Aid Memoir. Larry Hollingworth

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СКАЧАТЬ with the convoy spread out before me, we left. The last APC negotiated the first bend and was hit by a BMW car travelling at great speed having negotiated what it thought was the end of the convoy. There was little damage to the APC, a few flecks of white paint had fallen to the floor; the BMW was a write off. I raced across and was on the scene quicker than the APC crew could dismount. I expected to see tragedy, but four exceedingly drunken Bosnian soldiers tippled out of the car forcing the bent doors open with alcoholic force. I was concerned, they were drunk, they probably had been euphoric. This would not be the way they would wish to end the day. But quite the contrary. They staggered, looked at the BMW, looked at the APC and began to giggle.

      By now, I was worrying about exchanging insurance details and thinking of calling for a policeman. The man who had been in the driving seat spoke English. With a “who cares” wave of his hands, he dismissed my apologies and commiserations.

      – Don’t worry Mr. Larry, it is a trophy car. We will go and get another. He had just “liberated” it from the garage of a Serb farmer who had fled. Thank God they had liberated the slivovica as well. Sober, I do not reckon they would have survived the crash. As I motored to catch up with the convoy, I wondered about the car. If farmers in relatively recent capitalist ex-Yugoslavia could run BMW’s, what would they drive if they ever join the Common Market?

      By the time we entered the valley before Rogatica, it was dark. I spoke to the French commander and asked him to stop at the bodies. He agreed. We were not too sure where the bodies were. Distance is deceptive at night. Also, we were worried about some of the debris on the road. There were the tails of mortar bombs which had not been there on our way out. If any mortars had failed to explode, we did not want to drive over them. We motored very slowly.

      It was a night without a moon, but suddenly there was a flash and night became day. The lead vehicle had hit a trip flare. A trip flare without covering fire is useless. A flare on a road usually triggers off an ambush. The French officer was very calm and professional. If I had been the lead vehicle, I would have sped forward with the whole convoy, forget mines, get out of one danger area, worry about the next one if you hit it. He didn’t. He quietly ordered his APC’s to put their spotlights on, thus illuminating the convoy and showing it to be UN. His APCs had taken up static fire positions and were ready to fire heavy machine gun rounds at anything that opened up.

      Nothing opened up. We sat in silence. After a while, I spoke with the French officer. He decided to send the APC ahead to sweep a stretch of road then call us forward. This we did for the next fifteen minutes after which we saw the bodies in the road. They had been moved by the convoy and were more gory. The French officer was not happy to stop and move them. We had had the scare of the flare, moving the bodies may annoy whoever is out there. He then asked,

      – If we stop, who is actually going to do it?

      – I have some plastic sheets from the pallets. We will just pull their bodies onto them and put them on the trucks.

      – I will not let the military help. It is a job which needs gloves and masks. I have spoken with Sarajevo. They have said NO.

      I did not want to do it. I could not do it on my own. It was a dirty job and it did have the risk of attracting fire. But I had told the Serb that we would do it. Also, we had damaged the bodies. But at that time of the night, after the day we had had, I was prepared to hide behind a Sarajevo decision.

      When we arrived in Rogatica it was absolutely deserted. It took ages to find Dragon. I then went to the house of the commander and explained that I had been unable to collect the bodies. I blamed the flare and the threat of an ambush. He told me that the flare was his and that there had been an ambush section in the hill but that it had seen our convoy. He was not upset that I had failed to bring in the bodies. I offered with no enthusiasm to stay and assist in their recovery the following day.

      – No need, we will have them back before dawn. He did. By dawn we were back in Sarajevo.

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