Gordon Stevens - Kara’s Game

Two of his team were beginning to crack and MacFarlane’s own nerves were stretched beyond what he had ever before experienced. If this is what the shelling was doing to them, then God only knew what it was doing to the civilians who weren’t supposed to be used to this sort of thing.

The UNMO team were still in their base, crouched over coffee and cigarettes.

At around three in the morning there had been a slight lull in the express trains of the artillery shells and the spiralling screaming of the mortars. At six the intensity had picked up again, at seven he had filed his latest situation report via the HF channel through the radio net at Vitez. At eight, as the new day mixed from black to grey to the cold light of winter, he had spoken on the secure line to General Thorne, informing him of the situation, reporting that his team were under severe pressure, and asking whether there had been any Serbian response to the United Nations request of the previous day.

There had been no response, he was informed. FAC teams were in position, however. Thorne was waiting for their assessment, plus confirmation that the offending gun positions had been identified. Once this was received, and if the bombardment had not stopped or the Serbs had not responded, then an air strike request would be formally submitted.

Jovan was still asleep. Kara checked that he was as warm as he could be, and crawled from beneath the bed. Her head thumped with pain and she felt sick and exhausted. In the sky over Maglaj she heard the sound of another express train. Please God, may it end today, please God, may Adin come home. Please may she and her son and her husband come through all this alive and together.

Yesterday she and Jovan had finished the beans, so today she would have to run the gauntlet of the bridge and the shells. Either that or she would have to dig into the supplies of potatoes and carrots she and Adin had grown last summer; but the sacks were already almost empty and the winter was not even half over. She pulled on an extra coat, laced up her boots, waited until another shell had fallen, and went outside. The cold took her breath away. She had two minutes before the next shell, she told herself, three if she was lucky. She grabbed a handful of wood from under the cover at the side of the garden, went back inside, and dumped it by the stove. Wait till after the next shell, she reminded herself. Get on with it, she thought; she had been cowering under the fear of the shells for too long. She went outside again. The bucket by the well was frozen to the ground; she kicked it loose, dropped it down the shaft, and heard the clank as it struck the ice. She pulled it up and dropped it again, heard the ice crack and felt the bucket fill. Heard the whine of the mortar in the sky and knew she should have waited. Froze like the water had frozen then heard the thump in the new town.

When she went back inside Jovan was looking at her. She kissed him and lit the stove. Tonight she shouldn’t let the fire go out, she told herself; she had enough wood to keep it in. And if she ran out she could collect more from the woods on the hillsides above the house. Except that the woods might be mined – she wasn’t sure, but Adin had told her to be careful, not to go anywhere near them. So she couldn’t go to the woods, but she could salvage some scraps from the remnants of the houses down the road, as long as someone else hadn’t beaten her to it.

‘Mummy,’ Jovan’s eyes were large and staring. ‘My tummy’s hurting again.’

‘Where?’ She held him in her arms and felt his forehead. The skin was warm and slightly clammy, not cold as it should have been. She pressed his stomach carefully and gently, and felt the relief when he did not jerk in pain. Probably stomach cramp because he was hungry, she thought. She moved her hand slightly, to the right of his stomach and slightly down, and pressed again, felt him recoil in pain. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told him, told herself. ‘It’ll be all right after I’ve made us something to eat.’ In the sky above she heard the next shell.

‘Location confirmed?’ Finn asked Steve.

‘Confirmed.’

Christ it was cold, but they wouldn’t be here long. And they’d got themselves a good position. Hadn’t been able to dig in, of course, but they hadn’t expected to. Instead they’d found themselves an OP under the lower branches of some trees, which gave them at least some protection from the weather, plus having direct line of sight to the gun positions at the head of the valley and on the other side. Two of them up front and two at the rear covering them.

‘Zero, this is Charlie Two One. Over.’

‘Charlie Two One, this is Zero. Roger. Over.’

Finn spoke the details of his report and the grid references of the targets into the mike of the radio, then pressed the activate button. The computerized set scrambled the message and transmitted it on burst – fifteen seconds of report condensed into a micro-second, no possibility of it being intercepted, and no indication they were there.

‘Zero. Roger. Out.’

His position could have been better, Janner was aware. They’d made it in easily enough, established the grid references of the gun emplacements and confirmed they were in direct line of vision for the lasers. But that was the problem: the ground on his side of the valley didn’t allow for a base and a good OP. So the base was in a small indentation along a contour, from which he couldn’t see the opposition but where the opposition couldn’t see him, and the OP was fifty metres further forward on a slight lip, the two men in it lying motionless and the two behind covering them. The men in the forward position not able to move, but that was standard, except the ground behind the opposition emplacements was marginally higher than the OP, so the opposition was looking down on it and therefore able to see it. But only if they were looking, and they wouldn’t be, because there was no reason to. The only time the opposition would know would be after the air strike, then the guns would be dealt with anyway. So there were no problems.

He contacted base, sent his report, then opened a can of cold beans and began to eat. Hard routine patrol, Fielding had said. Bloody right, Janner thought. Only six hours of light left, though, then he and Max could creep back and join Geordie John and Kev.

Poor bastards, he thought as another round struck the town in the valley below. The barrage was virtually nonstop now. Rather be here than there.

The call to MacFarlane was on the secure net.

‘Update?’ Thorne asked him.

‘Ceasefire violations continuing at a rate of one round every two to three minutes, all incoming.’ MacFarlane was also deliberately official.

‘State of UNMO team?’ Thorne asked.

‘UNMO team in serious danger. Four shells have landed near UNMO position in past hour.’ Four among the many that were still falling. ‘There is a possibility that UNMO team is being targeted. If no response has been received from yesterday’s approach to Bosnian Serbs, I formally request an air strike to protect lives of United Nations Military Observers.’

‘Request being lodged immediately.’

So in two and a half hours, the time it took to process the request, the jets could be airborne from their bases in Italy. Thirty minutes’ flying time, forty maximum; so by one-thirty, two at the latest, the jets could be over Maglaj and silencing the guns.

‘Thank you.’

‘Confirm you are visual with targets,’ Thorne requested Finn and Janner via Hereford.

Confirmed, they both told him.

‘Request for air strike being lodged now. Aircraft on RS 10’ – a readiness state of ten minutes, which meant that the aircraft could be airborne within ten minutes of being scrambled. ‘Aircraft call sign Thunder One.’