Читать книгу Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness - Martin Bell - Страница 12

October 1997 – Ian, UK

I’m sitting down, leaning forward, my stomach a fire of anger and fear. Legs crossed, one foot kicking uncontrollably.

I’m fiddling like mad with my watch strap. I can feel the fire welling up about to engulf me. I’m struggling to suppress tears of rage and frustration. I’m trying to explain but I’m just burbling incoherently. The man opposite me is a saint. I’ve met him before – in a past life. I mean, he’s seen me before, after the first time. He’s a lieutenant colonel, also a psychiatrist, the only one worth seeing. His name is Ian. He’s got a clipboard and a pen, but he’s not writing. He’s just looking at me, listening to me ranting.

‘I should have come to see you a long time ago, but I couldn’t. You just can’t … I mean, you try and get on with your life, put the past in a box and sit on the lid by busying yourself … of course, they’ll always tell you that the support is there – all you have to do is ask. But it’s not really there at all … let me tell you, your sort of help is virtually inaccessible.’

‘How do you mean, Milos?’ He’s frowning.

‘It’s the culture … it’s a cultural thing.’

‘Culture?’

‘Culture, macho Army culture. Can you understand what I’m saying? Y’know, you’re a major in the Parachute Regiment or whatever. In that culture you can’t show weakness or flaws. No one can. You’re supposed to be strong. So you wander around keeping it all inside, pretending everything’s okay … you bluff those around you, you bluff yourself …’ I’m close to tears now, ‘… but deep down you know you’re not well. You’re ill and need help but you can’t ask for it because you’re trapped in a straitjacket which is put on you by your peers, by the culture, by yourself … because you are the culture …’

‘So, why are you here now, Milos?’ his voice is soft and gentle, probing. ‘Why did you ask to see me?’

I stare out of the window at the sea. Why indeed? It’s choppy and green-grey. The waves are flecked with white horses. Why? The nightmare of the last five days flashes through my mind. It had been an unimaginable nightmare – it still is – and had it not been for Niki, my girlfriend, I’m not sure I’d be sitting here with Ian.

I’d held myself together long enough to answer their questions. They hadn’t finished with my house until past six in the evening. The questioning – in an interview room, all taped – had started at six thirty. Fortunately Issy, my solicitor, and I had been able to see the questions beforehand. It was all about phone numbers, phone calls to the former Yugoslavia, just as I’d expected. Most were instantly explicable and innocuous. It boiled down to three which weren’t. I told them the truth, but not all of it. I couldn’t bring myself to start talking about the List and about Rose and Smith. They’d have to find that out for themselves. The interview had lasted for no more than about twenty minutes, after which one of the policemen unexpectedly announced that I was on police bail. Just like that.

Curiously, he’d looked at his watch. ‘We’ll get this thing wrapped up by Christmas, so, let’s say bailed until eleven o’clock on 11 December – back here at Guildford police station.’ I was stunned. Oh, you’re confident of yourself, mate. Think you’ll get this cracked in a couple of months? You’re about to open up a real can of Balkan worms.

Before Issy left and I was handed back to the Army, she let slip two snippets of information – something about the Bosnian ambassador making a complaint and that the police had mentioned that they’d seized my diary from Bosnia, which apparently contained ‘evidence of disaffection with the West’s policies’.

After the questioning, I was led to another room where two colonels from Bracknell were waiting. One was in a suit and the other, a very tall, thin Guards officer, was in uniform. The Guards officer simply read out a typewritten statement from Bracknell to the effect that, due to the serious nature of my arrest, my vetting had been revoked and I therefore could not continue on the course. Forthwith I’d be posted to the Parachute Regiment’s headquarters in Aldershot. With that he dropped the paper into his brief-case, snapped it shut and brushed past me without so much as glancing in my direction. I felt like dirt, a leper standing there with no tie or belt.

The other colonel, Dennis Hall, was kinder. He explained that he’d been tasked to look after me. He asked me not to discuss the case with him and, with that, his driver drove us the ten miles to Farnham. It was dark and raining heavily.

My house had been taken apart. They’d removed just about anything they could lay their hands on. On the table lay a number of blue seizure of property forms. The words ‘OPERATION BRETTON’ were printed across the top of each. They had mounted an operation against me.

I’d quickly scanned the house. None of it really made sense. Why had they left that? That would have been useful to them. Why had they taken a whole pile of novels and Latin textbooks, and a sheaf of sandpaper? What possible purpose could they serve? Why had they taken that picture but left that one? Then I spotted it.

They left a Coke can in the kitchen. I don’t drink Coke at home – ever. They were drinking and eating while ransacking my house and then left their rubbish behind. A specialist search team? Nothing but a bunch of incompetents. They’re not professionals, they’re just Plod from the MoD.

I’d found a bottle of red wine in the fridge. At least they hadn’t touched that. Having opened it I then rang my mother. I had to. She was alone in Cornwall.

‘What!! Milos, I don’t believe it! After all you’ve done for them …’ Her voice was cracking and breaking over the connection. Then she got angry, ‘It’s the Muslims, Milos, the Muslims and the Americans!’

Things happen either by cock-up or by conspiracy. In my experience, usually the former. In any event the phone was probably tapped so I asked her not to jump to any conclusions and told her that a mistake had probably been made. I didn’t believe a word of it and neither did she. We agreed not to tell my sister.

Half an hour later L-P, a friend from the Army, called from a bar in London. He’d been interviewed by the MoD Police while I’d been in my cell. ‘Milos, don’t worry. I’m behind you all the way. One hundred per cent.’ He couldn’t discuss anything, certainly not over the phone. I didn’t want to know anyway. All he had to do was tell the truth. I trust him with my life. His call perked me up slightly.

As I polished off the wine I stared at what was left of my house. It wasn’t mine anymore. It was theirs now – they’d taken my life, my mementoes, dismantled my museum and carted off a large part of me. I was a squatter in my own home. I felt hollow and sick – this is what it must feel like to be violated!.

I awoke the next morning curled up in a little sweating ball. I’d had another of those vivid dreams from over there. Everything was an effort; dragging myself out of bed, shaving – I’m staring at myself in the mirror, mindlessly pulling the razor across my face. I’m staring into my eyes. I can still look at myself in the mirror, because I know the truth. But I feel like shit. I’ve got this horrible squirming, sinking feeling in my stomach. I feel weak, sweaty and queasy. I stare at myself, razor frozen in mid stroke – Traitor? No.

I smoked a couple of cigarettes. At nine-thirty Colonel Hall arrived to take me to Bracknell to clear out my room. Before we reached the car he stopped, looked around and said in a low voice, ‘Look, I’m breaking the rules by saying this … don’t feel as though you’re on your own in this. You’re not. A lot of people are backing you on this but they can’t tell you. People like Rose and Smith cast long shadows.’ It was something to cling to.

When we arrived at Bracknell the students were in a lecture. Just as well because I didn’t want to see any of them. Plod had gutted my room – laptop, printer, keyboard, monitor, books, books, books – all issued – gone. Gone also one copy of Playboy, my Service Dress jacket and my medals. They’d even unpicked my miniatures from my Mess Dress jacket.

It took me less than half an hour to pack up my room. We then drove back to Farnham in convoy. I dumped my stuff without bothering to unpack it and jumped in with Colonel Dennis. Next stop Regimental Headquarters, The Parachute Regiment in Aldershot to see my new Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Joe Poraj-Wilczynski, the Regimental Colonel. We’re old friends. He was shocked, didn’t really know what it was all about. All he’d heard was that I’d been arrested, kicked out of Staff College and that I was to be under him for welfare matters. Joe gave me a cup of coffee and Colonel Dennis returned to Bracknell saying he’d send his driver back for me. I still had to collect the motorbike.

Joe and I chatted for about an hour. He explained that, as my CO, he couldn’t be privy to any details about the case and that we’d have to confine our conversations to other matters. This was a blow. I was rapidly running out of people to talk to.

The driver took me back to Bracknell. When we arrived I discovered that I had to go and see my Divisional Colonel, Colonel Hamish Fletcher, also a Para and an old acquaintance. As I walked into his office he stood up and just stared at me. It looked as though he’d been crying, but he hadn’t – bad flu. Concern and worry were etched across his face.

‘Has someone stitched you up, Milos?’

‘Don’t know, Colonel.’ Really I didn’t.

He continued, ‘I’m not supposed to say this to you or talk to you about it but, when you were arrested we had a meeting with them and I told him in no uncertain terms. I told the spook that …’

‘Spook? Y’sure, Colonel? It was MoD Police who arrested me.’

‘No, this guy was definitely a spook and I told him, “You better make sure you’ve got this right. He’s thirty-four, last chance at Staff College, and you’ve just blown his career apart. If you’ve got this wrong he could just turn round, resign and sue the MoD!”’

I blanched. Thanks for the support, but I wish you hadn’t said that. Now they’ll be under added pressure to prove a case, to fabricate something.

‘Your posting order’s being sorted out now. I’m popping over to Aldershot this afternoon with it. Where will you be?’ I told him I’d wait in Joe’s office and with that I went, collected the bike and sped off to Aldershot.

Colonel Joe had some more unpleasant news for me. He produced a long secret signal which he’d received from someone in the MoD. It was a set of Draconian instructions detailing what I could and couldn’t do. I was forbidden from having any contact with anyone in the Services and discussing the case. If I did they’d be obliged instantly to record the details of the conversation and report them to the MoD Plod. But I was free to organise my own defence!

Colonel Hamish arrived at five with the paperwork. He told me that General Rupert Smith had phoned him from Northern Ireland and that his first question had been, ‘Has he been spying for the Serbs?’ Colonel Hamish had told him ‘no’.

‘Well, you told him right, Colonel. I haven’t been spying for the Serbs!’

Before I left for Farnham, Joe asked me if there was anything he could do for me on the welfare front. I’d thought about it long and hard in the cell and throughout the day.

‘There’s only one thing I want right now, Colonel. I want to see a doctor, and not just any doctor.’ I told him about Ian. Joe wanted to see me on Monday. Till then I was free to do my own thing.

I arrived home at five-thirty with a splitting headache. I hadn’t eaten for forty-eight hours but I wasn’t in the least bit hungry. I tried to turn the key but the front door was already unlocked. Niki was lying on the sofa with Frankie, her dog. She’d come down from London for the night. She had a christening in Camberley the next day and we’d made the arrangement the previous weekend. She smiled brightly at me. ‘I’m bored with this revision. How’s your day been?’ She had an Open University exam to sit on the following Wednesday.

I sat down heavily in the armchair, loosened my tie and just stared at her. She frowned.

‘Notice anything different about the house, Niki?’

Her frown deepened. ‘No, not really. Well, sort of cleaner, less junk. Come to think of it, have you had a clearout?’

‘Sort of …’ I closed my eyes and took a deep breath – here goes! – ‘Nix, I was arrested for espionage on Thursday … I’m on police bail …’

She stared back at me uncomprehendingly. The next four days were a nightmare, so bad that I can’t recall them.

And now I’m sitting in front of this bloke Ian, who’s asking me why I’m here. I’m staring out of the window wondering why there are no yachts out there on the sea. Must be at least a force six – perfect perfect day for a sail … Why am I here?

‘Why am I here, Ian? … I’ll tell you why. I’m here because I’ve got nothing left, nothing. That’s why I’m here.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘That’s right, nothing!’ I struggle to control my voice. ‘Look! The Army’s a great life-support machine. It provides you with all sorts of crutches … well, life-jackets really. They keep you afloat and everything looks fine to the casual observer …’

‘Life-jackets?’

‘Precisely that. The uniform is a life-jacket, so is the job. They prop you up and keep you going … you know, you stick on the uniform and the beret and bingo! You’re a company commander. But when you take off the uniform, when you get home in the evenings or at the weekend and you step through the front door – alone – you step back into the museum and the pause button on the machine in your head gets pressed. The tape starts running again, and you’re back there. You’re somebody else and you’re back there. Everything else is irrelevant because being back there is more real.’

‘Where’s there, Milos?’

‘The Dark Side, Ian. You’re back on the Dark Side. That’s what we called Serb-held territory. That’s it then, by day or during the week you’re a major, Parachute Regiment, MBE, company commander or student. But at night or during the weekends you’re somebody else, you’re Stanley again … Mike Stanley, fixer, useful tool. You won’t believe this, Ian, but people still ring me up and call me “Mike”. Geordie does all the time. And I still get letters dropping onto the carpet addressed to this person called Mike Stanley … there are still people out there who don’t know me as anything other than Mike Stanley!’

‘And now? Who are you now?’ he asks gently.

I think hard. I’m not sure of the answer. ‘I’m both, Ian. Or maybe I’m nothing … a hybrid, a monster.’

I lapse into silence. I’m fiddling with the bezel of my watch – round and round and round, click, click, click, click, click, click. Ian’s waiting for me to say something. A thought enters my head and makes me instantly furious. I look directly at Ian.

‘I still can’t believe it, really, I can’t … I mean, you can’t dream up a more tragic joke. It’s a sick joke!’

‘What is?’

‘Names, Ian. Our names! I mean, I can’t believe it. We’ve got thirty years experience in Northern Ireland, thirty years of living with the terrorist threat, thirty years of developing systems and procedures for personal security, of protecting people’s identities … and what do we do with all that experience? Do we transfer it to the Balkans … ?’ I’m gulping for air. I didn’t wait for him to answer,‘… do we hell!! D’you know what names they gave the three of us? The first two they called Abbott and Costello. Can you believe it? And then I flew out as Laurel and then they changed my name to Stanley … Abbott, Costello, Laurel and Stanley. Big joke, Ian. Very funny if it wasn’t so serious. It’s our lives they’re playing with!’ I’m breathless, furious, almost shouting.

And then quietly, ‘Ian, Abbott was blown after only three months there. The Croats found out who he was, threatened to kill him, just because he was a Serb. He was removed from theatre within twenty-four hours. He never came back.’ I lapse back into silence. Staring at my boots. Big joke.

‘Has it always been like this, Milos?’

‘Like what?’

‘This double life of yours. Has it got progressively worse or has it stayed the same? You’ve been back two-and-a-half years now …’

I’m not sure what to say. I think hard for a moment, ‘...’ 95 was quite bad, the last half of ‘95. I had a naff job with the Territorial Army up north, did a parachute refresher course, my Company Commanders Course. It sort of kept me busy, but I was back there when I wasn’t busy. 1996 was so busy, that’s when I was Company Commanding in 1 PARA – twice in the States, once in Northern Ireland, once in France, in between exercises. Just didn’t stop, I wasn’t on the Dark Side much. Thought I’d cracked it. Put all my demons in the box and locked the lid.’

‘And?’

‘And then, Ian, I went to Shrivenham. Nightmare. Suddenly you’re a student along with ninety-nine others, all on an equal footing. No responsibility, except for yourself; no soldiers to look after; no careers to manage. This year has been a nightmare. It’s just got worse and worse. More and more polarised. It’s the routine.’

‘Routine?’

‘Predictable, bloody routine. Monday morning to Friday afternoon you’re a student. Live in a room there. Work hard. Drink Diet Coke only, watch the diet and become an obsessive fitness fanatic.’

‘And then?’

‘And then, get home Friday evening. Walk through the door of the museum. Tape starts playing and I’m there again on the Dark Side. Sink a bottle of red wine, stagger up to the pub, few pints of Guinness …’

‘How many?’

‘Five or six maybe. Sometimes I get a kebab, sometimes I forget to eat all weekend. Saturday’s the same. So’s Sunday. I’m there on the Dark Side with all my friends, dead and alive. And then Monday morning I drive to Shriven ham where I’m a student again, for another four and a half days. And that was my life. You keep it all inside you.’

There’s a long silence. ‘That’s why I’m here, Ian. I’m here because when something like this happens, something big that explodes your fragile world, something that removes all your crutches and life-jackets …’ I can feel tears welling, that’s when you realise that all those things were nothing, that you’re still where you’ve always been – on the Dark Side … ’

‘Is that where you are now?’

I shrug, not trusting myself to speak. Not really knowing the answer.

Another long silence. Ian very quietly, ‘Do you want to come back?’

I can’t speak. I nod my head and then shake it. I really don’t know.

Ian’s scribbling something. I try to get a grip of myself.

‘How do you see the future?’ he asks quietly.

‘Sorry?’ He’s suddenly changed tack and caught me by surprise.

‘Do you see a future for yourself? I mean how do you see your future?’

‘I don’t. There isn’t one. There is no future on the Dark Side. I suppose I’ve been drifting ever since I got back. I’m still there, but I’m back. Does that make sense?’

Ian nods. We’ve been at it over an hour. Me burbling, him listening and making the occasional note.

I’m staring out at the sea again. It’s getting dark there. Winter’s definitely on its way. It’s dark, cold and lonely out there. Ian’s asking me a whole load of practical questions: sleep patterns, dreams, panic attacks? Alcohol intake, diet? How’s your libido? Sex life? Steady relationship? I answer him as best I can, but I don’t take my eyes off the sea. My answers are automatic. I know myself so well by now, I don’t even have to think about the answers.

‘If we’re to do any meaningful work we need some sort of structure to work from. When did you last see me?’ He sounds quite businesslike now.

I’m still looking at the sea. ‘November ’93 after my first year there.’

‘That’s right. I’ve got the notes somewhere, but I think it would help if you took me through it … from the beginning …’

‘The beginning?’ The beginning? When was that? Where did it begin? This century? Last century? When I was born? The recruiting office in Plymouth? It began all over the place. Where to start? Kuwait in the desert, that’s as good a place as any.

‘Milos?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did it start? What was it like?’ What was it like?

I tear my eyes from the sea and stare at Ian. I don’t really see him. What was it like?

I’m speaking slowly now, more measured. ‘It started in Kuwait and turned into a living nightmare. It was a completely upside down world – Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass – warped, weird, back-to-front. I can’t begin to explain what it was like.’

‘Well, why don’t you just tell me about the job? Start there.’

‘Job? Interpreter?’ I pause for a moment. Was that it? Just that? ‘Only for a short while, Ian, just at the beginning.’ I’d hated interpreting. It had given me hideous headaches and in any case I just didn’t have that computer-like brain that the job requires.

‘Well, what was your job then?’ What was it? How do you describe it? It doesn’t exist in any job description that the Army has ever heard of. What was it … in a nutshell? I’m thinking hard now and it comes, absurd though it sounds.

‘Ian, I was a fixer.’

‘A fixer?’

‘Yeah, that’s right – a fixer, a sort of go-between … for the UN, for Rose and Smith … you know “go-and-wave-your-magic-wand” stuff.’

‘That’s the job they gave you?’ He sounds incredulous.

‘No, not really. It sort of just happened by accident. It evolved I guess … by accident.’

‘Okay then, but what exactly did it involve?’ I can see he’s not getting it.

‘Involve? Just about everything. As I’ve just said: “go and wave your magic wand at the Serbs … fix this … sort that problem out … get ’em to see it this way … get the hostages released …” on and on and on. There was no job description, just sort of made it up as I went along.’

‘How?’

‘History, that’s how. By prostituting myself, not my body … but my history, my family history … I was a sort of historical prostitute. I prostituted my background and my soul to get close to those people.’

‘Which people?’

‘The Serbs. Just them. Hid it from the others, the Muslims and Croats. They’d have killed me had they found out. They tried to kill Nick Abbott. This is serious shit, Ian. You don’t fuck around with these people.’

‘Did it work? I mean, this prostitution.’

‘Did it work? Did it! Why do you think I spent two years out there? It worked all right … worked a treat. It was a sort of Barclaycard, y’know, gets you in anywhere. Gets you into their mentality and into their minds. Problem is, once you’re in you end up playing mind games with them.’

‘Mind games?’

‘That’s right. Three-D mental chess. Trouble is, once you’re in their minds, they’re in yours too … they’re still there, that lot … and you engage in this bizarre struggle of wills. Did it work? Too bloody well. It worked too well and that’s the problem. It just never ends.’

‘How do you mean too well?’

‘Too well means that you become a sort of useful tool and everyone wants a bit of you. As I said, it’s never over. It never ends.’

‘But you’ve been back a while now, Milos. Surely it’s over.’

‘It’s never over. You know, you come back. No one bothers to debrief you. No one grabs you and tells you it’s over. So, you drift along never really sure whether you’re going back or not. No one tells you a thing. You just don’t know.’

‘But surely you’d started a new job, done your courses. Surely that’s enough?’ This is getting exasperating. He’s just not getting it.

‘No it isn’t. Listen,’ I can feel the anger rising again, ‘I come back and guess what? Two months later I’m at this wedding. Mark Etherington’s marrying Chelsea Renton, the MP’s daughter. I’m at this wedding, this is mid-June 1995, and General Mike Jackson comes up to me, he’s the bloke I delivered all those parcels for, on behalf of his au pair …’

‘What parcels?’

‘I was Postman Pat out there, but I’ll tell you about that later. I even fixed up a meeting for him with Mladic once, but anyway, so he comes up to me at the wedding and slaps me on the back and says, “Ah, Milos, well done, good to see you back ... done more than anyone could have asked of you … no need for you to go back … got a good career to crack on with … get yourself to Staff College etc etc etc …” and then what?’

‘Go on.’

‘Six and a half months later, on 2 January 1996, on the day that I’ve taken over command of A Company 1 PARA in Aldershot, I get this phone call. It’s Will Buckley, the Regimental Adjutant, and he says to me, “General Jackson’s been pinged to be the IFOR Commander Multinational Division South West in Bosnia and has asked for you to go out with him.” Can you believe it? One minute it’s one thing and the next it’s quite another. So, you see, it’s never really over. You just don’t know … ’

‘Why didn’t you go back out?’

‘Simple. The Muslims would have killed me. Jackson’s not the only one. Three months after that we get a new second-in-command in 1 PARA – Paul, who has just come from a staff job in the MoD and he tells me that, at the same time Jackson was asking for me, his boss, who is also pinged to deploy his HQ into Sarajevo also asks for me – “let’s get Stanley out. He’ll give us the inside track on the Serbs.” See what I mean …’ I’m shouting at him again, ‘… which is it? I mean, what do these people want? One minute they give you an MBE for your work out there. The next they arrest you as a spy! Who’s mad here? Me or them?’ I lapse into silence, exhausted.

We stare at each other. ‘No, Ian – that’s the way we did that. Historical prostitute … funny if it wasn’t so tragic, being a prostitute.’

Ian’s picked up his board again. He doesn’t bother writing while I’m raving at him. He’s talking softly now, ‘Let’s forget about Bosnia for a moment. Why don’t you tell me about your family? Let’s start with that, shall we. That seems to be the root of all this.’ His voice is very soothing, compelling, almost narcotic.

‘My family! Have you got all night? There’s more history here than anyone can cope with. Sure you’re up to it?’

‘Only if you are.’

‘We’ve been at it for most of the century. All over the place. Even the Army can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be. On my PAMPUS computer record they’ve got me down as “BRIT NAT/FOREIGN” for my nationality at birth and current nationality. What’s that supposed to mean? “FOREIGN”?’

Ian just shrugs. There’s no answer to that sort of question.

‘I suppose it’s their way of labelling someone if they can’t work out where they’re really from. You’ve got to sympathise with them to a certain extent. It’s a nightmare trying to work out what’s what in our family this century.’

‘So, tell me about it.’

‘Okay. Best place to start is with my maternal grandmother, Jessie Constance Millar Rowan. A Scot. I suppose that’s what the Army means by “FOREIGN”. She was from a wealthy Ayrshire family who were shipping-line owners in the last century. Of course, she had the best schooling – Paris and Cheltenham Ladies – and pretty much did nothing other than look after a menagerie at home and drive around Scotland. She was somewhat eccentric, though. She had no brothers, so in a peculiar sort of way became the son her father never had. She’d sit there with him after dinner, at the age of fifteen, smoking cigars and drinking port. She also wore a monocle for some reason. When the Great War broke out she nursed with the VADs in France and then in Malta during the Gallipoli campaign. After that she had a brief but disastrous driving job in London with the War Office from which she was sacked for being rude to an American general whom she’d accused of coming into the war three years too late. That wasn’t the end of her driving career, though. She ended up as a Scottish Women’s Hospital ambulance driver on the Salonika front in the Balkans where the British, French and Serbs were holding the line in the Macedonian mountains. There she met her future husband, a Serbian officer called Vladimir Ilija Dusmanic.

‘He was from a grand Belgrade family. His father had been Minister for Education in Nikola Pasic’s government in Serbia. Both Vladimir and his younger brother, Branko, were educated at the Pazhovski Institute in Russia. He went on to study law in Moscow but was recalled to Serbia in 1911 when the Balkan war against the Turks broke out. Branko never returned from Russia. He was at one of the Tzar’s cadet academies and disappeared in the Revolution, no doubt eliminated by the Bolsheviks. My grandmother met Vladimir Dusmanic on the Salonika front. He was close friends with Prince Alexander, who later became King of Yugoslavia. He was in uniform for the best part of eight years, by the end of which he’d been decorated with the Milos Obilic Gold medal for Valour, the VC equivalent. Nice, but his education had been blown to bits by all these wars.

‘He and my grandmother lost touch at the end of the war. She went back to her pets in Scotland and he was sent to Paris to finish off his law studies. After that he joined the diplomatic service and was posted to London where he was the Third Secretary at the Serbian Legation. From there he tracked down Constance, pursued her to Scotland and they were married in Ayr in 1920. That was just the beginning of it.

‘He left the diplomatic service because the thought of rushing around Europe with my grandmother’s pets was too much for him. He went back to law in Belgrade where they built a home in Dedinje, just opposite what is now Milosevic’s palace, and settled down. They had four children – three daughters, of which my mother was the second, and a son. Most were actually born in Scotland.’

‘How come?’

‘Oh, don’t think they lived in penury in Belgrade. They had an extraordinary life. At least once a year they’d jump into the Bentley and drive from Belgrade to Ayr. It only took four days. On one occasion my grandmother was escort for ten days to the Duchess of York, when she and the future King George VI were visiting Belgrade in the early 1920s. So, all in all, they were pretty well-connected at court. The children received English and then Swiss finishing school educations, though they were removed from Switzerland as Nazism took hold of Germany and it looked as though Europe was heading towards another war. At the end of March 1941 they had to escape from Yugoslavia.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s obvious. Germany was about to attack in the Balkans. My grandfather was back in uniform as a lieutenant colonel and was the Royal Yugoslav Army’s liaison officer in the British Embassy in Belgrade. A few days prior to the German bombing of Belgrade and the invasion of Yugoslavia the Brits warned my grandfather and told him to get his family out of the country. Any family with connections at court was earmarked for liquidation by the Nazis. So he rang my grandmother, told her to get the children packed – one suitcase each – and to leave that very day. And that’s exactly what happened. They grabbed what they could and fled south by train that same night. My grandmother never saw her husband again after that call from the British Embassy. He stayed on to fight the Germans and died in 1943.’

‘What happened to your grandmother?’

‘She and the four children escaped by train, south to Istanbul initially and then over the Bosphorus into Asia Minor and down to the port of Mersin in southern Turkey. They stayed in Mersin for nearly a week hoping to catch a refugee ship across the Med to Palestine. Half of middle Europe was mooching about in Mersin having fled from the Germans. Eventually, they got passage on the Warshawa, a chartered refugee ship that was crammed with all sorts of aristocracy on the move out of Europe. Four days later they landed in Haifa, Palestine, where the British gave them refugee status and provided them with accommodation.’

‘And that’s where they sat out the war?’

‘Sat out? Hardly. All four children joined up with British Forces Middle East. Yvan, the youngest, lied about his age and got into the Royal Signals. The youngest daughter, Tatjana, joined the Royal Navy as a Wren, while my mother and her elder sister both joined the ATS and were posted to Cairo. My mother became a driver, initially moving tanks about large depots, then graduating to motorcycle dispatch rider and finally ending up driving ambulances during the battle of El Alamein. Her sister worked in SOE Cairo, on account of her Serbo-Croat, where she married a British officer called Rocky. He was an SOE agent and member of Force 133 which fought for Tito against the Germans in the Adriatic. Even got an uncle who fought there in the last war.’

‘So, your aunt was the only one involved on the Yugoslav side of things?’

‘Initially yes, but eventually my mother was roped into it too, again because she could speak the language. She was posted to a large refugee camp in the Sinai desert which was packed with Croat refugees. From there she was moved into Dr McPhail’s “Save the Children” Unit. By the end of 1944 they were in southern Italy preparing to go back to Yugoslavia with their ambulances as part of UNRRA, the United Nations Refugee Rehabilitation Administration. The first ever UN mission. Ironic that my mother should have been sent to Yugoslavia. In March 1945 she landed in Dubrovnik with her ambulance and spent the remainder of that year driving around Bosnia, Hercegovina and Montenegro dispensing aid to orphans. At one stage she managed to get up to Belgrade to check on the house. There was nothing left of it. German nurses had used it during the war but when the Russians arrived in Belgrade they’d used it as accommodation for a platoon. The Russians had stolen everything and defecated in every conceivable corner of the house.

‘She was eventually demobbed and returned to England to join her mother, sisters and brother, who were also now “out”. They lived for a while in Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire. Mum did Russian at the School of Eastern European and Slavonic Languages and even got a job as an interpreter in the 1948 London Olympics. Grandmother’s health wasn’t good, though. It was a combination of ill-health and poor English weather which forced them to emigrate to Rhodesia. They bought ten acres just north of Salisbury, built a house and settled down to grow flowers. My grandmother died in 1957, well before I was born. I never knew her, nor my grandfather who was left behind in Yugoslavia and died before the end of the war. In fact I never knew any of my grandparents, not even on my father’s side – all because of the last war really.’

‘And you end up in Bosnia fifty years later with the UN.’

‘Correct. Three generations, all fiddling around in the Balkans during three different wars. A novelist couldn’t have written that one.’

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that your father was in the UN as well.’ Ian’s laughing.

‘No. That side of the story’s quite different. There are parallels with my mother’s side of the family, but nothing as grand and aristocratic. His father also fought on the Salonika front in the First World War, but as a warrant officer in the artillery. But that’s not to say he was a peasant or anything like that. In fact he was an agricultural specialist who’d been university trained in Prague before the War. They came from a small village in Sumadija called Mrcajevci, in Central Serbia. No great connections at court. My father was born in Kraljevo in 1920. His mother died when he was very young and he was brought up by his two older sisters, the eldest of whom was killed during an Allied bombing raid in 1943. He was educated in Skopje in Macedonia where he was studying law when the Germans invaded. He’d been politically active throughout the 1930s and had been a staunch anti-Communist and supporter of the King.

‘When the Germans invaded King Peter fled to London in April 1941 and set up a government in exile. The likes of my father stayed on to fight. You could write a book about what went on in Yugoslavia during the war and still not understand it. Although the Germans occupied the Balkans and fostered Fascism in Croatia, which included in those days all of Bosnia and Hercegovina, they were quite happy to allow the locals to fight it out amongst themselves in a bloody civil war. My father joined the Serbian Volunteer Corps, a Royalist outfit fighting Tito’s Communists. He was one of the original volunteers. By the end of the war he was a company commander in an infantry regiment. The commanding officer of his battalion, Ratko Obradovic, eventually became my godfather but was assassinated in an underground car park in Munich in 1968 by Tito’s UDBA assassins.’

‘Assassinated!’

‘That’s right. Tito couldn’t tolerate anti-Communist opposition from the émigré community, so he had them murdered. The Royalists and Chetniks, under Draza Mihajlovic, were forced to fight a rearguard action withdrawing from Yugoslavia. Some went north to Austria, others, like my father’s battalion, went west into Italy. In fact, his war ended on 5 May 1945 when he conducted the last bridge demolition guard of the war. They were holding the bridge over the river Soca, which marked the border between Slovenia and Italy. The bridge had been prepared for demolition and my father’s company was on the Slovenian side holding that end of the bridge in order to allow as many refugees as possible to get across into Italy. Russian tanks eventually appeared and they were forced to leg it over into Italy and blow the bridge. End of his war.

‘The next day they handed over their weapons to the British in Palmanova and were then carted off to a concentration camp at Eboli, south of Naples. No one really knew what to do with these people so they stayed in that camp for the best part of two years before being moved to other camps in Europe. My father was moved to one near Munich where, in 1947, he was selected by the British as suitable for labour in Britain. The Belgians had already rejected him. At the end of 1947 he stepped off a refugee ship at Southampton docks. No socks, no money and not a word of English. Each person was given a pound as they stepped off the gangplank; my father remembered his first purchase, a pair of socks, and his first meal, fish and chips, wrapped up in newspaper. I remember him laughing about this, how shocked and horrified that such a cultured people could eat their food with fingers from newspaper.

‘The deal for all these displaced people from Eastern Europe was simple. Three years labour in exchange for the right of abode but not citizenship. For three years my father, ex-law student, ex-officer, was a hod carrier at the London Brick Company factory in Bedfordshire. That did his back in. Still couldn’t speak a word of English and by the time he’d worked off his obligation to the British government he still wasn’t integrated into society in any way. To put that right he lived with an English family in Ealing and gradually learned the language. He also put himself through night school and taught himself electronics. By day he swept the floors of the Rank Bush Murphy television and radio factory at Chiswick. By night he studied for his degree. By the end of the 1950s he’d qualified as an electrical engineer and was employed by Rank as a TV design engineer.’

Ian’s puzzled by something. ‘But I thought your mother’s lot were in Rhodesia by this stage. How did your parents meet?’

‘In 1960 Rank sent him out to Southern Rhodesia to help set up the black and white TV system there. He and my mother met in Salisbury and they married in the Greek Orthodox church. I was born in 1962, my sister fifteen months later. Then, in 1965, Ian Smith declared UDI. My father sniffed another war and wanted no part of it whatsoever. You could hardly blame him. Branko, my maternal grandfather’s younger brother, was lost in Russia during the civil war. My mother’s father died in 1943 in Yugoslavia. My father never saw his father again after 1945 – he died in 1957 in Serbia. That’s why they decided to leave Rhodesia before things got worse.

‘We returned to London but most of my cousins stayed on in Rhodesia and fought their Communists in that war. In fact, we’ve still got the property in Harare. Mum’s eldest sister, the one who worked in SOE Cairo, lives there, has a beautiful house.

‘My father continued working for Rank in Chiswick. I received a pretty bog standard education. They pumped every penny they could into it; prep school in Leicestershire, minor public school in the West Country where I was head boy and head of the Combined Cadet Force. Father, of course, wanted me to be what he never was – a lawyer. I had other ideas. The day after my last A level – I did Latin, Greek and Ancient History – I walked into the Army recruiting office on Mayflower Street in Plymouth and enlisted in the Parachute Regiment. My father hit the bloody roof. Real drama.’

‘Drama?’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe. But you’ve got to see it from his point of view. So many upheavals, so much misfortune in both families for so long, it’s hardly surprising that the one thing he wanted for me was security. But you’re wilful at that age. At eighteen you know best and he just had to live with it.’

Ian has been listening patiently, only asking one or two questions.

‘Why didn’t your father return to Yugoslavia after the war?’

‘Oh, that’s because of the code.’

‘What code?’

‘There was an unwritten code, a rule, among the émigrés. There was to be no returning to Yugoslavia while Tito and the Communists were in power, not for any reason whatsoever. Some weakened towards the end of their lives and went back. He never did. A die-hard to the day he died. I suppose it was because of the assassination of my godfather. He didn’t even go back when his own father died. None of us did, except my mother who’d trip out there every couple of years to look after Dad’s sole surviving sister, Bisenija. She’d been declared “mad” and an “enemy of the state” by the Yugoslav authorities; she had no state pension, so we had to keep her alive from the UK.’

‘That determination never to go back to Yugoslavia is a hard attitude to take, Milos.’

‘Hard, but understandable too. It’s all a product of history and personal experience.’

‘That’s a lot of history you’re carrying around on your back.’

I’m silent for a moment. ‘It’s like a sodding monkey hanging off you. Can’t complain, though. It’s beyond my control. I suppose Trotsky was right in the end.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, he said that anyone who wanted a quiet life should not have been born in the twentieth century.’

‘Do you think he was right?’

‘Looks that way now, doesn’t it?’

Ian doesn’t reply to that one. He’s turned the page on his note pad. The pen’s poised again.

‘Let’s get back to Bosnia, to the present. Pick it up from the start.’

‘Even that’s all over the place. I could pick any bloody starting point and it still wouldn’t make any sense. I mean, I could start in Iraq and Kuwait if you wanted me to, because that’s where this mess really began.’

‘All right then. Let’s start with something concrete.’

‘Like what?’

‘A date. When exactly did you go out to the Balkans?’

‘That’s easy! 29 December 1992. How about that, then? There’s a date for you.’

‘Okay then. Tell me about that and Kuwait if it’s relevant.’

‘It’s all relevant, in its own way.’

I take a deep breath, pause, and then begin.