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

Pandemonium. All around me soldiers cursing, grunting, wild-eyed, tumbled from their bunks clutching helmets, flak jackets, stuffing feet into boots, laces flying, others scampering off with boots in hand, determinedly dragging their sleeping bags behind them into the darkness of the back of the warehouse.

Seb was on his feet in the same state of stunned confusion as I was. Within seconds the warehouse had emptied. The soldiers seemed to know precisely what to do. Why didn’t we? The greater terror of being left behind seemed to unfreeze me. A corporal raced past. I grabbed at him.

‘Hey! Where do we go? We’ve just arrived.’ Panic in my voice.

He wasn’t going to be stopped. ‘Just follow me, sir!’ he yelled over his shoulder as he disappeared into the gloom. We bolted after him. Ironic that he should be our saviour at that moment; officers were supposed to lead the men. Ridiculous really, but I didn’t care, just so long as he took us to wherever it was everyone else was going.

Cramming ourselves through a small door at the back of the hall, we emerged onto a raised walkway of a loading bay. Turning left we hurried after fleeting, bobbing dark shapes. I hadn’t a clue where we were going and blundered on regardless, driven by panic. We raced through a cavernous, dank boiler room. Another salvo of shells screamed in. Through a door at the far end we were hit by a wall of freezing air. It had been below minus twenty during the day. Now it was even colder.

We were now slipping and stumbling over uneven and frozen gravel. Ahead, stooped and crab-like, dragging doss bags, the black shapes of soldiers darted and weaved – like ghosts caught in the chilling glow of a half moon. Another whirring and ripping of disturbed air. We flung ourselves down grazing palms and knees, cheeks were driven into rough and frozen stones. I clung to the earth as an oily, slithery serpent in my stomach uncurled itself. The night was split for an instant, spiteful red and white followed by a deafening, high-pitched cracking, ringing shockingly loud. Then a deeper note, a rolling wave through the ground beneath, the air swept with an electric, burning hiss.

The desire to remain welded to the earth, panting and cowering, was overwhelming. Although the brain screamed ‘no!’, no sooner had the pulse washed over us than we were up, stumbling across the gravel. With horror I realised we were running towards the impacts. It made no sense. Surely we should be legging it in the opposite direction?

Far in the distance, beyond the broad, flat and featureless plain, now cloaked in darkness, behind a distant, rocky escarpment, two soundless halos of dull yellow flickered briefly. Moments passed and then two flat reports.

‘Incoming!’ screamed a breathless, hysterical voice somewhere ahead.

For seconds, hours, nothing … nothing … then a fluttering warning which sent us diving headlong into the gravel again. More cringing and tensing, detonations, ringing – closer this time. What the fuck are we doing running towards it?

We moved forward, staggering and diving in short bounds for what seemed like an eternity, keeping the edge of the warehouse to our left. In the darkness it was difficult to tell how far we’d gone – time and distance distorted by panic and fear. We rounded the far corner. Beyond a concrete V-shaped ditch was a row of maybe five or six armoured personnel carriers, APCs, neatly parked, squat and black.

I still had the corporal firmly in my sights. In a single bound he vaulted the ditch, raced up to the rear of the left-hand APC, yanked open the rear door and hurled himself inside. Others flung themselves in after him. Another flash on the horizon. Shit!

I was the last into the vehicle and feverishly pulled the door to before the shell landed. It wouldn’t shut. Too many people and too many sleeping bags. It was the bags or me.

‘We don’t need this sodding thing,’ I hissed in desperation, hurling one out into the night. I wrestled the door shut and hauled down on the locking lever just as the shell exploded somewhere to our front.

Inside the APC it was pitch black. Nobody said a word. Nothing could be heard save ragged, terror-edged panting as each man fought to recover his breath. Someone in the front flicked on a torch with a red filter. What little light managed to seep into the back cast eerie patches of dull red across strained, pallid faces. There were far too many of us crammed into the vehicle – knees and elbows everywhere. On my left was a slight youth clad in a boiler suit, who didn’t look like a soldier at all. Opposite me I recognised one of the batch of colloquial interpreters, a staff sergeant in the REME,

evidently posted up to Tomislavgrad, TSG, and now stuck in this APC. He looked terrified. It was his sleeping bag I’d slung out. Two down from me and next to the youth was Seb, still panting furiously. There were others too. Seb’s driver, Marine Dawson, had somehow ended up in the commander’s seat, and somewhere up there was the Sapper corporal, whom we’d blindly followed. There must have been about eight or nine of us stuffed into the small APC.

Our private thoughts were interrupted by a wild banging on the door and muffled shouting. Reluctantly, I eased up the lever and opened the door an inch.

‘Fuck’s sake! Lemme in. Lemme in!’ A helmeted shadow was trying to rip open the door. I held on grimly, not wishing to expose us any more to the outside world.

‘Sorry mate. No room in here … try the one next door …’ I barked through the gap. The shadow swore savagely and disappeared into the night. I slammed the door shut just as another shell screamed in, shattering the night.

‘Oi! You! Get the fucking periscope up!’ It was the corporal, up front somewhere. What was he on about now? Deathly silence. Nothing happened.

‘You in the commander’s seat! Get the periscope up and let’s get a fix on those flashes … work out where the bastards are firing at us from …’ Hasbe gone mad?

The unfortunate Dawson, who clearly had never been in an APC in his life, frantically started to tug at the various levers and knobs around him. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. I’d have been just as clueless. Another shell screamed in.

‘Fuck’s sake, fuck’s sake … get out, get fucking out!’ The corporal had finally lost his rag. A scuffle broke out up front as the shell exploded. In the darkness all you could hear above the high-pitched ringing in your ears were thuds, grunts and the occasional blow as Dawson and the corporal struggled with each other. Somebody whimpered, the APC rocked softly on its suspension, a few more grunts and blows and the unfortunate Marine was ejected from his seat.

Settled in the seat the corporal expertly flipped up the periscope and glued his forehead to the eyepiece. ‘Compass … somebody gimme a compass!’ he yelled without removing his eyes from the optic. His voice rose a note, ‘Shit! ’nother two flashes on the horizon … two rounds incoming!!’

I stared down at the luminous second hand of my watch … five seconds … it swept past ten seconds. Someone started to whimper, another’s breathing rose in volume, great gasping pants … thirteen seconds … my watch started to tremble. I was mesmerised by it … fourteen … fifteen – the air was ripped; two double concussions which rolled into each other. A collective sigh of relief swept through the APC.

‘Where’s that fucking compass?’ The corporal was at it again. Either he was barking mad or had simply been born without fear. He was still determined to get a fix on the guns. I dug out a Silva compass from my smock pocket and passed it up the APC.

‘Time of flight’s about fifteen seconds,’ I shouted up at him.

‘Good. Fifteen seconds, yeah?’ He seemed pleased. What difference did it make? Flashes, bearings, time of flight? The facts couldn’t be altered. We were stuck in this APC. Shells were landing somewhere to our front. A direct hit would destroy the vehicle. A very near miss would destroy it as well, and, with it, us. But I had a sneaking admiration for that unknown corporal. He was one of Kipling’s men, keeping his head and his cool while all around him were losing theirs. At least he was doing something, keeping his mind busy, warding off the intrusion of fear and panic – pure professionalism. I felt useless, unable to contribute in any way, jammed as I was in the rear and prey to my fears and imagination.

What were we doing sitting in an aluminium bucket between the building and the incoming rounds? Surely we’d be safer in the lee of the building, behind it? Another dreadful thought came to mind: the CVR(T) series of vehicles, of which this Spartan was one, were the last of the British Army’s combat vehicles which still ran on petrol. All the others – tanks, armoured infantry fighting vehicles, lorries, Land Rover and plant – ran on diesel. We were sitting on top of hundreds of litres of petrol ‘protected’ only by an aluminium skin. We’d sought refuge inside a petrol bomb. My mind imagined a near miss – red hot steel fragments slicing through aluminium, piercing the fuel tank, which we were sitting on, and wooooossssh ... frying tonight! Fuck this! This was not the place to take cover.

‘Hey! Why don’t we just drive out of here, round the back of the building where it’s safer?’ I shouted at the corporal and anyone else who might care to listen.

‘No driver in the front,’ he shouted back, seemingly unconcerned. I don’t suppose the fuel thing had occurred to him.

‘We had this for four hours this afternoon … just sat here, froze and waited … shit myself,’ mumbled the staff sergeant opposite and then he added savagely, ‘I’ve fucking had enough of this shite!’

‘Another flash!’ screamed the corporal. Bugger him! Why did he have to be so efficient? I didn’t want to know that another shell was arcing towards us. This is the one that’s going to fry us!… three seconds … the panting started … five seconds … where were Corporal Fox and Brigadier Cumming? Where had they taken cover? … seven seconds ... How had we got ourselves into this? How eager and consumed with childish enthusiasm we’d been, desperate not to miss out! How we’d raced down to TSG – and for what? … nine seconds. ... Idiots! The lot of us.

We’d been in Vitez that morning. In fact we’d just left the Cheshire Regiment’s camp at Stara Bila when it happened. We’d driven there from Brigadier Cumming’s tactical headquarters in the hotel in Fojnica. He’d been incensed by an article in the Daily Mail, written by Anna Pukas, which had glorified the British contribution to the UN and had damned, by omission, everyone else’s. We’d dropped by the Public Information house in Vitez late the previous night after a gruelling eleven-hour trip up into the Tesanj salient. Cumming had returned to the Land Rover Discovery clutching a fax of the article. He’d been livid but it had been too late to do anything about it at that hour so we’d returned to Fojnica. The following day we shot back to Vitez where Cumming had words with the Cheshires’ Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Stewart, who had been quoted in the article.

We were heading back to Fojnica and had been on the road some ten minutes. The Brigadier was silent. Corporal Fox was concentrating on keeping the vehicle on the icy road and the accompanying UKLO team – an RAF flight lieutenant called Seb, his driver, Marine Dawson, and their wretched satellite dish in the back of their RB44 truck – in his rear-view mirror. Next to his pistol on the dash the handset of our HF radio spluttered and hissed into life. It was always making strange noises and ‘dropping’ so I never paid much attention to it. Corporal Fox grabbed it and stuck it to his ear.

‘Sir, I’m not sure, but it sounds like something’s going on in TSG … signal’s breaking up and I can’t work out their call sign … sounds like they’re being shelled or are under attack.’ Corporal Simon Fox was a pretty cool character, never flustered, always the laconic Lancastrian. I couldn’t make much sense with the radio either. Static and atmospherics were bad. All we could hear was a booming noise in the background. We decided to head back to Vitez.

The Operations Room at Vitez was packed. We entered to a deathly, expectant hush as everyone strained to hear the transmissions from TSG.

‘… that’s forty-seven and they’re still landing … forty-nine, fifty … still incoming …’ There was no mistaking it: TSG was definitely being shelled and some brave soul was still manning a radio, probably cowering under a desk, and was giving a live commentary as each shell landed.

‘How long’s this been going on for?’ snapped Cumming, now hugely concerned that his logistics and engineer bases were being attacked.

‘About twenty minutes.’

‘Any casualties?’ His tone was unmistakable.

‘None as yet. Too early to tell. Everyone’s under cover except …’ except the loony under the table.

‘Right, I’m off to TSG. Get hold of the Chief of Staff in Split. Tell him what we’re up to.’ And with that we swept out of the Ops Room. The Brigadier was right of course. He could hardly sit around in Vitez or, worse still, retire to Fojnica, while his troops were under fire. I told Corporal Fox and Seb what was happening. They’d had the presence of mind to get the vehicles fuelled up.

Ahead of us stretched a long journey: Route Diamond to Gornji Vakuf, around the lake at Prozor and then the long climb up over the ‘mountain’ on Route Triangle. This was the worse of the two main supply routes into Central Bosnia, a hell of frozen ruts, tortuous bends, precipitous slopes and broken-down and stranded vehicles. It would take us hours.

I doubt there was a man among us who didn’t feel a buzz of anticipation.The military is a peculiar profession. It’s crammed full of frustrated people – highly trained, frustrated professionals. Unlike any other profession we rarely actually put into practice what we train for ad nauseam. In a sense, we’re untried, untested, and always there’s that little nagging doubt, that little question – how would I cope? Would I do the right thing? Would I freeze? Panic?

Sometimes there are incidents and soldiers are shot at, attacked, bombed, and they are tested. But it doesn’t happen to everyone. Most of the time nothing happens. I’ve done three tours in Northern Ireland, one in the bandit country of South Armagh, and I’ve never been shot at, heard a shot fired in anger or heard a bomb go off. There are the occasional blips – the Falklands and Gulf Wars, where people really are tested and really do ‘see an elephant’ as the Americans refer to combat: ‘Few people have actually seen an elephant, most have only had one described to them.’

It’s an odd arrogance that underpins opinion on being in combat. The US Army is almost obsessive in this respect. As a visual manifestation of this, soldiers who have ‘seen their elephant’ wear on the right sleeve of their fatigues the patch or emblem of the unit or division with which they served on operations – ‘look-at-me-I’ve-been-there’ symbolism. Those unlucky enough not to have been on operations can only wear on their left sleeve the patch of the division with which they are currently serving; their right sleeves remain bare. Fortunately, we have no such rites of passage badges in the British Army, just medals which we’re required to wear so infrequently that most people can’t remember where they’ve put theirs.

As a very young soldier I remember well one night in McDonald’s in Aldershot. It was June 1982 and 2 and 3 PARA had just returned from the Falklands War. The place started to fill up with a gang of Toms from 2 PARA, all wearing ‘Darwin and Goose Green’ sweatshirts. All were drunk.

‘An’ where were you fookin’ craphats while we were scrapping wi’ the Argies?’ snarled one of them aggressively (some of us had missed out). And then they all rounded on us.

‘Watch who you’re calling a craphat, boyo. I’m 1 PARA,’ spat back Taff Barnes, our corporal, who was from 1 PARA mortar platoon. He was a hulking great bloke – crazy to pick a fight with him.