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Fifth installment

After that Eric and I were together quite a lot, mostly talking and sceming, we were often on guard duty and something always happened when we were there. One time there was a artillery attack and the shells were getting very close to close for comfort, face's down hoping that we didn't have a direct hit so we decided it was better to vacate the bunker, the house next to the bunker had a cellar so we made a run for it, while in there we could hear shells falling all around, I must admit that I was getting a little bit worried, was this the beginning of the main attack. After about ten minutes it stopped so we went back to the bunker which was still in one piece. After our guard duty had finished we went back to the bar and upstairs, we sat talking and trying to think of things that would help to defend our position properly. We talked about the best place for antitank mines, trenches, the garage in front of our bunker which was obscuring our line of fire, land lines because the enemy were probably listening in and there had to be some sort of command structure. When Ernie arrived back he and George listened to what we had thought of and Ernie decided to think about it, he was obviously in command. The next day we put more mines down on the school playing field, so George and Nigel started working back from the road while I was cover, shortly after we had started an attack started so we took cover in the house closest, it was as if the enemy knew what we were doing, they were trying their hardest to hit us and if one shell hit the house they would have achieved their goal, there was a lull in the attack so we decided to make a run for it to the safety of our hq, so behind the houses we went until we reached the bar, it seemed to be the safest building around. While all the other houses were being bombed ours was relatively untouched, I could not help but wonder why, was this to be the enemies new hq if they took Laslovo or was there someone in our unit that they didn't want to kill they were my thoughts and I didn't mention them to anyone just kept them to myself.
The next day we went on patrol towards the enemy lines, we all went to the railway station and and across the lines into the corn field all of a sudden we started getting fired on either by the enemy or our side, we were pinned down, we decided it was better if we went back, so we crawled back and then made a run for it,I got back to the house and George and some of the others came with us to see if Eric was OK behind a stack of wood, we shouted to see if he was alright, the bullets were whistling over our heads as we got to him and crouched down, after we saw he was alright we decided to head back, 
"keep your heads down" shouted Eric,
but no one listened and just continued to walk upright, a burst of automatic gunfire rang out and one of the men went down, 
"shit, he's been shot" I shouted,
We went back to him keeping our heads down but he had been shot and losing consciousness we tried to carry him back but were struggling, George went for an ambulance and Eric picked him up in a fireman's lift and carried him back, we reached safety and laid him down, there was a lot of blood, we ripped open his shirt to see where he had been shot, two in his chest, the ambulance arrived and we put him in and they drove off, Ernie went with him, I sensed that he didn't have much of a chance as one bullet was close to the heart that would account for the blood, he would be lucky to live through it. We went back to hq and there was an uncanny silence, nobody wanting to say anything, the reality of war it seemed had just hit them, they now knew that anyone of us stood a chance of dying. The next thing I knew was a hell of a noise from upstairs it seemed like there was a riot going on so I went to see what was going on and Ernie was going mad smashing anything he could get his hands on but eventually he sat down sobbing,
"they should have kept their heads down, he died in my arms" he said softly,
I didn't know what to do, he just had to sort himself out so I left him and went downstairs, it seemed that they were all blaming us for his death but we were not at fault they had had no milatery training, if you're getting fired on keep your heads down like we told you and then no one would be dead what a terrible way to learn a lesson. 

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