David Monnery - Bosnian Inferno

‘It’s not a day-on-day situation,’ Davies said. ‘Not as far as we know, anyway. But we want to send a team out early next week.’

‘The condemned men ate a hearty Christmas dinner,’ Docherty murmured.

‘I hope not,’ Davies said. ‘This is not a suicide mission. If it looks like you can’t get to Zavik, you can’t. I’m not sacrificing good men just to put a smile on the faces of the Army’s accountants.’

‘Who dares wins,’ Docherty said with a smile.

‘That’s probably what they told Icarus,’ Davies observed.

‘Don’t you want me to go?’ Docherty asked, only half-seriously.

‘To be completely honest,’ Davies said, ‘I don’t know. Have you been following what’s happening in Bosnia?’

‘Not as much as I should have. My wife probably knows more about it than I do.’

‘It’s a nightmare,’ Davies said, ‘and I’m not using the word loosely. All the intelligence we’re getting tells us that humans are doing things to each other in Bosnia that haven’t been seen in Europe since the religious wars of the seventeenth century, with the possible exception of the Russian Front in the last war. We’re talking about mass shootings, whole villages herded into churches and burnt alive, rape on a scale so widespread that it must be a coordinated policy, torture and mutilation for no other reason than pleasure, war without any moral or human restraint…’

‘A heart of darkness,’ Docherty murmured, and felt a shiver run down his spine, sitting there in his favourite pub, in the city of his birth.

After giving Davies a lift to his hotel Docherty drove slowly home, thinking about what the CO had told him. Part of him wanted to go, part of him wasn’t so sure. Did he feel the tug of loyalty, or was his brain just using that as a cover for the tug of adventure? And in any case, didn’t his wife and children have first claim on his loyalty now? He wasn’t even in the Army any more.

She was watching Newsnight on TV, already in her dressing-gown, a glass of wine in her hand. The anxiety seemed to have left her eyes, but there was a hint of coldness there instead, as if she was already protecting herself against his desertion.

Ironically, the item she was watching concerned the war in Bosnia, and the refugee problem which had developed as a result. An immaculately groomed Conservative minister was explaining how, alas, Britain had no more room for these tragic victims. After all, the UK had already taken more than Liechtenstein. Docherty wished he could use the Enterprise’s transporter system to beam the bastard into the middle of Tuzla, or Srebenica, or wherever it was this week that he had the best chance of being shredded by reality.

He poured himself what remained of the wine, and found Isabel’s dark eyes boring into him. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What did he want?’

‘He wants me to go and collect John Reeve from there,’ he said, gesturing at the screen.

‘But they’re in Zimbabwe…’

‘Not any more.’ He told her the story that Davies had told him.

When he was finished she examined the bottom of her glass for a few seconds, then lifted her eyes to his. ‘They just want you to go and talk to him?’

‘They want to know what’s really happening.’

‘What do they expect you to say to him?’

‘They don’t know. That will depend on whatever it is he’s doing out there.’

She thought about that for a moment. ‘But he’s your friend,’ she said, ‘your comrade. Don’t you trust him? Don’t you believe that, whatever he’s doing, he has a good reason for doing it.’

It was Docherty’s turn to consider. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I didn’t become his friend because I thought he had flawless judgement. If I agree with whatever it is he’s doing, I shall say so. To him and Barney Davies. And if I don’t, the same applies.’

‘Are they sending you in alone?’

‘I don’t know. And that’s if I agree to go.’

‘You mean, once I give you my blessing.’

‘No, no, I don’t. That’s not what I mean at all. I’m out of the Army, out of the Regiment. I can choose.’

There was both amusement and sadness in her smile. ‘They’ve still got you for this one,’ she said. ‘Duty and loyalty to a friend would have been enough in any case, but they’ve even given you a mystery to solve.’

He smiled ruefully back at her.

She got up and came to sit beside him on the sofa. He put an arm round her shoulder and pulled her in. ‘If it wasn’t for the niños I’d come with you,’ she said. ‘You’ll probably need someone good to watch your back.’

‘I’ll find someone,’ he said, kissing her on the forehead. For a minute or more they sat there in silence.

‘How dangerous will it be?’ she asked at last.

He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure there’s any way of knowing before we get there. There are UN troops there now, but I don’t know where in relation to where Reeve is. The fact that it’s winter will help – there won’t be as many amateur psychopaths running around if the snow’s six feet deep. But a war zone is a war zone. It won’t be a picnic.’

‘Who dares had better damn well come home,’ she said.

‘I will,’ he said softly.

Nena Reeve pressed the spoon down on the tea-bag, trying to drain from it what little strength remained without bursting it. She wondered what they were drinking in Zavik. Probably melted snow.

Her holdall was packed and ready to go, sitting on the narrow bed. The room, one of many which had been abandoned in the old nurses’ dormitory, was about six feet by eight, with one small window. It was hardly a generous space for living, but since Nena usually arrived back from the hospital with nothing more than sleep in mind, this didn’t greatly concern her.

Through the window she had a view across the roofs below and the slopes rising up on the other side of the Miljacka valley. In the square to the right there had once been a mosque surrounded by acacias, its slim minaret reaching hopefully towards heaven, but citizens hungry for fuel had taken the trees and a Serbian shell had cut the graceful tower in half.

There was a rap on the door, and Nena walked across to let in her friend Hajrija Mejra.

‘Ready?’ Hajrija asked, flopping down on the bed. She was wearing a thick, somewhat worn coat over camouflage fatigue trousers, army boots and a green woollen scarf. Her long, black hair was bundled up beneath a black woolly cap, but strands were escaping on all sides. Hajrija’s face, which Nena had always thought so beautiful, looked as gaunt as her own these days: the dark eyes were sunken, the high cheekbones sharp enough to cast deep shadows.

Well, Hajrija was still in her twenties. There was nothing wrong with either of them that less stress and more food wouldn’t put right. The miracle wasn’t how ill they looked – it was how the city’s 300,000 people were still coping at all.

She put on her own coat, hoping that two sweaters, thermal long johns and jeans would be warm enough, and picked up the bag. ‘I’m ready,’ she said reluctantly.

Hajrija pulled herself upright, took a deep breath and stood up. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in trying to persuade you not to go?’

‘None,’ Nena said, holding the door open for her friend.

‘Tell me again what this Englishman said to you,’ Hajrija said as they descended the first flight of stairs. The lift had been out of operation for months. ‘He came to the hospital, right?’

‘Yes. He didn’t say much…’

‘Did he tell you his name?’

‘Yes. Thornton, I think. He said he came from the British Consulate…’

‘I didn’t know there was a British Consulate.’