Twelveth installment

The next day was spent preparing everything for the night, I gave Ernie one of his presants and a birthday card and told him that Paula and I had two more things to give him but I was not going to tell him what they were. All day we prepared the food that Ernie had bought, the fire was lit ready for the pigs we were going to spit roast and the tables laid out. When it came for the celebration to begin not everyone had turned up, all the press center were there, all the men, the group that Ernie had hired were playing and the pigs were cooking. The party was reasonable and eventually most of the people Ernie had invited turned up, we gave him his second present, he liked it, it was a pen set and a note telling him not to forget he was a writer, what a hypocrite I was being, I couldn't care less about his birthday but here I was drinking and planning a second party in his honor. The best way to forget what Ernie was really like and that was to get drunk so that's what I did. The next day after staying the night with Paula I took her to the press center and then back to the base to to tell Ernie about the party, he was surprised and asked what time I had planned it for, I told him and he said that he hoped the meeting was over by then,

"what was the meeting about and where was it" I asked,

"it's for three companies and it will be in the gym, the commanders of the Operative Zone of Osijek were going to give speeches on army life and discipline" he told me,

I only hoped that a artillery shell didn't fall on the armory or half of the village would be wiped out. The meeting started right on time with everyone who was important was there, I couldn't understand what they were talking about so I waited outside with the guards, the clock was ticking so I decided to go and pick up Paula and return to the base hoping the meeting was over, it was not. To make matters worse the shells started falling, I got Paula out of the car and into the school where it was safer and after five minutes the people started to file out, I told Ernie that I would take Paula and two men to the hotel just incase the other guests had arrived. We arrived at the hotel to find everything ready but no guests, we sat down and ordered drinks while we waited hopefully for the other's to arrive. There we were, four people in amidst thirty six chairs, I felt like an idiot when the manager came and asked where everyone was, I told him that I didn't know and that we would wait another half hour. Eventually Ernie and five others appeared, they sat down and I explained that we had invited a lot more but unfortunately they had not turned up. We had dinner and then the birthday cake, there was so much that we ended up giving everyone in the room a piece. When we finished Paula and I went to see the manager to settle up the bill and fair play to him he said that we would only have to pay half as there was an air raid going on in Osijek and that was probably the reason why the guests didn't turn up, we paid and then left. On the way to Paula's flat I could not stop thinking about the fact that nobody turned up after they had all said that they would, Paula said that the manager was probably right but somehow I didn't agree, it seemed that Ernie always got what he wanted but he was not liked as much as as he thought he was, perhaps the people around him really knew what he was doing, making money. The funny thing was that no one said anything, he must have had a godfather in the Operative Zone of Osijek, someone high up in the ranks like Geordie, someone that had to be obeyed. Over the last couple of days the majority of my money on a person that I didn't really like, I had also found out how Ernie was always rich but best of all I had a date for our holiday. Over the next couple of weeks that was going to be the only thing to occupy my mind, a well earned break from the confines of the war zone. It was really only what I deserved after spending the last seven months on the front line, it was going to be a great holiday. When we returned I knew that I would leave the unit but where would I go, I had no idea but wherever it was would be a damn site better than staying where I was at this moment in time. The time was right, the end of the war was fast becoming a reality instead of a pipe dream and worst of all I was getting older. It was about time that I should settle down instead of being shot at every other day, I had found a wonderful woman and I didn't think that another opportunity like this would occur so I had to decide that now was the time, enough was enough, I had to stop and begin to live as near normal a life as I could. Instead of a battle with the enemy I had to now face up to the battle of just living, having to fight daily just to make my meager wage last until the next, I really didn't know how people managed but these Croatians were very resilient and I knew that if there was a way to live then they would find it, the same way that they found their way out of the grip of communism, these were a great people.