Meet the neighbors!

After our first few sorties Goran decided that it was time to move into a new cellar the other one was seriously over crowded, so we went out in search of a new place. We found quite a few possibilities but they all had drawbacks of some description or another. We settled for the cellar of the house next door to our original house.
The cellar as most cellars are was full of rubbish. We spent about a day pulling all the stuff out and pilling it round the entrance as part of a barricade against shell splinters. Once we had cleared the cellar out and swept it, Goran and I could play house.
We went from house to house in the village looking for suitable bits of furniture. It felt strange to go into the houses, in the rubble you could see parts of other people’s lives. Maybe a jumper knitted by a grandmother for her granddaughter hanging out of a shattered dresser or a cherished toy crushed under masonry. The little things that made the house a home were strewn about the floor. I would have hated to be there when the occupants came back and saw what had happened to their belongings.
We were looking for two beds a couple of chairs and a table, you would think it would be easy to find these things but for some strange reason we got fussy and wanted nice undamaged things so the going was hard. We went around the village in our search and made some rather nasty discoveries.
Mostly we found the body’s of pets that had died in their owner’s houses. They had waited faithfully for their master’s return and died in the houses they were supposed to protect. To me a dog is part of the family to abandon it there, no matter what the hurry to leave was, to me is unthinkable. In one house I found a family of piglets curled together on a double bed. It all looked so strange and peaceful. Half the house was destroyed but this room was left intact. When I moved closer to take a better look at the piglets, they did not move. I knew something was wrong, I prodded them with my rifle barrel. Their bodies were hard and unyielding; they had frozen to death. Their mother had probably died in the constant shelling. They had climbed on the bed and huddled together to keep warm and frozen to death in the night.
In the end after much searching, we got all of the furniture we needed and installed it in the cellar. The most important thing that we needed was a stove, so we went out and found a double hobed oven. It was a hard slog carrying it back but it would pay for its own upkeep, we would be able to cook with it and use it as a source of heat.
The next thing we wanted was some electricity, the group next door had the T55 and the BVP parked up out side we needed one of them. Goran decided that Fare was the best choice of the two of them, so he invited Fare over as a privileged guest. Basically we didn’t want him to do anything but park the tank outside.
We got a bed in for him and fitted an antigrenade door at the bottom of the steps, then moved across from our old cellar.
As we sat down for our first meal, Goran looked round the room and said, “This will cause trouble” what he was talking about I didn’t know so I asked him to explain. Well when the villagers came back the owner of this house was going to have some difficulty explaining why he had everybody else’s furniture in his cellar!
I suppose he was right, but as the house above us was completely burnt out at least he had somewhere to live.
The garden of the house was pretty bare. A ditch with a small stream in it was as the end of the plot, and apart from a few derelict out buildings the only thing of interest there was a dead sheep or goat sticking out of the mud in the back garden. I didn’t really pay it much attention as it was half buried in the frozen mud and it didn’t smell that much, even when it defrosted the earth was still to frozen to bury it. So it was one of the things that you learnt to ignore.
The village was hit with rockets again that night. However the good side is that it cleared all the rubble out of the garden. It also emptied the pit at the end of the garden that we use to dump the dead animals.
Goran and I decided to go up to Marinci at night. It seemed the safest time to go, hopefully nobody would see us up on the road and we wouldn’t have any problems. One of the new guys insisted that I took his Zastavar klashnikov. They are fitted with flip down luminous sights, so in theory it would help me sight better. The other thing was it was capable of sustained fire, which I might need if we get into any trouble.
I took out some of the blacking that I had made up; I gave my face a good wipe over. Goran thought it was hilarious but there again I doubt that he knew much about night fighting.
We went up the road to the infantry positions, to tell them that we were going out. Goran stopped and spoke to the guard whilst I waited for the go ahead. The guard lent Goran the night sight, which was an added bonus.
I don’t particularly like them as they give a very poor two-dimensional image and ruin your natural night sight, but they do come in very useful at times.
Neither Goran nor I wanted to go traipsing through the scrub on the hill at that time of night. It was a dangerous place to be during the day so we didn’t want to try it at night. We elected to take the road, this would have been suicide in the day but as it was pitch black we were prepared to risk it.
All because its dark you don’t throw away your natural caution, I moved up the road slowly stopping every so often to familiarise myself with the surroundings. We passed the curve in the road without any problems and were now well in front of the O.P. Ahead of us was the bus shelter a place we would never have dreamed of getting to in daylight. We stopped and took a quick breather, as we went to move on I passed a small bush I went to cover in the ditch and turned to Goran. The bush between us was suddenly shredded as a Serb machine gunner put a long burst through it. One of the first things they teach you in the army is not to use obvious cover; this was one of the reasons.
Goran now had a change of heart. He didn’t want to continue on, it was possible that the Serbs had seen us and knew we were in the area or it had just been a bored gunner firing off a burst. We moved back to the bus stop and tried to look for the gunner through the night sight, we couldn’t see him, and Goran really wanted to go back. So we pulled back and started our long crawl back to our own positions.
After a while Goran told me another Englishman had arrived in Nustar, the new guy was in the centre of the village with another unit, and his handler was bringing him over.
I was sat on the exercise bike when the two of them came over, one had long hair and wore an old German jumper, while the other wore Croatian combats, had a broken nose and crew cut. He defiantly looked the part! Goran motioned to him and said “cliff the other Englez” I looked at him and in a thin nasal ready voice he said “hello my names Richard”. This was exactly the same voice as I used for making gay jokes. Goran went into overdrive asking Stepe various questions like is this guy gay? And what the hell is he doing here?
I was also in shock, here he was the sugar plum fairy in combats, and thank god they had met me before him talk about first impressions!
Well it was decided that the next day we would go out as a four man patrol to the burnt out factory in no mans land we said our goodbyes and they left us, I sat in stunned silence as Goran inundated me with questions like, His gay, isn’t he? Do Englezi normally talk like that? Shit! Why did he have to end up on my doorstep?
The next day was to be a series of embarrassments as we set of on our little patrol. We past the old restaurant on the hill and said our goodbyes to the men in the O.P in the hope they wouldn’t shoot at us on the way back in. Then we made our way towards the bunkers. Before we got there Stepe saw an anti tank grenade that someone had dropped on the ground.
Anything that can make a hole in a tanks armour in my opinion is not a safe thing to throw, because I have a very strong suspicion that due to the amount of explosives in it you will probably get caught in the blast radius your self. So you could score an own goal.
The general agreement was that it wasn’t safe to leave it there but nobody wanted it. Chances are it was booby trapped, so they were going to get rid of it. The next thing is how? Well there are certain approved methods but as we didn’t have the time or the materials to do it properly the Croats decided they were going to shoot it!
Well Stepe and Goran took up positions in an old shell scrape and took it in turns to take shots at the offending article. I sat as far back as possible from them securing the rear just in case they got lucky.
They took turns at firing of a few shots, all of them missing the cute little bundle of death.
When Richard chirped up “can I have a go?” now our Honour was at stake. I didn’t want to join in with this game for two very good reasons. Firstly it was bloody dangerous and secondly I wasn’t so sure that I could hit it.
So Richard cocked his weapon and crawled over to them, I sent up a silent prayer, if he missed repetitively we were going to get so much shit. The Croat’s moved aside to let fairy boy have a go; probably thinking that this was going to be fun. He lent against the parapet took aim and there was a massive explosion!
We didn’t even hear the weapon fire; he had hit dead centre and set it of with his first shot.
My opinion of Richard suddenly went up a notch or two. Of course the Croats shrugged this of as beginners luck, and we carried on to the old factory that we would use as a forward op .
We went down the valley and up the other side to where the old factory was, we gave it quick once over to make sure every thing was as it should be. Stepe said that he was going to see if there was a possible route that would take his APC, he had an idea to bring it up and fire the majutka wire guided missiles over the hill at some of the Serbian positions. So he scurried of to our left while we took up all round defensive positions.
Then strange things started to happen. Goran decided that he wanted to go to the toilet, no problem just roll over to your left or right and have piss. No he didn’t want to have a piss. He needed to have a shit! Why he had waited until we were 70 meters from the Serb’s and almost a kilometre from our own lines I don’t know. To add to it he wasn’t going to sneak behind a bush or something like that. No he was going to use a proper toilet like a civilised person.
There was an old toilet close by to where we were lying that had probably used by the factory workers before the war. The building was a two-cubicle construction shaped like the letter “E” with a wall to it front. The corridor was open at both ends and one end opened out towards the Serb positions.
It was definitely not one of the most ideal places in the world to have a shit. But needs must, off he trotted to do his business. After a few seconds Richard decided that he wanted a piss too the comedy of errors had really began.
I was left a short distance away lying between some trees attempting to do an all round defence on my own.
Just as Richard got into the toilet the Serbs started to shoot at the building. Bullets smacked into the wall and flew down the corridor as our two heroes attempted to complete their bodily functions. Goran was swearing in Croatian, as he attempted to pull his trousers up whilst Richard lay on the floor of the adjacent cubicle. As soon as the firing died down and they thought it was safe they both came tearing out back to me and lay down in their positions; neither of them was very happy about what had happened. I could not see where the fire had been coming from so it would have been pointless to return fire, I also thought that it served them both right for being so stupid.
Now we had the problem of not being able to move until Stepe returned.
When he did we asked him if he had heard what had been going on. He claimed to have not heard the shooting, which I find hard to believe. In fact I am inclined to believe that perhaps he had shot at us himself, just to see if he could frighten us.
We made our way back to the village. Once we were back on safe ground Stepe and Goran became cocky again, trying to shoot the ceramics off a telegraph pole. As to be expected they repeatedly missed, even at a close range. Then Richard asked to try, well after his last demonstration I was more than eager to find out if his last shot had been a fluke or he really could shoot. So I encouraged him to have a go, He took aim and with his first shot removed the whole ceramic! Stepe and Goran couldn’t believe it Goran was saying that he was missing because his was a Russian klashnikov, Stepe kept quiet as he had a Yugoslav Zastavar the same as Richard.
I was very impressed maybe the guy would have potential as a sniper. We continued into the village. Amongst the debris of battle and discarded equipment on the road. Richard found an old Yugoslav flack jacket without its outer cover.
As with most people Richard didn’t know the difference between a flack jacket and a bullet-proof vest, and he really wanted it. There was only one way to talk him out of this, I had explained to him that they were heavy and useless but he didn’t seem to want to believe me. So I took the jacket, put it on the opposite bank and put two bullets through it. Sometimes the practical demonstration is much better than word of mouth and I think that Richard learnt a couple of things that day. That is You don’t go to the toilet in no mans land, and perhaps most importantly that flack jackets don’t stop bullets.

I went into Vinkovci to try and get some ammunition for Goran. As a tank unit we had loads of 100mm tank shells and a few crates of 7.90mm ammunition for the coaxial, but we couldn’t get hold of any 7.62mm for our klashnikovs. As we were spending most of our time as infantry we needed to get some more ammunition fast. I had hoped to go and speak to Dragen about this, but he couldn’t help me the most he could do was give me a lift to the area headquarters and I would have to scrounge some myself. As we set of I saw Steve and a little croation girl walking up the road. I asked Dragen to stop the van so I could go and talk to Steve.
Steve was with Monika. Monika was the daughter of our senior commander’s girlfriend, although she was only sixteen she was probably our unit’s greatest asset. She had the direct and undivided attention of the area commander via her mother. So she could get requests through that we couldn’t. Steve was going to an area used as a firing range to sight his rifle. The differences between the Mala Bosna fronts and the Nustar fronts were incredible, at Nustar you didn’t have to go to special places to sight your weapon. You just found a live target and had a go at it. I decided to join Steve on the range, I didn’t need the practice I just wanted to make sure that my bullets were going where I thought they were. The range was a grassy strip with a back stop in some maze fields. We put up a few boards and took shots at them from different ranges. I was hitting true but Steve wanted to adjust his sights a little. We exchanged a little gossip as to what was going on our respected fronts, apparently Steve had got fed up with Martin and given him a good punch after a little disagreement about digging trenches. True nobody particularly likes digging trenches, but they are a necessary part of war. When Martin told Steve that he hadn’t come to dig trenches, I think that was the final straw. Steve punched him in the mouth and advised him to not think about trying anything else and that he might like to leave. Martin left instantly.
As a group we headed towards the main road. An artillery shell came buzzing over head, I grabbed Steve and jumped into the ditch. Life in Nustar depended upon knowing when to get out of the way and this was one of those times. The ditch may have been full of water, but it was a lot nicer than being riddled with shrapnel in the fields. The first shell had been a drop short, we could see a train coming out of the town heading off towards Zagreb, so that had obviously been the target.
The shelling was very brief as soon as the train was on its way they stopped and we were able to get out of the ditch and carry on our way. I noticed some odd track shapes in the mud, they had an American tread to them. When I looked closer into the maze field I could see the outline of a few Sherman tanks. Of course to use a Sherman as a combat tank in the ninety’s would be suicide. So they, like the T34 that I had seen on the Serbian lines at Marinci, had their turrets cut down and were being used as self propelled artillery. It was nice to know that things were not as bad as we thought and we did at least have some artillery support!
I said goodbye to Steve and Monika and went on down to headquarters where I didn’t get any ammunition but managed to get hold of some grenade pouches.
Goran and I stopped in Vinkovci and went into hotel Slavonia for a drink on the way back to Nustar. We went through the reception and left our weapons at the desk, as was the custom at that time.
We went down into the bar to have a last beer before we went back to work, and in the hope that we might bump into some of the lads from Mala Bosna. Nobody was there that we knew so we bought our drinks and sat in a booth. One of the HOS lads came over to chat with Goran, I looked him up and down he was unshaven and had the usual pile of pendants and lucky charms that the gypsy type warrior believes in. He took his beer and sat down with us. As far as I was concerned he was not my guest and I treated him with polite courtesy, but discouraged any attempts at meaningful conversation. He chatted away to Goran obviously telling him of his latest heroics, or some distant victory that nobody knew about, when he started to tell Goran that he was in the legion. Goran relayed the information to me, I looked at the man and asked him straight in French if he spoke French? I don’t speak much at all and the blank expression on his face said he spoke less than me. I turned to Goran and said “Goran tell him his full of shit from me will you”, “are you sure you want to do this?” Goran asked. I gave him a nod and turned to the other man to watch his reaction. Goran relayed my message, the man nodded, pulled back from the table. He put his hand into the side pocket of his trousers and brought out a sawn of 4/10 shotgun. The shotgun had been cut down to the extent that all that remained was a small pistol grip and a very short barrel. He opened the breach and put a cartridge in snapped the “pistol” shut and pointed it at me directly across the table. Now that’s an interesting situation, I have a man pointing a single shot pistol at my head in a crowded bar. It’s not the kind of situation I was used too and there was not that much I could do about it. I looked at the way he was holding the pistol, and the condition that it was in, the only comforting thoughts that I could get out of the situation were that if he fired the gun a number of things could happen. One possibility was that he would break his wrist. The second possibility was that the weapon would explode in his hand when he fired it, and lastly if he did shoot me there was a chance that some other person in the bar would shoot him, of course these things were guaranteed, but its nice to fool yourself sometimes.
We sat in this stalemate position for some time, there wasn’t much I could do about it. If I begged for mercy he would defiantly shoot me, and if I reminded him of my opinion of him it was also possible that he would shoot me. After a while he lowered the pistol and unloaded it. He put the pistol and cartridge back into his pocket and went up to the bar. I looked at Goran and wondered what he felt about what had just happened, before I could comment the HOS guy came back and placed three beers on the table.
Well that was a turn of events! A few moments ago he was going to blow my head off, and to be honest after he left I felt the same way about him. He sat down with us and we then had a more realistic conversation about what he really did on the front, and he invited Goran and I to go across to join them. We often had offers from HOS to going them, but being in a government unit was the safer all round bet.
We said our goodbyes and Goran and I got back into the van and headed back to Nustar.
After our last fiasco, Goran and I decided to take Richard out with us to the factory for some normal observation work. The idea of having a third man with us sounded good. We would have someone to watch our backs for us and it would make getting there a lot easier.
We went out past the restaurant and checked through the labyrinth of bunkers, checking those that covered our route in and those that over looked our possible routes out. We would split as we checked the bunkers Goran and Richard would get into positions to cover me as I approached the bunkers from the rear and looked inside.
Quite often I would find signs of disturbance in the bunkers where someone had rummaged through the discarded kit on the bunker floors, the question always came to me as to who this could be. The Serbs had superior equipment and logistics to us so it was probably very unlikely that they would sift through their own rubbish, so it had to be patrols from our side.
In the past when we had crossed this area we had seen signs of other parties but had not met them. In some ways it was ridiculous the amount of small units creeping round in this tiny area of woodland and how we never came into contact with each other I will never know.
Once we were sure that the area was secure, we moved over to the other hill. Again we checked the area for signs of recent movement but there were none. We always checked way outside our possible perimeters, in case we were to lay up next to an enemy unit and end up in a close quarter battle that we were not equipped to fight. Though I by habit carried four full magazines, over 150 loose rounds and two grenades. The others made do with two magazines a piece. My philosophy was that if I did get stuck somewhere I would have enough firepower to get out of it, as the Americans are want to say “peace through superior firepower”.
Goran and I checked the factory and followed our old tracks through the ash to the steps. We went upstairs and crawled into our positions. There wasn’t that much to see the Serbs trench discipline was excellent. Mind you if they hadn’t of been our snipers would have got them. I checked the T32 to make sure it wasn’t showing any signs of life. I was always nervous about being in an op that was in the direct sights of an enemy tank. I had earlier resolved that if I saw any movement from the tank, I would not bother with the steps and just jump down inside the factory. After all broken legs are better than no legs! The hours past away without anything new coming to surface and Richard was starting to get impatient downstairs. So we decided to head back.
We took the most direct route that we could to get us as near to the restaurant as possible. We stepped out of the scrub and walked in single file towards the building.
We could see no one at the windows and were starting to get worried, when a face appeared at the window. Before we could give a reassuring wave the man had ducked back from the window. We were now in big trouble.
The man obviously hadn’t recognised us and was going to open fire on us in any moment, we were stuck in the open and in a very bad position. I took a snap decision and ran at the house, Goran split off to my left and went to the exposed front of the house, whilst we told Richard to go right and come in through the back door.
I ducked down and had a quick glance in the cellar. I didn’t want to fight these people, but I didn’t want to be shot by them either. I had to make sure my way forward was clear and try and get as close to them as possible.
The cellar was clear I crawled in through the window and made my way up the internal stairs. I kept close to the wall with my rifle aimed up at the door, at the same time I was dropping quick glances down for trip hazards or something that would betray my presence. When I got to the top I found two very frightened men. Goran had come at them from one side and Richard from the other, when they saw me coming out of their cellar they were horrified. You see everyone has their vision of war, heroics, and injures. Your imagination is not capable of potraying war, if it were their would be no war! The two men had probably imagined themselves fighting of hordes of Serbs to the last bullet. In under thirty seconds we had assaulted them, surrounded them, and were in a position to kill them, fortunately we were on the same side so it didn’t happen. We explained to them that we had thought that they were about to fire on us and had to do what we had done and left them hope fully with no ill feelings. It felt good that we had got to the stage that Goran and I could work together only using hand signs and not speaking.

The last patrol Richard ever did with me was a very simple affair. The idea was to get out onto a road very close to the Serbian positions and watch the Serbs up close. This was to be a major disaster.
Richard and I left the village and made our way up to the OP. Once we were there we went through the usual rigmarole of explaining to the guards where we were going. We skirted into the brush of the first hill and checked the old bunkers to make sure they were clear. Once we had secured our rear we made a suicidal run down the valley and up the other side. Getting our breath below the crest then a quick dry assault on the shell scrape on the top and a fast run up to the factory. Once these places were clear we could continue at a more leisurely pace.
We turned down into the ditch passing a dead mans foot and came up onto the road, turning left we patrolled along it until we were below an old concrete bunker. Due to its closeness to the lines it was possible that this one could have someone in it. When I went up the slope I had a grenade ready just in case, I got up the bank to find that the bunker, which was surrounded by depressions in the ground to be deserted. I called Richard up to join me and explained the next part of the recce. To get to the position I wanted to be in I was going to have to crawl 25 meters over a flat field with absolutely no cover; this was to be Richards crowning glory. He was going to cover me then when I was across he would crawl over and join me.
The field had probably been a cornfield but after the harvest they had not had time to plough it over. It was completely bare of plant life except for the sparse three inch stubble left by the harvester; crawling over it is probably the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. I inched my way across the field keeping as close to the ground as possible, waiting for someone to start shooting at me.
When I got close to the edge of the road my worse nightmare came true, someone was there already. I could hear movement in the ditch by the road. I was less than 1 meter from the enemy this was going to be a very hard and fast engagement with just one of me and god knows how many of them. I bought my weapon up and waited for the worse. I could see their olive drab jackets in front of me by my estimate there were about two of them but something held me back, I was in the open with no cover and something didn’t seem quite right with what I was seeing. They were creeping in their own territory and seemed to be very cautious towards their front? Then I saw that one of them was wearing a ridiculous acid green woolly hat. I had seen that hat before in Nustar, they were on our side. Now I had a new problem these guys were scared and jumpy; I had to let them know that I was there without them trying to shoot me!
I hissed at them but stayed well down, it obviously frightened them but I was hoping that they would realise that someone close enough to hiss at them was definitely close enough to kill them but hadn’t. Logic conclusion friend! I waited for them to calm down then hissed again and risked a peep over the scrub at them. They saw me and couldn’t believe who it was I slid down into the ditch to join them. They then went into a discussion about how nuts I was to be out there on my own, but I took it in my stride with a smile, “don’t worry” I said “I have back up”! I gave Richard the whistle and turned to my friends, nothing happened! Gave him another whistle, still no response, this didn’t look good. Well, the retard is probably deaf and he’s making me look a incompetent so nuts to him.
The two Croat’s were hiding behind a knocked out T55 and using binoculars to observe the Serb roadblock. They lent me the binoculars to have a quick look. As I looked down the road and the first thing I saw was the Serb roadblock and next to it bold as brass two Serb’s standing under some firtrees having an animated conversation. Having seen such conversations before, it looked to me as if one of them was telling the other how he had knocked out the tank that I was laying next to. I couldn’t believe my luck, I told the Croat’s what I could see, but they couldn’t understand. So I then had to draw little pictures on the ground, by the time this was done and the Croat’s had looked for themselves the Serb’s had gone.
After some time in the position we decided to make our way back along the road and the problem of Richard reappears. I had to find out what had happened to him. So we doubled back on the position. I climbed the bank expecting to find him dead and an ambush waiting for me. As I quietly crawled towards the old bunker, I saw him lying on his back staring up at the clouds. His weapon was next to him with the safety catch on. The guy was in a world of his own. I called to him and asked him what he thought he was doing? And why he hadn’t come across when I whistled for him to follow? Well the first answer was that he decided after I was already half way across that he didn’t want to risk it, ok, fairs fare you didn’t have to be there I couldn’t make him do anything. So my last question was one of idle curiosity. “Why are you lying in the middle of a combat zone with your safety catch on?” His answer was “well I don’t think I have the experience to have it off” too bloody right Richard! Too bloody right!
Goran had invited Stepe and Richard over for dinner one night. As Goran’s cooking was normally fatal I was the one who would be doing the cooking. We had some instant vegetable soup that we had found in a house and I was going to slice some bread and make pizza in the oven and a kind of milk pudding with some milk that we had scrounged from the headquarters. I started off by boiling the water and toasting the bread for the pizza bases. The soup was Croatian and I couldn’t understand the packet label, but it was soup or so I was told. Fare turned up unexpectedly with his guest, I was now in a fix for food. I had counted on cooking for five people not six and I was even pushing it there with the food that I had available. I decided that I would have to go hungry, the soup powder wasn’t that impressive. When I put it in the water all I got was a slight yellow colour and a few bits of spaghetti.
I decided to chuck the whole bag in as it really didn’t look very appetising. The new stronger soup looked better and had a bit of body to it. I served up the soup to them and put toppings on the pizza bases and put them in the oven. The whole thing was awkward, the Croatians were busy eating and chatting while Richard ate his food in silence and stared ahead. By the time they had finished their soups the pizzas were ready. I gave them all a pizza each and opened the door to see if the pudding had set or not. When I came back I looked with satisfaction at the happy faces as they tucked into their food. Then Richard leaned forward and puked onto his plate, the Croats looked at him in supprise but carried on eating. You would be supprised by the amount of things that could have no effect on us at those times.
Richard lent over his plate to cover the pile of puke in front of him, he was obviously embarrassed by what had happened, but I wasn’t going to let him have any leeway. I was bloody hungry and Fares guest was eating my dinner, and Richard had just puked all over his. This was going to give a great impression about English table manners!

Another front but a different war

Steve and I had some business to attend to at head quarters.
When we were finished, we went across to dicks bar for a drink. It was the usual rag tag of uniforms and units at the bar, but there was a distinct smell that reminded me of home it was the smell of diesel! Standing at the bar were two men in German tank suits. There were no tank units in Mala Bosna and to my knowledge; there weren’t any in Vinkovci. I really wanted to talk to those men we had a brief hand waving conversation and they seemed to be quite friendly they also agreed to take us over to their area of operations. We got into a Renault van and drove normally through the town, I was in the back with a small Hungarian called fare then just as we hit the road to Nustar the driver accelerated to maximum speed. Fare took out his pistol and started to shoot out of the back of the van towards the side of the road.
This seemed a little irresponsible to me at first, and then I noticed the large collection of bullet holes through the fibreglass sides of the van. We were as you may say ‘running the gauntlet’, the road was running parallel with the Serbian front and they had direct fire onto the road in a number of places, they were not keen to allow people entry into the village.
We shot into Nustar at full speed slowing as we past the first building. Nustar was a real war zone (it was later estimated to have 90% damage). The roads were covered with mud and bits of masonry. A few of the buildings were completely burnout. Furniture and broken ammunition boxes littered the paths, pigs rooted around in the rubble and the place seemed to have a burnt smell about it not one thing in the whole village had not been damaged in some way or another by shellfire. We drove to the far end of the village were we stopped and went to the cellar of the house on the left. A T55 was parked next to the house; across the street an M84 was parked near a dug in T55, in the garden in front of the garage a BVP was parked.
We went over to the T55 and they started it up for me. Now all the tanks that I had driven before were fitted with semiautomatic gearboxes (even the very old ones). So, my assumption was that the T55 probably has the same system. So I got in and I had quick look down at the panels and ‘found’ a gear stick! I started it forward, it was a real unresponsive bitch to drive needing high revs for very little return, not exactly the Alfa Romeo of the tank world. Well I decided to change the gear up a bit. It really didn’t want to go, there was a lot of grinding and crashing in the process but with a bit of effort it went in. It was not until I was getting out of the hatch that I noticed the extra pedal.
Unlike western tanks, which have only two pedals, Russian tanks use the old double clutch system and have three pedals. It wasn’t until later when I spoke to my translator about the incident, that he admitted that they had also noticed my reluctance to use the clutch pedal but didn’t want to comment.
This was the beginning of my stay in Nustar the village had a completely different feel to Mala Bosna,
The people were not cowered by events but more stubborn.
There was no action at all in Mala Bosna; where as the threat in Nustar was very real. This was the place I decided to stay.
I moved into the cellar where the other Croat’s from the tank group slept. The cellar was entered through an outside sloping steel door that covered the steps leading down to us. All the cellars that were being used were picked mainly because they had the important outside access. If the cellar doors were internal there was definitely a possibility that the remainder of the house would collapse during a bombardment and trap the occupants.
A wood-burning stove heated the cellar; the chimney had been put through a small ventilation window at the end of the cellar. The whole of one side of our cellar had been filled with sofa beds laid side by side and the soldiers would sleep in a communal pile. Someone had run an electric cable from the T55 into the cellar, to give us a 24-volt lamp for illumination. Someone had rigged the door with a crude form of alarm, activated on a pressure switch taken from a fridge so that every time the door was touched it would buzz giving us a little warning that someone was there. In a normal army such things would not be necessary but there were not many Croat’s left in the village so At night the village seemed to withdraw into its self, as all the different groups went into their cellars and bolted up for the night. During the night the Serbs would shell or rocket us a trip to the toilet could be fatal, but logic dictates with that amount of explosive being fired at you its very unlikely that the Serbs were amongst us, so it gave us a strange sense of security. We would emerge in the morning to inspect the damage of the nights shelling, sometimes the garden would be covered with debris from a near miss and other times it would be spotless after receiving a direct hit on the frozen earth.
The cellar was full of kittens, that were living under the bed in an attempt to stay out of harms way. They would sometimes come out, but seemed to spend most of their time under the bed.
I can lay claim to a life saving invention, that I introduced to the village.
most of the occupied cellars had doors outside the houses and steps leading down into the cellars, with no guards around outside it would be very easy for a small group of Serbs to create a lot of casualty's with a bag of hand grenades, so I introduced them to the double door.
It started with a very simple demo of me throwing a hand grenade into the cellar and then nailing a blanket across the lower entrance and doing it again, the grenade no longer went into the room but stopped at the entrance.
this would reduce casualty's and give anyone else a fighting chance in the event that this should happen.
the idea was quickly adopted in most of the neighboring cellars and in some cases whole doors and frames were removed from houses and refitted in the cellars as extra protection.
The house above was half damaged, it still had a roof in places and some of the remaining furniture was scattered around. We only went upstairs to use the toilet. To do this you would have to draw a bucket of water from the pump in the garden to flush it. It was strange to go up there at night and sit on a porcelain toilet in a proper room and stare up at the stars. It was also very cold and I started to dream of luxuries like toilet seats and central heating.
The water that we drank was collected from the H.Q. building at the end of the village; the water supply in the village was undrinkable. The house had a second cellar that held the old boiler for the house it also had large 20 litre bottles of “rakija” in it. This was the home made spirit that the locals were so keen on. In my opinion it was foul and dangerous, I would only drink it to be hospitable and even then one glass was enough. The Hungarian was in heaven here; he would go to the other cellar and filter the rakija through a piece of cloth to get the brick dust and straw out of it. Then rebottle it into a smaller container for a quick drink when he needed it (which was most of the time). The sheds around the house contained firewood, maze, onions and garlic. The last two were to be our staple diet. The pigs that ran round the village were fair game as a diet supplement. The first people who got there often ate the food that came over to us from Vinkovci. So we would butcher the pigs and eat roast pork bread and onions most days if not then it was back to tined sardines in oil which there were a plentiful supply of.
On my first night there Luka took me round with him as he reset the radios to the new frequencies. Why he wanted to teach me so much so quickly I did not know, but I did my best to take it all in.
We went into the tank group’s main house and he spoke to the commander, one of the lads asked me if I wanted to do guard duty that night. I didn’t want to upset them and asked them when they needed me, 2 till 4 in the morning! The graveyard shift, actually that’s not at all funny, as there was a graveyard slightly to the rear of the trench. I went back to the cellar with Luka had a wash and found myself somewhere to sleep on the long bench. At about 1.30 the guard woke me and dumped a walky talkie radio on me. Strange! He disappeared to his bed I wasn’t happy about that, I don’t mind doing guard duties but I was not happy about doing his half-hour as well. The guard post was a trench dug outside our main building; it had flooded with water in the past but the water had all frozen solid. With the way the Serbs liked to shell Nustar at unsociable hours I thought that it would be a very good idea to get down in the trench and look at how things went around me. The radio would occasionally squawk some message or other, I knew that we were condor and anybody calling that name wanted us. Its just that I didn’t speak Croatian and I was sure that the woman at the on the end of the radio didn’t speak English either. This whole thing was beginning to look like a joke.
One of the first jobs that I was given was to kill a pig that they had cornered in an out building. The floor was bare concrete as were the walls. Fare gave me his pistol and let me in through the stable door to meet my victim. By pig standards it was a medium size pig, and wasn’t to fussed to have me in there with her. But then again she didn’t know what I was going to do to her.
I went over and had a look at her, what I wanted to do was get a clean shot through her head that would kill her instantly and not ricochet of the floor into me! The idea of being hit with a second hand bullet after it been through a pig is not a nice one the secondary infection alone would probably be enough to kill you. So I lined the pistol up and shot the pig above the eye where I thought the brain should be. The pig jerked its head up and the bullet exited out of its jaw, it didn’t like that and started to run round the room. The crowd outside encouraged me to fire again, I was not at all happy with the way things were developing.
The pig by all rights should have died on the first shot, it hadn’t and it wasn’t very happy. For that matter neither was I. Once the pig had calmed down I tried again the result was even more horrific. The bullet entered above the eye and exited through the cheek on the other side. This was no longer funny it was becoming a struggle of life and death between us, very soon the pig was going to realise that it weighed more than me and it could easily attack me. Desperation then took over I was loosing a lot of face over this bullet-proof pig.
I took a knife from Fare and went into hand to hand combat with the pig. I managed to straddle it as it tried to run past. I brought the knife up under it throat and sliced in one quick movement. The stroke would have easily killed a human but the large quantity of fat around the pig’s throat took most of the damage. Things were now going from bad to worse. I was stuck in a small enclosure with an enraged pig that was running around the room squealing, shaking it’s head from side to side and flicking blood all over me and up the walls. It was my idea of the perfect nightmare. I had till then held no malice towards the pig but this was now getting to be too distressing for me. I took Fare’s pistol and cornered the pig pushed the pistol against its forehead and fired a shot directly through its head down its body. The pig dropped on the floor dead I hoped, and I left the room feeling very shaky, it shouldn't take that much to kill an animal.
When they butchered the pig I stayed on to watch I wanted to know why the pig hadn’t died at the first shot. I found that pigs have very small brains at the back of their skulls, almost worn as a hat it is so far back. Do not apply human biology to animals.
It was probably on day two that Luka left the village he was going back to Zagreb to continue his education and another Croat Goran was going to take over as my translator/ baby sitter.
In the western world Goran would have had a Harley Davidson and a job in a garage, however in Yugo he worked in a sweet factory and had a little van.
I have to say on our first meeting I didnt like him, Fare, Golub and I stood outside the cellar in the mud that passed for a garden when Goran first arrived, a starving Alsatian we had called Pero hung round us, Like most of the Dogs in the village I assume he had once lived at the house and had been abandoned by his owners and just stayed hoping for their return.
Goran came over from the tank HQ and stood talking to Golub they looked at the dog and Goran kicked a punctured football towards the maze field at the end of the garden, The dog ran down to retrieve the ball and they both raised their weapons and shot it.
It wasnt quick as the bullets hit the dog it twisted and whined a complete incomprehension as to the pain and the limb failure as in those few seconds its organs were shattered by bullets ripping through its body. I had liked that dog, I walked down to see it, unlike them I had to know that it was dead. I could not leave it at the edge of a mine field slowly dieing. Pero was dead his eyes were still bright and his chest wasnt moving, I picked him up and carried him back to the house.
Stopping at Golub and Goran, I looked at them and said "one day I will kick the ball for you"
I then went and tryed to dig a hole. The ground was frozen like rock the top was soft from the sun but underneath the frost held on I could only dig down a foot and so the dead pit was made, my own little rubbish bin for the animals littered around our house and position.
Nustar and my appetite never really saw eye to eye, outside the cellar half buried in the mud and frozen solid was the remains of a goat each morning I would pass it, The roads were littered with dead pigs, and the mine field at the last checkpoint was a slaughter house for a small herd of cows who had been hit by artillery, their body's had gone black and gaunt through decomposition and frost. a little further up the road the remains of two tanks blocked the road, burnt out and probably still crewed.
Nustar was a place of death.
The plan of action as explained to me was that in the event of a serious assault the tanks were to be pulled back to vinkovci, they did not have enough crew for the tanks so I would be driving a T55 with no turret crew between two live tanks in a withdrawal up the mad mile. A totally insane idea and not one I subscribed too but that was the plan.
The situation was this, Nustar is situated in a valley near two bridges over a river the serbs held the high ground, the tank group was at the far end of the town furthest from Vincovci with our own infantry groups around us. Our main past time was to stay underground and have shells land on us.
I doubt any of you have experienced a rocket barrage, totally unlike mortars or standard artillery it is hell.
One night we were in the cellar when they hit us, I heard the shrill roar of the first rocket motor then a constant stream of explosions, the earth shook dust came from the ceiling and inside my chest was bursting out, I wanted to scream rip my uniform off throw down my gun, run up the steps and out the door into a sane different world. but I could not I would die, the Croat's in the cellar looked at me as I sat on the end of my bed with my rifle between my knees and a blank expression on my face. Fear is infectious, they looked to me because I was the professional, if I cracked they would all go.
I had seen multiple rocket launching systems during the gulf. a rumble then a wonderful pyramid of lights in the sky followed by a thunder storm on the horizon, It looked fantastic now it was me on the receiving end and it was hell.
I dont know how long the barrage lasted but the last couple off rockets were the worse, not for the damage they caused but because one did not explode, I heard the motor but there was no bang. So what happens now we wait, and we waited till the morning, It could have been a delay but it did not explode or it could be lodged in a building or any where just waiting to fall, be dislodged and then explode when you least expect it.
when we went outside the barrage had cleaned the area, the scope cover from the tank outside was missing, the rubble had gone from the garden, the last of the roof slates had gone and the dead pit was empty, now someone else's problem, Pero the other dogs, cats and chickens I had dumped in the hole with the intention to burn had gone.
Goran decided that he would like to test me and the best place to do that would be no mans land, he suggested that we go for a little trip to see the neighbors.
Our first trip out was obviously his first too as the route was not one I would have chosen but as he lead I would follow, we went up the road through the herd of dead cows and tip toed through the antenna mines.
again to the reader I will explain these mines, normal mines require a direct pressure on them caused by footfall or vehicle weight. different mines have different pressures to set them off, and further to that different characteristic's, some mines will blow your foot and lower leg off blowing contaminated earth and shrapnel up into your groin area leading to possible castration due to secondary infection, others do not explode on pressure, but on pressure release firing the mine out the ground to about a meter where it then explodes outwards spraying shrapnel over everyone in close proximity. anti tank mines are normally an upward shaped charge with an anti tamper device, and infantry man may stand on it without it exploding, but should he attempt to move it a line and peg underneath it detonate the mine vaporising the person playing with it. Antenna mines though are just evil, it is a standard anti tank mine but with a 1 meter antenna set in the middle, the thought behind the mine is simple should anything pass over the mine the antenna will move detonating the mine.
They stood proud on the road surface amongst the body's and when you passed them you felt yourself drawn towards them as you picked your way through them. As we moved I scanned the road ahead and the bushes to the side of the road, this really was not my preferred route.
As we cleared the mines, Two men came round the corner in front of us this was a major problem, I crouched and sighted on them. They stoped and sighted on me, but no one was shooting yet, the ball was firmly in Gorans court he could speak to these guys, I couldnt all I was doing was waving them towards us but keeping a gun on them because the whole situation was a little un healthy for every one.
They lowered their weapon and moved towards us. I lowered mine slightly to reduce the threat to them but left my finger on the trigger. I was on single shot but reconed that I could probably better take them on that, than fire bursts that would probably go over them.
The unarmed man came forward to Goran and things seemed ok, the other man then joined them. They were a forward sniper team (spotter and rifle man) who were coming back into our positions. we had told the infantry sentry down the road that we were going out but he failed to tell us that there was already a team in nomans land, hence the near fatal confrontation.
( It was to happen a lot that Guards failed to report other patrols to us, and worse was to not tell their relifes that we were out there and be greated by hails of gun fire from our own side when trying to get to saftey)

Life on the front part one

We went back to our house after the meal. We had been assigned guard duties and we would be taking over other people’s weapons at the bunker when we went on duty. The situation was not satisfactory but it was a start. As we bedded down for the night the Serb’s start hitting us with 82mm. Mortars. One of them exploded very close to the house smashing all the glass in the front door, the woman down stairs started to scream and one of the pigs in the back garden started squealing. It was a terrible noise. More unnerving to us than the shells that were coming in.
During the night randy came over and woke me up to go on duty. I put on my boots and my parka, I expected it to be cold outside and I wasn’t disappointed. It didn’t feel right being unarmed and walking up the road towards the bunker. Though they may be a fair distance away I felt very vulnerable, when I got to the bunker I took over a Croatians klashnikov. The interior of the bunker was dark and cold, but at least it was safe. The floor of the bunker was covered with gravel and shell cases, I spent a lot of time at the observation slits. I could see the machine gunner at Mirkovci as he fired off his weapon the tracers would arc slowly across the night. At first I thought they were pretty, then I thought about the four standard bullets that I couldn’t see between the ones that I could. The gunner was good, I watched him work. After he had fired off a burst he would try and fire off single shots to get past the first tracer. We always saw the tracer coming and were more attuned to watching for them than listening for the shots being fired. I spent an uneventful two hours there getting used to the sights and sounds of the front.
The next morning we inspected the damage caused by the mortars in the night. The front garden had taken a direct hit. What had been left of the family’s car had been aerated for the third time and the blast had smashed the glass in the front door, the owner took all this in his stride and surprisingly he didn’t complain.
We went over the road to see the others and were told that we would be issued our own personal weapons; we filed behind the house to a neighbouring cellar they told us that our weapons would be issued to us. I paused for a moment as a klashnikov was passed up to me; I asked myself did I really want to get involved in all of this? Mark pushed past me and took the offered weapon, if he was in then I was in; I took the next one. I lucked out on that. Because I found myself the proud owner of a Romanian klashnikov complete with forward pistol grip. I was not impressed with it.
I wasn’t there to play Chicago gangster, and the grip was upsetting me when I went to change magazines. The first thing I did when I got back to the house was tried to cut the stupid thing off. I needed a saw to do this and asked the old man if he had one, this resulted in a lot of hand waving and him running of to tell tales to the commander. While he was off causing trouble I sat on the front steps and started to hack the front pistol grip off with a knife. Eventually Satan arrived to find out what all the fuss was about, it seems that our host had relayed a message that my intention had been to cut the barrel off my rifle! Satan looked at what I was doing and borrowed a hacksaw off the old man so that I could do the job properly. Once the pistol grip was removed the weapon was perfect for me.
The weapon may be bottom of the market, but it is incredibly light, almost half the weight of a Yugoslav klashnikov. However it does not have a sight to fire rifle grenades and it over heats on sustained automatic fire. This was not a problem, as I didn’t want to use it as a L.S.W. Despite its bad reputation I found it to be a very good little weapon.
I made another startling discovery. Standard Romanian ammunition has a mild steel core, to the layman this means that the bullet cannot deform when it hits something hard, but retains its shape. This is not a good thing in some ways, but it means if someone is wearing a bullet-proof vest my bullets will not mushroom on the vest but penetrate! A very useful thing when half the Serbs were using flack jackets.
Trying to get fed was a major problem. The food was sent from the central kitchen in Vinkovci to the front in large thermoses. What you got for lunch you got later for dinner. The problem seemed to be the erratic timings of the food delivery or the Serbs mortaring us so we couldn’t get out and eat it.
One man in the village had taken it upon himself to use his underground garage as the cookhouse. He would receive rations for our part of the village and feed us when we turned up. The food slops were given to our old host who would cook them up and feed them to his pigs. The garage wasn’t a bad place, the whole area under his house had been dug out to make a garage and work shop. It was very well done and the workshop area had been converted into the eating area. We would go in there and take a seat at one of the trestle tables and the owner would come over from his resting place at the back of the workshop by his stove. Even though the place was open to us, it was obvious that this was his little private sanctuary away from his family and the groups of soldiers who came to eat there. He would come forward and put bowl of stew in front of you then retreat to the back of the workshop and his newspaper. Sometimes there would be bowls of gerkins on the table or perhaps pieces of cold pork, and slices of bread to give some substance to the meal.
Getting there could be a bastard though, between the garage and the area were we were billeted was an empty plot of land. It was were our trenches met the road and the owner of the house next to it had some nasty dogs.
Each time we tried to cross the gap the dogs would start barking at us. There instinct to protect their territory was telling the Serbs that we were crossing the empty plot. The Serbs would blindly send a few bullets in our direction in the hope of getting one of us. As you can imagine this was beginning to piss us off. Various authorities had asked the man to shut his dogs up, we really didn’t want to have to shoot the mans pets but it was getting to the stage that someone was going to get killed, in fact rover had caused a few near misses already.
Mark and I were crossing one night and our practice was for one of us to move whilst the other took a position ready to give covering fire. Mark was going to be first to go; we could see the dog getting ready to make a fuss.
Mark grabbed a roof slate and sprinted across the gap rifle in one hand, slate in the other. I was busy watching the front so I can’t tell you how he did it, I can only tell you the result. I heard the start of a bark it only got as far as the W in woof. I looked over to see mark in position and sprinted over myself. The dog was nowhere to be seen and all was quiet. Mark had thrown the slate in mid run and hit the dog right in the mouth, an amazing shot for a stationary man extraordinary for some one who was running in a crouch.
We never had problems with the dog again, we saw it and it saw us. The only difference now was it would turn tail, and leg it into the house.
On other occasions the Serbs would get it into their heads to mortar us at dinner times. On these occasions the locals seemed to know what would be coming and disappeared for the duration of the attack. Perhaps they had something like the weather forecast available to them, only dealing with possible bombardments?
Any way, I made my way over to the garage one night and I was starving. A few large mortar rounds were hitting in the village, but none were close enough to our area to be worrying.
I went down the slope to the garage door. It was locked but I was prepared to wait, I was more or less under ground so any shrapnel flying by wasn’t going to bother me. Suddenly the barrage redirected its self on to the road behind me, the shelling was constant and they were trying to hit the front row of houses. The little concrete sided wedge that I was standing in was now a very dangerous place to be. The rounds were hitting the road but the shrapnel was spraying everywhere. All it needed was one piece to ricochet down there with me and I would be cut to ribbons as it bounced between the walls. The garage door was locked and the only place I could think to go was in the drainage channel laid between the ramp and the doors to stop the garage flooding when it rained.
The channel was covered with timbre, it was old and rotten and was easy to pry out with my hands. Once I had made a gap big enough to get through I slipped down into the hole and stood in the channel which only came up to my waist. The bottom of the channel was covered in thick sticky mud. A mortar exploded very close by and I ducked down in the channel, it was then that I realised what I was actually standing in. the channel was full of old sewage from people who had thought it was a great place to relive themselves, it was horrible. I don’t care what people say about it, if I were going to be killed I would like to have a certain dignity about it. The idea of dying in a channel full of shit is not the kind of thing I consider dignified, your family will never find out about it but your mates who pull you out afterwards will always remember it. I pulled myself out of the channel and lay on the ground next to it until the shelling stopped.
Our relationship with our host was always very strained. He would refuse to get out of his cellar to open up the mess hall when we were being shelled. He also refused to allow any protection to be added to his house. No windows could be boarded up in fact I think he was trying to see how long we could survive up there.
randy decided that it would be a good idea to create our own opps room, and from somewhere they produced a white board on a stand and set up in the room opposite our sleeping quaters, this lasted all of 3 hours on our return to the house we found the room locked and the white board gone. the home owner had decided that we were not going to have use of the front room.
Randy and robert were also insensed at the lack of cooperation they were getting and decided to move back to the mortar patoon behind us, where their skills could actualy be used.
Well we had had enough of our "hosts" as well and as soon as Randy and Robert left we went to move over the road with the rest of the unit.
Extra beds had been put in the cellar to accommodate us even then there would not be enough room for all of us. I found a good cupboard under the stairs on the ground floor, which would be ideal for me. Chimneys and stairwells normally survive when buildings collapse. So though the cellar offered some protection I thought the stair cupboard was better.
In the cellar there was a small cupboard where an electric water pump was housed, the purpose of the pump had been to draw water out of the well in the back garden and pump it into the upstairs water tank. With no electricity the system didn’t work and as the top floor had been hit a number of times by the Serbs, the owner of the house had prudently disconnected the cable in case we got power back and the pump started flooding the house from broken pipes.
In this cupboard the free be nasty’s were held, these were the weapons that nobody wanted to use but you could help yourself if you fancied anything. There were boxes of the first ever hand grenades made in Yugoslavia during the second world war, these grenades were so old they didn’t even have the familiar pin pull and fly off handle that people associate with grenades. Instead they had a common bolt stuck in one end of what looked like a home cast grenade. To use it you would have to tighten the bolt slightly with your fingers and then hit the grenade on a hard surface to light the fuse. Nobody wanted to try their luck with the grenades.
One of the other things they had were the famous anti tank grenades. Shaped like an old German stick grenade with a shaped charge head. They were designed to be thrown onto a tank as it passed and use brute force to blow its way through the armour, again considering the force required to breach a tanks armour this was not a thing we wanted to use.
The last objects in the cupboard of horrors were trip fired antipersonnel mines, they were Chinese or Russian and incredibly old. The mine was assembled from three parts, a wooden stake with a screw thread mounted in it was screwed into a dye cast body that is designed to fragmentize in a 360o angle. The final part of the assembly was the fuse/striker assembly. Most of these were very corroded! And that is how they got to live in the nasty cupboard.
Once we were settled in we got into the routine of stand too and guard duties. We had immense problems with the local commander’s handwriting he would write up the guard list in the manner that he thought our names were pronounced. So we would look at the list in the morning and think that we were not on duty only to be told a little later that we were.
The bunker that we used was built at the end of a dead end street. It wasn’t the best place to build a bunker; it didn’t have any great fields of fire in fact the only thing good about it that I could see was that the street didn’t show up on any of our maps. So hopefully it wouldn’t show up on any of the Serbs maps either.
The bunker was made out of railway sleepers piled on one another, with earth compacted around the walls. As with most of the positions that the Croats had built it was too high up for my liking. They seemed to be building high hunting posts rather than working defensive works. Perhaps what they didn’t realise was that this particular quarry was capable of shooting back.
On right hand side of the bunker stood one of the old Yugoslav sentry boxes, it wasn’t used it was just too heavy to shift and had been left there. Behind that, was the first house in a row of houses. The front of it had been damaged by artillery fire and you would have to be mad to try to go in there. The front steps of the second floor were easily visible from the Serbian positions, so nobody was willing to try to get up there.
Our O.P was in the house next to it. From the balcony we could look across the maze fields at the tank parked on the hill to our left. It was so annoying that we could see these targets but had nothing that could hit them! The roof of the building was just a skeleton of beams with a few slates thrown in for effect. The Croatian concrete box construction of their houses meant that most roofs were for cosmetic purposes only. Though I don’t think it was intentionally built that way the concrete “lids” on most of the buildings protected them from the odd artillery shell. From this roof we could see down into to Mirkovci. The terrain between us had a step in it that meant they could only see the roofs of our village and we could not see their village, however from the roof of the O.P we could see most of what they were up to. I could see track marks were they had brought up a tank and hidden it in a dip between us; also the outskirts of the village had been marked with range pegs so that the Serb riflemen would know how to adjust their sights if we attacked them.
Occasionally we could see smoke come up from the village as the Serb’s burnt a Croatians house. We could only hope that none of the Croat’s had chosen to stay behind when the others had fled. At night we could see the refinery at Mekanovci that was still burning, some times the Serbs would manage to put the fire out, but a mortar would get it going again. After all it gave them something to do apart from shoot at us!
Robert mark and I needed a shower and we were told that if we went to Vinkovci Head quarters we could get a shower there. The head quarters were in an old mental hospital in the town, the upper floors were abandoned because of the shelling but the cellars were massive and used as sleeping quarters for a lot of troops. The ground floor was used for the radio room and the scout reccon group slept in a separate room.
We asked were the showers were and were sent up to the first floor. There at the end of the corridor we found a little room of to our left that was the showers. Most of the floor had superficial damage from the bombardments all the windows were blown in and the plaster had come off the ceiling in a number of places.
The shower room was disgusting somebody had dumped a mattress covered in shit on the floor. Not a pretty sight. We striped off and took it in turns to shower, surprisingly in all the disorder of the place it did still have hot water, even if an arctic wind was blowing in through the broken windows. We towelled off and put our dirty uniforms back on. As we got ready to leave the store man came up from the cellar.
He was carrying a little bowl a piece of bread and a sausage. He pulled a key from his pocket and opened a steel door at the end of the corridor next to us. Inside there was a figure huddled in the corner. It was a young man slightly older than my self, handcuffed and dressed in civilian clothes was. The room wasn’t really a room it was a cupboard; there was a mattress on the floor and a bucket next to it. The man stood up and came to the door; the store man unlocked his handcuffs and stood back as the man ate his meal. Robert was thrilled at seeing his first ever real live prisoner of war. I doubted as to weather he was a combatant or not he just looked like a very miserable peasant but the store man insisted that he was one of the famous fifth columnists that the government insisted was everywhere. I think he was to stupid or to trusting to run away when the other Serbs evacuated. In a civil war no matter how you try, you can’t be neutral. We left him to his meal and his dark little cupboard prison back to the front where we hoped to fight real soldiers.
We normally got the late night or early morning shifts. It wasn’t the duty that bothered us so much as whom we would be on duty with. Some of the locals were very dangerous they varied from chain smokers, raving drunkards, to the ones that can’t do anything without a torch. Worse case scenario is you get some one who has all three of these qualities on duty with you. You may not think that this is serious, but when you have to stand duty with a man who is advertising your position by turning your bunker into a lighthouse in the middle of the night. You start to not want to be near him. Or in some cases you come to a tactic agreement that he can go back to a garage behind us for a fag whilst you guard the bunker.
On one of those nights I made an interesting discovery. I was in the garage a little way along the street under the O.P. I was having my last fag before going on duty when I found an American petrol cooker on the table in front of me. It was dark but I could feel its outline. The body was short and plump the stem leading up to the head had some kind of regulator on it, and the pot supports at the top were surprisingly short. This was obviously a Yugoslav field cooker but it was very badly designed. For instance the spike on the bottom was a really stupid idea, I mean most field cookers have folding legs not a spike. In fact I thought the thing was such an odd shape I wanted a better look at it. I held the cooker in one hand and light my lighter with the other. Where as before I had been in pitch darkness I could now see what I had been doing. In my left hand I was holding a landmine! I was not at all happy about that. I ask you who in their right mind leaves land mines on people’s tables? They should all be taken out and buried somewhere safe.

We can also see the church tower that is probably being used as an O.P against us. At the Head Quarters I saw a map showing the Croatian nuclear bomb, which was a railway carriage filled with explosives. The map shows the blast going in the direction of the Serb positions.
　
　
　
On some occasions, we were able to go into Novo Sello.
This gave us a chance to have a wash with hot water and a little time on our own, It was better than the headquater building. a chance to wash shave in reasonable warmth and a semi civalised atmosphere.
The house was begining to fill with piles of clothes and staple food items, they were of no use to us but had been used to pack out and hide shipments of weapons, the journalist had told me that automatic weapons wern't realy a problem and in reasonable supply but single shot long range weapons were what they needed the most. it seemed they had a contact outside the country who would offer an exchange of walther 7.62 hunting rifles with telescopic sites for automatic weapons, so the rifles were packed in bales of blankets and food aid and smugled in, how long this trade went on for I have no idea but the piles of unwanted aid were proof to its existance.
One night I went there to cool off, the house was all shuttered up and deserted, I checked to make sure the house was clear.
The peace in its self was alien and unnerving. I striped off all my dirty clothes to have a bath and threw them in a corner. After living and sleeping in the same clothes for 7 days a week you don’t really know how much you smell. Its only after you have had a good wash and go to put those clothes back on that you realise how dirty they were. As I got used to the idea of being clean and ‘civilised’, again I started to relax.
The next thing I knew the ground was shaking as a terrible chain of explosions went of around the house defening me; the walls were actually shaking with the blasts they were so close.
I was not impressed with this in the slightest, and then someone started banging on the back door shouting, “English come out!” with a very heavy accent.
Well it seemed to me that in my brief absence from the front things had really taken a turn for the worse and our position had been over run. They weren’t going to get me that easy.
I would rather go on my terms than theirs, I saw no point going like a lamb to the slaughter and people who meddle in other people’s wars can expect no mercy if they are caught.
So I loaded my A.K 47 crept down the hall and unlocked the front door as quietly as I could.
I then moved down the corridor as far back from the door as I could get. I was next to the bathroom in the darkness out of the wash of the hall light where I hoped I wouldn’t be seen. The tactic was that they would loose their night vision in the hall when they came in. whilst I could shoot at them from the safety of my position around the corner shrouded in the cover of darkness.
Then I got ready and sighted up on the door. I called out to them to come in. I was in the perfect position to take them out, but I held my fire, as I was still not 100% sure as to whom they were. I watched them come in and crouched down further in my position. The lead man was slightly hunched and the rear man called out again to me in bad English. When the lead figure drew close to me his face was in shadow and I was still not to sure who he was, he was bundled up in a Croatian issue combat jacket with a black woolly cap on his head.
As he turned to face me I saw that it was mark, his face froze in shock when he saw the gun pointing directly at his head.
I lowered my weapon and smiled, I was very relieved to see a friendly face after the uncertainty of the past ten minuets. The shock on his face was apparent, He asked me if the rifle was loaded (silly question) I took of the magazine and ejected the round from the chamber to make the weapon safe and showed the round to him.
To be honest if he had of called out in the first place we wouldn’t have had this slight misunderstanding, but he allowed dad to call out to me, after the shock of the explosions I was badly shaken and my only instinct had been for survival.
It seems that things had heated up on the front as a result of some nice artillerymen firing a Multiple rocket launcher from behind the house. It would have been nice if they had of told someone what they were about to do, but that would have spoiled the fun!
The three of us headed back to the front hunched against the cold and impending bullets unlike the locals we spaced our line each man covering his own arc, it was a good system one drumed into our heads by our instructors in the real army, and one that would save our lives on numerous occasions.
A new guy came up to us from Novo Sello. He was a New Zealander. His attitude had a lot to be desired, he was a typical bullyboy, and like all bullyboys he was week. He talked a good talk about barroom brawls and drunken heroics, but did he know what this was all about? He didn’t last long with us he grated on the nerves of the other unit members and finally flaked on us.
We had been to the coffee bar under the hospital and were coming back into Mala Bosna, the Serbs had put a couple of bursts across the road to tell us that they new that we were coming, so we went down into the ditch.
As we got close to the railway line we had to slow down and eventually wait, as we crossed the line one by one. The distance was not that great but as it was the beaten ground of a machinegun it was a terrifying run. Each time you crossed it you didn’t know if a spray of bullets would be heading up the line to meet you and shred you before you got to the otherside.
Steve Mark and Mike were the first in the line then martin and I was taking up the rear. The others crossed over at irregular intervals as we waited our turn. We could not watch them go because we were stuck in the beaten zone, as the others moved off we moved up to our start positions at the end of the ditch, Martin was beginning to freak out. I was scared, to me it was a normal thing to be scared if you are not then there is something wrong with you, and believe me when people stop being scared in war they normally get careless and die.
Martin however was beyond scared he was petrified. I was stuck in a bad position, he was blocking my way forward and I really didn’t want to be there any longer than necessary. Martin had now frozen up and it was up to me to persuade him to move forward. I am no good at talking to irrational people, though perhaps in this case we could say his fears were totally rational. I take after my father with his no nonsense attitude. I was scared as well but I had to try persuading him to go forward without relaying to him my fear as well. My first idea was to threaten to shoot him if he didn’t move, but this would prove counter productive later. My second idea was to fix my bayonet and give him a little prod with it, but this could also produce problems. So I had to try the old tried and tested method called lying. I coaxed him on by explaining that if he moved fast enough he wouldn’t get hit (false), and the best time to cross was after the gunner had fired off a burst (true) and after all it was only a ten meter dash! Eventually martin built up enough courage to make the dash. He ran across the track and not a shot was fired. I followed over as quickly as I could, I was terrified my heart was in my throat and I was out of breath after a little sprint like that. As I sheltered behind the building on the other side I found myself saying to myself “you are to old for this” I was only twenty one! Martins fear had totally infected me I would never ever go anywhere with him again.

Little Bosnia

for the reader Mala means small and Bosnia is bosnia

We were designated to join the line at Mala Bosnia, we moved up to line the next evening. We followed paths next to the wide spaced roads of Novo Sello and into the cramped urban sprawl of Vinkovci. The sounds and the signs of war increased as we neared the front.
The town seemed to be cleaner than the time we had passed through a couple of days before, but there were more signs of artillery damage than before. Some areas were untouched while others were badly hit. In a multi ethnic place like Vinkovci it is hard to tell the loyalties of the citizen and by the way these attacks seemed to be centred on certain areas. I would say that the loyalty of some of the citizens was highly questionable. We passed through the city without any incident and made our way out to the suburbs. Here we would have to be careful although we were spaced out to prevent casualties one gun between four doesn’t count for much, and anything could happen.
To cross into Mala Bosna we had to crawl along a ditch out side the city hospital. The hospital had been used as an observation post and snipers had been using the roof as a vantage point to get at the Serbs. So in retaliation the Serbs regularly shelled the building from Mirkvcovci, though I think they would have shelled the building even if the soldiers hadn’t used it.
A fixed mount G.P.M.G covered the railway crossing and road that went into Mala Bosnia it was done so well, that the rounds actually bounced of the road even though the gunner couldn’t see where his rounds struck. Fortunately there was a ditch that we could use when he was feeling keen; regrettably the road was cut by a train track running from the Serb positions. Which left us exposed for the short dash. The journalist crossed first to take a position ahead of us to return fire if needed. We crossed over the track one by one in a sprinting crouch.
We were assigned to a house where the civilians were still living in the cellar. They gave us their back bedroom to bed down in. The gesture was nice, but I think we all would have preferred to be in the cellar with them. When the three of us moved into the small room, our first concern was for the householder’s ornaments.
We didn’t want them to get damaged so we took them all of the shelves and started to wrap them in newspaper, placing them all in a cardboard box for safe storage. The old man of the house came in and saw what we were doing, and went to find someone who could ask us why we are doing it. We explained to the man that we were trying to protect his possessions, but he said that they didn’t matter.
The next thing we did was to nail a Yugoslav blanket over the window. This was to act as a black out curtain for us and to stop the glass from being blown in on us. The glass was already cracked so it wouldn’t take much to bring it in on us. A plastic blind was pulled down over the outside of the window. It was broken in a number of places where it had been hit by shrapnel, but to be honest it wouldn’t have stopped an air rifle pellet the condition it was in by then.
The old man from the cellar now had a change of policy with us; whilst smashing his ornaments up was “acceptable” to him, nailing the blanket over his window to him was not. This was something we were not prepared to budge on. So, he stormed of to abuse the local commander. I don’t think he had much joy there either, because the subject was never raised again.
As far as we knew the old man and his fat wife were the only residents of the cellar whom we were supposedly protecting. However after meeting his wife, a mammoth of a woman! I wondered if they really needed our protection.
There was still no electricity in the village; our water was obtained from a pump in the garden.
To operate it we had to do a crash course in grandma’s days. Forget what you see on TV, these things don’t just cough up water at the pump of a handle! They are temperamental pieces of rubbish that need amongst other things priming before use. It is very important that when you finally get some water out of the thing, that you save some of it to prime the pump for the next time you require more water.
The valves on this thing were shagged! You had to tip a little water down the pump cylinder to create a seal and only then with a ‘gentle’ pumping action could you get any water out of the ground. This also meant that if you were to drink the last of the water you were stuffed when it came time to pump out some more. So you would then have to beg for water from someone else’s pump to get yours working fortunately, the other pumps in the village actually worked properly.
The toilet arrangements were even more bizarre!
They were an outside earth closet coupled with chicken coup on one side and woodshed on the other. The toilet was a little shed with a bench in it with a hole cut out of the centre, it was the kind of thing you see in cowboy films.
I think the reason that the chicken coup was attached to the out house, is that it gives you the opportunity to blame the chickens for some of the horrendous smells that came out of the place. This also meant when you sat down to go to the toilet it didn’t take long for a chicken to stick it’s head under the door and start pecking at the floor by your feet.
I have to hand it to them they were clever little buggers and they knew when they were pushing their luck and a kick was coming.
Another strange thing about the toilet was its appetite for toilet paper.
Being naive westerners, we stocked the toilet with nice soft toilet paper. However, on our return to the toilet it was always missing. It would seem our former socialist hosts were hitting capitalism in a big way and privatising the people’s toilet paper. (Though they had the decency to put some newsprint up for us).
Another thing that didn’t go down to well with our hosts was the old Al Jubal kazee trick. During our deployment for the Gulf War, Porte potty’s were bought into the port for us to use, The smell of those things in the Saudi sun was terrible, so the ever resourceful sqaudies started putting on our respirators when we had to use one.
To sit in one of those smelly little hovels in the midday heat was intolerable, but with a gas mask on it wasn’t too bad. So, I started to do the same thing with our host’s toilet.
I am sure that it didn’t go down well with them at all. After a very successful mission on the thunder box, I walked out of the little house and waved at the owner’s wife as she was doing something with frozen clods of earth in her garden. She gave me a particularly strange look (not unusual for me). Then I realised as I walked off towards the house; I WAS STILL WEARING THE GAS MASK!
As night fell we tried to find out where we would be fed as we were by then pretty hungry and we had been told that our hosts would not be feeding us. So we went of and asked a number of the other soldiers who were out side, but none of them seem to be able to speak English.
Fortunately a little white fiat 500 pulled up, the man we were trying to talk to pointed to the driver indicating that this was the man for us to see.
We went over to him just as he was getting out of the car. He stumbled out of the car (drunk) and then struggled to pull something out from behind the seat. It was his folding stock A.K 47 that was caught up in the seatbelt on the floor; he grabbed it by the pistol grip and tore it free. In the process he Fired of a burst of full automatic between us.
He apologised for to us for his little accident in Croatian. Then when he found out that we were English, he asked us if we were ok, and what he could do to help his English friends.
Strangely enough we no longer feel hungry, but as he had the gun and we didn’t, we decide to be civil about the matter and explained our dilemma to him.
Being a nice person he told us that all the food for the night was finished, but we were welcome to come to his cellar and have something to eat.
Not wanting to insult a drunk man carrying a klashnikov we all accept the offer and make a point of telling him how kind he was (despite the fact he almost killed us less than 2 min. ago).
This man we were to find out was none other than the famous Satan Pananski, a Yugoslav punk rock legend and total nutcase to boot!

The Bulgarians

The Bulgarians turned out to be worthy allies, back at the house they found a Romanian Klashnikov hidden under a cupboard. they looked it over and put it back.Though they could not understand us we managed to get across our interest in the weapon and they were kind enough (having both been soldiers of the soviet) to run us through correct maintenance of the A.K 47.
Its not a hard weapon to master but we went further than a field strip for good measure.
The A.K that we trained on was a supposedly ‘faulty’ one that we had found under a cupboard. It was surprising that they seemed to have a supply of ‘faulty’ weapons and a fair of home made explosive devices, but they had nothing for us?
Our Bulgarian friends (Stojan and Ivan) also taught us the most important thing, which was how to make the local coffee, as thick as tar, bitter as acorns with a kick like a mule not your pissy Nescafe this stuff and nothing like the poison that had been given to me in the mountains outside Zagreb.
Amongst the other stuff we found in the house, was a strange looking locally made grenade. It was a steel cylinder with a machined shell possibly filled with T.N.T, it was primed with a lightable fuse, what kind of fuse it was and how long it burned for was not known. So we decided to leave it well alone. Occasionally power would come on though it was irregular and we kept the lights to a minimum, a lot of jokes were made about the consequences of lighting the funny candle on the top shelf.
It was during one of these power cuts that we found the true worth of our Bulgarian friends. The power cut out just as two strangers from the local command came to visit us. We didn't know who they were and there English was not that good.
You have to understand these were uncertain times, you had Serbs loyal to Croatia, Croats loyal to Yugoslavia it was a mish mash of paramilitaries loyal to no one and everyone.
Our visitors were well armed, dirty and had a rather bad attitude not friendly not threatening but as they had all the guns the balance of power was on their side, all of a sudden the power went off. Leaving us in the dark with no candles, in fact they even made a joke of it. However when the power came back after a minuet of darkness their smiles disappeared, Stojan stood behind one with an axe in his hand, (I have little doubt he would of used it) whilst Ivan had the other in his A.K sights now who was laughing?
After all our friends didn’t speak English or Croatian they relied on body language and tone of voice, and our visitors came over as piss taking, cocky bastards.
our visitors had a change of heart and attitude they became more respect full and friendly the intimidation was gone from them. They had come to see Mark and Mark was not there so they decided to leave and find him in the town or where ever he may be.
That evening the Journalist returned, he said that the next day we would move down onto the front and a house had been made available for us to use.