Fifth installment

Two days after my birthday we were told by command that we had to vacate our base in Brieste and we had to find two new houses in Visnjevac as this was to be our new front line. It was decided that George would go look for them as he had some local knowledge, he took three men with him and started the search, he returned to Osijek later that day telling us that he had found three houses close together. The relatives who owned one of the houses were creating a fuss saying that we would destroy everything that was inside the house so I decided to go and see if I could change their minds. Early that evening I went with George to try to talk to them and after about half an hour of discussion they were getting very upset so instead of forcing the issue we asked if they knew of any Serbian houses that were empty that we could use instead, they said that they did and proceeded to show them to us. The houses they showed us were useless so back we went to try once more to persuade them to let us use those houses but it didn't work. Everything I was saying and George translateing I meant and I knew that the house and it's contents would not come to any harm as our men were not vandels. It looked like they wanted our protection from the enemy only a couple of kilometers across the river but were not willing to let us use the house, I didn't know whether agree with them or not. In the end after a long and sometimes heated discussion we settled for the two houses that we had already acquired, they were fairly big and would be ample for our needs. At least we had something to show for a whole day of house hunting, we decided to go to Ernie and explain what had happened and he had shouted a bit he agreed that we should move within the next two days. It was decided that Peter's section would have one of the houses and the men from Brieste the other, the next day we would make all the arrangements for the electricity to be turned on and and telephone wires connected. We went to hq that night and gave them the addresses so that they could do all the paperwork and get it ready to be picked up the following morning. Everything was back on course for the move, I hoped that nothing else would go wrong or Ernie would be in a worse mood than he already was, perhaps the splitting of the unit may do us all a bit of good, it would give us a chance to settle down before we started training again. What a momentous day that would be as no one in Brieste liked the way that the instructor's were behaving and to be quiet honest neither did I, they seemed to be behaving as if they were in charge and Ernie was doing nothing to assert his authority, he just let them carry on doing what they wanted. The next morning the girls picked up the paperwork and some of the men prepared the houses ready for the unit to move in, I made sure that everything from the armory in Brieste was loaded as we would start the move as soon as the sun came up. We had by now acquired rather a lot of mines, explosives and ammunition, more than we should really have, but out of all the other units in Osijek we were the ones most likely to use them so therefore we had them or that's what we told ourselves. The men packed up all their personal belongings, all the kitchen equipment was packed in boxes as soon as the evening meal was over, tv. Video and everything in the office was packed neatly away, we would be ready as planned. When everyone was in bed I made my usual call to my parents, whether I was angry or disillusioned before making the call I always felt better after, I wasn't homesick but it was always good to hear news from back home.