Seventh installment

It wasn't only the men from Briest that were having trouble but Peter who was again having trouble with his girlfriend, there was another reason why he was a pain and that was that if there was a disagreement then he would side with the Croatians as his unit was made up of mostly Croats whom he had come to respect, as for Mark and myself we wanted to stay in the background as possible as we had friends on both sides and we didn't want to lose any of them. There was a strange atmosphere in both of the houses and in the base in Osijek and it had to be sorted out or the unit would not survive, it had all started with the arrival of the British, what an uncanny situation! Well the time had come and everybody sat down around the table looking like a bunch of delagates at a peace conference, was this to be the end or a new beginning? It started badly and would continue that way, the British upset the apple cart right from the beginning and even before we had actually sat down. One of the things that George was well known for was that he always carried a sawn-off shotgun, it had been a weapon that he always carried throughout the defense of Laslovo and wherever he went the shotgun went but the British didn't like the fact that he had a loaded weapon at the table. The weapon meant a lot to George and putting it to one side would only wind him up and that's exactly what happened. The instructors would not continue if George kept his shotgun and so an argument broke out with both parties shouting at each other, speaking in Croatian and english it was an amazing argument and as usual Ernie siding with the British as I had expected. In the end George kept his weapon and the British accepted their first defeat, there was still more to come but this time it was about the way that the instructors were training the men, somebody was going to lose at this meeting, somehow I knew that it was not going to be the British and I was proved right,this was a sort of beginning the beginning of the end for 3FC as we had known it. In order to cut a long story short because they continually argued about the same thing the end result was that Ernie gave George an ultimatum, either they agreed to be trained or change units. The friendship that had lasted from Laslovo until now had been broken and all because Ernie had forgotten who his real friends were, I knew that I was the next to go but how long would it take? Everybody left the meeting in a worse frame of mind than when they arrived, I stayed and listened to Ernie talking to the British, he was agreeing with everything that they had said during the meeting, what a bastard he was turning out to be. The next day we knew the outcome of the fiasco the night before when the men from Visnjevac with their decision and it was what I half expected. They had decided to leave the unit and Ernie in his undoubted wisdom allowed them without trying to change their minds, he told them that he would inform command of their requests and they would be probably transferred within the next few days. The next day they were transferred but not out of Osijek just to another brigade, they would not have as easy time as they had with us, they would be closer to the front but it was their decision. Even though were leaving I would try to stay in contact and friends with all of them even if Ernie didn't want to know them. One of the girls that were working for us knew exactly how I felt, she a little english but because of that she could see all points of view as an outsider, she how friendly I was with all the men and therefore did not like what was happening but she couldn't do anything as she was only helping out and had nothing to do with the command structure. The sisters were very sorry to see the men go as they were all once one big happy family but that had changed over the last few weeks. A few stayed as they liked being part of Peter's unit and were determined to stay. What had happened over the last few days angered me a great deal but I tried not to show it and I was definitely not going to let it worry me, I came here to fight for the Croatian army and that's what I was going to do.