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

‘Well there are and they’re out there. Apparently there’s some sort of threat to them from the Muslims and Croats. It’s not very healthy being a Serb of any sort in Croatia and Bosnia these days. Anyway we’ve changed their names … Abbott and Costello!’ he sniggered …

‘And you want me to be Laurel!’ I was almost shouting, ‘… and what happens if you find a fourth Serb? What’s he going to be?’

There was a horrible pause. Francis could barely contain himself,‘… how about Hardy?’ he spluttered. I stared at him in disbelief and then we both burst out laughing. What else could we do?

The day before our departure there’d been yet another unexpected change in plans. I was telephoned by someone in Movements in Wilton (they co-ordinated movements of personnel going abroad) and informed that I wouldn’t be flying with the others from Gatwick.

‘Why not? What’s the problem?’ The obstacles seemed endless. What now?

‘Problem is you haven’t got a passport in the name of Laurel and you’ll be stopped by Croatian customs if you go civil.’

‘Does that mean I’m now not going?’ More frustration.

‘No, no, you’re still going. There’s a “Herc” flight to Split early tomorrow … departing RAF Lyneham. You’ve got to be in uniform and you’re to be there at 0500.’

‘Why so early?’ It was always early report times with the RAF.

‘Dunno, those are the timings. Oh yeah, when you report just tell them you’re Captain Laurel … they’ll know. At the other end you’ll be met by movers, our people who’ve got access to the pan. They’ll get you through one of the side gates. Okay?’

Next morning Colin and I got up at a grotesquely indecent hour. It was bitterly cold but despite the darkness and the frosty roads we reached Lyneham with fifteen minutes to spare. Between us we lugged the bergen and bags into the terminal building where other bleary-eyed fellow travellers were sprawled over hard plastic seats.

‘Come on Col, let’s see if the Captain Laurel shit really works.’ I nodded towards the counter where a lone and youthful leading airman was tapping away furiously at a keyboard. I dumped the bergen heavily on the electronic scales next to him.

‘Ninety-five and a half pounds!’ I announced. Startled, he looked up.

‘Oh right, morning sir.’ He was slightly flustered.

‘I’m flying to Split this morning. This where I check in?’

‘It is, sir. Could I see your ID card?’ He’d recovered his composure.

‘I’m sorry but I’m afraid I haven’t got one.’ Which was true, not in the name of Laurel anyway.

‘Oh well … I’m afraid you can’t fly if you haven’t got ID.’ I glanced over at Colin who was enjoying himself immensely.

‘Look … I’m Captain Laurel if it’ll help.’ Somewhere to my left I heard Colin snigger. I was doing my best to contain myself and make the best of this charade.

The airman suddenly became very tense, his eyes almost feral. Carefully he looked from left to right, checking that no one else was within earshot before leaning towards me. His words were husky, deliberate, almost conspiratorial.

‘Captain Laurel is it? Yeeeees … it’s okay … we know all about you.’

‘Excellent. I knew you wouldn’t let me down,’ I whispered back. Keeping a straight face was hell. Colin had given up. He was outside, laughing into the cold, inky blackness.

That had been then. Seven hours and many hundreds of miles later it wasn’t such a laughing matter after all. Would the movers be there? What if they weren’t? I thought of my father’s dire words of warning. Had I just made the biggest mistake of my life?

With a thump, the Herc hit the runway. The wheels bounced and bumped and the hold rattled and jangled madly as stressed metal and engines strained to slow the cumbersome aircraft. The slumbering soldier beside me woke with a startled grunt. He’d dozed the whole way, snorting fitfully, and had dribbled saliva down his combat jacket. Rudely awakened, hair dishevelled, headphones askew, puffy red-rimmed eyes, he stared about him in wild, unfocused confusion. After a few minutes of lumbering and bumping, the Herc slowed and lurched to a standstill. One by one the four turboprops were starved of fuel and, with a dying moan, fell silent.

The silence in the hold was shocking. It seemed to last for ages. Gradually soldiers came to life, unbuckling seat straps, packing away their Walkmans, yawning, stretching and scratching their heads. With a dull hydraulic whine the Herc’s tail gate split laterally in two and opened up like a giant TV screen. Bright light flooded in and tired soldiers blinked owlishly, screwing up their eyes and straining to get a view of the world outside. Through the opening I got my first glimpse of the Balkans – a barren, rocky, forbidding escarpment of high jagged peaks. My gloomy thoughts of a few hours ago had gone. This was exciting! I thought of General Greindle, of Colonel Garret and John Wooldridge, and of the many other curious twists and turns of the previous eleven months. I thought of my father who had last seen this country nearly half a century earlier. Somehow, against the odds, I’d made it to the Balkans. I should have turned back there and then.

FIVE Operation Grapple – Croatia (#ulink_c1594d36-8c6f-5d49-8ed1-836095cf3685)

Tuesday 29 December 1992 – Divulje Barracks, Split

‘Once you’ve been checked off, grab your kit and take it off to your relevant messes and then be seated in the briefing room at 1700 hours. Right then, excuse ranks … Davidson.’

‘Here.’ Sue Davidson pulled her baggage from the mountain of kit which cluttered one of the corners of the foyer entrance to the HQ BRITFOR block. We were grouped around a youthful looking cavalry captain called Sam Mattock, one of the staff officers at the HQ. He’d met us at the airport and seen us onto a coach, which had ferried us the mile to Divulje barracks. As luck had it my fears had been unfounded and I’d been met off the Herc by one of the movers. Having dumped my gear into his Land Rover he’d clipped a pass onto my pocket and spirited me through one of the airport’s side gates and deposited me outside the Arrivals lounge. Sam had been waiting for me there along with another staff officer, Captain John Chisholm, whom I knew well from the Parachute Regiment. We’d had an hour’s wait before the R&R flight landed, bringing with it some of the Cheshires returning from R&R and the thirteen interpreters.

‘Edge.’

‘Sir.’ The Gloucesters colour sergeant retrieved his bags and disappeared into the darkness beyond the glass doors. Quickly the group thinned out, eager to seize a decent bunk and unpack.

‘Stanley.’

Silence.

‘Stanley.’ Still no one answered. Sam looked up from his clipboard staring directly at me, ‘Stanley’s you isn’t it?’ he said pointing with his pen.

‘No. It’s Laurel, Captain Laurel,’ I answered, wondering what was going on.

Sam scratched his head again with his pen. ‘There’s no Laurel on the list, just Stanley. That’s who we’ve got you down as, so that’s who you are. So, you’re present then?’

‘I suppose I must be,’ I mumbled, still thoroughly confused. After the last of the group had left I tackled Sam over the name. He said he’d never heard of a Laurel and insisted that I was to be Stanley. ‘Is that “ly” or “ley”?’ he’d asked. ‘ley’, I’d replied off the top of my head.

‘And what’s your Christian name?’

I told him ‘Milos’ and he just chuckled. ‘You can’t be that, I mean, it just doesn’t go … you know that and Stanley. You’ll have to have an English Christian name. What’ll it be?’

I was caught on the hop. It isn’t every day you’re asked for an instant Christening. I thought for a moment before blurting out, ‘Mike Stanley’. It sort of rolled off the tongue.

‘Mike Stanley it is then.’ Sam looked pleased as he annotated his list. ‘See you in the briefing room in half an hour … Mike!’ And that was it, just like that. Bye, bye Laurel, hello Mike Stanley.

Five o’clock turned out to be less a briefing, more an introductory session with a difference … in Serbo-Croat. Nick Stansfield, a highly capable captain in the Education Corps, led the proceedings. He spoke excellent Russian and good Serbo-Croat. He’d gone out to Zagreb earlier in the year and had migrated to Bosnia in October to work for Bob Stewart as his interpreter. Under his supervision the novice interpreters struggled through a few sentences while I sat at the back chatting to Nick Abbott, the corporal from the Anglian Regiment. Most of his extended family were Krajina Serbs and most of his cousins were in the ARSK, the Krajina Serb Army around Knin. He looked every bit a Dalmatian – swarthy, with black hair and dark eyes. He told me that Nick Costello, the ‘other one’, was also from Knin, also had cousins in the ARSK, and was currently up in Vitez as Bob Stewart’s interpreter.

‘What do you reckon? Do you think these people see through the Abbott & Costello nonsense?’ I was keen to learn the rules of the job as quickly as possible.

‘Well, people ask you where you’ve learnt the language, and you have to trot out the same old lie about university and coming here on holiday before the war. Throw in a few deliberate errors, struggle a bit and you might get away with it …’ He paused for a moment’s thought and then added, ‘… if I were you I’d keep your mouth shut here in Croatia. Save it for Bosnia.’

I was slightly alarmed. ‘Why?’

‘Simple. You speak with an ekavski accent … obvious you’re from Serbia, whereas here they speak with an ijekavski Dalmatian accent. And the words are different too. What’s “bread”?’

‘Hleb,’ I replied.

‘No it isn’t. Here it’s kruh and in Bosnia it’s hljeb or occasionally kruh. They’ve become so politically correct here in Croatia. Serb words are out. Croatian words are in. And where there isn’t a dual, they’ve simply made up a new word rather than use one that the Serbs are also using … all politically correct words, thousands of them.’

‘For example?’

‘For example … helikopter … you know, in Serbia or Bosnia, but not here. Here it’s a zrakomlat!’