Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness

I take a deep breath, pause, and then begin.

FOUR Operation Grapple – UK (#ulink_68f33a78-ca48-513c-8c16-a5920ba69cd5)

Tuesday 29 December 1992 – UK Airspace

The cavernous hold of the C130 was a cacophony of rattling and jangling fittings. As the propeller pitch of the four massive turboprops altered and the blades bit hungrily into the air, the aircraft strained and heaved against its wheel brakes. The vibrations seemed to pummel the eardrums and reach into the very fillings in our teeth. Suddenly the aircraft surged forward, rapidly overcoming its own inertia, and gathering speed as it raced down the runway. The two white Land Rovers strained against the shackles and chains lashing them to the deck. The human cargo in drab, mottled camouflage, stuffed into the impossibly narrow gap left between the wall of the aircraft and two Land Rovers, strapped shoulder-to-shoulder on webbed seats, was thrown rearwards in unison restrained only by primitive seat belts. There is nothing glamorous about flying by Herc. The RAF really is a classless outfit. There’s only one class of travel in its aircraft – cattle class. Bump … bump … bump … heavy, solid pneumatic tyres transmitted the force of contact with each join in the runway’s slabbed concrete surface, blending with speed into a single continuous battering in the seat of your pants. With a final lurch and a change in attitude tonnes of Herc broke its natural bond with gravity and Flight Lyneham-Split lumbered into the sky. It never ceased to amaze me. Hydraulics hissed, a motor whined and, with a sickening thump, the undercarriage retracted, wheels still spinning into the wheel well. We were airborne. ‘Captain Laurel’ was finally on his way.

Around me soldiers unbuckled, donned Walkmans, stuffed their heads into the hoods of their Arctic windproof smocks and tried to settle themselves comfortably for the duration of the flight. While they did so, white cardboard boxes were passed down from the front of the aircraft; another delight of flying ‘Crab Air’ is the interesting in-flight cuisine.

I didn’t wait to find out what surprises lurked in my white box. Although I’d been up since half three in the morning, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, not with my knees jammed up against the side of the Land Rover. I unbuckled and struggled over knees and legs, made my way to the rear ‘port’ para door and stuck my nose up against its small, round Perspex window.

We had already reached about 5,000 feet and were still climbing steadily. The sky was cloudless. As far as the eye could see southern England was covered in a crisp coating of icing sugar. A low winter sun cast long shadows, defining perfectly every frozen detail. I could make out the M4. We were just to the south of it, flying due east rather than south, which surprised me. Apart from the colour, the splendid desolation below reminded me so much of the wind-blown wastes of Kuwait and southern Iraq. Was it possible that almost a year had passed? I remembered the day in February when I’d been summoned up to UN Headquarters at Umm Qsar in Iraq. I’d received the bollocking of my life from Major John Wooldridge and been told to ‘wind my neck in’ about Yugoslavia. I wonder what he’d think if he could see me now?

It had been quite a good one as bollockings go. We’d strolled around the headquarters with its strange blue pyramids. Built by the French, it had been the only working hospital in that part of Iraq. It had survived the Gulf War but not the UN, which had requisitioned it from the unfortunate inhabitants of Umm Qsar and turned it into a headquarters. John never raised his voice once, an effective technique when you’re giving someone a roasting. In fact he was positively friendly.

‘Look, believe me, I’ve got your best interest at heart here but I have to warn you,’ John had continued, ‘… you’re in danger of damaging yourself …’

‘What do you mean, John? How?’ I knew perfectly well what he meant, but I wanted it spelt out.

‘Listen to me. What you’ve got to understand is that Colonel Garret is an old school officer. In his world one just accepts one’s lot, bites the bullet and gets on with it. He doesn’t take kindly to people bucking the system. It’s that simple.’

‘Yes, but John, he doesn’t understand …’

John cut me short, ‘Yes he does. He understands perfectly well. And it’s not him. He’s done his best for you. It’s General Greindle. He’s the one who’s put the chop on it. It’s his decision who goes and he’s not letting you go. Nothing to do with Colonel Garret at all.’

‘But what’s Greindle’s problem?’ General Greindle was an Austrian. He was also the Chief Military Observer of UNIKOM – the main man. A professional UN general, he had quite a record of heading up one UN military mission after another, and knew the ‘light blue’ system inside out.

‘It’s almost not even him. It’s the UN … their rules. It’s precisely because you do speak the language and because you have a background from there that the UN says you can’t go.’

This drama, the cause of my angst, had sprung up out of nowhere six weeks earlier. Just as the novelty of UNIKOM had begun to wane and the boredom of driving round the desert had set in, it had been announced that a number of observers, two of them from the British contingent, were to be sent at short notice to Croatia. Cyrus Vance, the American Secretary of State, had achieved the impossible and secured a permanent cease-fire between the Serbs and Croats, ending a vicious six-month civil war. The UN Security Council had resolved to send a peacekeeping force to Croatia and various UN missions around the globe were hurriedly being stripped of surplus observers in order to carry out an initial recce for the force’s subsequent deployment.

Aching to escape the monotony of the desert each of us had speculated wildly as to who would go. Since I spoke Serbo-Croat I’d assumed I’d be the natural choice. It didn’t quite work out that way; Major Andy Taylor and Captain Hamish Cameron went and I stayed behind. The logic escaped me: surely it made sense to send someone who could talk to the locals? I was furious but John Wooldridge placated me somewhat and assured me that more observers would be sent and that I’d be sure to go at some point.

Sure enough, a month later UNIKOM announced that an additional fifty observers would be sent to Croatia. Three Brits were selected, including, much to my dismay, Guy Lavender, the only other Para in the contingent. Evidently, my rantings and railings in the desert wastes of the Wadi Al Batin could be heard as far north as Umm Qsar. Someone’s patience ran out and I was summoned for an ‘interview without coffee’.

‘Is it because I can’t be trusted? Is that it, John? What about the old officers’ integrity thing? You know, I am an officer in the British Army. Doesn’t that count anymore?’ I’d almost convinced myself that was the case.

‘It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s to do with protection – yours and the UN’s. It’s nothing personal. It’s not you.’ John really was being quite patient. ‘They’d no more send you to Yugoslavia than they would a Greek or Turkish officer to sit on the Green Line in Cyprus. That’s the logic of it.’

‘I see.’ I didn’t really, but there was little point in pushing a bad position. I’d never ever considered myself as being from an ethnic minority group. Born in Southern Rhodesia, raised and educated in England, in the Army since eighteen, I’d never had a problem. Suddenly there was one. Now I’d reached the age of twenty-nine my parents’ background had risen up and slapped me in the face. Was it as simple as John’s argument or was there something else, something to do with trust? It bothered me.

‘I’m glad you understand. So, get it into your head that for as long as the UN is in Yugoslavia you won’t be going. You will never be going to the Balkans in uniform. Banish that idea from your mind for ever. Get it?’

It all seemed so logical. Anyway, I had no option. There was absolutely nothing more I could do.

‘Yes, got it, John.’ It didn’t make me feel any better though.

‘Right, then. Look, you’ve got your promotion exams in March, so my advice to you is to stop razzing up Colonel Garret and just go back to the desert, get into your books, and just shut up about Yugoslavia.’

That’s exactly what I did. Watching our five heroes return from Croatia in April, full of the most incredible stories, had been galling. By that stage we were due to depart for the UK and I’d resigned myself to a six-month course in England. I was also resigned to not going to Yugoslavia.

Somewhere over Reading the Herc banked right and took up a more southerly course. From 10,000 feet the ground detail was crystal clear. We drifted over the M3. I strained to make out familiar features. There was the A325, Farnborough, Queen’s Avenue. My eye followed the well-known geography of Aldershot: home of the British Army and of the Paras. I could see Browning Barracks, the Parachute Regiment’s Depot. The aircraft outside the museum was just visible, as was the parade square. I could imagine some beast of a platoon sergeant ‘rifting’ his platoon of recruits, sweating and terrified, around the square.

We’d slipped past Aldershot. I was now straining for a better look through the Perspex, following the network of roads leading south to a small town nestling in a valley. The Herc had climbed higher but it was still possible to trace out the streets. There! My eye fell on a tiny row of seven small terraced houses. Three in – my house. Colin and Melanie would be there. Colin was sure to have made it back from Lyneham by now. At least it would be in good hands. He was a mate from the Regiment.

As I strained to get a better look, Farnham slipped beyond the periphery of the window. I was sad – my first house and I’d barely lived there. I’d arrived back from the Gulf not exactly dripping with money, but I had saved six months of pay. In an uncharacteristic moment of madness I’d blown the lot on the deposit on the house instead of doing something sensible like buying a fast, new motorbike. My parents had been delighted, confident that their son had finally grown up. It made me break out in a cold sweat: mortgage repayments equals commitment equals entrapment equals lack of freedom! I took possession of the keys the day before disappearing on a six-month course and had barely had time to haul over from the Depot two large cardboard boxes containing my worldly possessions, buy a bean bag and a cheap phone.

There was of course the odd weekend off when I tried my hand at painting, but other than that the course was long and thoroughly absorbing, so much so that I barely registered the fact that a war was raging out of control in a place called Bosnia. It seemed to be as bloody and as confusing as the Croatian one. In October the TV reporting in the UK intensified – the British had deployed an armoured infantry battalion out there as part of a new UN force. Barely a day passed when the lunchtime news didn’t carry pictures of the Cheshire Regiment’s white-painted thirty-tonne Warriors charging down some Bosnian road, or their CO, the flamboyant Lieutenant Colonel Bob Stewart, instantly elevated to a household idol, issuing a statement. It all seemed so distant and I viewed the proceedings with the detached interest of one who knew he wouldn’t be going.

The course ended in November. I was sitting in front of the course officer receiving my final interview. I finished reading the report, handed it back to him and stood up.

I stared at him. What was he on about? He must have sensed my confusion.

‘Yeah, in fact if I remember correctly, it was September when your postings branch, PB2, rang us up and asked to get you released from the course. They needed interpreters or something to go out with the Cheshires …’

‘What! You’re joking!’

‘No … interpreters, you know, anyone who can speak the lingo. They’d scoured the Army for them … found two others and you. Anyway at the time it was felt that you should stay on the course. Send us a postcard, you lucky bastard.’

I was stunned and couldn’t get his words out of my mind as I drove home. By the time I’d arrived I was more than curious to get to the bottom of all this. I rang PB2 within moments of opening the front door.

‘I do remember something about that,’ the desk officer seemed dubious, ‘… oh yes, that’s right, but that was in September. Anyway the moment’s passed.’

What did he mean, ‘the moment has passed’? The Cheshires had been in theatre barely a month. I rang the Regimental Adjutant, David Bennest. He hadn’t actually lined me up with my next job and agreed that he’d speak to somebody at the Army’s HQ at Wilton, which was controlling the Bosnia operation. He also ordered me to take three weeks leave.

‘You probably need it. Just leave us a contact number. Any ideas where you might go?’

I told him Zimbabwe. I hadn’t been back since the Mozambique job. The course had been long and tiring, English winters were revolting and I couldn’t think of a better place to recharge the batteries than Zim. It was the natural place to go – back to my birthplace.

The weather was a dream. The garden at Braenada was basking in the heat of a Zimbabwean summer. Elat, the gardener, was capering about in one of the flowerbeds while Tilly, my aunt’s Staffie, savaged one of his gumboots. I’m sure she was doing that the last time I’d been to Braenada. Nothing ever seemed to change in Africa. It was an enchanting time warp.

‘Do you think they’ll send you?’ my aunt asked over tea.

‘Perhaps … who knows, the way this year has panned out I’d say anything is possible.’ I blew an almost perfect smoke ring and watched it rise slowly, expanding and distorting until it was a mere wisp of blue.

‘Do Mum and Dad know anything about this?’ I glanced over at her. Her cup was frozen half way to her lips. She raised a quizzical eyebrow and her grey eyes twinkled knowingly.

‘No. Nothing. I haven’t told them a thing.’

‘Just as well,’ she continued, ‘you know what your father’s like. Such a worrier. He won’t like you going to the Balkans one bit.’ She was right. It was going to be a very difficult subject to broach.

I stared out over the perfect lawn. Now and then something yapping wildly darted from the shrubs, deftly avoiding Elat’s half-hearted kicks.

‘No, he won’t like it one bit.’ She was off again, telling me what I already knew.

‘They ruined his life and forced him to flee as a wretched refugee. He’s hated them all his life, the Communists … and then when they assassinated your godfather … no, he’ll take this very badly …’ Her voice trailed off and suddenly perked up,‘… of course your mother will be delighted. It’ll appeal to her sense of adventure. You know what she’s like!’

‘Oh well, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’s hardly likely to happen. You know what the Army’s like. I’ve a friend in the Regiment who speaks fluent Arabic. Studied it at Cambridge and in Egypt. When the Gulf War broke out he was posted to Northern Ireland!’