Sixth installment

It was now not long before Christmas and I was getting homesick, I asked Ernie whether it would be possible for me to go home for a week, he said that he would find out off the commander of the brigade who was a man called Jeremy. A couple of days later it was agreed that I could leave on the twenty first of December and return on New Years Eve, I was now very happy, I had not seen my parents for two months and had missed them a great deal even though I would never admit that to them,I wondered what their reaction would be after me walking out without telling them that I was on my way to Croatia to fight a war, I didn't know so I decided as soon as the telephones were installed and working I would give them a call and tell them that I would be home for ten days holiday, I had also not written to anyone since I arrived in Croatia and my parents probably didn't know where I was, it would come as a shock to them to find out the truth. Somehow I knew that they would not understand why I was fighting here but I hoped that they would accept it, I would find out as soon as I phoned and that was only if anyone wanted to speak to me, I would have to wait and see. The days passed with us getting the base shipshape and organized, Ernie was busy commuting, one day he returned and one of the commanders had told him that our unit had a job to do during the night, he told me and a few others that we had been ordered to blow up a house a little way down the street that was owned by a Serbian family, there were quite a few Serbians living in the village and there had been quite a few sightings of someone sending messages using a flashlight to the next village where the enemy were so this would serve as an example and hopefully keep the Serbs in check. We broke in and searched the house from top to bottom taking anything that looked suspicious, id cards, documents any papers that we found. We decided to make it look like a gas explosion so we placed explosives against the retaining walls joined all the wires together and trailed them outside with enough safety fuse to allow us to get far enough away, lastly we turned the cooker on with a small charge on the gas bottle next to it, we closed the door allowing the room to fill up with gas and walked far enough to be safe and waited. After a couple of minutes there was an almighty explosion, the whole street shook, bits of debris flying all over the place, we decided to go indoors so no one would suspect us, we would wait until the next day to survey the damage. The following morning we acted as surprised as everyone else to see this house blown apart, there was only one corner left intact, we had done a good job, the explosion was blamed on an artillery shell that had fallen on the house during the night, nobody suspected us, the Serbs would now know that they had to keep quiet or the same thing might accidentally happen to their homes, I think that they learnt a lesson from it as there were no more sightings of flashing lights on from the village, it had worked a treat. It was amazing that we had to do this to such a lovely house but an order was an order and it had to be obeyed, I wondered what had happened to the family who lived there, where were they now, perhaps in Belgrade I had no idea and I didn't even care as they were the enemy. The only thing that concerned me was weather or not the orders had come from command and were actually orthentic, it was funny that only Ernie went to Osijek and came back with orders. The blowing up of this house was a perfect example although it did have the desired effect on the surrounding Serbs, even if I was unsure where the orders came from we did what we were told and because of my hatred of Serbians and chetniks that was festering away at me every time an enemy shell landed on Croatia, with every soldier or civilian that was killed for the sake of their freedom. How long and how many lives would it take before the Serbians realized that they were the aggressors no matter what Belgrade said and how long would it be before this war would finish?