‘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