Bosnian Inferno Read online

  A tall, clean-shaven RAF officer sporting a pale-blue UN beret was waiting for them at the bottom of the mobile stairway. ‘Flight-Lieutenant Frobisher,’ he introduced himself, offering his hand to each of the foursome in turn. ‘Which are the bags containing the winter clothing and the you-know-what?’

  ‘Those two,’ Docherty said, indicating the two large canvas holdalls Chris and the Dame were carrying. They’d been warned before leaving to pack the Arctic clothing and the weaponry separately from the rest of the equipment.

  ‘I’ll take care of them,’ Frobisher said, and carried the bags across to where another RAF officer was talking to the pilot, dumped them at his feet, and exchanged a few words. Then he rejoined the SAS men, and gestured them towards a white jeep parked a few yards away.

  Docherty clambered into the front seat, while the other three squeezed themselves into the back.

  ‘The stuff will be kept here for you until you leave,’ Frobisher explained. ‘On one of those,’ he added, indicating the distant line of transport planes, ‘but when that will be depends very much on weather conditions. Oh, it’s lovely down here,’ he agreed, seeing their surprised faces, ‘but up in the mountains it’s a different kettle of fish altogether. Go thirty miles east of here and the temperature will drop about twenty degrees – Celsius, that is. Sarajevo’s in the middle of a blizzard right now, with ground visibility down to about six inches. So don’t expect an imminent departure. But don’t not expect one either. If a window opens up we want you ready to go.’

  ‘So we’re not staying out here?’ Docherty asked.

  ‘There isn’t anywhere, unless you fancy kipping down for a week in a C-130. In any case, the Croats watch what’s happening at this airport like hawks, and the town’s only twelve miles away. We thought you’d be a bit less noticeable there, so we booked you into one of the hotels. As you can imagine there’s quite a lot of vacancies this year.’ He looked at Docherty, as if expecting formal approval of the arrangements.

  ‘Sounds good,’ the Scot said.

  ‘Is there room service?’ Razor asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Frobisher said doubtfully, as if uncertain whether the question was serious. It seemed unlikely that he’d ever had dealings with the SAS before.

  Docherty had been expecting at least some formalities to mark their official arrival in a foreign country, but Frobisher simply drove the jeep around the end of the forlorn-looking terminal building, through an open gate and out on to a wide highway that ran along parallel to the coast, at times almost directly above the breaking waves. In the distance silhouetted islands loomed abruptly out of the shining Adriatic, giving Docherty the impression of a warmer west coast of Scotland. On the other side of the highway sunlit slopes tumbled down almost to the verge. An almost idyllic setting, it was hardly what they had been expecting.

  ‘It doesn’t look like the war’s reached here,’ Chris observed.

  ‘Not really,’ Frobisher agreed. ‘There’s no argument about whose territory this is. Still, having said that, Split is home to some of the nastier Croat groups, and there has been trouble. There was a lot of intimidation against the minorities in the town a year or so back, people being fired from their jobs, scared out of their houses, a lot of beatings, a few deaths. Most of the Serbs and Muslims upped and left, though God knows where they went. The place doesn’t have a nice feeling to it – at least I don’t think so. Looks nice, though,’ he added, then, pointing forward and to the right, said: ‘That’s it over there, on the peninsula.’

  It did look nice, too nice for beatings and deaths. A lighthouse sat on the end of the headland, and behind it the ground rose in a high, wooded hill, which seemed to stand guard over the town nestling beneath it.

  ‘One of the Roman Emperors built his retirement palace here,’ Frobisher said.

  ‘Tottenham played Hadjuk Split in the UEFA Cup once,’ Razor added.

  ‘Well, that’s the last two thousand years taken care of, then,’ Chris said.

  Ten minutes later they were entering the outskirts of the town, climbing up and across the peninsula’s spine, and motoring down towards the sea on its southern side. Their hotel, which bore the unpronounceable name of the Prenociste Slavija, was on one of the narrow side-streets inside the walls of the old Roman palace. Its interior was less impressive than its location, but all of them had stayed in worse.

  ‘The rooms are booked for a week,’ Frobisher told them. ‘There’s no chance you’ll be going in today, but if tomorrow looks like a possibility I’ll come by tonight and tell you. The telephones are not what you’d call reliable,’ he added cryptically. ‘Anything else? Ah yes,’ he answered himself, pulling something from his pocket. ‘This is a map of the town in case you need it. The hotel is here’ – he pointed to the spot – ‘and there’s a decent enough restaurant here, just inside the East Gate. You’ve got money, I take it.’

  ‘Aye. Dinars and dollars.’

  ‘I should forget the dinars. Anything else?’

  ‘How can we get hold of you?’ Docherty asked.

  ‘Just take a taxi out to the airport. The UN Operations HQ is on the second floor of the terminal building.’

  When Frobisher had gone, Docherty turned to find the other three looking at him expectantly.

  ‘Food, boss?’ Razor asked.

  ‘Sounds good. And then I think we’ll go for a run, get used to the altitude.’

  The others groaned in unison.

  An hour and a half later, as the four men toiled their way up towards the summit of Marjan Hill for the third time, the Dame was beginning to revise his opinions about Docherty’s readiness for retirement. A few yards behind him Chris was wondering whether Docherty had planned this demonstration with just such an aim in mind. Was the Patrol Commander intent on dispelling any doubts the younger men might have about his fitness? If so, he had succeeded.

  Bringing up the rear, Razor was breathing heavily but still smiling to himself. Running up and down a hill in the sunshine sure beat teaching Continuation Training classes, he decided.

  ‘That’ll do,’ Docherty told them at the summit. ‘I don’t want to wear you out before we get there.’ He looked at his watch. ‘OK, it’s just gone four. We’ll eat at seven. So you’ve got three hours to lie in the bath, write a classical symphony or take a look around. And we’ll meet up in the same restaurant.’

  The others nodded.

  ‘I’ll write the symphony,’ Razor said. ‘Wilkinson’s Fourth.’

  ‘Let’s pray it’s Unfinished,’ Chris muttered.

  Docherty eyed them fondly. There was nothing quite like bullshit for cementing the relationships in a four-man patrol.

  Docherty took a quick shower, dressed and went out on his own. For half an hour or so he wandered through the narrow streets of the old town, inspecting the buildings with a slightly jaundiced eye. As a lover of Islamic and Spanish architecture – the legacy of time spent on active service in Oman and off duty in Mexico – he found Graeco-Roman styles too brutal and the later Renaissance architecture too florid by half. He was looking forward to seeing the minarets of Sarajevo, always assuming there were any left.

  He knew that most people would think it wrong to lament the loss of an architectural heritage when so many people of all ages were being killed every day, but, as his friend Liam McCall had pointed out, there was no God-given limit on how many different things a man could lament at the same time.

  And the Serbs weren’t destroying those buildings by accident. Representing a thousand years of a culture’s history, they were the visual embodiment of the lives of countless generations of Bosnian Muslims. Destroy them, and the books and the pictures they contained, and it was like erasing a people’s memory.

  He sighed. Maybe he was getting too old for this game after all.

  He emerged on to Titova Obala, the seafront promenade. A couple of hundred yards to his left he could see Razor and Chris walking in the opposite direction, and smiled hopefully to him
self. A friendship between those two could only strengthen the chemistry of the patrol, which Docherty already considered as good as any he’d known.

  He crossed the wide street and turned right along the sea wall, looking out across the myriad boats lying at anchor across the harbour. Many seemed neglected, even dilapidated, and there was a sad air about the whole scene, as there was about the town as a whole. It was a Sleeping Beauty town, he decided, waiting for peace to kiss it awake.

  A tousle-haired man in a thick woollen sweater was leaning against the harbour wall, staring out to where the sun was rapidly sinking behind an arm of the harbour. To Docherty’s surprise he had a copy of that day’s Daily Mirror sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans. It had to have arrived on the same plane as they had.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, wondering whether he’d get an English response.

  ‘My God, the Scots have arrived,’ the man said with a smile and a Midlands accent. He was younger than Docherty, probably in his mid-thirties.

  ‘We understand what it’s like being an oppressed minority,’ Docherty said, ‘so they called us in to sort things out. My name’s Jamie, by the way.’

  ‘Jim,’ the man said, offering his hand. ‘And what are you really doing here?’

  ‘Admin work for the UN,’ Docherty lied. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’m on the lorries. The supply run to Sarajevo,’ he explained. ‘Got back this morning, and I’ll probably be going back Saturday.’

  ‘What’s the situation like there?’ Docherty asked.

  ‘Bloody terrible. Imagine how bad it could get, and then imagine it being ten times worse – that’s Sarajevo. The people there – the ordinary people – are bloody amazing, but…there seem to be more dyed-in-the-wool bastards per square foot in this country than you’d find anywhere outside a Conservative Party conference. I hope you’re not a Tory, mate.’

  Docherty grinned. ‘No. How about the journey – no trouble on the road from irregulars? Or regulars, come to that?’

  Jim shrugged. ‘We have UN troops riding shotgun, for what it’s worth. There’s a lot of hassle, you know, having to get free passage agreed each time, and being stopped every few miles to have our papers looked at and the loads checked…’ He shrugged again. ‘But by God it’s worth it when you see the faces at the other end.’

  Docherty found himself envying the man. ‘It must be,’ he said.

  ‘You know,’ Jim said, turning to face him, ‘I spent most of the last ten years delivering fitted bathrooms to people who didn’t really need them. Can you imagine what that’s like – spending your life doing something completely unnecessary? And then I saw this job advertised, and I just had to take it. My wife thought I was nuts, at least in the beginning, and maybe I am, but for the first time in my life I’m delivering something that people really need, and Christ it feels good.’

  Walking back towards the hotel Docherty wondered, not for the first time, how the same species could accommodate the utter meanness which targeted minarets and the generosity of spirit which made a man like Jim risk everything because helping people felt so good. He would have liked to talk to Liam McCall about it – they could have shared each other’s incomprehension.

  The restaurant was not so empty as it had been at lunchtime: three other tables were already occupied, and two more had ‘reserved’ signs on them. A family of four was seated at one of the occupied tables, but the others contained only men, and young men at that. None of them was wearing uniform, and it might have been Docherty’s imagination, but there seemed a hint of latent aggression in the air. It smelt of what Isabel liked to call a ‘testosterone overload situation’.

  Once again Chris translated the menu for them. He and Docherty settled for brodet – mixed fish stewed with rice – while the Dame opted for a seafood platter and Razor for an anchovy pizza. Four small glasses of plum brandy served as aperitifs, and they ordered a large carafe of Riesling to complement the meal. ‘Here’s to the taxpayer, who’s paying for it all,’ Razor said, raising his glass.

  ‘In Sarajevo they’re eating dandelion leaves,’ Chris said soberly.

  ‘Christ, I hate greens,’ Razor complained, just as the door opened to admit another group of four men. The words ‘designer stormtroopers’ went through all four SAS minds at the same moment. Each of the newcomers had hair cut close-to-stubble short and clean-shaven faces. Each was wearing a jet-black uniform, black boots and black leather mittens with silver studs. Two of them were sporting Ray-Ban Aviator shades, and one had a black sweatband around his head, presumably to keep his non-existent hair out of his eyes.

  Docherty’s first impulse was to laugh out loud, but he restrained himself. For five reasons. One was their need to remain as anonymous as possible, the other four rested in low-slung holsters on each man’s thigh – black, Czech-made Scorpion machine pistols.

  ‘Jesus,’ Razor muttered under his breath.

  ‘More like Hell’s Angels,’ Docherty murmured. He remembered gangs of leather-clad rockers in the sixties who had walked into Glasgow cafés and pubs with exactly the same cold-hearted swagger. They had only been carrying bicycle chains and knives, and they had scared the shit out of him. Not so much because they were stronger, or because there were more of them, but because their only means of communication with each other was through finding strangers to victimize.

  The new arrivals took a table about fifteen feet away from the SAS men.

  ‘Keep the talk down and avoid eye contact,’ Docherty softly told the others. ‘We’ll just enjoy our meal and get the hell out of here.’

  The food arrived sooner than expected, as if the waiter was also keen to see them on their way as quickly as possible. As far as Docherty could remember, he was the only man who had heard them speaking English, and another waiter was dealing with the black-clad irregulars. Maybe there wouldn’t be a problem.

  Or maybe there would.

  ‘You can tell how a man is by his friends,’ a voice said loudly in English.

  ‘A friend of Serbs is a pig,’ one of his companions agreed. Docherty could feel the eyes boring into the side of his head, and fought the temptation to turn towards them.

  ‘It is like they say – there are two peoples in Europe who do not like to wash – the Serbs and the English,’ the first voice continued conversationally. Someone else laughed, and the other two followed his cue, like an echo. Presumably they didn’t know enough English to join in the baiting.

  It was all so ludicrously childish, Docherty thought, like a thousand scenes in a thousand bad Westerns. Sure, there were bullies everywhere in real life, but they usually had a better script than this. He placed a forkful of fish in his mouth; it tasted sourer than it should have.

  He looked round at the others. Razor was smiling to himself, revelling in the luxury of having his back to the taunters. Chris was managing to look indifferent, but the Dame’s mouth was set in a grim and angry line.

  ‘We took an English nurse in Knin,’ the voice said. ‘She said she was a virgin.’ He laughed. ‘Not now. Now she has a hundred men to remember.’

  Docherty took a deep breath. He was confident they could cope with any amount of bullshit, but could the shitheads in black cope with being ignored much longer? And if they couldn’t then what form would the escalation take? And how the hell could they defuse the situation?

  ‘De dónde viene este vino?’ Razor asked suddenly, picking up the bottle and examining it with great interest. It had occurred to him that all four of them were both semi-fluent in Spanish and relatively dark-complexioned.

  ‘Dalmatia,’ Chris said. ‘Es bueno, sí?

  ‘Sí,’ Razor agreed.

  Docherty smiled inwardly and said he had always liked Yugoslavian wines.

  The four SAS men launched into an enthusiastic discussion, in Spanish, of the relative merits of different wines. All of them were speaking the Latin-American variant, but Docherty doubted whether the Croats would know the difference. They had rever
ted to their own language, he realized with relief.

  ‘They’re talking about their plans for tomorrow,’ Chris explained in Spanish, as if reading Docherty’s mind.

  ‘I hope they include a run-in with the fashion police,’ Razor said.

  They walked back to their hotel along the darkened street feeling good.

  ‘Jesus, I’m ready for a bed,’ Docherty said, as they walked in through the front door, only to find Flight-Lieutenant Frobisher rising out of the single, threadbare armchair to greet them.

  ‘The weathermen say there may be a window around dawn tomorrow,’ he said, ‘so you’d better wait out at the airport.’

  Ten minutes later they were back in Frobisher’s jeep, motoring out through the empty streets of the port and on to the coast highway. The day’s clear sky had given way to heavy, rolling clouds, with a hint of rain in the air. Their beds for the night turned out to be sackfuls of rice in the belly of a Hercules C-130.

  6

  Dawn was still half an hour away when the transport plane rattled off the runway and into the dark sky. Docherty stared at the solid wall of the fuselage and remembered the view they had enjoyed coming in to Split the previous morning, the islands scattered across the deep-blue sea.

  The RAF pilots had both seemed cheerful enough, and the younger of the two had even relished telling them they were in for a ‘Khe Sanh’ landing at Sarajevo. Docherty had not spoiled the other three’s flight by passing on everything he had heard about such landings from Americans who’d served in Vietnam. Just so long as they were all well strapped in when the time came…

  They were in their full Arctic gear now: thermal vests and long johns, quilted under-trousers and jackets, thick woollen socks, gloves and high-neck combat boots, the latter a great improvement on their Falklands-era predecessors. As the quartermaster had told them: ‘You might get shot dead but you won’t get trench foot.’

  Gore-tex jackets normally completed the outfit, but for this trip they were also wearing flak-jackets. Both Serbs and Muslims had reportedly acquired the nasty habit of using Sarajevo’s runway for target practice.