War Baby

by Colin Falconer

  ‘A Russian T-72,’ Ryan whispered.

  It stopped, turned and clanked down the street towards them. The abandoned Lada was directly in its path.

  ‘What should we do?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing. They may be looking for targets. It’s important we don’t give them one.’

  The tank commander may have been looking for targets or perhaps just a little fun. He did not deviate, sent the tank clanking and screaming right over the top of the Lada, leaving it a crumpled and twisted wreck.

  Ryan peered over the wall. ‘There goes Dragan’s no-claim bonus.’

  He pulled her to her feet. They ran across the rubble of bricks and blackened timbers and out through the back of the house.

  * * *

  They found Helmut and Radar sheltering behind a broken wall. Helmut’s eyes were like soup plates.

  ‘The car is fucked!’

  Ryan pulled Jenny down beside him.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Radar said.

  Ryan shrugged. It struck him as curious that people wanted to do things on battlefields. Most times all you could ever do was eat dirt and stay out of harm’s way.

  They were perhaps two hundred yards from the tank, which was still only halfway down the village’s main street. He could make out the turret through the shelled-out hollow of a house.

  ‘Will there be soldiers following behind?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Possibly,’ Ryan said.

  Helmut grabbed Radar and dragged him back the way they had come. It was difficult, for they were weighed down with the heavy equipment and attached to each other by a black cable like an umbilicus.

  ‘Radar!’ Ryan hissed. ‘Get that silly bastard back here!’

  Helmut stumbled twice on fallen masonry, limping the last few yards, and crouched down behind a wall. He waited while Radar checked the sound levels, then darted out into the middle of the street, and brought the lens up to his eye to get a shot of the tank. Almost immediately there was a burst of machine-gun fire.

  Jenny ducked her head. When she looked back, Helmut lay on his back in the street, Radar sprawled a few feet away.

  The tank tracks clanked over fallen masonry, its motor a deafening roar. Ryan looked down at Jenny. ‘Stay here,’ he whispered.

  She caught his arm. ‘They’re dead. You can’t help them.’

  The tank was past them now, moving away. ‘I want the film,’ Ryan said. He jumped up and headed towards the bodies in a low, crouching run.

  Chapter 73

  The houses either side backed onto bare fields, the brown earth covered with a dusting of frost. Ryan crouched down, his breath coming fast and crystallizing on the air.

  Jenny stopped beside him. She felt eerily calm. It all seemed unreal; hard to accept that Helmut and Radar were really dead.

  Ryan seemed unperturbed. Jesus! The two men had been friends and colleagues. How could he be so cold blooded about what had just happened?

  ‘You checked the bodies?’ she said.

  Ryan looked at her. What was it in his face? Scorn? Amusement? ‘They were dead. Okay?’

  She stared across the field, a hundred meters of open ground to where a line of skeletal horse chestnuts marked the road. A black VW Golf drove fast down the road, braking suddenly and stopping almost directly opposite where they lay.

  Some armed men jumped out and stood by the car. One of them focused a pair of binoculars on the village. ‘Croat volunteers,’ Ryan murmured.

  ‘Will they help us?’

  ‘They might. Are you ready?’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to leg it across that field.’

  ‘What about the tank?’

  ‘What about it?’

  Yes, stupid question, she thought. If they see us they’ll shoot us. But we can’t stay here. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ she said.

  He grabbed her hand to help her, but she pushed him away. All she had to do was get up and run. She could do that on her own.

  ‘Now!’ Ryan hissed.

  She pushed herself to her feet and ran faster than she had ever run in her life.

  The Croats thought it was funny.

  They stood beside their Golf, following Ryan and Jenny’s slow progress across the field. There were three of them: one had a pair of binoculars trained on the village; the second was holding the car mike, talking animatedly to his headquarters through the car radio; the third was cradling a Kalashnikov in his arms like a baby, crouched down against the radiator. He shouted something in Serbo-Croat and the others laughed.

  They were all volunteers. They wore East German padded winter suits with the sahovnica flash sewn on the shoulders, and camouflage forage caps.

  Ryan reached them first, hands in the air. ‘CNN!’ he shouted. ‘BBC!’

  ‘Presna!’ one of them shouted to the others. ‘Journalists!’

  Ryan threw himself over the ditch and scrambled up the bank to the car. The man with the Kalashnikov nodded at Ryan’s jacket. He was wearing some of Helmut’s blood. ‘You fucking crazy,’ he said.

  Ryan was breathing hard. It was now apparent that these men did not present a threat and he began to relax. He looked back, expecting to see Jenny just behind him, but she was still fifty meters across the field, stumbling through the frozen mud.

  The man with the Kalashnikov realized that Ryan’s companion was a girl and he made a joke in his own language and again the other two men laughed. Just what we need right now, Ryan thought. A psychopath with a sense of humour.

  ‘Hey, Presna,’ the man said, pointing to the village. ‘Chetniks?’

  ‘No Chetniks. Just a tank.’

  The man stopped smiling, and translated this information for his companions. There was an awed silence.

  Jenny reached the edge of the field, crawled the last few yards to the ditch on her hands and knees. Amazing what fear can do to a healthy young body, Ryan thought. He helped her up the embankment to the road. The three Croats were having a heated discussion by the side of the Golf.

  Jenny leaned against Ryan, her cheeks flushed with exertion. ‘You went without me.’

  ‘I thought you were right there. Anyway, I’m not your mother.’ She sat gasping for breath on the ground. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I’ve just told our three new friends about the tank.’

  ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘I don’t know. What’s ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here in Croat?’

  They all heard a roar like a bulldozer scooping metal from a road. The T-72 was on the move. The turret and the barrel of the cannon appeared for a moment at the edge of the village, besides the ruins of a house.

  The man with the Kalashnikov looked down at Jenny on all fours in the slush beside the road, then at Ryan. ‘Get in the car,’ he said. ‘Hurry.’

  They did as they were told. The driver executed a quick three-point turn and they sped back up the road towards Pakrac.

  * * *

  The Croat irregulars had commandeered a farmhouse and a barn three kilometers up the road. When they arrived there were several groups dressed in paramilitary fatigues standing around fires drinking sjlivovica and oiling their guns. A cassette player blared out banal disco music. The Bee Gees: ‘Saturday Night Fever’.

  Many of them wore black berets, the trademark of the Ustase, some wore Nazi Iron Crosses or SS caps and other Second World War memorabilia. They stared at them as they got out of the car; when they saw Jenny there were raucous shouts and laughter.

  It seemed that the one with the Kalashnikov had decided to take them under his wing. He identified himself as Milan. He was handsome, Jenny noted, with cropped Slavic blond hair, greased back, and a quirky, lopsided smile. His eyes were hidden by a pair of Raybans. But she knew he was looking at her and she guessed what he was thinking.

  He led them inside the bam, where a group of HVO regulars were standing around a ham radio set. A plastic Christmas tree had been erected in the corner, complete with de
corations.

  ‘You’ll be safe here,’ Milan said.

  ‘Can you get us back to Zagreb, mate?’ Ryan asked him.

  Milan shrugged his shoulders. ‘Perhaps tomorrow,’ he said.

  The HVO soldiers were passing around the sjlivovica. One of the men was seated at the radio with a hand mike, and every time he said something into the microphone his comrades laughed and cheered.

  ‘Who is he talking to?’ Jenny asked Milan.

  ‘He’s chatting with some guy he used to work with in the brick factory before the war. Vlado.’

  ‘He’s with another unit?’

  Milan liked this. ‘Yes, he’s with another unit, all right. He’s with the Chetniks who tried to blow your ass off this afternoon.’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Ryan asked him.

  ‘He’s asking the useless Chetnik scumbag when he last had a bath. Vlado’s just told him he screwed his sister. You know, they’re just fucking with each other.’

  The man, Danko, shouted a warning and dropped the mike. Milan laughed again. ‘Shit, now he’s really made him crazy.’ He grabbed Jenny and pulled her under the table. Ryan scrambled down beside them.

  There was a hollow thud fifty metres away as the mortar round landed. Danko grabbed the mike again and began screaming more abuse into the radio. Milan looked at Ryan and grinned, as if to say: They’re all crazy, but what can you do?

  ‘Can you believe it?’ Milan said. ‘They used to be friends before the war. They played in the factory soccer team together. Vlad was the winger, Danko was striker. They were one hell of a partnership. Vlad was always lobbing the ball on to Danko’s head. Now he wants to lob mortars on it.’

  He seemed to think this was hilarious. Jenny looked at Ryan. This wasn’t a war, this was a circus.

  And in the next village, two of the spectators at the circus were lying dead in the street.

  Chapter 74

  It was late in the afternoon. A heavy curtain of mist had fallen over the valley. Danko sat by the window, lounging in an armchair that had been hauled over from the farmhouse. There was a box of dum-dum ammunition and a bottle of warm sjlivovica next to the chair.

  ‘If the tank comes along this road, we’re ready,’ Milan was saying. ‘We have three Armbrust rocket launchers. German-made, very good. That will give those bastard Chetniks something to think about.’

  Danko passed them the sjlivovica. Ryan took a swig and winced. He passed it to Jenny. She gulped down a mouthful without a murmur.

  Milan raised his eyebrows in admiration. ‘How is it you Americanski were in Zenac?’

  Ryan told him the story. Milan passed on the tale to his compatriots. Danko swigged from the bottle and shouted something they all thought very amusing.

  ‘What did he say?’ Ryan asked him.

  ‘He said he would like to see your driver’s insurance claim.’

  Ryan took out his Malboros and handed them around.

  ‘You people are crazy,’ Milan said.

  ‘It’s our job.’

  ‘Then it’s a crazy job. But it’s good you are here. Somebody has to tell the world the truth, how the Serbs are attacking us here in our own country. Perhaps finally Mr Bush will do something. This Milosevic is like Saddam, you know? You think?’

  Ryan shrugged. ‘Sure,’ he said. He had made it a lifetime rule never to debate politics with his hosts.

  ‘You think Mr Bush will help us?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Never in a million years, Ryan thought. ‘Trouble is, you don’t own any oilfields.’

  ‘But we have justice on our side.’

  ‘Oh well, you’ll be all right then,’ Ryan said.

  ‘This is your friend?’ Milan pointed to Jenny. Ryan realized he was trying to establish ownership of the only available woman within miles.

  Ryan nodded. ‘My friend.’

  Milan made an obscene gesture which Jenny was not supposed to see. He pointed at Ryan.

  Ryan nodded again.

  But Jenny did see. She glared at him.

  He leaned towards her. ‘It looks like we’ll be here overnight,’ he whispered. ‘You want me to tell all these young boys that you’re unattached and looking for a boyfriend?’

  Darkness had fallen quickly. She looked around the room. Men’s eyes glittered in the candlelight. The sjlivovica was starting to take effect.

  She put her arm through Ryan’s and held on tight.

  * * *

  Milan led them to a tiny room at the back of the farmhouse. The walls were bare brick, running with damp. There was a single wooden bed, the mattress stained and mildewed, and an ancient wardrobe in the corner. It was empty and smelled of rot.

  After Milan left them Ryan gave her the candle and maneuvered the wardrobe in front of the door.

  ‘For your protection,’ he grunted.

  Then he put the candle on the windowsill, and let it bleed into its own wax.

  Jenny took off the heavy flak jacket, dropped it on the floor and massaged her aching shoulder muscles. Then she stood in the middle of the room, shivering.

  ‘Well, I’ve seen worse places,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They wanted to check us into a standard room but I did some fast talking and they upgraded us to the honeymoon suite.’

  ‘Not funny.’

  ‘Just putting a brave face on things.’

  She sat down on the bed. She was cold, despite the Gortex jacket and pants. Ryan sat down next to her on the bed and put an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Been a rough day,’ he said.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said, and shrugged his arm away.

  But it was not all right. She could not stop thinking about Helmut and Radar. She didn’t even know Radar’s real name. The trembling got worse, and now it had nothing to do with the cold. She suddenly wanted Ryan to hold her again.

  He must have read her thoughts. He knelt behind her on the bed and put both his arms around her shoulders. ‘It’s normal to feel this way,’ he said. ‘It’s a delayed shock.’

  I can’t believe they’re dead, she thought, and then heard herself saying it aloud.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s better to talk about it.’

  ‘I didn’t feel scared. But when you started running across the field, I couldn’t move my legs. I just sat there.’

  ‘Everything you’re feeling is normal. It happened to me the first time, too.’

  She stared at the candle. She saw the bodies floating in the lagoon after the wreck on the McAdam Reef, slowly bloating in the sun and being taken one by one by sharks. She remembered the former ARVN colonel who had befriended her mother at Rach Gia SEZ. Because he was a former officer he had been treated even worse than the rest of them, and one night he had tried to escape. He was caught the following morning, and the political cadre had paraded him in front of the whole camp before casually shooting him through the head with his pistol. She recalled how the blood had spurted from his head in a little fountain, before he kicked and was still.

  ‘I remember the first time I was shot at,’ he said. ‘I just couldn’t believe anyone would really want to kill me. It seemed like a game until the bloke in front of me fell backwards and died right in front of me with blood coming out of his neck. I swore if I could just get out alive, I’d never put my life in danger again. I even prayed. I said, God, listen to me just this once, get me out of this and it’s the last time I ever gamble with my life.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And you can do two things after you come back. One, you can keep your promise and tell your children and your grandchildren the story. Or two, you can do what I did, figure you’re something special. You tell yourself you’re if you did it once, you can do it again. Okay, I was real frightened that time, so I of course have to do it again to prove I’ve got bottle. You go back and the process starts all over again.’

  She remembered how she had made that same bargain out there today. God, just get me out of this ... But
she could not imagine ever coming back. She had not survived all those years in Vietnam and the wreck on the McAdam Reef to throw it all away in some stupid … what did that old man call it? … a gang war.

  ‘I didn’t think you were the kind who prayed,’ she said.

  ‘Like the old saying, there’re no atheists in foxholes.’

  ‘You believe in God?’

  ‘My view, this is hell. Devil rules here, not God. You can pray all you like but there’s bugger all God could do for you down here, if He exists at all.’

  ‘That’s a pretty warped philosophy.’

  ‘Well, yours doesn’t sound any better to me. You remind me of Spider. He wanted to save the world and when he couldn’t, he got sour about it. He really thought a few journalists and photographers could stop a war. He’s a dreamer. War has everything a young man could possibly want. Companionship, an outlet for aggression, fresh air, and sometimes, if you’re real lucky, a little illicit sex thrown in. It’s a game with no laws, and no rules. You’ll never stop it. I spent one whole afternoon with a Serb sniper outside Vukovar. He was just sitting there, on a wooden chair, the barrel of his Kalashnikov resting on the wall. He was killing people a kilometer away. It was like a video game. He couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t see the blood, couldn’t even hear them scream when he hit them. He was having lots of fun.’

  ‘But that guy, Danko, this afternoon. You heard what Milan said. His friend is with the Chetniks just down the road. He fired a mortar round at him.’

  ‘What would they do if they really hated each other, right?’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Sure it does. Look at what husbands and wives do to each other when they get a divorce. And they said they loved each other once. If people feel aggrieved they’ll do anything, absolutely anything, and justify it to themselves.’

  ‘So why do you do this? If you don’t think it’s going to change anything.’