‘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.
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