Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness. Martin Bell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ back which, in theory, could track satellites and communicate on the move. The cab resembled Concorde’s flight deck and sported radios, computers and a fax machine. Each of the teams was thus independent, could range throughout Bosnia and communicate with Split. The concept was flawed, however, as there was no room to carry an interpreter. The Cheshires, who had their own liaison officers, unkindly christened them ‘Cumming’s Commandos’. Lastly, there were the international mass media, for the most part reporting from Sarajevo or Central Bosnia, each to their own editors or desks.

      From what we could gather from the blizzard of information presented by Richard Barrons and Chris Lawton, Croatia and B-H were full of people either trying to kill each other, or trying to stop them doing it, or trying to feed those being killed; and, lastly, there were lots of people charging around gathering all sorts of information and telling disparate groups and organisations all about it. A perfect nuthouse.

      All we really wanted to know was who we’d be working for, where and when we’d be off.

      Sam Mattock, our original contact on arrival at Split, brought us all down to earth. We were all farmed out to various locations. To my intense disappointment, I was to stay in Split as COMBRITFOR’s interpreter. ‘Up country’ was where things were happening and the last thing I thought I’d be doing was hanging around Divulje barracks kicking my heels. Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut.

      The remainder of the day was spent drawing Arctic clothing from the quartermaster’s stores and being processed into theatre, largely a matter of paperwork and queuing: the issue of blue UN ID cards, the filling out of next-of-kin forms and the surrender of our medical records to the Orderly Room. In return we were given a UN PX card which entitled us to buy spirits, wine and tobacco each month. Another card recorded the receipt of the only financial allowance in theatre – telephone money rated at $1.28 a day. This was supposed to offset the personal costs of phoning home. We were also issued, as medical aid, a 15mg morphine autojet syrette in its green polythene sleeve, which lived around one’s neck taped to the ID disc chain. Finally we signed for a pistol and thirty-nine rounds of 9mm ammunition, though these were kept locked in the armoury and only issued when needed.

      Divulje barracks was a large camp situated between the airport and the bay. Pre-war it had been home to a JNA air defence regiment and a seaborne special forces unit. As the rump of the JNA withdrew from Croatia into Bosnia and Serbia they had smashed up their barracks, ripped out fittings, broken windows, and, to ensure that they remained uninhabitable, had mined and booby-trapped the buildings and un-Tarmaced areas. When BRITFOR had first arrived the entire force, less the Cheshires’ Battle Group, which deployed straight up country, had been accommodated in the Hotel Medina while the Royal Engineers made Divulje habitable and safe in a rudimentary way.

      BRITFOR occupied five large, three-storey buildings in the north-eastern corner of the camp. Three were Messes – officers’, warrant officers’ and sergeants’, and 845 NAS. Another served as the HQ building while the fifth belonged to the HQ’s signal squadron. A central cookhouse fed all ranks on a rotational basis. Each of the long rectangular blocks was identical in build: three storeys high, at the end of each floor a large room, accessed by stone stairs, with a walk-out balcony. The room led to a long, gloomy corridor off which were a mass of rabbit hutch rooms or offices, depending on the function of the building. In the south-western corner of the camp was the helicopter dispersal area, hangars and 845’s Portakabin offices.

      The remainder of the camp’s buildings were given over to an HV unit of dubious identification. At least part of the unit was HOS, reputed to be the fanatical element of the HV and identified for the most part by its predilection for black uniforms and even blacker operations. A number of their members were foreigners from European countries including the UK and Eire. We were warned to keep well away from them. All official business was conducted between HQ BRITFOR and the camp’s HV commandant. The relationship was never an easy one and I suspect the Croats tolerated the British only because the latter had cleaned up the camp and were now paying through the nose for the privilege of using it. The pretence of mutual tolerance was only ever evident in that British and HV troops jointly manned the front gate.

      Sam Mattock was immensely friendly, cheerful and likeable, and always did his best to make me feel part of the team. When he told me of a New Year’s Eve party to which I was invited, I wasn’t too keen to go. I knew no one except John Chisholm, who, I discovered, was in charge of the United Kingdom Liaison Officers, UKLOs. Sam assured me that the Villa Sanda, on Ciovo island, was ‘an interesting place’ and that the evening would be a good laugh. On the grounds that it would at least be a good way to meet people, I reluctantly accepted his invitation.

      The restaurant was humming, crammed to capacity. The BRITFOR group was seated at a long table running the length of the room. Brigadier Cumming was at the far end, barely visible through a haze of smoke and a forest of green wine bottles. The more junior staff officers were seated at the other end, noisily cracking into the most enormous lobsters I’d ever seen. The rest of the restaurant was given up to two equally large parties of Croats who were doing their best to ignore us. The evening had started in the Mess, then a minibus had shuttled the party of about thirty to the Villa Sanda, about twenty minutes drive from Divulje. By the time we reached the restaurant, we were pretty well lubricated.

      The waitresses were all stunning, absolutely gorgeous, smiling and grinning, plump breasts bouncing above platters as they skipped between the tables. Must be something in the water I decided. They were all like that even in Split itself. With nothing to do during the day, five of us had begged a lift into Split, some twenty kilometres away, on the pretext that we needed ‘to look for dictionaries’ and had spent most of the afternoon sitting at an outdoor café on the southern harbour, watching the world and the women of Split sauntering by. There hadn’t been one who couldn’t have instantly appeared, without cosmetic alteration, on the front cover of a Western glossy. Small wonder that a Split girl had won Miss Europe that year and that the city would hang onto the title for the next four years, despite the war. It was definitely the water.

      ‘Hey, Sam.’ I caught his attention. He was sitting three down from me. ‘These women! What do they do with the ugly ones? Send them up to the front line?’

      His mouth full, eyes laughing, he said, ‘You haven’t worked it out, have you? Why do you think they keep disappearing upstairs?’

      I had no idea. ‘I suppose there’s a restaurant upstairs … I dunno.’

      Sam sniggered. He could barely contain himself. ‘They’re pros, Mike, y’know, whores … restaurant downstairs, knocking shop upstairs. Probably doing the bizzo with their clients between courses!’ He was almost shouting.

      ‘You’re kidding!?’

      ‘Nope. It’s true. Whole place is mad. It’s the war. They’re not even locals, these girls. They’re Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, y’know … The Wall comes down, nothing at home but a depressed economy and … flutter, flutter, flutter down here to the war where there’s easy money … place is run by the mafia like everything else …,’ he paused for a moment, his fork hovering inches from his mouth,‘… but it’s still the best restaurant in Trogir and it’s got its very own night club.’

      As if on cue the door burst open and one of the local yobbos barged his way into the restaurant. He was a Neanderthal – six foot four, thickset, huge head with black, close-set, unintelligent eyes and a skinhead crop. He wore jeans, trainers and a cheap blue and white donkey jacket with a fluffy white fake fur collar. The black FN assault rifle, which he slammed down on the small wooden bar, completed this picture, but the bar girl seemed to know him and a glass of beer miraculously appeared in his paw. He glared around the restaurant, fixing those horrid little eyes, so full of contempt and hatred, on the British table. Clearly his entrance hadn’t caused the stir he’d expected as celebrations continued unabated. He gulped down his СКАЧАТЬ