Third installment

Day by day I was learning a lot about this man Ernie, he was not the saint that everybody in Osijek seemed to think he was, he had quite a few faults and using people was another one that I could add to the growing list. He was still my friend but slowly I was changing my mind about his motives for fighting this war, they were probably just what people wanted to hear and that he would continue to state them publicly as long as he was in the position that he was. All through this war my thoughts were filling like petrol fills a car, one day they would overflow and I would not be able to keep them locked away even though it may upset a lot of people. They always say that the truth hurts and eventually some people perhaps close to me were going to get hurt but that's life and if I had something to say I would say it no matter who it hurt.

As soon as we arrived at the base Ernie started showing off his new sniper rifle, he was like a kid with a new toy, we brought all the weapons and other equipment from the car and into the office where all the instructors were gathered, Ernie asked them if everything was alright and then proceeded to show them what we had acquired in Zagreb. Immediately after he had shown them the stayer, Kevin said that he would camouflage it for Ernie, the instructors were doing everything possible to keep Ernie happy, it seemed that I was the only person who was not doing everything to please him, I had been with him for too long to change just to suit him. The girl who had come from Zagreb the same time as the instructors had stayed on instead of going to work at the hospital and Ernie said that he would use her as a sort of public relations officer dealing with the press that were constantly pestering us, she told us that Osijek had been relatively quiet whilst we were away and that more and more countries were recognizing Croatia. 

It was shortly my birthday as my mother reminded me when I telephoned her that evening, that night I listened to the "yellow submarine" that had been set up by one of the local commanders Ivan, they first used the motorolas but were now transmitting like an ordinary radio station. They played a lot of requests from families to their relatives in the army, most of the songs were in english but the conversation in between was in Croatian, I really wished that I could speak and understand the language better than I did. The soldiers in the yellow submarine were all good friends of ours and we often visited them, we were especially friendly with Ivan as he had been in the war from the start. As I listened to the radio they sounded the air raid siren over the radio, another load of shells were being delivered to Osijek, Ivan and his men kept transmitting until the bombing stopped, it was comforting to hear friendly voices when shells were falling all around you and I could imagine how the soldiers in the Second World War felt when the Germans were bombing the UK. The Croatians were in that war fighting under the Yugoslaviaian flag, after that war I bet that they all thought that there would be another and here it was getting bombed and shot at again, what a price they have to pay for freedom. First the Germans and now the Serbians, when would it all stop. Quite a few shells fell that night, they were dropping all around the center and as I lay in my bed I could hear sirens from the ambulances as they sped along the main road towards the hospital, I hoped that everyone in Osijek was in their shelters and that there would not be too many casualties, who was I kidding I knew that there would not only be injured but dead.

"I hope that I will not be one of those found dead when the sun comes up. What a way to die, lying in my bed and just dropping off to sleep when bang, that's the end of me, not the way that I would choose to die. The only trouble in this war was you were not given a choice, this was a dirty war, a war of snipers, a war of mortars and artillery, a war of tanks, the enemy had them all and we had a few, if there was a cease fire we respected it they did not, we had dead they did not, how much longer was it going to last"I thought out load as I as usual nervously drifted off to sleep.