Mala bosna 2 draft preiview

Events that took place in Mala Bosna whilst I am in Nustar

As we finished the bunker, Thomas the Norwegian turned up and asked to join our group along with another English lad called Neil Valentine. Thomas told me that yesterday a mortar shell had hit a car in the town, spinning it into the path of a BBC film crew, which finished off the job. Thomas was the first on the scene to find a girl passenger with her brains coming out. Returning to our house, we found the electricity connected up. Luxury! Better still, a television set appeared by magic. That night, an explosive expert dropped in to rig up some 'Claymore' mines. I tried to pay attention to what he was doing but I was feeling terrible, probably reactions to the tetanus jab.
Robert has gone back to England after having his ribs broken by mark in a friendly game of football. Describe the house next to the bunker the locals had placed light candles on the window ledge facing the Serbs, when we went inside we found that the house had been looted and someone had shit on the floor. The toilet in the house was in a position that the wall faced the Serb positions but not in a direct line of fire. Mark is almost killed when he uses the upstairs toilet, as he went up there with a bucket of water an anti tank shell came crashing through the row of houses passing in front of him.

On my return to Mala Bosna I found that a lot of things had changed, most importantly some serious weaponry had been issued to us. We now had an RPG, a German machine gun and a few disposable light antitank weapons to go around. A new bunker had been dug at the crossroads outside the church and a trench network had been dug behind the hospital by a JCB. Also the “mine man” had come up from Vinkovci to lay a few claymore’s on our front, I don’t think anyone ever had the courage to try and set up the trip mines from the nasty room.
I was still feeling bad from Goran’s cooking in Osijek, and didn’t really want to be in Nustar with my trousers round my ankles being shelled all the time. Another reason I didn’t want to go back was Tuna’s ban on anymore offensive operations, there was no fun to be had there anymore. If I was going to have to sit in a cellar and do nothing I would do it in Mala Bosna where at least I had someone to talk too! After dumping my kit under the stairs where I normally slept I tagged along with Steve to the hospital, he needed a beer and I badly needed some tablets to stop my stomach misbehaving. I handed my rifle to the policeman at the reception, it wasn’t really necessary, but it was part of the ploy so that the EU people could see that weapons were not allowed in the hospital.
I went down the stairs to the cellars with Steve. The parts of the hospital that could be salvaged had all been moved down there. An intensive care department existed, a dentist and a short stay ward were all packed into various rooms. The hospital didn’t keep patients it just stabilised them and shipped them on to other hospitals away from the front line. At the bottom of the stairs on our left was the café that we liked to use. We went into the café and I had a cup of coffee while Steve had his usual beer. When we had finished I went down the corridor in search of a friendly nurse who would give the tablets I needed without any hassle.
My plan went badly wrong my friendly nurse was obviously concerned about the state that I was in. they took me into the ward and ordered me to strip for an examination, as soon as my clothes were off they put them in a bin bag and took them away. I was put in bed given a few tablets and a drip was stuck in my arm, well I didn’t feel to well and hospital food was probably better than the stuff on the front so I let them have their way. By the time dinner arrived I was feeling a lot better and looking forward to a decent meal. I watched as the patients at the end of the cellar were given pasta meat and boiled eggs, I was positively starving! The trolley stopped and I was given a jug of herbal tea (with no sugar) and a few bits of toast! There obviously had been some mistake, so I politely asked about the mix up. A nurse came over and told me I could only have dried bread and cold tea until the bug had passed. I started to eat the toast again the nurse came over, “and you must eat it slowly” she said.
Great this really was an own goal, I had only come in here for some tablets and been side-tracked into taking my clothes off by a nurse. Now they had me prisoner they were going to starve me to death. As soon as my drip ran out I was allowed out of bed to go to the toilet, this was also a chance for me to have a quick fag and try to chat up some nurses. My attempt to chat the nurses up was a waste of time they didn’t really speak that much English, and though I was welcome to sit with them I was still a patient and they wouldn’t let me have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.
So I went back to my bed in the corner of the ward. Due to the lack of space the ward was unisex and a few civilians had beds at the other end of the ward, they didn’t bother me, they all seemed to be old women with one problem or another
One of the patients was an old lady, who had been abandoned by her family when they had evacuated. She was quite old and I think she had senile dementure, she spent the most of the night getting out of bed and wandering round the room shouting and screaming. the nurses would come in and try and get her into bed and calm her down, as soon as they thought she was settled down and they left her, she would get out of bed again and start her commotion again. It was a horrible night, I didn’t get much sleep and when I saw that the breakfast was the same cold tea and toast as yesterday I knew I had to escape. Steve came over in the afternoon with mark and I talked them into getting my clothes back so that I could get out. The nurse wasn’t happy about me discharging myself, but she gave me a few tablets and told me not to eat greasy food or drink alcohol. That was the furthest thing from my mind after the terror of the past day. I went upstairs with Steve and his girlfriend. We went to a bar in town for a few beers. When I got there Steve was having a private joke with Seiko. It turns out that Steve had taken the receiver out of my rifle whilst I was in hospital and he thought that it was the funniest thing in the world, of course I didn’t but chose not to say any thing about it for the time being. We hitched a lift into Djakovo to get a pizza.
Steve was upset when I came back to the house. Someone had been steeling from his kit. His leather jacket was missing and he was not happy. We knew that it could not be one of our lads, because we had nowhere to put it or a use for it. So we decided to lay a little trap. Mark and I took a beer and drank half of it, the other half we refilled with our urine. We put it in one of the outer pouches on Steve’s rucksack where it was obvious it belonged to Steve, yet a tempting target for the thief. By the afternoon it was gone, we never did find out who took it but it was a small conciliation to Steve.

One of perhaps the oldest tricks used in war is to use an enemy’s weapon against him (which is why I advise against taking big knives into battle with you).
Now the claymore mine is a nice directional area weapon. A nice little kidney shaped box capable of spreading death over a 50-meter wide area. The fun thing about them is that you can creep up to the other sides position turn their mines round, fire a few shots at them then fall about laughing as they detonate the mines and blow themselves up! Now anything you can do to them, well they can do it to you.
So, it’s a good idea to check to make sure your mines are the right way round!
I went down the trenches to get close to the positions where the claymore’s were positioned. They were set out some distance from the trenches, so I had to actually get out of the trench to check the mines. Considering there was no direct line of fire from across the maze fields, I thought that this would be a pretty safe option.
As I went forward, I checked the ground to make sure that it was clear and I wasn’t going to tread on something nasty. As I moved something hit the branches of the tree behind me. There was no zip of a passing bullet just the clatter as something went through the branches, it was a bit strange but I didn’t really pay it to much attention and thought that it was a stray bullet fired of in the town coming to ground.
The sound was then followed by another again I didn’t pay it much attention; automatic weapons have large magazines so you should expect more than one to fall. Then one zipped by close over my head; these were not strays, they were very badly aimed sniper fire!
Now snipers I do take personally and this one had made a big mistake. A house on our side over looked the only place he could effectively engage me from. So I ran back into the trench and headed to the road at full steam with the intention of getting to the house before he has the time to move out. Being on my own territory I had the luxury of open movement, where as he being close to our positions he was forced to crawl, in case he drew attention to himself.
With revenge on my mind I hit the road and turned left heading towards the house at the end of the street.
At that precise moment, the first in a string of mortars hit the street. I take my hat of to the man; he knew exactly what I was going to do and where I was going. It is hard to communicate the sheer terror experienced in those few seconds. Though it lasted perhaps all of 15 seconds it seemed a lot longer to me.
As the first one hit the street behind me my ‘instincts’ kicked in. I really started to run faster than I had ever run before in my life. It felt to me as if the world had slowed down and that I just couldn’t run fast enough. The chain of explosions behind me were throwing up bits of debris, to my mind it was like running in football boots with all the mud flicking up behind me.
I actually felt my guts let go. The whole of my intestines seemed to turn to water and drop. I was a hairbreadth from actually shiting myself. The locals in the bunker at the end of the road thought that it was hilarious as the ‘Mali Englez’ came hurtling down the road towards them at mach 4 with the road disintegrating behind him. I for my part had lost all interest in climbing the house to get a good shot at our Serbian friend; my only intention now was to get into the bunker ASAP all thoughts of revenge were now forgotten.
　
DECEMBER 17th 1991 VINKOVCI. Back at the house I found that my Spandau had arrived (nicknamed long tom, as it was a one shot wonder). Another surprise was that Cliff had come back to us. I spent some time stripping and cleaning the Spandau before going for a coffee with Cliff to the hospital, (I was still sick from Goran’s cooking in Osijek) where Cliff was foolish enough to ask for some tablets for the shits. Within minutes they had him naked in bed with a drip in his arm, which amused me no end. I had a glass of wine with the nurses then returned to our position Again this proved difficult due to enemy machine guns.

DECEMBER 18th 1991, VINKOVCI.Went with Robert to help Cliff escape from the hospital before we all went to town shopping and drinking (he took the firing pin out of my rifle I was not at all happy). In the evening, I took out the Spandau to test it. Cliff fired at the known machinegun post in the Serb lines to draw their fire. I started to fire at their muzzle flashes but the gun jammed after one shot. I rolled around trying to clear the jam while bullets whipped up the mud nearby (a quick note here. if I was acting as the decoy why were the bullets kicking up around him? There is poetic licence and bullshiting but it is a very fine line that divides them, one that has been crossed here). Eventually I gave up and beat a hasty retreat. I was covered in mud and panting and I drew a puzzled look from Mile who hadn't heard us firing due to the television. I stripped and cleaned the gun, then found some extra ammo belts, which the lads helped me sort and clean. Should note that we were breaking the cease-fire by doing this.

Mike and I had a day off together. So I decided to take him over to Nustar to meet Goran and see the tank, we hitched a lift into Nustar and were picked up by a passing BVP we went down to the cellar and I climbed onto the turret of the tank to show mike inside. The anti aircraft gun was stuck in the way so I took it by the firing handle to move it out the way as I lifted it up the weapon fired a small burst over towards Borinci the weapons cover was split.

DECEMBER 19th 1991, VINKOVCI. An American with the unlikely name of Colton Perry turned up today. It appears he met Thomas and Neil in Zagreb and they got him a uniform and sent him to join us. I showed him around and then took him to town to see how he behaved after a few beers. It seems he was in the Legion after his service in the U.S. Army. Once downtown we found that someone had bombed 'Dick' bar. After a few beers, we went back to find Neil returned, with a pile of new kit, including a new uniform for me, as a sweetener for being late back from leave. Richard came to visit from Nuštar (actually the military police bring him to us someone has stolen his belt kit Tominac laughs in his face). We went to the hospital where, after a short while, all hell broke loose. Apparently Iceland had recognised Croatia. This caused the Chetniks to bombard us heavily. The hospital was taking a heavy battering and even in the basement things were bad. The nurses were nervous but were very brave all through the shelling. At one point two others decided to go onto the roof and shoot back, but the shelling was so intense that they had to fall back. It was impossible to leave the hospital so we slept in the canteen until things died down.