Martin Bell - Trusted Mole - A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness

‘How many?’

‘Five or six maybe. Sometimes I get a kebab, sometimes I forget to eat all weekend. Saturday’s the same. So’s Sunday. I’m there on the Dark Side with all my friends, dead and alive. And then Monday morning I drive to Shriven ham where I’m a student again, for another four and a half days. And that was my life. You keep it all inside you.’

There’s a long silence. ‘That’s why I’m here, Ian. I’m here because when something like this happens, something big that explodes your fragile world, something that removes all your crutches and life-jackets …’ I can feel tears welling, that’s when you realise that all those things were nothing, that you’re still where you’ve always been – on the Dark Side … ’

‘Is that where you are now?’

I shrug, not trusting myself to speak. Not really knowing the answer.

Another long silence. Ian very quietly, ‘Do you want to come back?’

I can’t speak. I nod my head and then shake it. I really don’t know.

Ian’s scribbling something. I try to get a grip of myself.

‘How do you see the future?’ he asks quietly.

‘Sorry?’ He’s suddenly changed tack and caught me by surprise.

‘Do you see a future for yourself? I mean how do you see your future?’

‘I don’t. There isn’t one. There is no future on the Dark Side. I suppose I’ve been drifting ever since I got back. I’m still there, but I’m back. Does that make sense?’

Ian nods. We’ve been at it over an hour. Me burbling, him listening and making the occasional note.

I’m staring out at the sea again. It’s getting dark there. Winter’s definitely on its way. It’s dark, cold and lonely out there. Ian’s asking me a whole load of practical questions: sleep patterns, dreams, panic attacks? Alcohol intake, diet? How’s your libido? Sex life? Steady relationship? I answer him as best I can, but I don’t take my eyes off the sea. My answers are automatic. I know myself so well by now, I don’t even have to think about the answers.

‘If we’re to do any meaningful work we need some sort of structure to work from. When did you last see me?’ He sounds quite businesslike now.

I’m still looking at the sea. ‘November ’93 after my first year there.’

‘That’s right. I’ve got the notes somewhere, but I think it would help if you took me through it … from the beginning …’

‘The beginning?’ The beginning? When was that? Where did it begin? This century? Last century? When I was born? The recruiting office in Plymouth? It began all over the place. Where to start? Kuwait in the desert, that’s as good a place as any.

‘Milos?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did it start? What was it like?’ What was it like?

I tear my eyes from the sea and stare at Ian. I don’t really see him. What was it like?

I’m speaking slowly now, more measured. ‘It started in Kuwait and turned into a living nightmare. It was a completely upside down world – Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass – warped, weird, back-to-front. I can’t begin to explain what it was like.’

‘Well, why don’t you just tell me about the job? Start there.’

‘Job? Interpreter?’ I pause for a moment. Was that it? Just that? ‘Only for a short while, Ian, just at the beginning.’ I’d hated interpreting. It had given me hideous headaches and in any case I just didn’t have that computer-like brain that the job requires.

‘Well, what was your job then?’ What was it? How do you describe it? It doesn’t exist in any job description that the Army has ever heard of. What was it … in a nutshell? I’m thinking hard now and it comes, absurd though it sounds.

‘Ian, I was a fixer.’

‘A fixer?’

‘Yeah, that’s right – a fixer, a sort of go-between … for the UN, for Rose and Smith … you know “go-and-wave-your-magic-wand” stuff.’

‘That’s the job they gave you?’ He sounds incredulous.

‘No, not really. It sort of just happened by accident. It evolved I guess … by accident.’

‘Okay then, but what exactly did it involve?’ I can see he’s not getting it.

‘Involve? Just about everything. As I’ve just said: “go and wave your magic wand at the Serbs … fix this … sort that problem out … get ’em to see it this way … get the hostages released …” on and on and on. There was no job description, just sort of made it up as I went along.’

‘How?’

‘History, that’s how. By prostituting myself, not my body … but my history, my family history … I was a sort of historical prostitute. I prostituted my background and my soul to get close to those people.’

‘Which people?’

‘The Serbs. Just them. Hid it from the others, the Muslims and Croats. They’d have killed me had they found out. They tried to kill Nick Abbott. This is serious shit, Ian. You don’t fuck around with these people.’

‘Did it work? I mean, this prostitution.’

‘Did it work? Did it! Why do you think I spent two years out there? It worked all right … worked a treat. It was a sort of Barclaycard, y’know, gets you in anywhere. Gets you into their mentality and into their minds. Problem is, once you’re in you end up playing mind games with them.’

‘Mind games?’

‘That’s right. Three-D mental chess. Trouble is, once you’re in their minds, they’re in yours too … they’re still there, that lot … and you engage in this bizarre struggle of wills. Did it work? Too bloody well. It worked too well and that’s the problem. It just never ends.’

‘How do you mean too well ?’

‘Too well means that you become a sort of useful tool and everyone wants a bit of you. As I said, it’s never over. It never ends.’

‘But you’ve been back a while now, Milos. Surely it’s over.’

‘It’s never over. You know, you come back. No one bothers to debrief you. No one grabs you and tells you it’s over. So, you drift along never really sure whether you’re going back or not. No one tells you a thing. You just don’t know.’

‘But surely you’d started a new job, done your courses. Surely that’s enough?’ This is getting exasperating. He’s just not getting it.

‘No it isn’t. Listen,’ I can feel the anger rising again, ‘I come back and guess what? Two months later I’m at this wedding. Mark Etherington’s marrying Chelsea Renton, the MP’s daughter. I’m at this wedding, this is mid-June 1995, and General Mike Jackson comes up to me, he’s the bloke I delivered all those parcels for, on behalf of his au pair …’

‘What parcels?’

‘I was Postman Pat out there, but I’ll tell you about that later. I even fixed up a meeting for him with Mladic once, but anyway, so he comes up to me at the wedding and slaps me on the back and says, “Ah, Milos, well done, good to see you back . . . done more than anyone could have asked of you … no need for you to go back … got a good career to crack on with … get yourself to Staff College etc etc etc …” and then what?’

‘Go on.’

‘Six and a half months later, on 2 January 1996, on the day that I’ve taken over command of A Company 1 PARA in Aldershot, I get this phone call. It’s Will Buckley, the Regimental Adjutant, and he says to me, “General Jackson’s been pinged to be the IFOR Commander Multinational Division South West in Bosnia and has asked for you to go out with him.” Can you believe it? One minute it’s one thing and the next it’s quite another. So, you see, it’s never really over. You just don’t know … ’

‘Why didn’t you go back out?’

‘Simple. The Muslims would have killed me. Jackson’s not the only one. Three months after that we get a new second-in-command in 1 PARA – Paul, who has just come from a staff job in the MoD and he tells me that, at the same time Jackson was asking for me, his boss, who is also pinged to deploy his HQ into Sarajevo also asks for me – “let’s get Stanley out. He’ll give us the inside track on the Serbs.” See what I mean …’ I’m shouting at him again, ‘… which is it? I mean, what do these people want? One minute they give you an MBE for your work out there. The next they arrest you as a spy! Who’s mad here? Me or them?’ I lapse into silence, exhausted.