Gordon Stevens - Kara’s Game

Fielding came in. He was in his late thirties, with the air of physical fitness and strength which exuded from all of them.

‘We’re on standby.’ The relaxation in the room snapped tight. ‘Briefing in five minutes.’

Fielding’s room was one along. The floor was wood, the walls a dull yellow, and the rumble of a UN transport taking off for Zagreb shook the ceiling slightly. There were two maps on the table: the HQ BritFor current situation map, and the Director General of Military Survey town map of Maglaj and the countryside immediately surrounding.

‘Patrol Orders.’

Fielding followed the standard pattern:

Task, beginning with a summary of the operation.

‘Maglaj. The UNMO team there reports that the town has been under continual bombardment since sixteen hundred yesterday. The UNMO team leader has spoken to The Boss, and warned that he may have to request an air strike in order to protect his people. The UNMO boys can’t move from their shelter. The Boss wants an FAC in tonight to assess the situation in case he decides to go for an air strike.’

He ran through the other items under the task heading: country, politics, method of entry, role or target, approximate timings and durations.

He moved to the second heading.

Ground: description of area, enemy and own locations, boundaries, landmarks, minefields, entry RV and LZ – rendezvous and landing zones.

‘You know the area,’ he told the teams. Because they’d been in Bosnia two months and had familiarized themselves with the terrain. Even so he maintained the standard routine.

Met report: weather, moon phase, first and last light. Situation: the area of the operation, enemy forces and friendly forces. Civilians: restrictions, curfews, food situation.

They went through the details on the maps.

‘The towns of Maglaj and Tesanj, fifteen kilometres to the north-west, are in a pocket surrounded by Serb forces to the west, north and east and by combined Serb and Croat forces to the south. Maglaj is in two halves, the old and new towns, divided by a river.’

They focused on the town map of Maglaj: the sweep of the river and the position of the Serb guns, then Fielding moved to the next heading of the briefing.

‘Mission. To locate and identify any Serb artillery, tanks and armour, and to mark it for air strike.’ He repeated the mission, then moved on to the next heading. Execution: general outline, entry and return; RV and LUP procedures – rendezvous point and lying up position. Exit phase, RVs and passwords.

Finn and Janner and their patrols would fly by helicopter to a forward position at the British Battalion base near Vitez. They would wait there for final briefings, plus the green light for insertion. At last light they would chopper the fifty kilometres to the Maglaj pocket. Both patrols would be dropped at the same time, Finn would then take his patrol to the hills on the west of the town, and Janner would take his to the east. The two groups would establish the positions of the guns or tanks shelling the town, and guide the attack planes in by laser if Thorne requested an air strike and the UN approved it.

‘This is a hard routine patrol,’ Fielding told them. Therefore there would be no cooking, because cooking might give their positions to the opposition. They would only take food which they could eat cold: tins of stew, beans, sausages, plus Mars bars.

They moved to the last heading.

Logistics and communications: arms and ammunition, dress and equipment, rations, special equipment including LTM – laser target markers – and medical packs.

‘Any questions?’

‘Why two patrols?’ Finn asked.

‘According to the UNMO team not all the firing positions can be observed from one side of the valley.’

‘What are the chances of an air strike?’ Janner this time. Which is to say, what are the odds we’re going to freeze for nothing?

‘Has to be a first sometime,’ Fielding told him noncommittally.

They went into the details of the helicopter drop-offs and the OPs.

In an ideal world the drop would be at least five kilometres from where they would establish themselves, because helicopters could be seen and heard, therefore shouldn’t land anywhere near where they were headed. Therefore the helicopter would drop them in the middle of the pocket, midway between Maglaj and Tesanj.

‘What else do we know about Maglaj?’

‘Ian Morris took a patrol in two months ago, organized some food drops. His sitrep’s already on the way.’ Sitrep – situation report. ‘You’ll have it before you leave Vitez tonight.’

They returned to their own room, the two teams splitting and Finn and Janner going through their own patrol orders, this time in more detail, each man in the patrol asking questions and throwing in ideas as he saw fit.

An hour later the two teams carried their bergens on to the side of the helicopter landing site and crouched as the Sea King pilot ran through his pre-flight checks, then started the engines. The rotor blades were winding up and rain was falling. Each man was armed with his favourite weapons – Sig Sauers, Heckler and Kochs, Remington pump action shotguns, reduced and fitted with folding butts. In the bergens each carried spare ammunition, ration packs – non-essential items or those they didn’t like discarded – and spare winter clothing. Satcom sets, for communication with Thorne and/or Split via Hereford; hand-held ground-to-air sets for communication with the pilots of the fighter team should an air strike be authorized; and mobiles in case the teams needed to talk to each other. Which was unusual, but which Finn and Janner had decided upon. Laser target markers and spares. Each man carrying his own medi-pack, plus two syrettes of morphine, name tag and wristwatch on parachute cord round the neck. Name tags because it wasn’t a deniable operation.

‘Okay,’ the pilot told the load master. ‘Bring them in.’

The load master jerked his thumbs up, and the two teams moved forward, ducking under what the pilot called the disc, the solid metal cutter of the rotor blades. The door was on the right-hand side, seats opposite it and the rest of the interior stripped bare. They climbed up and sat down, bergens in front of them and weapons on their laps. The loadie clanged the door shut, and the pilot lifted the Sea King off the tarmac, running forward to build air speed, then rising and banking slightly. Behind them the bleak grey of the Adriatic disappeared in the mist and the snow of Middle Bosnia beckoned from the hills in front.

It was eleven in the morning. Time to run the gauntlet of the bridge, time to try to reach the food kitchen. Except that today she wouldn’t, because today the shells were still falling. On the hillside above Maglaj, Kara heard the soft boom of the gun and steeled herself in the silence as the shell rose on its trajectory, then she heard the sound of the express train as it descended, and the thump of the explosion somewhere in the new town.

‘Mummy, my tummy’s hurting again.’ Jovan’s eyes looked at her from beneath the bed.

She kissed him and told him that soon they would eat. She should go outside and get wood, she knew, should fetch more water from the well. At least she had the food she hadn’t eaten yesterday, plus the portion she had brought home for her husband. She diced the two halves of the potato and carrot left from the day before, put them into the pan of beans, and put the pan on the stove.

They would eat first then she would go outside, because by then the shelling might have stopped.

The room was cold, despite the stove. She knelt by the boy and stroked his face. At least his cheeks and his forehead were warm – she would remember the moment later. At least he wasn’t as cold as she feared he might be.