Second installment

They told me that ZNG was the Croatian National Guard and that most of the people in Croatia joined this group, HOS was better and therefore harder to join, I thought to myself that it didn't matter which group I fought with as long as my reason for fighting was the same and I was not particularly worried about whom I joined just as long as I got to the front line and did something to help the Croatians. The person who spoke to me earlier and first spoke in French to the other two men and then in English to me. He told me that it was too late to go to Vukovar as they had already sent a unit there the day before but if I waited they may be able to sort something out for me, so I sat back down and waited patiently, after all I was in no hurry. After about an hour someone came for us, we left our bags downstairs and followed the man up to the top floor of the building. We waited outside a large door and we were informed that there was an important meeting going on inside, all the commanders of HOS were there, when the meeting was over we would be seen. After twenty minutes people started to come out and our escort went in, after about 10 minutes he came back and spoke in French and took us downstairs to the second floor, he took the other two men,

"wait by here, I will be back shortly" he said and quite quickly he returned alone, 

"you are a little too inexperienced for HOS and the commander will not accept you"

"was not being an ex-British soldier not enough" I said,

"no, HOS were a special unit of foreign volunteers and their job was mainly sabatage and demolition and therefore they needed soldiers with that specialty" he explained,

"what could I do now" I asked,

"go and join the ZNG, they have a base next to the railway station, they will definitely accept you as they are mainly infantry and that is what you were trained for"

"thanks and good luck" I said as I walked away. I went back to the main hall, put my bergan on, took my passport back and left. On the way out l said good-by to the soldier from Liverpool and asked him where the front line was and he me a few places but the closest was Osijek, if I wanted a good place to start then that was it, we shook hands and I left thinking to myself what now.

I decided to head for the railway station, where and what I was looking for l didn't know, I couldn't see any office or army recruitment office so I turned left and continued to walk, looking all the time for something that looked like some office that looked like a recurrent office but nothing. It was now ten'o'clock at night, nowhere to sleep before going to Osijek the following morning, looking around I could not see anywhere that seemed safe to sleep so I headed back into the station at least there must be somewhere to have a sleep for a few hours. In I went looking around, above me there was an electronic time table so I looked up at the places on the board, the only one that I knew was Osijek and that was not until twenty to six in the morning, six and a half hours to wait, I went into the ticket office and bought a second class ticket to Osijek only one way as I was not planning on coming back. What was I supposed to do now, nowhere to sleep and a long wait for a train to take me to a place that I had no idea where it was. What had I let myself into, my mind was the only thing that was active everything else was crying out for sleep. There was a kiosk at the end of the platform so I headed for it where I bought a sandwich and a can of beer, I sat down and started to eat, after finishing I decided to get my jacket out of my bergan as it was getting a bit colder and I had to keep warm as I was now not in a hotel but sitting outside, While looking through my bergan I checked that I had everything that I would need but there were quite a few things missing, my compass, gloves, two knives and my survival kit, they had all been stolen, the only time that I left my bergan was when I was at HOS, someone there must have stolen them, thanks a lot I thought, they weren't soldiers just thieves, I came to Croatia with everything that I owned and all the money I had and all they did was steal from me, welcome to Croatia, to make matters worse a couple of drunks came up to me and started speaking Croatian and then German, I didn't understand anything so I thought it would be better if I found somewhere to sleep.