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

the 11^th, while we were down in Split, the storm breaks with a vengeance. The bubble burst in GV where the HVO and BiH went for each other’s throats with poor old B Company 1 Cheshires caught in the middle of it. We were getting horrifying reports from Split: one hamlet after another around GV was being obliterated, mostly by the Croats. The worst of it for us was that the Main Supply Route to Vitez and Zenica went right through GV which meant that nothing – no aid, no convoys – could get up country using that route. GV became a “hard” area; i.e. no “soft-skinned” vehicles allowed through unless escorted by a couple of Warriors and only then if the situation permitted. At the GV base itself only “armour” was allowed out in an attempt to mediate, assess the damage and help wounded civilians.’

      ‘But I just don’t understand why they started fighting. You’ve told me they were allies fighting the Bosnian Serbs.’

      ‘We could scarcely understand it ourselves at the time. It didn’t make any sense. They needed our aid but by fighting each other they were depriving themselves of that. We were naïve. But now I know why it happened. Two reasons. First, the Bosnian Croats wanted Hercegovina for themselves. They even called it Herceg-Bosna, claiming Mostar as their capital. This had all started long before I got there. In October 1992 they’d hoofed all the Muslims out of Prozor which is on the route to GV. They hadn’t just asked them to leave. They’d forced them out. It was a scary place to drive through – some homes intact, others bullet-ridden and burned out with Nazi swastikas and the Croatian Ustasa “U” daubed all over them. Secondly, I reckon they interpreted the VOPP as a green-for-go: “This’ll be a Croat canton. We don’t want the Muslims here, so, let’s fuck ’em off before we have to put pen to paper.” Well, that’s what it looked like at the time, on the ground at any rate.

      ‘I remember we were in the BBC house in Kiseljak once. We used to pop in there either for tea or supper, courtesy of the BBC, if we were passing through. We’d meet the lot of them that way. That’s where I’d first met Martin Bell. He’d just come out of Sarajevo where he’d finished making a Panorama documentary. He’d been badly wounded there in August 1992 but he’d gone back into that hellhole four months later. He’s the only one of them to have got under the skin of the bigger issues. The rest of them were quite content to hang onto the coat tails of the British Army. We were having supper there one night with some of the UK press when Cumming just ups and says, “Why don’t you get yourself down to Prozor where the Croats are pitchforking to death the Muslim farmers around the town whom they failed to cleanse out in October.”’

      ‘And did they?’

      ‘Don’t know. Doubt it though, because it’s not worth it for them. The editor in London would probably have said “Too difficult. Give me Serbs doing bad things. We can’t sell this mess to the public, they’ll never understand.” So the Croats crack on wielding their pitchforks and no one knows.’

      ‘And you were in the middle of all this?’

      ‘The UN was but I wasn’t personally. For some of it I was in Split with Brigadier Cumming. I went where he went. But others were and paid dearly … two days after it blew we got our first casualty. Not a helicopter but a real live human being. The 13^th of January – even the date makes my skin crawl. We’re in Split and we start to get this sitrep through – a Brit casualty in GV, no more than that. That’s the way initial sitreps are, and usually wildly inaccurate. We didn’t know who it was, what’s gone on or where. We’re all in the Ops Room listening to the reports as they come in. Cumming is extremely anxious. They’re his boys you know, and he cared for them because they were his responsibility. And, as these reports come in he looks more and more shaken. He’s close to tears. We’re all close to tears. And then it’s confirmed …

      ‘… Dead, Nix. Corporal Wayne Edwards. Shot in the head and killed … and do you know what he was doing? … he was driving his Warrior through GV escorting an ambulance full of wounded civilians. He was doing his humanitarian duty and some bastard shot him. When it was confirmed the whole Ops Room went silent. It’s bad enough in Northern Ireland where there’s a real threat, but not on a peacekeeping operation where you’re trying to help people and save lives … the only thing worse than being shot at by the enemy is being shot at by people you’re trying to help. I loathe the lot of them – Serbs, Croats, Muslims. Taking our aid and goodwill wasn’t enough for them. Wayne Edwards, Warburton, all the others. They had to have our lives as well.’

      Niki is looking at me in horror.

      ‘I remember seeing his coffin in a hearse outside the Officers’ Mess block. It had a Union Flag draped over it and I remember thinking, “What on earth do you tell his parents?” The strangest thing about his murder was the reaction back home.’

      ‘I think I remember it.’

      ‘No! Not the public – the politicians. They sweat buckets over casualties. We get this daft question from JHQ to answer, “Why was Corporal Edwards killed when he was in a Warrior?” Shall I tell you where that one came from? It came from the very top, from the Secretary of State for Defence who ups and asks someone on the 6^th floor of the MoD just that. You can see it now, “You’ve told me Warriors are impregnable to small arms fire. So, why was someone killed in a Warrior?” I mean for God’s sake! Anyway, this question bounces all the way down the chain of command and instead of someone in Wilton fielding it, it’s passed out to us and lands on some watchkeeper’s desk.’

      ‘But why was he killed?’ Sometimes I think Nix spent the whole of her Army career skiing.

      ‘Simple, Nix, the driver’s the most vulnerable person. The commander and gunner can get their heads down and see everything through sights and periscopes. Blokes in the back are safe unless they toss a rocket up your arse. But the driver has to see where he’s going, so he’s got a bit of his head up, that’s all. Someone was a good shot equals deliberate shot equals murder in my book.’

      ‘Don’t you think you’re being a bit harsh on people? In a way, if you don’t know what you know it’s not that unreasonable a question.’

      ‘Maybe,’ I mumble. ‘But there were other stupid questions: “How many tonnes of aid were moved today?” would land on the watchkeeper’s desk at 3 a.m., just so that some Minister could be told at his or her morning briefing. But who is the poor old watchkeeper going to ring at 4 a.m. local? Everyone in UNHCR is asleep because they’re human beings who need their sleep … it’s not doing me any good all this, Nix. I mean, talking just makes me furious. It doesn’t help.’ I am furious. I’ve half forgotten these snippets, but somehow, starting at the beginning, it all floods back.

      ‘I suppose the fighting put a stop to your touring then?’

      ‘Did it hell. We were up country and back down again like a bloody yo-yo. If it wasn’t visiting the troops or BHC then it was always because we had a visitor on our hands. They flocked out from the UK, and they weren’t small fry either – three-star and upward. Two-star downwards? Forget it – too junior, wait your turn. The other UN contingents thought we were crazy. The Spanish battalion in Mostar was just sent out for a year and told to get on with it. No one came from Spain to visit them. Visiting is very much a British pastime. We were the most visited people in the Balkans.’

      ‘Like who?’

      ‘Like everyone. PM came out at Christmas clutching a little plastic carrier bag of CDs to give to the troops. Then we had Chief of Defence Staff, Field Marshall Inge, who I remember was accosted on Route Triangle by a chainsaw-wielding Sapper who came staggering out of the woods like something out of the Bosnia Chainsaw Massacre all wild-eyed, buzzing and billowing plumes of blue smoke. To the inevitable question he’d said, “Enjoying myself, sir? This is fookin’ great – in Germany you can’t snap a twig without getting bollocked, I’ve just chopped down twenty-five trees this morning!” And with another “fookin’ great” off he charged back into the forest trailing smoke. Next in the queue was CinC UKLF, a mere four-star, General “Muddy” Waters. That one was a horror story. It nearly went horribly wrong.’

      ‘How?’