Ninth installment

That night I went to see Paula and told her that we had a date for our holiday, she was overjoyed and gave me some travel brochures to look at. After a while we decided that we would go to Opatia as it was a lovely place and and not to expensive especially as it was out of season, I told her how I would get the money and as soon as I had it I would pay for the holiday, she told me that she wanted to pay half but after a little discussion she agreed to let me pay. There was also good news for me as her friend at the newspaper told her that the article would be published the following week on the seventeenth of March, I wondered what Ernie would have to say about that, somehow I didn't care as it was what I wanted to do and there was no way that he could stop it now as it was in the hands of the press. When we finished talking I asked her if she wanted to go for a drink, she said yes so we went to the Pivnica. After a couple of hours I took her home and stayed until early the following morning when I had to go back I left saying that I would see her tomorrow, I had already had a fair bit to drink but I felt like celebrating so I went straight to my room and got my bottle of Scotch. There was noone in the tv room so I got a glass and sat watching tv slowly getting drunk. The programs came to an end but my bottle hadn't so I decided to drink the rest with the guards I sat down and offered them a drink and fair play to them they only had little probably because they were on duty or perhaps I didn't give them a chance to get their hands on the bottle, this was my night and I was celebrating my holiday with the best friend a man could have, a woman. While I sat there drinking I saw Alan and Tina together, what had happened to the budding romance between her and Kevin, what had happened to Alan's girlfriend in London, there was more going on here than there were on the tv series 'Dallas' and it seemed that I was the only one keeping track of what was going on,

"anyway back to the bottle" I thought

I offered the guards one last drink and then I finished the bottle off, I placed it upside down in the plant pot and proceeded somewhat waywardly to bed. There was no way that I could get undressed so I just lay on the bed and was asleep within seconds. The next morning I awoke with a terrible headache and to make matters worse my guards were constantly making jokes about me even if they were considered by everyone else as a useless bunch they were my men and I thought the world of them, they did their duty on guard without a word of complaint and were to stay with me until I left. Thinking back it's funny I was very proud of them because of the way that they acted, they were not useless, they were just men and women that had been given the chance to become soldiers, I felt sorry for them but after all there was only one overall commander and nothing that I said mattered.

Over the next few days I waited patiently for my article to appear in the newspaper and at last I was rewarded by the sight of my ugly face on page eight, they hadn't dropped hardly anything from the original article and I was very pleased to know that the opinions of a foreigner were still respected in some quarters. While talking to Paula over the phone that day we decided to ask our editor friend if there was any chance of the paper printing any more of my articles but on topical subjects connected with my opinions on the war, she said she would telephone and ask. While I waited I looked at the papers on the desk and saw from the calendar that it was almost Ernies birthday so I sat there thinking whether or not I should get him a presant and eventually I decided on a surprise. Since we arrived in Croatia I was the only one apart from James who had been home to see his parents, so I decided that I would try to find out where Ernies father lived and attempt to get him to come to Osijek for his sons birthday but after thinking about it I opted out as it would be too expensive and I was not sure that Ernie would appreciate me interfering in his private life. There was only one alternative and that was to throw him a surprise party and the best place would be at Bizovac as it was away from Osijek and it was not targeted by the Serbians. That night I sat down with Paula and wrote out a guest list and included all of what I thought were Ernies friends, there were the local commanders, Yellow Submarine, people from the press center and members of our unit, the total number was about thirty two. We decided we should ask everyone to contribute at least 1500HD(Croatian Dinars) and whatever was left I would pay for out of my wages which were at the time about one hundred and twenty pounds a month, not bad for a mercenary. We decided that we would go to Bizovac the following day and talk to the catering manager to find out how much it would cost and what we would get for our money. While we were talking Paula also told me that she had rung up her friend and between her and the main editor they had decided to allow me to write for them for a period of eight weeks, I told Paula I had already written another article and would show her when we went to Bizovac the following day, of course she translated the articles before we gave them to the newspaper but she didn't mind as she agreed with what I wrote and was happy to do anything she could for me especially as I was going to pay for our holiday. The date for our holiday was the fourth of April and my first proper article would appear the Wednesday before we went, so there were two things to look forward to.