Fourth lnstalment

We lay there for what seemed like a eternity, the only thing that kept us company was the rapid beating of our hearts,then there was an explosion as an RPG found it's target,, the machine guns on either side of us opened fire, I picked up my orsa and knelt on top of the embankment, took aim and fired, it hit just below the target sending a hail of debris onto the bunker, we reloaded and fired a direct hit and there was smoke bellowing from what was once a bunker, the other team had trouble loading so we decided it was a good time to leave. My second was who was Alex the Latvian unloaded the third time round that was ready for firing and released it, keeping our heads down we turned and headed back towards the woods directly behind us, our part of the attack had only lasted ten minutes. There were still explosions coming from the other side of the old railway tracks and we assumed that they were still firing and then it stopped just as suddenly as it had started. We were almost through the first part of the woods when we heard the sound of mortars overhead, it was now Marks turn as he and his team were to cover our retreat with two mortars and an improvised napome. The constant whistle of shells flying over our heads was endless as the Serbians had now started to return fire, we were walking but crouched just incase the mortars landed near but it seemed that the majority were going to Kevin's team and Mark's mortar position. We reached the re-org point and set up all round defense to cover the retreat, they came back with only one wounded, a sniper had sent a bullet straight through the man's helmet and he had escaped with just a flesh wound, all our men were back safe and I wondered if the other teams were just as fortunate, we didn't know but just had to wait as planned. We had been there for about half an hour when the mortars stopped and peace returned to the woods, there nothing coming over the radio, the only sounds were the breaking of twigs when someone changed their position. The silence was broken by Ernies voice coming over the radio and calling my name I acknowled, 

"is everybody ok" he asked, 

"one man with a flesh wound but everyone else is ok" I rep ok, 

We waited for another firteen minutes and then decided to head home, I was the last covering our return. We arrived back at our lines to be met by everyone else apart from a couple of exceptions, Jason from Liverpool had a tromblone explode on his weapon and Kevin who had been next to him had also been injured,all the casualties were taken away to hospital, they were not in danger and would be ok. We got into the lorries and the cars leaving behind a destroyed Velika Pumpa and hopefully a lot of dead chetniks, the amount we would find out over the next few weeks when a friend of ours who was with the EEC and visiting Darda at the time returned probably carrying good tidings, he was a serving British officer and had no love for the communists. We did not go straight to the hospital but straight home, we arrived to kisses from the girls who were very glad to see us back safely. The first thing to do now was to get the weapons cleaned and back in the armory, I wiped my Orsa over and put it away, the others were cleaning their mortars and rifles, just by listening I found out what had happened with the other teams, it seemed that everything had gone to plan and that the second team had completely destroyed the enemies hq which with what we did it was a complete success, it had taken weeks to plan and make ready and fourty five minutes to exacute, was it all worthwhile? We locked the armory up and everyone cleaned off the cam cream and all went to lay down, while I was thinking about the days events I fell asleep, a well deserved sleep. 

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