‘Mike Stanley it is then.’ Sam looked pleased as he annotated his list. ‘See you in the briefing room in half an hour … Mike!’ And that was it, just like that. Bye, bye Laurel, hello Mike Stanley.
Five o’clock turned out to be less a briefing, more an introductory session with a difference … in Serbo-Croat. Nick Stansfield, a highly capable captain in the Education Corps, led the proceedings. He spoke excellent Russian and good Serbo-Croat. He’d gone out to Zagreb earlier in the year and had migrated to Bosnia in October to work for Bob Stewart as his interpreter. Under his supervision the novice interpreters struggled through a few sentences while I sat at the back chatting to Nick Abbott, the corporal from the Anglian Regiment. Most of his extended family were Krajina Serbs and most of his cousins were in the ARSK, the Krajina Serb Army around Knin. He looked every bit a Dalmatian – swarthy, with black hair and dark eyes. He told me that Nick Costello, the ‘other one’, was also from Knin, also had cousins in the ARSK, and was currently up in Vitez as Bob Stewart’s interpreter.
‘What do you reckon? Do you think these people see through the Abbott & Costello nonsense?’ I was keen to learn the rules of the job as quickly as possible.
‘Well, people ask you where you’ve learnt the language, and you have to trot out the same old lie about university and coming here on holiday before the war. Throw in a few deliberate errors, struggle a bit and you might get away with it …’ He paused for a moment’s thought and then added, ‘… if I were you I’d keep your mouth shut here in Croatia. Save it for Bosnia.’
I was slightly alarmed. ‘Why?’
‘Simple. You speak with an ekavski accent … obvious you’re from Serbia, whereas here they speak with an ijekavski Dalmatian accent. And the words are different too. What’s “bread”?’
‘Hleb,’ I replied.
‘No it isn’t. Here it’s kruh and in Bosnia it’s hljeb or occasionally kruh. They’ve become so politically correct here in Croatia. Serb words are out. Croatian words are in. And where there isn’t a dual, they’ve simply made up a new word rather than use one that the Serbs are also using … all politically correct words, thousands of them.’
‘For example?’
‘For example … helikopter … you know, in Serbia or Bosnia, but not here. Here it’s a zrakomlat!’
A what! A something-beater? I’d never heard the word zrak.
‘An air-beater … zrak-o-mlat … zrak? You’d know zrak as vazduh – air.’ Suddenly I felt completely out of my depth. Not only was my accent ‘Cockney’ while theirs was ‘Geordie’, but they had a range of words, old and invented, which I’d never heard before in my life.
‘Gets better than that. How about this, then? What’s a “belt”?’ He was really enjoying himself now.
‘I’m tempted to say kajs, but I’m sure I’d be wrong.’
Nick smirked, ‘Kajs in Serbia or Bosnia, but here in Croatia it’s a – wait for it – an okolotrbusnipantolodrzac!’
‘An around-the-stomach-trouser-holder! You’re kidding me!’ I was astonished.
‘Spot on. Got it in one. They’re at it all the time, making up new words. They’re creating a whole new language here. They’ve even got a huge Croatian to Serbo-Croat, Serbo-Croat to Croatian dictionary, just as if they’re two separate languages.’
‘Bad as that then?’
‘Yep. So, if you don’t know New Speak keep your mouth shut here in Croatia and Hercegovina, especially with your accent.’ That was enough for me; I made a mental note there and then to play the dumb foreigner in Croatia.
That evening Nick Stansfield dragged me off to a bar in Trogir, an enchanting fifteenth-century fishing town about four miles north of Split airport and Divulje barracks. Trogir is a mini-Notre Dame, perched on an islet linked to the mainland and to the island of Ciovo by two bridges. At its heart lies a labyrinth of narrow, twisting alleys, small continental-style bars and a variety of restaurants. Before the war it was a haven for tourists and drug addicts. While none of the former was in evidence, Trogir still featured as one of the main nodal points on the drugs route from the East into Europe. Not only was trade prospering, but the war had, according to Nick, allowed the local mafia to flourish and spread its tentacles into every bar and restaurant, including the small corner bar, King Bar, in which we were quietly drinking.
Nick was leaving theatre in a couple of days’ time, after almost a year in the Balkans. He was unsure what the future held for him once he got home. He even had the option to stay on, one which I was rather selfishly encouraging him to take as he was just about the only person out here that I really knew.
‘Trouble is, you can only play the odds game so long and then your luck’s up …’ I wasn’t sure what he was getting at but let him continue, ‘… I’ve followed people into the most frightening situations … Bob Stewart drove us straight into a fire-fight … I crapped myself … then in Sarajevo there was that much metal flying through the air that you spent most of the time cowering in a bunker …’ He paused. He was thinner than I remembered him. His voice trailed off, ‘… No. Eventually your luck just runs out.’ I knew he wouldn’t be staying.
At the bar a fat German was shouting something in his mother tongue. He was waving a wodge of Deutschmarks at an uncomprehending bar girl and stabbing a sausage-like finger at a crucifix and rosary beads hanging behind the bar.
‘I thought there were no tourists here, Nick, you know, the war and all?’
‘There aren’t. He’s probably one of those German businessmen who nip down from Munich in their Mercs for a spot of hunting for the cause.’ He laughed dryly.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘They think nothing of spending a long weekend down here with the hunting rifle taking pot shots at the Serbs on the Knin front line. Solidarity with their Croatian brothers. And then zip back to the office in Munich. Weird, but it happens. There’s weirder yet, but you’ll find out. Whole place is fucked up.’
The following day we once again found ourselves in the briefing room for a day of orientation briefings. As Brigadier Cumming was indisposed, we were welcomed instead by Major Richard Barrons, the Brigade Chief of Staff and a Gunner. His address was really an overview explaining that the UN’s mandated presence in the Balkans was to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to whomsoever the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, the lead aid agency in the Former Republics of Yugoslavia, FRY, saw fit. The UN Protection Force, UNPROFOR, was mandated to protect UNHCR and the aid. Then it got a bit more complicated. UNPROFOR 1 was the UN force charged with maintaining the peace in the four disputed UN Protection Areas, UNPAs, in Croatia, while UNPROFOR 2 was concerned solely with the protection of humanitarian aid in Bosnia-Hercegovina, B-H. Both UNPROFORs were commanded by an overarching HQ in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. UNPROFOR 2’s headquarters, known as HQ Bosnia Hercegovina Command, HQ BHC, was located in a hotel in Kiseljak in Central Bosnia. It was run on a day-to-day basis by BHC’s Chief of Staff, Brigadier Roddy Cordy-Simpson. The actual commander of BHC, the French general Philippe Morillon, had established himself in a small tactical HQ in Sarajevo in a building known as the Residency.
If that wasn’t enough, UN deployments within B-H were even more confusing. The French had two battalions, the Egyptians and Ukrainians one apiece in Sector Sarajevo. The Spanish had a battalion based in Mostar in Hercegovina and outposts up the Neretva river valley. The British battalion, BRITBAT, based on the Cheshires’ Battle Group, was centred on Vitez in Central Bosnia and had the largest Area of Responsibility, AOR, with a company in Gornji Vakuf, GV, and B Squadron of the 9/12 Lancers in a base at Tuzla