Gordon Stevens - Kara’s Game

Crazy war – the thought was more conscious this time.

First the Serbs had attacked the Croats and Muslims. Then, just under a year ago, the Croats had changed sides, and were now fighting with rather than against the Serbs. So villages and towns and areas were split. But even that was logical compared with what was really happening. Take the small pocket containing Maglaj and, fifteen kilometres to the north, Tesanj. The pocket was an island, isolated in Serb-held territory, with the main front line with Muslim-held Bosnia to the south. On the west, north and east sides of the pocket the Serbs were attacking them; to the south the attack was coming from a combined Serb and Croat army. But in Tesanj the local Croats and Muslims were fighting side by side against the Serbs.

Even the term Muslim was misleading. At first the world called me a Yugoslav, she remembered telling an aid worker once; then it called me a Bosnian, and now it calls me a Muslim. But I’ve never been inside a mosque, don’t even know how to pray. My mother’s mother, my grandmother, who lives in Travnik, is a Croat. And my husband’s grandfather, after whom we named our son, was a Serb.

She thought she heard the whine of the first shell or mortar, and froze. Braced herself for the impact then relaxed again. If there was such a word or notion as relaxing any more.

Don’t look at the photograph, she told herself, because it will only make you cry. Because of all those in the photograph apart from her and Adin and Jovan, only her Croat grandmother in Travnik was definitely alive. The others – her parents, Adin’s parents, their brothers and their sisters – had either been killed or had vanished in the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs or the bitter bloodletting between Croats and Muslims. Or perhaps they were alive, perhaps they had made it out and were in a refugee camp somewhere. Perhaps one day they would see each other again, take another photograph of the family happy and at peace with itself and the world.

Sometimes it was as if the West had abandoned her, had totally and cynically forgotten about her and the likes of her.

Forget it, she told herself; just concentrate on surviving today, don’t even think about tomorrow.

She made herself kneel again in front of the stove, made herself stir the beans. Made herself laugh at little Jovan as she poured his share into the small round plastic bowl, then poured the smaller portion she had allowed herself and broke a piece of bread for him.

Occasionally someone remembered, of course, occasionally a little aid got through.

The first time was before the siege proper had started. They had still been cut off and under fire, but some British soldiers had come. The Cheshires, she remembered the name of the regiment. Then there was the man with a beard from the UNHCR. And after that, when the days were short and dark and the cold and hunger were seeping into them all, the planes had come over and dropped food packages on to the town, but the wind had taken the food on to the hillsides. That night the people had gone out with torches, Adin among them, to search for the oh-so-precious packages. Even now she could remember standing in the doorway, little Jovan in her arms, pointing out the lights among the trees and laughing because it was like Christmas, seeing the lights moving in the dark as the people looked. Then the Chetniks had started to shell the wood, and the lights had scattered like fireflies on a summer night, and one by one had gone out as people ran or died.

There had been one more time the aid had come.

Adin was at home, so she had gone alone for the pan of beans. Had crossed the bridge and was scuttling towards the school when she had seen them. Four soldiers, but not as she had seen soldiers before. Not riding in tanks or jeeps like other soldiers, or like the UN monitors who’d come in to cover the so-called ceasefire. Combat clothes but no helmets or berets, big packs on their backs, radios on them, and all carrying guns. Always walking, always carrying everything they had with them. Always moving quickly.

The next day she had seen them again. Had heard them speak and spoken to them. And because she had spoken to them in English, because at university she had studied English, she always remembered them as English rather than British.

And because there was no one else, she had interpreted for them. Had picked up the word laser , and interpreted to the Red Cross about the planes and the food drops. That night, and for several nights after, the soldiers had disappeared into the woods; that night and for several nights after, the planes had come over and dropped the food exactly where the soldiers told them to. And the people had eaten. Then the soldiers had gone, and she had never known how they had come to Maglaj or how they had left or even who they were. Except that once she had asked them, and they had told her, but even then she had not understood.

‘Eat up.’ She wiped the bread round the bowl and made Jovan eat, spooned the beans into her own mouth and heard the swoosh.

Mortar, MacFarlane registered automatically. Incoming. An hour later than normal, but still more or less in line with the usual pattern.

Kara grabbed Jovan and pushed him under the bed, slid beside him.

Impact two hundred metres away, near the river bank of the old town – MacFarlane registered the fact automatically and entered it in his log.

Kara felt Jovan trembling and held him tight. Half an hour, perhaps an hour of hell, then it would be over till tomorrow.

Thirty seconds gone – MacFarlane didn’t need to check his watch. Almost a minute, closing on two. Incoming – he heard the whine, then the sound of impact. New town again, somewhere near the radio station. He waited another two minutes, perhaps slightly longer.

The incoming shell sounded like an express train. They’re trying to make us afraid, Kara told herself; they’ve allowed us to settle into a routine, now they’re changing it. The walls shook slightly as the round landed.

Old town, MacFarlane confirmed.

The half-hour stretched to forty-five minutes, then to an hour, an hour and a half, the shells and mortars still landing.

The Norwegian handed him a mug of tea, hot and sweet, and crouched beside him.

‘What’s up?’

‘Not sure.’

The Chetniks were preparing for an attack, Kara suddenly thought. Please God, help Adin waiting among the mines and the snow and the ice of the front, please God save him.

It was six in the evening, three hours into the darkness of the winter night and the shells and mortars were falling now with a nightmarish regularity. Time to file his latest report. MacFarlane picked up the handset and squeezed the grip.

‘Zero. This is Four One Delta. Over.’

Zero was the code for base, and base was in the radio room on the ground floor of the white-painted schoolhouse which now formed the Operations Centre in the BritBat – British Battalion – barracks just outside Vitez, fifty kilometres away. Vitez itself was one of the places the United Nations modestly called a hot spot : Croats laying siege to the Muslims in Old Vitez, and themselves surrounded by more Muslim forces in the hills outside.

‘Four One Delta. This is Zero. Send. Over.’

‘Four One Delta. As at eighteen hundred hours.’ His report going through Vitez to the monitoring centre in Sarajevo then to the politicians and the generals. ‘Eighty ceasefire violations, all incoming.’ He lumped the mortar and shells together. ‘Forty small-arms violations.’ Which was as accurate as he and his team could be. He split the message. ‘Roger so far. Over.’

‘Zero. Roger. Over.’

Message received so far.

‘Four One Delta. Pattern of shelling appears to have changed. Maglaj old and new town under constant shelling for past two hours. Over.’