Third installment

Over the next few days we planned training of the men, how we were going to organize the mining in front of our lines and updating the sections where we had already planted mines and starting to train the new recruits, it was looking more and more like a private army PIV, even though according to the tv and our government our date of recognition was on the fifteen of this month nobody on the front line was convinced that it would make the slightest bit of difference to the war but hopefully it would mean less casualties. On the day that had been decided to start the mining we had three French journalists visiting us from "Raids" magazine, I had never heard of them but as always we were to do as we were told and accomadate them so they took some photographs of us in our new snow camaflage uniforms and on the understanding that they stayed behind us while we went and started mining and I was glad that they did. The mining was led by George and Nigel and I was to be behind with a sniper rifle as cover for the group, so I went to the ditch at the side of the field that was to be mined and the rest carried on with their job. One of the journalists called Brian took some photos of me and then of the rest doing their job, as they laid down mines they moved backwards and to the left and as they moved so did I, on doing so I noticed a group of Croatian soldiers behind me, not of our group but of another, I thought that they were watching us but I was wrong. As I continued backwards covering the unit at the same time I noticed a commotion with the other unit and wondered what it was about, I soon found out as two single shots hit the ground behind me. Our soldiers from a different unit were firing on me and all of a sudden they opened up with automatic fire, I jumped out of the ditch where I was and looked for somewhere that would give me cover. All the time I was shouting in english stop, stop, but they were not listening, they thought that we were the enemy. By now I had rolled into a trench that had been made while the field had been ploughed, I could see Brian running across the field shouting at the soldiers, the rounds were hitting the ground very close to my head and I was completely helpless as I had no where to go, I just hoped that Brian could stop them and thank God he did, he reached them with George, Nigel and the rest of our team following close behind but I could not stand up until I saw or heard a friendly face or voice until I heard Georges voice, he shouted to me that everything was alright so I slowly stood up. My whole body was shaking with fear and anger, if I had a ak-47 with me then I would have shot everyone that here me but I only had a sniper rifle, George, Nigel and Brian were arguing both in Croatian and Hungarian, I didn't understand anything of what they were saying but I was glad that Brian had stopped them or we would have all been dead. We walked back to the base and I was still shaking, I wondered who and why someone had opened fire on us, if it had been the enemy then I would have been moving towards our lines not moving backwards, now it had been proved to me how incapable the so-called Croatian soldiers were, just gun happy civilians who were in need of training and discipline, if only their commanders had done the same as we had done for our unit, perhaps then we would stand a better chance of winning the war but I knew that the commanders were not soldiers but civilians so how could they train their men. We arrived back at our base and told Ernie what had happened, he was not very happy about what had happened, I thanked Brian and would was grateful for that for a long time to come, he said that he and his crew were leaving but would return and told us when what he had seen and photographed would be printed, that for me was unimportant I was alive that was important, so we said goodbye and that was that. They say that in every bad bunch there is always a good one and today I knew why, we were all alive and people like him and his crew were always welcome.