‘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’?