‘Hey, Sam.’ I caught his attention. He was sitting three down from me. ‘These women! What do they do with the ugly ones? Send them up to the front line?’
His mouth full, eyes laughing, he said, ‘You haven’t worked it out, have you? Why do you think they keep disappearing upstairs?’
I had no idea. ‘I suppose there’s a restaurant upstairs … I dunno.’
Sam sniggered. He could barely contain himself. ‘They’re pros, Mike, y’know, whores … restaurant downstairs, knocking shop upstairs. Probably doing the bizzo with their clients between courses!’ He was almost shouting.
‘You’re kidding!?’
‘Nope. It’s true. Whole place is mad. It’s the war. They’re not even locals, these girls. They’re Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, y’know … The Wall comes down, nothing at home but a depressed economy and … flutter, flutter, flutter down here to the war where there’s easy money … place is run by the mafia like everything else …,’ he paused for a moment, his fork hovering inches from his mouth,‘… but it’s still the best restaurant in Trogir and it’s got its very own night club.’
As if on cue the door burst open and one of the local yobbos barged his way into the restaurant. He was a Neanderthal – six foot four, thickset, huge head with black, close-set, unintelligent eyes and a skinhead crop. He wore jeans, trainers and a cheap blue and white donkey jacket with a fluffy white fake fur collar. The black FN assault rifle, which he slammed down on the small wooden bar, completed this picture, but the bar girl seemed to know him and a glass of beer miraculously appeared in his paw. He glared around the restaurant, fixing those horrid little eyes, so full of contempt and hatred, on the British table. Clearly his entrance hadn’t caused the stir he’d expected as celebrations continued unabated. He gulped down his beer and demanded another. Sitting at the end of the table I was nearest him. I just hoped he wasn’t going to go mad with that rifle and demand that we empty our wallets.
Fortunately not. Moments later he grabbed the FN and lurched past us out onto the patio where he pumped four rounds into the night sky. The hubbub in the restaurant eased momentarily but quickly picked up again, much to the man’s annoyance. Then he resumed his position at the bar and continued drinking. So did we.
With dinner over we were on our feet, mixing and chatting, pints of beer in our hands, all waiting for midnight. I found myself standing in front of a man dressed in tartan trousers, dinner jacket and bow tie. The Brigadier! I forced sobriety into my voice and introduced myself. The Brigadier was without doubt the most charming, easy, urbane man I’d ever met.
‘Don’t worry about Split,’ he said as though he’d read my thoughts, ‘we won’t be spending much time here. I’m deploying a small tactical headquarters to Fojnica in a couple of days’ time and we’ll be doing a lot of travelling, you, me and Corporal Fox.’
As midnight approached we found ourselves out on the patio. It was freezing. Neanderthal-man was out there, too, pumping the odd round skywards between swigs of beer. I just prayed he’d keep that thing pointing in the right direction. At midnight the sky erupted with multi-coloured streaks of tracer arcing into the air. As far as the eye could see, right down the coast to Split, a madness of gunfire heralded 1993. That night nine people were killed by spent rounds falling to earth. They even found one stuck in the skin of one of 845’s Sea Kings.
Nearby, Trogir was rocking with automatic gunfire. Our man went berserk. He’d flipped onto auto and was spraying the night with long, raking bursts of automatic fire. His body shook and juddered in sympathy with his weapon as he staggered around the patio. The magazine empty, he dug a fresh one from his jacket pocket and, once he’d inexpertly loaded it and wrenched the cocking lever back, he continued to blast the opposite shoreline with another long, raking burst. Then the FN jammed. Neanderthal-man was hunched over it, furiously tugging at the cocking handle, his face black and contorted with the effort. It had jammed solid.
John Chisholm sallied forth to his rescue, grabbing the weapon from the startled hood. ‘Issallaright mate, I know about these things, lemme help you.’ He flipped off the magazine and tugged at the lever. Nothing. ‘Weapon’s filthy, bet he’s never cleaned it … jammed solid …’sno problem … jus’ needs a little force.’ With that he placed the butt on the ground and stamped on the cocking handle as hard as he could; with such force, in fact, that the weapon broke, the working parts shot out of the back and smashed against the wall, cracking and shattering the breech block.
The world went silent. We gazed in horror at the broken rifle, then at the smashed breech block and finally at its owner, who was staring in shock and amazement at the bits and pieces. Oh, shit! That’s it. We’re dead. He’s going to rip us apart. Slowly he sank to his knees, collected up the pieces and, turning, sat down heavily, cross-legged, clutching the FN’s shattered innards. He looked up at us in utter bewilderment. We stood there transfixed by the ghastly horror of it all, dreading what was to come. His gaze went back to the broken metal that his massive paws were nursing. Then his shoulders heaved and he let out a huge sob and burst into tears, blubbering over his broken toy.
Seizing the moment, we fled into the night before his grief turned to blind fury.
October 1997 – The Nelson Arms, Farnham, UK
‘You’ll love this one, Nix …’ I’m reading the list of instructions I’ve found in the box of pills that Ian’s given me, telling her about the side-effects – nausea, excessive sweating, mood swings and so on. I’m exhausted from the ride back from seeing Ian in Gosport, exhausted from digging up the dead.
She doesn’t laugh. ‘How did it go?’
‘It went, Nix. Hours of insane rambling and a packet of pills.’
‘They’ll do you good. Honestly they will. I’m so pleased you’ve taken this first step. Everything will get better. I promise. It will.’
‘Yeah, well, we’ll see.’
Will it get better? ‘You know, Nix, you take a rifle out of the armoury. You use it and eventually if you don’t clean it it’ll stop working. So you clean it: you pull the barrel through, scrape off the carbon, oil up the working parts, and it works. Easy. Humans aren’t any different … how do you clean this shit out of your mind? I mean, what do you use to pull your brain through with?’
‘Ian will help you do that. He’s your pull-through … you must stick with him.’ Nix was an Army officer for seven years so she knows all about pull-throughs. I’m bored of psychobabble. I’ve had it all afternoon, evening and now here in the pub. I want a rest from it. But I can’t help it and I start rambling again.
‘Wait! Milos, stop! Where does that fit in? Was that with Rose?’
‘Rose! No, Nix! I’ve already told you … with Cumming … at the beginning.’
‘Oh. Right. With Cumming.’ She’s confused.
‘That’s right. Cumming, Nix … when we were travelling around in January 1993.’ I’m getting edgy.
Nix looks exhausted – huge bags under her eyes. She’s trying to understand, but it’s confusing. I know it’s confusing – so many people, so many stories. I have to take it slowly. If she can’t get it, what hope have Plod got?
‘Right. We start touring. Brigadier Cumming, Simon Fox the driver, and me. The three of us in the Discovery plus that ridiculous little RB44 truck with the satellite dish that doesn’t work. It followed us around like a puppy. After that New Year’s Eve party on Ciovo island we