Skip to main content

Seventh installment

Over the next few days Ernie was very good to me, I didn't know why but it was good while it lasted,everybody was reasonably happy, Kevin and James who were in hospital would be released within the next few days so all in all everything was going great. There was only one problem and that was Mark, he was a lunatic but in a funny way, all the men in the room were a little bit jealous of my relationship with Paula so every time I would go out with her and come home late I would find my bed booby trapped and the main culprit was Mark. There was one night when I came home at about twelve to find the room in complete darkness so I went quietly to my bed, undressed, pulled my blankets back and sat down when bang, a small explosion from under the mattress and when I took a look there was another, everybody was laughing hystericaly except me, I pulled the mattress off the bed and threw it on the floor along with my blankets there were two burn marks and wires everywhere, I started to shout at Mark telling him to defuse my bed and in between laughing he told me that there were no more traps, so I rearranged my bed and got in not moving too much just in case, for the next half hour all I could hear was giggling, it was impossible to sleep but eventually all went quiet and shortly afterwards I fell asleep. The following morning I awoke at five to wash and shave, I returned to find everyone still asleep so I went around each bed and woke the occupants up, each of them asking what time it was, I told them it was nine and that Ernie wanted everyone in the office, I left the room after Kevin had looked at his watch and seen what time it actually was, he picked up his rifle and Mark picked up his shotgun, I decided to make a tactical withdrawal, I had had my revenge and decided to talk to the guards as this was less dangerous. That day Paula rang that her friend at the newspaper had rang her and said that they were going to print my article but as a question and answer session they wanted to take a photograph of me, I arranged a time to meet Paula and said that we could get the photo done then, she agreed and she said she would telephone her friend. That afternoon I went to Osijek and met Paula at the press center where she was on the computer with her friend, the only other person in the room was the man in charge. We left and went to 'Glas Slavonija' to meet the photographer, we went downstairs and after taking a couple of shots with me acting the fool he asked for one good one so I stood still and he took the photo. We left with him saying that he would give us the photos when they were developed, I took Paula home and then went to fill up the car as it was almost empty, it was always difficult to find a petrol station open, if they hadn't been blown up then they never had any petrol but after finding one open and with petrol I filled the car up and left to go back to the school.
That afternoon Ernie asked me to do him a favour, 
"this was why he had been so good to me over the last few days" I thought to myself,
"I want to sell some weapons and the man is coming this afternoon, I want you to arrange everything" he told me,
"there were five Rumanian AK-47s with four magazines for each rifle to be sold" he continued,
he showed me where they were in the armory and asked me to get them ready. It was at this moment that I knew where he was getting his extra money from, he was selling them to gun runners who were buying them for the Bosnians, I decided to be very careful. While I was getting the guns ready I wore gloves not to leave finger prints, I also decided on a plan that would not allow anyone a chance of catching me red handed. When the weapons were ready I went to Ernie and told him of my plan but before I could start an old friend walked in, he was in Croatia and decided to bring us a couple of copies of his magazine 'Raids' which contained photos and an article about us, he also gave me a bottle of Whiskey which Ernie immediately took away for himself, the photos were great and the article was probably the best that had been written about us since the war started, when Ernie and I were alone I told him of my plan. 

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