Ten Minutes to Turn the Devil

by Douglas Hurd

  ‘The army of the Bosnian Republic of Serbia.’

  That’s what I said, drunken bandits. You must talk sense with them. None of us here is political. We just want peace.’

  ‘I’ll go.’ Borisav tiptoed into his house, and took the army cap from the top of the pile of military clothes. His wife was upstairs and did not hear. The cap was too small, and the inside lining greasy with other men’s heads. But the badge might save him from a sniper. He set off up the hill.

  The Department of Forestry had, of course, built the Director’s house at the highest point of the estate, separate from the others and twice as large. The Director, who was a Muslim, had abandoned it a fortnight ago. It looked as if it had been unloved for much longer. The front gate had been knocked from its hinges, and the small circle of grass before the main door pulverised by truck tyres. Two panes of the sitting-room window had been smashed. A rough silhouette of a man painted on the garden wall was pocked with bullets.

  The front door was open and Borisav, simulating a military stride, soon found himself on the Director’s terrace, overlooking his own and Mr Tomic’s house, and beneath them the village itself. A small blue swimming pool, half full of grubby water, also contained a dead sparrow and two Serbs in their underpants. Other soldiers lounged about, armed and half shaved, on the terrace, and two mortars were visible, shells beside them.

  The only man smartly dressed wore a major’s insignia on either shoulder. Borisav approached him. ‘I am Borisav Mikovic, a Serb living in the village below. I came to ask if I could be of service.’ He had decided to say nothing of the botched attempt to conscript him, hoping it was made by a different band of marauders. It worked. The major appraised him carefully, then took a list from his pocket.

  ‘Deputy Director of Forests?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘A pleasure to meet you.’ They shook hands.

  ‘You came at the right time. Let me explain. Most of these men are fellow-Bosnians. The Yugoslav National Army sent me here to impose some order on them. I am not succeeding, which may become your problem as well as mine. Our main task is to prevent Muslims from outflanking us. They could take this hill, and then move round to dominate the airport. We must prevent that. But now we have a second task, to safeguard your Serb village.’

  ‘It is a mixed village.’

  ‘It is a Serb village, with Croats and Muslims living in it. Look, clearly marked as such on my map. There is no doubt, if you Serbs are to be safe, the others must leave. Here is the list of names and addresses. It may be incomplete – the post office was always inefficient. I thought mortar shells delivered by airmail to three or four of these addresses would do the trick.’

  Borisav thought hard.

  ‘No need for the mortars. I will tell them.’

  The major appraised him again. ‘Very well. Unlike some, I see no need to kill. Only to clean the place out. Tell them the Croats and Muslims have a week. We will not attack them as they go.’

  ‘Where should they go?’

  ‘That is for them. The Croat advance posts are not far away – say twenty miles to the west. For the Muslims there is always Mecca.’

  ‘Serbs can rule the village without chasing the others out.’

  The major looked hard at him. ‘No longer,’ he said. ‘I will send a man to your house with a radio telephone. Report to me each evening on your progress. At six each evening.’

  Behind them on the terrace there was a hustling movement of soldiers towards food. An orderly had brought out a basket piled high with rough bread cut in thick slices, and another of cold meat and cheese. Though the orderly had his back to him, Borisav recognised the set of the ungainly shoulders.

  ‘Ivan,’ he called.

  His son turned, but there was no expression on his face.

  ‘Your son?’ asked the major.

  ‘My son. He should be at his lessons.’

  ‘He is sixteen, old enough for a Serb to fight.’

  ‘He is fourteen. Ivan, come home with me.’

  ‘No,’ said Ivan. ‘Serbs should be here, before we are all killed.’

  ‘You see,’ said the major, ‘you are out of date. I also am a little out of date. Advanced modern thinking is with your son and his friends. They would like to massacre the Croats and Muslims tonight.’ The two young Serbs who had been in the pool ran shouting along the terrace in their dripping pants, pelting each other in turn with the dead bird. Ivan was writing something on one of the bread wrappers.

  ‘You have educated him well. He can write,’ said the major sardonically.

  ‘Please give this to Mother,’ said Ivan, civilly enough.

  Borisav shoved the note in his trousers without reading it. He was sad, angry and scared in roughly equal proportions. When he got home he found his wife in the kitchen. She seemed not at all surprised by the news of Ivan. She smoothed out the bread wrapper and read the note carefully. Then she went upstairs without a word, leaving his soup half prepared. In five minutes she reappeared with her small, brown, cardboard suitcase.

  ‘I am going to Ivan,’ she said.

  ‘But you told me I must not …’

  ‘This is different. He is there, and he says they need a cook.’

  ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘There are tins in the cupboard.’

  Borisav scooped up the beans where his wife had left them by the cooker and completed the soup. As he drank it, the promised soldier came with the radio telephone and showed him how to use it. Borisav decided that he would start his mission with Mr Tomic, but not till the morning. By then he would have worked out how to explain to people that they had to leave their homes or be forced.

  By 11 o’clock Borisav was asleep. The first bang woke him, of course, being louder than anything he had heard before. But by the time he was awake his concern was not the noise but the fact there was no glass in the bedroom window, and much glass on the bedroom floor.

  ‘Mustn’t tread on the glass,’ he said to himself as he hauled himself out of bed just in time for the second explosion. This was a fraction less loud, but he was in no position to judge. He stood naked in the centre of the room looking through clear air at a garden filled with smoke.

  His mind began to work. He found the radio telephone and pressed the button as he had been briefed. The major seemed to be waiting for him.

  ‘I thought you might call. Our agreement stands. That was a mistake. A bad mistake.’

  ‘Mistake?’

  ‘A young Serb corporal heard a few hours ago that his sister had been raped. In Hercegovina, by Croats. She is dead. He loaded the mortars without orders and fired. He is upstairs under arrest.’

  ‘Was it true?’

  ‘The rape? Who can tell? Not much is true. He believed it.’

  ‘Why fire at me?’

  ‘At you? No one fired at you. The corporal claimed that he had chosen a designated target.’ A rustle of paper. ‘Tomic, the Croat Tomic … Ah, yes, I see, your neighbour. Please express my regrets. That is, if …’

  ‘I do not know if …’

  Borisav put down the telephone and pulled on his clothes. The smoke had cleared from the garden. The gnarled apple tree lurched drunkenly across the boundary fence, most of its ancient roots tugged indecently from the soil. The summer house had collapsed, so that no one could have guessed its purpose from its shape. A small crater marked where Ivan had once studied his English.

  As soon as he could, Borisav knocked on Mr Tomic’s door. His wife and children had gone, he knew, but surely Mr Tomic could not have slept through the attempt to murder him? Eventually, Borisav pushed through the front door. Two minutes later he found Mr Tomic among the ruins of the summer house, calm, apparently untouched, but dead.

  Whether he had decided to sleep there because it was cooler or because it was safer could never be known. His house, like Borisav’s, was unscathed. His pipe lay unbroken by his side.

  Borisav found Mr Tomic’s garden spade and began to dig, b
ut the soil was rock hard. He found Mrs Tomic’s kitchen matches and a pile of old Zagreb newspapers. The ruins of the summer house burned well and Borisav thought that Mr Tomic would approve of it as a funeral pyre.

  Borisav spent the rest of the morning walking to Sarajevo airport. At the entrance, two Canadians in blue helmets barred his way.

  ‘No Yugoslavs,’ one said comprehensively.

  Borisav showed his military cap and deployed the phrases he had mustered in his mind during the walk. He was a Serb deserter, and they were hot on his heels. If caught, he would be shot.

  ‘Against the rules to let him in,’ said one Canadian to the other.

  ‘No rules work here,’ said the other.

  So they let him in, smuggling him in a truck to the general’s headquarters at the heart of the airport. It was a quiet morning for Sarajevo airport, except when the jets roared in with supplies. Borisav was locked in a barrack room, while at least a dozen people discussed his future, which was bound to be irregular.

  Eventually, he was ushered up the steps into an RAF Hercules with a group of journalists and a laissez-passer, signed by a French colonel and addressed to no one in particular, they said as they handed it to him.

  ‘This will be totally useless to you. But it’s the best we can do.’

  Quite how he had managed to talk his way out of the country he did not know, but here he was at 45, in good health, with a passable knowledge of English, of plant diseases, and of bureaucratic life, and now without encumbrances in the form of family or country. The Hercules rose steeply to get out of range of SAM rockets as quickly as possible.

  ‘Taking a new route this time,’ said the RAF steward. ‘Peaceful-looking, isn’t it?’

  It was not new to Borisav, nor peaceful. He soon recognised the spur beneath him, the red-tiled roofs against the thickly-wooded hill, the estate at the top of the village, the tiny blue oblong of the Director’s swimming pool, and just below that he strained, but it was no good. Only in imagination could he see the summer house that he and Mr Tomic had built together two summers ago.

  2 Ten Minutes to Turn the Devil

  As his fear grew, the fields and smiling villages of Sussex seemed a foreign country. In his sealed car, Richard Smethwick could gain nothing from the crisp October sunshine as he was driven towards Brighton. He had served in Northern Ireland and was now Defence Secretary, so there was no question of his driving himself or being able to open the windows of the armoured Rover. His childhood and his constituency lay in the neat suburbs of north London. Bare downland, even of the gentle Sussex variety, was alien and, as a prelude to the Party Conference, unfriendly.

  Richard wondered again if he had been wise to leave his wife behind. His instinct at moments of danger was to look for her. If she had come, he would have to worry about which receptions they went to, whether the stiffeners were in his shirt collar, and the Christian names of his colleagues’ wives. She had a knack with words and had already improved the speech with suggestions which he had at first resisted, then quietly slipped in. But not even she would fully understand the fear grabbing his vitals at the prospect of that speech. Even less because of her brother, Charles, whose photograph in Ascot gear stood on her dressing table. Charles had been serving two years ago as a young officer in the army. Then, Richard had just been promoted to the Cabinet, and he and his wife were a good–looking couple in the headlines for the first time. He had snatched a standing ovation from the Conference with an announcement of four new frigates. Caucasia had existed then only as a dim story on inside pages of the heavies, a dispute between unimportant and unpronounceable politicians thousands of miles away.

  Now, of course … They had driven quickly through the suburbs of Brighton. Across the street from the domes of the Pavilion, Richard could see the first demonstrations, a hundred or so of all ages under the familiar banner of the huge iron weight labelled ‘TON’ smashing down on caricatures of the Prime Minister and himself. ‘Troops Out Now,’ they shouted as they saw the Government car. Those nearest it recognised Richard as he passed and their faces changed to concentrated dislike. Two fists banged on the roof. The police driver was experienced and kept going.

  ‘Soon be inside the police cordon, sir.’

  The owners of those twisted faces might well last Christmas have been among those shouting for intervention in Caucasia. It was only 10 months since the stories of organised rape, the long lines of refugees, the massacre in the streets of the capital Shevaropol, had led to the Security Council resolution establishing a safe haven and the dispatch of the European force to protect it. It had been a long 10 months. Last week a British Land-Rover had hit a mine just outside Shevaropol, killing a sergeant and three private soldiers, and bringing the British Forces casualty list alone to 96. On the next day, the TON campaign had stopped the traffic in seven big cities for a minute’s silence. A dozen relatives of recent casualties were on hunger strike outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall. There were similar agitations in France, Germany, Spain and the Benelux countries, indeed in all countries which had sent troops.

  Inside the security zone established by the police, the Conservative Party Conference proceeded in artificial tranquillity. Agriculture and the environment that afternoon, the main Conservative Ball that night, defence in a session of double length next morning. The Channel gleamed reassuringly in the October sunlight. A mile out lay Her Majesty’s frigate Orestes, designated by Richard to deter any attempt either by the Real IRA or indeed the TON to disrupt the Conference from the sea.

  As he climbed the steps from the car into the Grand Hotel several dozen cameras clicked, flashed and shouted ‘Good afternoon, Mr Smethwick – this way, Mr Smethwick, will you resign if you lose tomorrow, Mr Smethwick?’ Inside, the hotel lobby was full of truants from the agriculture debate. Waiting with the room key was his special adviser, the efficient Hugh, who looked after the political side of his job. The two of them moved quickly through the throng:

  ‘Good luck tomorrow, hope tomorrow goes well, we’re all behind you.’ But of course they weren’t.

  Richard noticed one distinguished backbencher hurry his wife behind a pillar to avoid any conversation. He entered the lift as if it were a tumbril.

  Hugh had opened the incoming letters and stacked them neatly on the desk in the bedroom, one pile in favour of tomorrow’s pro-Government motion, one pile against. The ‘No’ file was much higher.

  ‘An organised TON campaign,’ said Hugh, ‘No real significance.’ This was Hugh’s moment of the year. For 51 weeks he struggled to hold his own as a political adviser against the massed ranks of senior officers and civil servants in the Ministry of Defence. In this one week of the party conference, he was dominant, master of the Secretary of State’s diary, constant at his side. Hugh was tall, dark, 30. He had left merchant banking in boredom, and recently discovered the knack of reading Richard’s mind without revealing his own.

  The two police protection officers brought in the suitcases and put them on the bed. Tea and some rather bright cakes were laid out on a side table. The Secretary of State poured for them both.

  ‘News about tomorrow?’

  ‘No amendment down yet. They may simply vote the motion down …’

  ‘But …?’

  ‘The whisper is there will be an amendment. Calling for troops out within two months. The long time limit would be put in to catch the waverers.’

  ‘Moved by?’

  ‘Don’t know. They can put it in at the last minute in manuscript. My bet is the National Union will accept that it be debated. But they’re standing firm on not calling any MPs or Peers. Should be an occasion for party workers from the associations, that’s their line.’

  Richard nodded approvingly. He would not say so, even to Hugh, but what he most dreaded was a confrontation on the floor with one of the old war horses of the party, tough cynics who had nothing to lose and much to enjoy from humbling an upstart young Minister.

  ‘And the speec
h?’

  ‘It’s there. Revision 3, with the changes you agreed yesterday.’ Hugh pointed to a folder beside the letters on the bed.

  ‘What d’you make of it?’

  ‘Reads quite well now.’

  ‘But …?’

  Hugh paused before answering. But he was hired to be frank, and Richard counted him as a friend.

  ‘It’ll depend on you, not on the text. You can fiddle with it all night, take it to fourth or fifth revision, but in the end you’ll either perform well or not. More important to have a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re against putting it on autocue?’

  Again Hugh paused. Central Office liked Ministers to use the autocue, in the interests of brevity and good order.

  ‘No autocue this year, I think. That’ll give you room for manoeuvre to come and go from the text. The autocue is a prison without bars.’

  ‘I agree. And tonight?’

  ‘You accepted to dine with the Times man, 8.30 at Wheelers. That will give you time to look in at the London Area reception first. Of course you could call off The Times and they would understand. But …’

  ‘I’ll stick to it.’ As usual Hugh had got it right.

  The packets of soap in the bath were absurdly small but the water decently hot. Richard had not looked at his speech for 24 hours. Instead, he took to the bath the minutes of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, which had been waiting for him at Brighton in a black box. It had not been as tough a meeting as he had expected. He had half hoped that faced with the casualties and the public outcry, his colleagues would have turned down his proposal to reinforce the British contingent in Caucasia – perhaps even instructed him to prepare plans for withdrawal. But the French had suffered even worse, the European partners were so far sticking to the agreed plans, the Russians and Americans were still supportive, and the Prime Minister had given a strong lead in favour of the Ministry of Defence paper. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had muttered about expense, but in a routine fashion. The decision was clear there in the minutes.