after four hours. It was a clumsy display of handshaking, a whimsical conversation between friends, and the old guards gradually left. Like the previous guards, the relief force settled into a similar pattern of haphazard performance.