First installment

We turned left and into a large room, that was what used to be the bar. There were bench seating all around but now had been turned into beds, there were bar stools in front of the bar area it was now the kitchen. There were about twelve people there and I met them all in turn but it would take time to meet them all properly, I wondered if we had that much time considering the state of the village and it's houses. In one corner of the room was a man cleaning his rifle and he was introduced as Alan, an ex-portuguese ranger, at least was one real soldier here and he spoke fairly good english, I would get to know him and a few other's really well as time went by. There were all sorts weapons lying around, mattresses in every available space as if almost everyone slept here as it was the safest place to sleep. Once I had seen everything Alan and I went upstairs and I changed into my British uniform at least today I would look like a real soldier, we then went out into the street where it was very quiet, no people, cars, lorries, nothing, Alan pointed out a few buildings for me, on our left was what used to be the post office and further along that side was the railway station, directly opposite was the local health center which had been abandoned a long time ago, in between us and the health center was an old troop carrier which Alan informed me didn't work anymore but the machine gun on top was still in working order,

"where is the enemy" I asked,

"about one, maybe two kilometers that way" pointing forward and to the right"

"bloody hell, they are close" I said,

As we were talking I heard a noise that I knew only too well, it was morters so we decided it would be better if we went back inside so quickly we crossed the street and into our HQ. Inside we went downstairs where everyone was there apart from those on guard, there were people from Hungary, Bosnia, Albania, Macadonia, Montegero and there was even supposed to be an American but he had gone home for a short while and also an englishman who was trained in tanks so Alan informed me, I was surprised when he told me that we had tanks,

"tanks, how many" I said half expecting at least a dozen,

"four" said Alan,

"is that all" I asked,

"yes and their all old" came the reply,

"We were defending the front line with just four tanks,this is not a very safe place to be with no backup"I said,

The rest of the day was mainly spent trying to get to know the people there and what experience they had with Alan's help but the majority had none. The night was closing in and we decided to go and try to get some shut eye, even though my stomach was rumbling as I had had just a tin of some sort of meat(spam) and bread, Alan was already lying on his bed fully clothed so I went to my bed and did the same (it's better to be safe than sorry), Ernie came in and did the same. As we were trying to get to sleep the mortar attack started again and were dropping quite close to us but Alan and Ernie didn't seem to be worried,

"just go to sleep, if you worry where their going to land then you will never get to sleep" Alan said,

so I lay back and listened passing overhead, I hoped that they would not land on us, I didn't want to die on my first day without firing a single bullet, the other's were asleep so I turned over, put the pillow over my head and tried to sleep.