Читать книгу Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness - Martin Bell - Страница 13

Tuesday 29 December 1992 – UK Airspace

The cavernous hold of the C130 was a cacophony of rattling and jangling fittings. As the propeller pitch of the four massive turboprops altered and the blades bit hungrily into the air, the aircraft strained and heaved against its wheel brakes. The vibrations seemed to pummel the eardrums and reach into the very fillings in our teeth. Suddenly the aircraft surged forward, rapidly overcoming its own inertia, and gathering speed as it raced down the runway. The two white Land Rovers strained against the shackles and chains lashing them to the deck. The human cargo in drab, mottled camouflage, stuffed into the impossibly narrow gap left between the wall of the aircraft and two Land Rovers, strapped shoulder-to-shoulder on webbed seats, was thrown rearwards in unison restrained only by primitive seat belts. There is nothing glamorous about flying by Herc. The RAF really is a classless outfit. There’s only one class of travel in its aircraft – cattle class. Bump … bump … bump … heavy, solid pneumatic tyres transmitted the force of contact with each join in the runway’s slabbed concrete surface, blending with speed into a single continuous battering in the seat of your pants. With a final lurch and a change in attitude tonnes of Herc broke its natural bond with gravity and Flight Lyneham-Split lumbered into the sky. It never ceased to amaze me. Hydraulics hissed, a motor whined and, with a sickening thump, the undercarriage retracted, wheels still spinning into the wheel well. We were airborne. ‘Captain Laurel’ was finally on his way.

Around me soldiers unbuckled, donned Walkmans, stuffed their heads into the hoods of their Arctic windproof smocks and tried to settle themselves comfortably for the duration of the flight. While they did so, white cardboard boxes were passed down from the front of the aircraft; another delight of flying ‘Crab Air’ is the interesting in-flight cuisine.

I didn’t wait to find out what surprises lurked in my white box. Although I’d been up since half three in the morning, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, not with my knees jammed up against the side of the Land Rover. I unbuckled and struggled over knees and legs, made my way to the rear ‘port’ para door and stuck my nose up against its small, round Perspex window.

We had already reached about 5,000 feet and were still climbing steadily. The sky was cloudless. As far as the eye could see southern England was covered in a crisp coating of icing sugar. A low winter sun cast long shadows, defining perfectly every frozen detail. I could make out the M4. We were just to the south of it, flying due east rather than south, which surprised me. Apart from the colour, the splendid desolation below reminded me so much of the wind-blown wastes of Kuwait and southern Iraq. Was it possible that almost a year had passed? I remembered the day in February when I’d been summoned up to UN Headquarters at Umm Qsar in Iraq. I’d received the bollocking of my life from Major John Wooldridge and been told to ‘wind my neck in’ about Yugoslavia. I wonder what he’d think if he could see me now?

It had been quite a good one as bollockings go. We’d strolled around the headquarters with its strange blue pyramids. Built by the French, it had been the only working hospital in that part of Iraq. It had survived the Gulf War but not the UN, which had requisitioned it from the unfortunate inhabitants of Umm Qsar and turned it into a headquarters. John never raised his voice once, an effective technique when you’re giving someone a roasting. In fact he was positively friendly.

‘Look, believe me, I’ve got your best interest at heart here but I have to warn you,’ John had continued, ‘… you’re in danger of damaging yourself …’

‘What do you mean, John? How?’ I knew perfectly well what he meant, but I wanted it spelt out.

‘Listen to me. What you’ve got to understand is that Colonel Garret is an old school officer. In his world one just accepts one’s lot, bites the bullet and gets on with it. He doesn’t take kindly to people bucking the system. It’s that simple.’

‘Yes, but John, he doesn’t understand …’

John cut me short, ‘Yes he does. He understands perfectly well. And it’s not him. He’s done his best for you. It’s General Greindle. He’s the one who’s put the chop on it. It’s his decision who goes and he’s not letting you go. Nothing to do with Colonel Garret at all.’

‘But what’s Greindle’s problem?’ General Greindle was an Austrian. He was also the Chief Military Observer of UNIKOM – the main man. A professional UN general, he had quite a record of heading up one UN military mission after another, and knew the ‘light blue’ system inside out.

‘It’s almost not even him. It’s the UN … their rules. It’s precisely because you do speak the language and because you have a background from there that the UN says you can’t go.’

This drama, the cause of my angst, had sprung up out of nowhere six weeks earlier. Just as the novelty of UNIKOM had begun to wane and the boredom of driving round the desert had set in, it had been announced that a number of observers, two of them from the British contingent, were to be sent at short notice to Croatia. Cyrus Vance, the American Secretary of State, had achieved the impossible and secured a permanent cease-fire between the Serbs and Croats, ending a vicious six-month civil war. The UN Security Council had resolved to send a peacekeeping force to Croatia and various UN missions around the globe were hurriedly being stripped of surplus observers in order to carry out an initial recce for the force’s subsequent deployment.

Aching to escape the monotony of the desert each of us had speculated wildly as to who would go. Since I spoke Serbo-Croat I’d assumed I’d be the natural choice. It didn’t quite work out that way; Major Andy Taylor and Captain Hamish Cameron went and I stayed behind. The logic escaped me: surely it made sense to send someone who could talk to the locals? I was furious but John Wooldridge placated me somewhat and assured me that more observers would be sent and that I’d be sure to go at some point.

Sure enough, a month later UNIKOM announced that an additional fifty observers would be sent to Croatia. Three Brits were selected, including, much to my dismay, Guy Lavender, the only other Para in the contingent. Evidently, my rantings and railings in the desert wastes of the Wadi Al Batin could be heard as far north as Umm Qsar. Someone’s patience ran out and I was summoned for an ‘interview without coffee’.

‘Is it because I can’t be trusted? Is that it, John? What about the old officers’ integrity thing? You know, I am an officer in the British Army. Doesn’t that count anymore?’ I’d almost convinced myself that was the case.

‘It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s to do with protection – yours and the UN’s. It’s nothing personal. It’s not you.’ John really was being quite patient. ‘They’d no more send you to Yugoslavia than they would a Greek or Turkish officer to sit on the Green Line in Cyprus. That’s the logic of it.’

‘I see.’ I didn’t really, but there was little point in pushing a bad position. I’d never ever considered myself as being from an ethnic minority group. Born in Southern Rhodesia, raised and educated in England, in the Army since eighteen, I’d never had a problem. Suddenly there was one. Now I’d reached the age of twenty-nine my parents’ background had risen up and slapped me in the face. Was it as simple as John’s argument or was there something else, something to do with trust? It bothered me.

‘I’m glad you understand. So, get it into your head that for as long as the UN is in Yugoslavia you won’t be going. You will never be going to the Balkans in uniform. Banish that idea from your mind for ever. Get it?’

It all seemed so logical. Anyway, I had no option. There was absolutely nothing more I could do.

‘Yes, got it, John.’ It didn’t make me feel any better though.

‘Right, then. Look, you’ve got your promotion exams in March, so my advice to you is to stop razzing up Colonel Garret and just go back to the desert, get into your books, and just shut up about Yugoslavia.’

That’s exactly what I did. Watching our five heroes return from Croatia in April, full of the most incredible stories, had been galling. By that stage we were due to depart for the UK and I’d resigned myself to a six-month course in England. I was also resigned to not going to Yugoslavia.

Somewhere over Reading the Herc banked right and took up a more southerly course. From 10,000 feet the ground detail was crystal clear. We drifted over the M3. I strained to make out familiar features. There was the A325, Farnborough, Queen’s Avenue. My eye followed the well-known geography of Aldershot: home of the British Army and of the Paras. I could see Browning Barracks, the Parachute Regiment’s Depot. The aircraft outside the museum was just visible, as was the parade square. I could imagine some beast of a platoon sergeant ‘rifting’ his platoon of recruits, sweating and terrified, around the square.

We’d slipped past Aldershot. I was now straining for a better look through the Perspex, following the network of roads leading south to a small town nestling in a valley. The Herc had climbed higher but it was still possible to trace out the streets. There! My eye fell on a tiny row of seven small terraced houses. Three in – my house. Colin and Melanie would be there. Colin was sure to have made it back from Lyneham by now. At least it would be in good hands. He was a mate from the Regiment.

As I strained to get a better look, Farnham slipped beyond the periphery of the window. I was sad – my first house and I’d barely lived there. I’d arrived back from the Gulf not exactly dripping with money, but I had saved six months of pay. In an uncharacteristic moment of madness I’d blown the lot on the deposit on the house instead of doing something sensible like buying a fast, new motorbike. My parents had been delighted, confident that their son had finally grown up. It made me break out in a cold sweat: mortgage repayments equals commitment equals entrapment equals lack of freedom! I took possession of the keys the day before disappearing on a six-month course and had barely had time to haul over from the Depot two large cardboard boxes containing my worldly possessions, buy a bean bag and a cheap phone.

There was of course the odd weekend off when I tried my hand at painting, but other than that the course was long and thoroughly absorbing, so much so that I barely registered the fact that a war was raging out of control in a place called Bosnia. It seemed to be as bloody and as confusing as the Croatian one. In October the TV reporting in the UK intensified – the British had deployed an armoured infantry battalion out there as part of a new UN force. Barely a day passed when the lunchtime news didn’t carry pictures of the Cheshire Regiment’s white-painted thirty-tonne Warriors charging down some Bosnian road, or their CO, the flamboyant Lieutenant Colonel Bob Stewart, instantly elevated to a household idol, issuing a statement. It all seemed so distant and I viewed the proceedings with the detached interest of one who knew he wouldn’t be going.

The course ended in November. I was sitting in front of the course officer receiving my final interview. I finished reading the report, handed it back to him and stood up.

I stared at him. What was he on about? He must have sensed my confusion.

‘Yeah, in fact if I remember correctly, it was September when your postings branch, PB2, rang us up and asked to get you released from the course. They needed interpreters or something to go out with the Cheshires …’

‘What! You’re joking!’

‘No … interpreters, you know, anyone who can speak the lingo. They’d scoured the Army for them … found two others and you. Anyway at the time it was felt that you should stay on the course. Send us a postcard, you lucky bastard.’

I was stunned and couldn’t get his words out of my mind as I drove home. By the time I’d arrived I was more than curious to get to the bottom of all this. I rang PB2 within moments of opening the front door.

‘I do remember something about that,’ the desk officer seemed dubious, ‘… oh yes, that’s right, but that was in September. Anyway the moment’s passed.’

What did he mean, ‘the moment has passed’? The Cheshires had been in theatre barely a month. I rang the Regimental Adjutant, David Bennest. He hadn’t actually lined me up with my next job and agreed that he’d speak to somebody at the Army’s HQ at Wilton, which was controlling the Bosnia operation. He also ordered me to take three weeks leave.

‘You probably need it. Just leave us a contact number. Any ideas where you might go?’

I told him Zimbabwe. I hadn’t been back since the Mozambique job. The course had been long and tiring, English winters were revolting and I couldn’t think of a better place to recharge the batteries than Zim. It was the natural place to go – back to my birthplace.

The weather was a dream. The garden at Braenada was basking in the heat of a Zimbabwean summer. Elat, the gardener, was capering about in one of the flowerbeds while Tilly, my aunt’s Staffie, savaged one of his gumboots. I’m sure she was doing that the last time I’d been to Braenada. Nothing ever seemed to change in Africa. It was an enchanting time warp.

‘Do you think they’ll send you?’ my aunt asked over tea.

‘Perhaps … who knows, the way this year has panned out I’d say anything is possible.’ I blew an almost perfect smoke ring and watched it rise slowly, expanding and distorting until it was a mere wisp of blue.

‘Do Mum and Dad know anything about this?’ I glanced over at her. Her cup was frozen half way to her lips. She raised a quizzical eyebrow and her grey eyes twinkled knowingly.

‘No. Nothing. I haven’t told them a thing.’

‘Just as well,’ she continued, ‘you know what your father’s like. Such a worrier. He won’t like you going to the Balkans one bit.’ She was right. It was going to be a very difficult subject to broach.

I stared out over the perfect lawn. Now and then something yapping wildly darted from the shrubs, deftly avoiding Elat’s half-hearted kicks.

‘No, he won’t like it one bit.’ She was off again, telling me what I already knew.

‘They ruined his life and forced him to flee as a wretched refugee. He’s hated them all his life, the Communists … and then when they assassinated your godfather … no, he’ll take this very badly …’ Her voice trailed off and suddenly perked up,‘… of course your mother will be delighted. It’ll appeal to her sense of adventure. You know what she’s like!’

‘Oh well, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’s hardly likely to happen. You know what the Army’s like. I’ve a friend in the Regiment who speaks fluent Arabic. Studied it at Cambridge and in Egypt. When the Gulf War broke out he was posted to Northern Ireland!’

Zimbabwe proved to be just the tonic I needed. After three weeks soaking up the sun, visiting the camp up at Inyanga where we’d trained the Mozambicans, and catching up with old friends, I was ready to return to the gloom of a British winter. I arrived home on 8 December wondering what the future held. I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Amidst a pile of unopened letters was an official looking brown HMSO envelope marked On Her Majesty’s Service with Orderly Room – Depot Para stamped across the back. It felt flimsy and insubstantial – probably a Mess bill. A sixth sense told me it wasn’t. My heart pounded as I tore it open. It was a Memo from the Chief Clerk dated almost a week earlier:

Sir,

You should have been in Bosnia a week ago. Where have you been? We’ve been trying to get hold of you. Get in touch ASAP. Your joining instructions are with the Adjutant.

Chief.

Exactly as my aunt had predicted, breaking the news to my father was not easy.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing, what you’re letting yourself in for.’ There was a horrible pause. The phone felt like a brick in my hand. ‘Son, please, you’re making a terrible mistake … a huge mistake.’

My father died in March 1996. I think he died of a broken heart. I will always remember him: for his love and his support, for his unfailing encouragement and for his wisdom. I will remember him for his industry and his utter honesty, as a husband, as a father and as head of the household. But more than all those things I will remember him for those haunting and prophetic final words. I wish I had listened to him and heeded his advice. But I didn’t. I was youthful, impetuous, callow and cruel.

Around me in the Herc everyone seemed dead to the world. I stared at the white paint of the vehicles inches from my nose, hoping to sleep. My mind was racing and I was slightly depressed as England and its familiar comforts slipped away. The unknown lay ahead and that curious mix of regret and apprehension squeezed me.

The three weeks since arriving back from Zimbabwe had been frantic. I learnt that the first group of some thirteen volunteers had just finished a crash course in colloquial Serbo-Croat at Westminster University. I was to join them since the Commander British Forces, COMBRITFOR, Brigadier Andrew Cumming, based in Split, had no objections to my coming out. Our imminent departure had then been delayed when some kind soul in the MoD or at the UN office in Wilton had decided that the interpreters could spend Christmas at home, and that we’d all fly out to Split on one of the civil charter R&R flights leaving Gatwick on 29 December.

This breather had given me time to tackle the monstrously large kit list found in an annex to the Op HANWOOD deployment instruction. This was somewhat confusing since the Bosnia deployment had been given the operational name GRAPPLE. The kit list was exhaustive and might just as well have said everything but the kitchen sink; my house quickly began to look like a quartermaster’s stores. Piles of military junk sprang up in every room – socks, shirts, trousers, boots, shoes and trainers, towels and washing kit, webbing and mess tins, helmet and Combat Body Armour, polish and brushes and a plethora of bits and pieces gathered and hoarded over the years. I managed to stuff the whole lot into a bergen, a large sausage-shaped kit bag, a grip bag and a daysack. Each item weighed a ton. I should have heeded my instincts. I barely used a quarter of this baggage in all my time in Bosnia.

While I’d been struggling with the kit list the gang of interpreters had been undergoing some sort of brush up military training at the Guards Depot at Pirbright. Foot drill had not been on the agenda but pistol training, first aid, mine awareness and basic fitness had been. On 21 December we gathered at HQ United Kingdom Land Forces for a briefing. I’d met none of my new colleagues before and was curious to see just who these people were who’d been brave or foolish enough to expose themselves to the little-known Balkan language of Serbo-Croat.

They turned out to be quite a mixed bunch drawn from the Army and Navy. Their self-appointed guru was an elderly, plump and slightly fussy major from the Royal Army Pay Corps called Martin Strong. The other officers were mainly captains: Neil Greenwood, a keen medal collector from the Gunners: Nick Short, an infantryman from the Gloucesters, and a number of others, including Sue Davidson from the Woman’s Royal Army Corps. The Senior NCOs were even more curious: a Scottish Warrant Officer called ‘Jock’ McNair, and a thin, wiry Colour Sergeant with black, mischievous, ferrety eyes – Bob Edge, also a Gloucester. There were others of various ages, ranks and backgrounds. Seeming to have nothing in common save the course they’d just attended, they reminded me more than anything else of the cast of The Dirty Dozen.

The briefing was a fairly traumatic affair delivered by a worn-out looking watchkeeper, Major Windsor, who’d just finished the night shift. With the aid of a huge map of the Balkans and Bosnia-Hercegovina, across which snaked an impossibly contorted front line drawn in red, he attempted to explain what was going on out there: Serbs here, Croats there, Muslims here, Bosnian Croats there, Bosnian Serbs here and here, Krajina Serbs, Croat Serbs, Croat Croats, Serb Serbs, HVO, HV, JNA, JA, ABiH, BSA, UNHCR, ICRC, BRITBAT, BRITFOR, COMBRITFOR, BHC, UNSC, NGOs, ICFY, ECMM, Route Circle, Route Diamond, Route Square, TSG, GV, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was all gobbledegook, meaningless confusion that went straight over our heads. I don’t think they really understood it either.

Christmas at home had been strained. My father had worked himself up into a real lather over the whole thing. ‘You don’t know what you’ve let yourself in for. You don’t know what they’re like, those people down there, the mentality. They’re not like us here in the Diaspora. All the decent people were either killed off or fled into exile … Tito might have gone but they’re still old Communists. They’re born and bred that way and they’re rotten – Yugovici, all of them. And you can’t trust them. They’re cheats and liars and they’ll use you if they can. I haven’t suffered here in the West for fifty years, struggled to bring you up and educate you, just to watch you disappear off to the Balkans and be killed …’

On and on it went. He was distressed, inconsolable. It was dreadful and I felt guilty that I was causing him such pain by opening up old wartime wounds and bitter memories. Suddenly, I was no longer sure I was doing the right thing. My plans started to look less like a great adventure designed to keep at bay the dreaded desk job and were beginning to take on a much more sinister hue. The thought that I might be killed, particularly in a UN mission, hadn’t even entered my head.

‘And that blue beret won’t protect you and they won’t be fooled by that Laurel name they’ve given you. They’ll see through that immediately.’ I had to agree with him on that one. The Laurel thing was particularly absurd and unfunny.

My mother was far more pragmatic about it all. ‘Here you go, son, a little Christmas present for you to take out to Bosnia.’

I took the small, soft package from her. It felt like a handkerchief. Mothers! I wasn’t too far off the mark. It was an old Second World War silk escape map, the kind issued to aircrew and SOE agents. Although slightly frayed, yellowed around the edges and musty through decades of storage, it was still soft and had lost none of its rich colour. Printed in exquisite detail on both sides, it depicted the Balkans and middle Europe – Sheets F and G. The legend read ‘Frontiers as at September 1943 … owing to frontiers being constantly changed in Eastern Europe, those marked on the map must be accepted with reserve.’ The scale was lmm:lkm. It was all there: Vitez where the Cheshires were, Gornji Vakuf, which was also featuring in the news, and Split on the Dalmatian coast, where we’d be going in four days’ time. I’d never seen the map before.

‘Where did this come from?’

‘Oh, we were each issued with one,’ my mother replied cryptically.

‘What! In the desert?’ I was mystified. I knew she’d been in North Africa, but what on earth was she doing with an escape map of the Balkans? The only ones issued with those had been the Cairo-based SOE agents. ‘You weren’t in SOE were you?’

‘Well, not exactly. For a while I worked for Colonel James Klugmann, the head of SOE Cairo … that Communist traitor!’ she’d almost spat out his name, ‘… but no I wasn’t SOE. But I was sent to Yugoslavia with Dr McPhail’s Save the Children.’

Her story was all completely new to me. I’d vaguely been aware that she’d finished her war somewhere in Italy, but not that she’d been part of the first ever UN mission to the Balkans in 1945. The candles flickered on the table as she spoke. Recruited into Dr McPhail’s unit in 1944 she’d acted as an interpreter in a large Croat refugee camp in the Sinai desert. In late 1944 the unit had moved to Italy and in March 1945 my mother and her three-tonne ambulance had landed in Dubrovnik. She’d spent the rest of that year driving around Bosnia, Hercegovina and Montenegro looking after orphaned children.

‘… anyway, we were each issued with one of these maps and I think you should have it out there.’

I looked carefully at the silk and found Dubrovnik some way to the south of Split; to think that this had been in her pocket in that place nearly half a century ago! My father had never mentioned his war and my mother rarely hers. Now it was as if my imminent departure for the Balkans had spurred them both into revealing things that had for decades been locked away.

Another peculiar thing happened that evening. Mark Etherington, an old friend from the Regiment, rang up to wish us all a happy Christmas. He’d been out of the Army for over a year and had last been seen heading out of Wandsworth in south-west London bound for Cape Town on a motorbike. On the phone his voice sounded faint, distant, distorted by terrible static and a hollow, irregular thumping sound. I had to shout down the phone.

‘Mark! Where are you?’ No doubt he was stuck somewhere in darkest Africa.

‘Bihac … I’m in Bihac …’ He too was yelling.

‘What? Sorry? Where did you say?’

‘Bihac … in Bosnia … thought I’d ring and wish you all a happy Christmas.’

‘Mark! What’re you doing there … and what’s that banging noise?’ The thumping in the background was incessant.

‘Shelling! It’s shelling.’

‘What!’ Had he gone mad?

‘Shelling. I’m in a basement with my Muslim interpreter and the Serbs are shelling us!’ The random thumping took shape in my mind. Mark was never prone to exaggerations.

‘What’re you doing there? Thought you were in Africa?’

‘… ran out of money … dumped the bike in Nairobi … got a job now

as a European Community monitor …’ the line was getting worse, ‘gotta go … on my mobile … not good reception in this cellar …’ And then he was gone, cut off in an instant.

I searched for Bihac on the silk map and found it, a dot in the top left-hand corner of Bosnia. As I stared at the silk, I was chilled by the incongruity of it all: me enjoying Christmas in the warmth and security of a house in the West Country, listening to the sound of battle hundreds and hundreds of miles away, where a friend was cowering in a cellar.

I’ve always hated goodbyes. The following day we repeated a ritual that had been going on for the past twelve years. I’d kiss my parents goodbye and stuff my head into the helmet saying ‘don’t bother coming out’ – but they always would. They’d traipse out after me; my father would grab my arm and say ‘be careful on that thing’ and my mother would say ‘I wish you’d get rid of it’. They hated the bike. Then I’d roar off down the road and they’d stand there waving until I was out of sight. It never changed.

But this time it was different. We were on the road. My father grabbed me. ‘Be careful out there.’

‘Yes, son, be careful and God bless.’ My mother was never one for grand emotions.

I fired the engine and clicked the bike into gear glancing across the road as I did so. They looked small and vulnerable in the December chill. My mother was waving, smiling encouragement, as mothers always do, masking her true feelings. My father was just standing there staring. What was in those eyes? I couldn’t quite place it. Regret? Compassion? Pity? It was something deep and sorrowful and it cut me to the quick. His lips were quivering. Quickly I glanced over my left shoulder, rolled the throttle and roared off down the road. In the mirror I could see them standing there, waving madly – two small old people standing in the road. They waved until I rounded the corner and could see them no longer. That image burns in my mind today. I have often wondered what happened next as they turned and went indoors. Did he put his arm around her? What did they say to each other? What did they think? What were their private and miserable thoughts?

For some reason sleep continued to elude me, which is peculiar as it’s quite normal for a Herc load of ninety paratroopers to nod off immediately after the aircraft has taken off. SOP. My stomach was still knotted with apprehension. How was I going to get out of the airport at the other end? Had the ‘movers’ there been briefed? A week ago it had seemed funny. Now, stuck in limbo at thirty thousand feet, it was anything but.

After being thoroughly savaged by Major Windsor’s barrage of Op GRAPPLE abbreviations, route names and a plethora of confusing place names, we’d staggered out of the Wilton briefing room and made our way up several flights of stairs to see another major called Francis Brancato. He ran the UN office at Wilton. I’d met him once before when he’d come out to visit us in Kuwait. In his office he’d taken me to one side and announced that I’d be flying out as Captain Laurel.

‘Pardon me?’ What was he on about?

‘Captain Laurel. That’s who you’re going out as and that’s who you’ll be,’ he repeated matter of factly.

‘Laurel! Why?’ I was bemused.

‘Do you know the other two who’re out there now?’ He was deadly serious, ‘… both Serbs … like you …’ he rattled off their names. One was a lieutenant in the Light Infantry, the other a corporal in the Royal Anglian Regiment.

‘Nope. Never heard of them … didn’t know there were any others in the Army.’

Now I was genuinely surprised.

‘Well there are and they’re out there. Apparently there’s some sort of threat to them from the Muslims and Croats. It’s not very healthy being a Serb of any sort in Croatia and Bosnia these days. Anyway we’ve changed their names … Abbott and Costello!’ he sniggered …

‘And you want me to be Laurel!’ I was almost shouting, ‘… and what happens if you find a fourth Serb? What’s he going to be?’

There was a horrible pause. Francis could barely contain himself,‘… how about Hardy?’ he spluttered. I stared at him in disbelief and then we both burst out laughing. What else could we do?

The day before our departure there’d been yet another unexpected change in plans. I was telephoned by someone in Movements in Wilton (they co-ordinated movements of personnel going abroad) and informed that I wouldn’t be flying with the others from Gatwick.

‘Why not? What’s the problem?’ The obstacles seemed endless. What now?

‘Problem is you haven’t got a passport in the name of Laurel and you’ll be stopped by Croatian customs if you go civil.’

‘Does that mean I’m now not going?’ More frustration.

‘No, no, you’re still going. There’s a “Herc” flight to Split early tomorrow … departing RAF Lyneham. You’ve got to be in uniform and you’re to be there at 0500.’

‘Why so early?’ It was always early report times with the RAF.

‘Dunno, those are the timings. Oh yeah, when you report just tell them you’re Captain Laurel … they’ll know. At the other end you’ll be met by movers, our people who’ve got access to the pan. They’ll get you through one of the side gates. Okay?’

Next morning Colin and I got up at a grotesquely indecent hour. It was bitterly cold but despite the darkness and the frosty roads we reached Lyneham with fifteen minutes to spare. Between us we lugged the bergen and bags into the terminal building where other bleary-eyed fellow travellers were sprawled over hard plastic seats.

‘Come on Col, let’s see if the Captain Laurel shit really works.’ I nodded towards the counter where a lone and youthful leading airman was tapping away furiously at a keyboard. I dumped the bergen heavily on the electronic scales next to him.

‘Ninety-five and a half pounds!’ I announced. Startled, he looked up.

‘Oh right, morning sir.’ He was slightly flustered.

‘I’m flying to Split this morning. This where I check in?’

‘It is, sir. Could I see your ID card?’ He’d recovered his composure.

‘I’m sorry but I’m afraid I haven’t got one.’ Which was true, not in the name of Laurel anyway.

‘Oh well … I’m afraid you can’t fly if you haven’t got ID.’ I glanced over at Colin who was enjoying himself immensely.

‘Look … I’m Captain Laurel if it’ll help.’ Somewhere to my left I heard Colin snigger. I was doing my best to contain myself and make the best of this charade.

The airman suddenly became very tense, his eyes almost feral. Carefully he looked from left to right, checking that no one else was within earshot before leaning towards me. His words were husky, deliberate, almost conspiratorial.

‘Captain Laurel is it? Yeeeees … it’s okay … we know all about you.’

‘Excellent. I knew you wouldn’t let me down,’ I whispered back. Keeping a straight face was hell. Colin had given up. He was outside, laughing into the cold, inky blackness.

That had been then. Seven hours and many hundreds of miles later it wasn’t such a laughing matter after all. Would the movers be there? What if they weren’t? I thought of my father’s dire words of warning. Had I just made the biggest mistake of my life?

With a thump, the Herc hit the runway. The wheels bounced and bumped and the hold rattled and jangled madly as stressed metal and engines strained to slow the cumbersome aircraft. The slumbering soldier beside me woke with a startled grunt. He’d dozed the whole way, snorting fitfully, and had dribbled saliva down his combat jacket. Rudely awakened, hair dishevelled, headphones askew, puffy red-rimmed eyes, he stared about him in wild, unfocused confusion. After a few minutes of lumbering and bumping, the Herc slowed and lurched to a standstill. One by one the four turboprops were starved of fuel and, with a dying moan, fell silent.

The silence in the hold was shocking. It seemed to last for ages. Gradually soldiers came to life, unbuckling seat straps, packing away their Walkmans, yawning, stretching and scratching their heads. With a dull hydraulic whine the Herc’s tail gate split laterally in two and opened up like a giant TV screen. Bright light flooded in and tired soldiers blinked owlishly, screwing up their eyes and straining to get a view of the world outside. Through the opening I got my first glimpse of the Balkans – a barren, rocky, forbidding escarpment of high jagged peaks. My gloomy thoughts of a few hours ago had gone. This was exciting! I thought of General Greindle, of Colonel Garret and John Wooldridge, and of the many other curious twists and turns of the previous eleven months. I thought of my father who had last seen this country nearly half a century earlier. Somehow, against the odds, I’d made it to the Balkans. I should have turned back there and then.