The next day it was awfully quiet, the calm before the storm perhaps, nothing much for breakfast so we decided to try and lay the land line. So off we went house to house laying the wire behind us and then the mortars started again so we hit the ground, lying down was the safest if caught outside, there were pieces of shrapnel hitting the wall near to us and it was not a very safe place to be so we decided to make a run for it, that was the quickest I had ran in a long time, it is amazing how fast your legs move when you're life is at risk,
"that was a nice little bit of exercise" Eric said laughing,
"yes but it would have been better if we weren't dodging pieces of metal" I replied also laughing.
Everyone was there apart from those on guard duty and during the night it had changed from two to three, so I sat down on the bar stool and Eric went behind the counter looking for something to eat and all of a sudden bang and I fell off the stool, they all came to see if I was alright because they thought that I had been hit by shrapnel but thankfully it was only a stone that had came through the window by a mortar that had landed just outside, I was OK just winded but it was funny to everyone except me so Eric and I decided to sit on the opposite side where the stone had come from than another bang, a piece of shrapnel came through the window behind us but thankfully it didn't hit anyone, we were now all putting our helmets on and finding a free space on the floor, Eric and I were telling jokes and laughing trying to keep everybody's spirits up and it seemed to be working.
It wasn't long before it was our turn again to go on guard,the mortars had stopped so off we went down to the bunker, when we reached the others were waiting for us and you could tell that they were relieved to see us and on their way back to the bar. In we went, Eric sitting on an old chair and myself on a bail of hay taking turns to look out of the large hole that was in front of us nothing to do but talk, one minute it was quite and the next all hell broke loose, two shells hit a house just in front of us,
"they were tank shells" Eric intelligently informed me,
"great, I knew it was to quiet" I said,
we could not see a thing so we decided to go to the house next to the bunker. All we could see was a cloud of red dust, the shells had demolished the front of the house opposite, we peered through the dust looking for anything and anybody that was coming towards us, we couldn't see a thing,
"this could have been deliberately to cover an attack" I said,
no sooner had I finished thinking this Eric let a magazine off,
"they are on their way, loads of them, they are attacking" he shouted,
I saw them, we were firing through the dust at anything that moved, we saw three or four fall but they kept on coming, there was too many for us to take on, so we had to inform the others, Eric stayed and continued firing moving slowly behind me I ran as fast as I could and informed everyone, they all grabbed their rifles and went outside, I went back to where Eric was, he was still firing at the chetniks,
"where is everybody else" he said over the noise of gunfire and mortars,
"they are on their way" I shouted,
the bullets in on us, we had to change position at least to the next house, by this time the others were firing from the opposite side of the road. We decided to try and make our way back to the others as we were getting pinned down, firing through the houses as we went back, we had to find for a better place to defend from. We got as far as our hq, we got our stuff and went back outside, we were firing from the health center, the enemy were only about five hundred meters away but we seemed to be holding them but all of a sudden tank shells started coming into our position,
"where are all our tanks" I shouted at Eric who was in one of the rooms of the health center,
"they're not coming, it's too risky" was his reply.
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