Читать книгу Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness - Martin Bell - Страница 16

Thursday 28 January 1993 – Sarajevo

She was quite the most fearsome woman I had ever seen. It wasn’t the one-piece blue camouflage ‘frontier guard’ uniform, nor the short-barrelled AK47 carbine slung over her shoulder. It wasn’t even the gruff manner of her questioning. It was the moustache, the beard and the horrible black hairy mole. I was quaking.

For ten minutes or so we’d clattered along the road out of Kiseljak. Since we hadn’t stopped we’d evidently sailed straight through K-l. The four of us were crammed into the back of the M113 along with one other passenger, a Ukrainian grinning like a maniac. Conversation was out of the question: the clattering of tracks, crashing of gears and high-revving engine all conspired to obliterate any other sound and threatened to loosen our fillings. Like rush-hour commuters we clung grimly onto leather straps as the tin can bounced and lurched alarmingly around corners and bends.

‘What’s in your bag?’ demanded the bearded woman after she’d inspected our ID cards.

‘Just personal effects … you know, for shaving and washing …’ I prayed she wouldn’t inspect it. Wrapped in a towel was the brown paper parcel. It was addressed to Pijalovic, Ulica Romanijska, Sarajevo and even had a photocopied map of the centre of town glued to it showing our destination. It was strictly against the rules by which the shuttle operated to smuggle letters or anything into the Muslims of Sarajevo. Fortunately, she didn’t seem too interested in the daysack and the door of the APC slammed shut again.

You have successfully negotiated the Bearded Woman of S-1 at Kobiljaca. Proceed to S-2!

After another twenty minutes of discomfort the APC once again lurched to a halt. We had no idea where we were. The journey in was utterly disorientating – no frame of reference, no windows. Just the incessant racket and the crazy Ukrainian. Again the door opened and this time an enormously bearded and long-haired Serbian soldier demanded to see our IDs. We were in a tight alley – S-4 – and close to the front line. As we set off, the Danish commander closed his hatch, rolled his eyes and with a sickly grin yelled, ‘Heavy shelling and fighting.’

First stop the airport. No one got out but a couple of UN soldiers squeezed in and off we sped again, racing through no-man’s-land. Even above the APC’s din the dull booming of mortar and shell rounds impacting somewhere could be heard. The APC swerved dangerously around the Stup graveyard and then accelerated down Sniper’s Alley. A couple of minutes later we ground to a halt. ‘PTT Building’ announced our taxi driver.

Stiffly we clambered out of our Tardis and blinked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. The experience had been disorientating, as if we’d stepped into an inefficient and sluggish transporter at Kiseljak. After much discomfort we’d popped out at the other end into another world. Gone were the steep sided, heavily forested, snow-covered valleys of Central Bosnia. Suddenly we were dumped into an unfamiliar world of urban warfare littered with burned-out high rise buildings, crumbling concrete, rusting and abandoned bullet-riddled trams, sagging, broken electric wires. And the incessant, dull booming of impacting shells and the popping of small arms which echoed up and down the valley that was Sarajevo.

Directly in front of us loomed a concrete monstrosity that resembled the superstructure of an aircraft carrier. Being some four or five storeys high and therefore open to shellfire damage, its windows were criss-crossed with brown masking tape. The edifice, something like an imaginery Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, was crowned with a shattered but still legible sign – PTT INZINJERING. The former Postal, Telephone and Telecommunications building was now UN HQ Sector Sarajevo.

To our left, beyond some dirty brown warehouses and what appeared to be a dilapidated cable-making gantry, rose a steep-sided hill. This was Zuc. To this clung myriad houses all with square brown roofs. With little apparent regard for town-planning, these houses had been carelessly and densely scattered across the hillside. Some were burned out. Most of the roofs sported gaping black holes which exposed shattered skeletal timbers. As we stared, one erupted in a cloud of dust. A boom echoed across the valley and bounced off the PTT building. It filled me with terror. This was worse than the valleys where the danger zones and front lines were at least known. This was completely random. A man could get killed here by accident.

We scuttled up a steep concrete ramp, past a French guard and across a raised car park filled with an odd assortment of vehicles, French APCs, armoured Land Rovers and Toyota Land Cruisers. All dirty off-white and adorned with various emblems – UN, UNHCR, UNICEF, ICRC. For such an imposing building, the back entrance was surprisingly modest: a small glass and aluminium door set into the far corner of the car park. The front, on Sniper’s Alley, was far too dangerous to use. A burly French Foreign Legionnaire Para from 2^eme REP blocked our further passage to safety. Patiently we lined up and showed our IDs. The fact that we were in uniform and wearing blue helmets seemed to matter not a jot. This was the land of checkpoints, of ID cards and of hard men ‘with orders’.

Once we’d penetrated this UN citadel we found ourselves in a large foyer, at journey’s end. We hadn’t a clue where to go next. All the BiH and BSA liaison offices, as well as aid agencies, had been stuffed down a narrow, gloomy corridor. I was vaguely aware of civilians scurrying between offices, ID cards around their necks. I was sure I’d find Peter Jones here. It surprised me that all the aid agencies had been isolated in such a small part of the building but I later discovered that they were engaged in a bitter defensive battle with the military. Quite simply, the French wanted the civilians out of their military citadel. It seemed to me that we soldiers had already forgotten precisely why we were in Bosnia.

We went in search of somebody to brief us. David Crummish wanted to talk to someone, anyone, in Ops. The interior of the PTT building almost defied description. A wide, square, dark central well of cold stairs ran from the top of the building right down into its subterranean depths. A hawser of cables of varying degrees of thickness, all taped together into a knotted black snake, hung down the well. It was the core of the building’s central nervous system. At each level it sprouted nerves of black worms which meandered along gloomy, wooden-partitioned corridors leading to offices, Ops rooms, and, further up, accommodation. The inhabitants of the citadel were all escapees from Blade Runner. Coal-scuttle helmeted Legionnaires, FAMAS rifles strapped across their chests, long bayonets slapping loosely against their thighs, the buckles on their boots jangling, menaced the entrances like members of a Praetorian Guard. Elsewhere in the dim corridors the camouflage uniforms of a plethora of nations vied for attention. Weaving their way between the uniforms, civilians – locals, interpreters and internationals – darted about their business. One thing united them all: everyone seemed to be clutching a Motorola walkie-talkie into which they would scream in whatever language seemed appropriate.

The Ukrainian Ops Officer’s English was limited. David Crummish nodded politely, understanding nothing. I couldn’t be bothered to listen to his gibberish. It reminded me of Kuwait. All I wanted to do was to find Peter Jones. I’d popped into UNHCR and politely asked where he could be found. I’d met a wall of hostile faces – they didn’t like soldiers in their enclave – and had been informed that he was out in a place called Dobrinja, that he’d be back in an hour or so. Eventually the Ukrainian’s English ran out. We were left none the wiser, but in true English fashion thanked him profusely for a most informative overview of the situation in Sarajevo.

Rumour had it that the Praetorian Guard had a coffee shop somewhere in the bowels of the citadel. We set off in opposite directions and I found myself on a lower level, in a narrow corridor, my path blocked by a huge Legionnaire with a lantern jaw and shaven head.

‘Excuse … me …’ I spoke no French so took it slowly, ‘… is … there … anywhere … where … a … man … can … get … a … coffee? … Café?’

‘You a Brit?’ he replied in an accent straight from the mid-West cornbelt. Dumbstruck, I nodded slowly. ‘Sure, buddy. One floor down, same corridor, turn right at the end …’ And then he was gone. Later I got to know him well – Tom Iron, ex-US Ranger, now Corporal-Chef, 2^eme REP.

The four of us regrouped and descended into the depths in search of the elusive coffee shop. Not there. Oops, that’s a hospital. ‘So sorry’; two Legionnaires glared at us malevolently from their card game. We were in yet another corridor, still hunting, opening doors and apologising profusely.

Suddenly, the cloistered quiet of the corridor was shattered by a wild, animal scream and a babble of desperate voices, which surged around the corner and stopped us in our tracks. Moments later a gaggle of perhaps fifteen or twenty people, some uniformed, choked the passage ahead and advanced towards us. Unsure what to do, we flattened ourselves against the walls. A young girl of perhaps fifteen or sixteen was shrieking her head off. She was howling – a horrifying animal scream of madness. She wasn’t so much being helped and supported as actually being carried. Arms and legs firmly gripped, she was carried aloft, struggling and fighting like a beserker while the crowd babbled in concerned and anguished ‘polyglot’. The mob, flailing limbs and all, swept past us and turned the corner towards the hospital. The girl’s screams echoed back down the corridor. We stood there, rooted to the spot, horrified, speechless. Something in those unhinged, feral screams had touched us all. I looked across at David and the Civil Adviser. Their eyes were staring and the blood had drained from their faces. I can hear those screams today and I can still see those ashen, horrified faces. We looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. No one moved. No one even murmured. Corporal Fox was the first to react and save us. I felt him jab me in the ribs and I could see his face in front of me. His eyes were twinkling slightly and I could see his lips, half-smiling, move in laconic slow motion.

‘You know what, sir? I know exactly what she is going through.’

‘How’s that then, Corporal Fox?’ I heard myself say.

He chuckled then laughed slowly. ‘I hate going to the dentist as well.’

The spell was broken. The screams receded. We laughed nervously and self-consciously, aware that we had been, momentarily, somewhere dark and awful. We abandoned our search for coffee and, in silence, went back up to the foyer. We didn’t know it at the time but the girl, a local, had been walking past the PTT building with her father. A mortar round had landed very close to them. It had decapitated him but had left her unscathed, splattered and standing in a warm pool of his brains, gore and blood – screaming her head off in terror … … Welcome to Sarajevo.

Cumming’s instructions had been quite specific. ‘Give the package to Peter. Tell him to deliver it only if and when he can. He shouldn’t go out of his way or risk himself.’ When I eventually located Peter he looked at the map on the package and told me the address was in the middle of town. Since I spoke the language, he said, I could deliver it myself.

We clambered into his battered old Range Rover, which had belonged to the British Ambassador in Athens. It had found its way, courtesy of Ms Glynne Evans of the FCO’s UN Department, into Sarajevo for BRITDET’s use. Until its appearance Peter and the others had only had the protection afforded by a soft-skinned Land Rover. Their job required them to cross front lines every day.

Peter Jones is an exceptional man. He is also extremely lucky to be alive. I first met him in July 1987 when we were both ‘sickies’ at RAF Headley Court, an RAF/Army Rehabilitation unit in Surrey. I was there rebuilding arm and shoulder muscles after a routine shoulder operation. Peter was learning to walk again having lost six inches from both legs after he’d fallen several hundred feet off a Scottish mountain. It had nearly killed him but he was making a full recovery. I only ever heard him complain once. Sucking on a Marlboro he whinged, with a smile, that the accident had cost him a small fortune in new uniforms! It came as no surprise to me that the ex-six foot two officer had been selected to lead a tiny detachment of three other soldiers in Sarajevo. I know of no one who could have done the job better.

In November 1992 UNHCR Sarajevo had asked the British to lend them some logistics advice. At the time Peter was the Ops Officer of the National Support Element at TSG. He was tasked to select and take into Sarajevo a team of three other logistics experts to help and advise UNHCR on the finer points of setting up a logistics operation for the delivery of humanitarian aid. He chose WO2 Don Hodgeson, SSgt Allan Knight and LCpl Caroline Cove. Together they drove into Sarajevo in a soft-skinned Land Rover towing a trailer. They were due to remain for two weeks but stayed for 110 days. For UNHCR they found three warehouses in the city and established an efficient system of secondary and tertiary distribution of aid. The aid was in-loaded from the warehouse at the airport to the city warehouses from where, in consultation with a four-man Bosnian commission, it was further distributed to eighty-four ‘communes’ (defined as a street, apartment block or area) on a fortnightly basis. In addition they strove to keep Kosevo hospital supplied with fuel oil. This brief description of their efforts does absolutely no justice to their success. On arrival they met with hostility from the local Sarajevan UNHCR staff. When they left there was scarcely a dry eye in the house.

The conditions they endured daily were far more extreme than any endured by British troops in Bosnia. BRITDET Sarajevo was the jewel in the crown. It was a flagship operation which was monitored closely by the FCO and which, rightly, accorded Peter ‘favoured son’ status in Split.

As we drove east along the main drag towards downtown Sarajevo the geography of the city both in terms of terrain and buildings changed markedly. The valley became narrower and the buildings older. For the most part, Sarajevo is a prime example of the dreariest Communist high rise architecture and reminded me vividly of the buildings I had seen in Minsk and Moscow, where the Army had sent me to learn Russian in the 1980s. There was scarcely a single building that remained unscathed. On the left – a grotesque concrete battleship, the TV building. Further on, the Holiday Inn hotel, a foul-looking six-storey square of yellow. Three-quarters of it was still functioning for the press, to whom rooms were charged at pre-war prices. Behind it were the twin UNIS tower blocks of glass, miniature versions of New York’s World Trade Centre. Both were virtually gutted with not a single pane of glass left unbroken. On the right – a huge oblong skyscraper, which had served as B-H’s parliament. Now completely gutted, it was home to snipers and sharpshooters. In some instances buildings had ceased to exist at all. Peter tried to explain the layout of the front lines but it was too confusing to absorb. I remember being surprised when he said that the Serbs not only held the hills around but also parts of the city where the line came down almost to the River Miljacka, which paralleled the main drag east-west through this long and thin valley city. Where the front line cut into the city, as it did opposite the Holiday Inn, the threat from snipers was greatest. Here ISO containers had been stacked upon each other as a barrier to view if not to bullets.

From the gutted parliament onwards the architecture became nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian – much more pleasant on the eye, though just as battle-scarred. We were now driving along an embankment. To our right, the Miljacka was spanned at intervals by small, arched bridges. We drove over the spot where Archduke Ferdinand had been shot dead by Gavrilo Princip in 1914. On the left was the famous Europa hotel, now a grotty refugee centre. On the right, over the river, an area of tight, winding, narrow alleys and rocket-shaped minarets. This was Bistrik.

At the end of the embankment the city virtually stopped dead at the narrowest and oldest part of this steep-sided valley. High to the right – Serbs. High to our front – an old Turkish fort, and higher yet, an Austro-Hungarian barracks, both of which were Muslim-defended. At the extremity of our journey the road virtually looped back on itself, curving tightly to the left. In the centre of the loop stood the most beautiful building of all, the Vijecnica, or Public Records Library, which until August 1992 had been maintained in the Austro-Hungarian style. Like so many other buildings, it was now a hollow burned-out shell. Even its great marble pillars had cracked and splintered in the savage heat which had devoured its precious contents.

We were now heading west again. The area between the embankment and us – Bascarsija – was the oldest part of Sarajevo and the heartbeat of Bosnian Muslim tradition. To our right a number of tight alleys led uphill. Suddenly, we swung right up one of them. Peter slowed and checked the map on the parcel. He stopped the vehicle. ‘Ulica Romanijska, Apartment Block 2. This is it. That’s your entrance. We’ll wait for you. Good luck.’

I stepped out of the vehicle clutching the package. The armoured door closed with a clunk and I suddenly felt very alone, teetering on the cusp of two cultures. One lay in the Land Rover. Up some steps and through a dirty glass and metal door lay another. My heart started pounding.

Trudging up several flights of cold stairs I could have been in any one of hundreds of thousands of examples of hastily built ‘people’s accommodation’ which littered Eastern Europe. At the top of each flight was a small square landing. To the left and to the right, blue apartment doors, each with a small brass plaque. On the fifth floor the door on the right bore the plaque engraved ‘Pijalovic’. I banged on the door. My heart started beating even faster. What do they look like? What shall I say? No answer. I banged again. Still no answer, no sounds of movement from within. I was about to give it a third try when a woman poked her head around the stairs from the floor above.

‘They’re not at home. They’re both out …’ Her voice trailed off when she saw me. Her hand flew to her throat and her eyes bled confusion. The two aliens stared at each other. I realised I was still wearing the flak jacket and helmet.

I cleared my throat, ‘Er … I’m looking for the Pijalovics … for Minka Pijalovic … I’ve got a parcel from her daughter in London …’

‘Aida!! You know her? Where is she? How is she? … quick, come upstairs.’ She beckoned urgently. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I couldn’t admit defeat now. Hesitantly, I followed her upstairs and into her flat. Who is Aida? Is that her name, the girl in London?

‘How do you know Aida? How is she? … they haven’t heard word from her since the start …’ She had recovered her composure somewhat, ‘… I’m sorry, but … well, we’ve never had a visitor from UNPROFOR here before.’ There! She does think I’m an alien!

‘Well, she’s fine … I mean, I don’t know her … all I know is that she’s the au pair to one of our generals in London … this package is from her, I’m only the postman here …’

‘And Arna? Where’s she?’ Who the hell is Arna? I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, ‘Fine, I suppose …’

We were standing in her tiny kitchen. It was sparse and bare. The window had been smashed in and replaced with a sheet of plastic. The walls and ceiling were gouged and pitted in several places where shrapnel had flown in. How can people live like this?

She promised to deliver the package. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know her. How could I trust her not to keep it for herself? She told me her name was Greta and that she was a Serb. The Pijalovics were Muslims. Could I trust her? I had no choice and handed the package over. She looked up at me. There was hurt and sorrow in her eyes. It was as if she’d read something in mine.

‘You see. The war has even touched you. The first demon of war is suspicion … we’re all friends here in this block. We look after each other … we have to …’

I felt sick at having been exposed. Guiltily, I fished out a cigarette. It didn’t occur to me to offer her one. She was middle-aged, proper looking, clean and smart. She didn’t look like a grubby smoker, but her eyes followed my cigarette with a desperate hunger.

‘Do you mind if I have one of your cigarettes?’ Her voice was small and hollow.

I was shocked and suddenly, for the second time in as many minutes, embarrassed. She was embarrassed for asking and I was embarrassed because she was, ‘… I haven’t had one for … I mean … we have nothing … I can’t offer you coffee … I can’t even light this fire … we’ve nothing …’ Her voice started to quaver and I could see her eyes beginning to mist over. Shame engulfed me. All these trinkets I had, these guaranteed comforts of life, all taken for granted by me were gold dust to her, and she had been reduced to begging for a cigarette.

I dropped the packet and the cheap plastic lighter on the table. ‘Please, have these, I’ve got plenty more.’ I dug around and found a box of matches in a pocket. What have I got in my wallet? I fished it out. Only 40 Deutschmarks! But I dropped those on the table as well. I wished then I’d had more. She stared at the fortune on her table, but she didn’t reject it. If it was probably the most humiliating moment of her life, it was my most shameful. I wished I’d had more to give her.

‘You’re one of us … one of “ours” … I mean, the language.’ Ti si nas! One of ours! Am I? What does she mean … one of ‘ours’? What shall I tell her? I can’t lie, not to her.

I told her straight. I told her the truth. I couldn’t be bothered to lie, not to a woman who had almost burst into tears in front of me. As I explained, the blood drained from her face, replaced by a look of horror.

‘Don’t ever breathe a word of this!’ She was breathless, eyes pleading and concerned. ‘Don’t tell anyone … it’s not safe for you here. You’re from over there. You don’t know what we’re like here.’ Her voice became sad, ‘… they should never have sent you. Go home and save yourself!’

‘They didn’t … I sent myself. It was my choice.’ Her words had echoed my father’s. Are they all that wicked here? All of them? Have I missed a trick here?

‘Here!’ she announced triumphantly as she rummaged about in a cupboard and fished out a bottle of something pink. ‘We’ve got no coffee, but we’ve all got drink. That’s something we’re never short of. At least I can offer you some cherry brandy!’ She was laughing now. At least they still had their dignity and sense of humour. We started drinking and chatting.

There was a bang on the door. Greta looked startled and suddenly frightened. Cautiously she opened the door and caught her breath. ‘More UNPROFOR!’

Peter and David stood at the door, Peter looking both worried and relieved at the same time.

‘Mike! We were worried about you … thought you’d been kidnapped or something.’

I laughed, looked at Greta and then at her pile of gold dust on the table. ‘I have been, Peter … in a manner of speaking.’ I finished the drink, kissed Greta on the cheek and left her. I didn’t see her again for two and a half years.

Peter continued his guided tour, this time up to Kosevo Hospital and the Lion Cemetery for David’s benefit. I didn’t register the rest of the tour (my mind was elsewhere) but eventually we found ourselves back at the PTT building. We dropped David off; he was going to overnight there and catch the airlift down to Split in the morning. The Civil Adviser and Simon Fox were still in the building somewhere and David promised to make sure they caught the last APC shuttle back to Kiseljak. Peter offered to drive me back in the Range Rover. He had something to buy in Kiseljak and added that it would be useful for me to see the Dungeons & Dragons route through glass.

As we drove he told me about the difficulties of the job, how he was stretched having to deal with problems in the city and with difficult people on the Serb side. ‘You’re wasted in Central Bosnia. This is where you should be … you’d be most useful on the Serb side unblocking problems there. This is where you should be …’ He’d just planted the idea in my head. I mulled it over – This is where it’s at … where it’s really happening. But how?

‘Peter, why don’t you mention it to Brigadier Cumming. He’s at Kiseljak now. I can’t ask … besides he’ll say “no” anyway.’ I also knew that I was shortly to be posted up to the Cheshires in Vitez. Bob Stewart had been asking for me for several weeks now. He needed both Nick and me, one of us up in Tuzla to cover the Op CABINET crossings, the other in Vitez to cover the Op SLAVIN crossings. As it was Nick was having to dash between the two. Stewart had a point, and within days, in fact on the back of the Minister for the Armed Forces and the Adjutant General’s visit, due to happen on 8 February, I’d go up country for the last time and be left in Vitez. It didn’t appeal much. But the idea of working in Sarajevo did.

We sailed through all the Sierras. Even S-l was no problem. The bearded monster recognised Peter, broke into a huge, toothy smile and forced a glass of Slivovica onto us. The penny dropped – the key to all this is the personal contact.

Predictably, Brigadier Cumming said no. He could read us like a book – two naughty schoolboys, plotting. ‘No, he’s needed in Central Bosnia … and he’s still my asset.’

At half-six Peter departed as the Sierras closed down for the night at seven. There was still no sign of the APC shuttle or of the Civil Adviser and Simon. Unbeknown to us Sarajevo was being subjected to an intense and sustained barrage. Both men were trapped in the PTT building and were consequently being subjected to an all-night barrage of red wine from Peter. Somehow he’d made it back through the shelling. That’s what he was like.

‘Driver’s let us down! Stanley! You’re driving, let’s get back to Fojnica.’ Cumming wasn’t bothered. He would have been had he known I’d never driven a Discovery before and certainly not on iced-up roads in the dark.

It had started snowing again. We stopped for an hour or so at the BBC house in Kiseljak where Martin Bell, ‘the Man in the White Suit’, entertained us. We fell into deep conversation. I wanted to know more about the place.

We arrived back in Fojnica before midnight. I’d driven in silence and listened as the Brigadier told me how the conference had gone. It had been something of a jamboree during which it had been discovered that the British were the only contingent in theatre with the command and control assets – radios – necessary to effect a UN withdrawal. As we drove somehow I knew we wouldn’t be leaving. I pictured Greta in her flat, in the dark, in the freezing cold, with no future and only despair for companionship. We wouldn’t be going. We couldn’t abandon them – the Little People.