Skip to main content

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. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ninth installment

The remains of the unit that were in this position left and we followed them, we went around the outskirts of the village and back into the center. The rest of PIV or what was left of it were already there, we found out that Colin just after he had reached the main hq in the center of the village. We had to go back to the end of the street to see what was happening but as soon as we arrived we came under heavy fire as the enemy had pinpointed this house as our new front line, there was no way that we could reach Eric without getting everyone who attempted a rescue killed and because of the amount of enemy fire we had to fall back, on the way Alan started going berserk saying that he had to go back to fight, he was shooting everywhere so George calmed him down and asked him to take care of the elderly and that seemed to work. By now the village command had decided it was time to leave but first we had to wait for the mortar unit to reach safety. We could not get anywhere near under cons...
Post a Comment
Read more

Third installment

Day in, day out, it was the same routine, sleep, guard, fire off a few rounds in the general direction of the enemy, there was not much else to do, the main thing was to stay alive by keeping inside every time mortars or artillery came flying in to the village. The only time that there was a lot of activitie was when we were buzzed by planes, everybody would rush outside, Ernie would jump on the transporter and fire the machine gun, I used to run to the machine gun that was mounted on a tripod at the end of the street and also fire at the plane, everybody else would be outside firing their ak47s, there was not much chance of hitting it or bringing it down but it took only one lucky shot and that would give everyone hope. After the plane had gone out of sight that the transporter was Ernies because he had shot at the enemy leaving the damaged transporter with a sniper rifle, so Geordi the commander in charge of the defense of Osijek had given it to Ernie, I also found out that he worked...
Post a Comment
Read more

Second installment

The word money has a way of working it's way into every aspect of life and my little crusade was not exempt, how much did I need to get to Croatia, how much did I need to survive on the way, it all had to be taken into account and most where and how I was going to get the money from that I needed. By inquiring at travel agents I found out that I could fly but only as far as Austria, Italy or Hungary but the price was much too expensive for me. Taking the train to any of these countries was also far too expensive, the cheapest way was by bus but the only problem was that it took so long to reach your destination. The bus that I wanted to take went from London and it's destination was Athens in Greece, it normally went through Yugoslavia but because of the war it was not going through Budapest then down into Belgrade before going onto Greece. This was the cheapest way to go and after further inquiries I found out the times and price of the bus, now all I had to do was get the mon...
Post a Comment
Read more