The Tuzla Run

by Robert Davidson

  The Convoy lead vehicle, as directed by the short swarthy guard, who appeared wider than he was tall because of the bulk of his flak jacket and helmet, had halted close to the barrier for the standard check. Spider left the Toyota and, after conferring with the corporal of the guard, briefed the waiting drivers on the latest known conditions for that day’s route.

  The sun, directly overhead, maximized the heat and eliminated all shade.

  The drivers, some grumbling because of the helmets and body armour, were all wishing they were underway again. The movement of the trucks would create a reasonable breeze. They paid scant attention to Spider as they watched the Lotharios at the barrier.

  “Have we got time for a brew?” Scouse asked with his ubiquitous portable gas cooker and kettle already in place. Spider pretended not to hear as he turned toward his vehicle.

  Abruptly and shocking in its immediacy, a violent, invisible pressure buffeted vehicles and drivers, pulling and stretching exposed skin downwards and bludgeoning eardrums in turbulent frenzy.

  As swiftly as it was compressed, the ambient atmosphere then expanded.

  It was sucked into the white Infantry Fighting Vehicle, which pulsed, reverberated, and then with vicious force, regurgitated the air, now converted to thick black smoke, through the hatches and cupolas.

  Dark fumes rose in a column streaked with items of military equipment and chunks of the vehicle’s interior.

  The belated thud of the explosion gusted through the airwaves as the drivers dived for cover.

  Calum and Spider collided as they lunged towards the edge of the road and the bordering ditch. They lay there face to face. Calum stared, glassily, as Spider yelled, “Stay down! Down! Everyone! Keep your heads down, but check your neighbour. Look around you. Anyone hurt?” The words sounded muffled and dull against the numbness that wadded his eardrums.

  “I’m going to shout names. Answer up if you can.” He called the names of each driver, repeating those to which there was no immediate response. Michael had not answered.

  “Michael, c’mon! Let’s hear it!” bellowed Spider.

  Kurt screamed, “He’s down! Oh Christ, he is down! They’ve killed him. The bastards have killed him; he’s down.”

  The scream died down into a warbling moaning.

  “Kurt. Kurt, steady! Don’t lose it! Get it under control. Can you see Michael? Kurt, gimme an answer!”

  The sound of sobbing reached Spider. He noticed that the glazed look had left Calum’s eyes but tears were streaming down his face.

  “Kurt, I’m coming over to check Michael out. Get down and stay down!”

  Spider tensed his arms, braced his legs, raised his body clear of the bottom of the ditch and then, taking a deep breath, hurtled up from the cover and threw himself across the road.

  At that moment, the second shell crashed into the third convoy vehicle. The cab disintegrated.

  A huge, unseen hand swatted Spider and volleyed him into the ditch as metal, cartons and wheels streamed from the sky to litter the area around him.

  He tried to breathe but, although severely winded, he was not bleeding. With extraordinary effort, he gathered his strength and, knowing that it would be at least a few more seconds before they fired again, he threw himself once more across the road.

  He reached the shelter of the opposite bank.

  Nine of the drivers were within feet of each other.

  “Okay, Spider?” Dawke asked.

  Spider could not hear him but understood the mouthed question. He nodded, then, realizing that Kurt was not one of the group, looked along the bank towards the end of the convoy. The man was sitting on the bank, some twenty yards away, with his head in his hands and his body wracked by deep shuddering sobs. Spider crawled through the group and rolled along the bank until he reached the German. He pulled the distraught driver down to the bottom of the bank, grasped the other’s face in both hands and turned it towards him.

  Kurt did not resist but gulped air through his opened lips. He pointed in silence at the road. Spider followed his finger and made out the crumpled figure of Michael lying near the front of his truck. He patted Kurt on the shoulder, and then climbed over him to leopard-crawl further along the ditch until he was opposite Michael’s inert form.

  The man lay on his back with his arms spread wide and his feet pointing away from Spider. His head tilted at an impossible angle and a sharp, well-defined crease ran across the crown of his Kevlar helmet. From where he lay, Spider could see an ever-widening pool of blood.

  “Michael?” he called without expectation of an answer. As he braced himself to run out and pull Michael to the side of the road, the third shell crashed down.

  The strike was within feet of the Irishman’s vehicle. The blast buffeted the truck and yanked it clear of the ground before slamming it back to earth, where it bounced and shuddered. Spider felt the reverberation through the bank, then looked back to Michael.

  The body had vanished.

  Leaping to his feet Spider ran towards the cluster of drivers.

  “Get in the trucks! Move out! We’re sitting ducks. Move it! Into your trucks. Go! Go!” He crashed into a couple of bemused men who remained sitting in the ditch.

  “Get in the trucks! Drive! Drive!” he roared, tugging at the shoulders of the two men with each hand and pushing them back up into the road.

  As he reached the front of the convoy, the agitated buzz of Spanish voices reached him through the thick, soupy silence. The drivers had climbed back into their vehicles when four of the soldiers, with much excited arm waving and rifle brandishing, indicated that the convoy should leave, and quickly.

  Spider scrambled into the Toyota and snatched up the radio mike.

  “Start your vehicles. Move it! Let’s get the hell out of here! Radios remain open for communication!”

  The barrier swung into the air. The white Toyota started up and pulled rapidly away, closely followed by the line of accelerating ten-tonners.

  * * * * *

  The observer for the Serb gunners counted the speeding vehicles, noting that the direction of departure indicated Jablonica, and radioed that information together with the number of strikes to his headquarters.

  Minutes later, Kalosowich was reviewing the resources available to him. The situation report he had received earlier showed that one Chetnik paramilitary element, the White Eagles, was operating several miles to the west of the Jablonica. This detachment was engaged in what the world press euphemistically called ethnic cleansing; they were killing and maiming in Grabovica, a predominantly Croatian village, which lay astride the convoy’s projected route.

  Kalosowich drafted a brief message and passed it to his radio operator.

  On receipt of the message, the leader of the Eagles in Grabovica handed command over to his deputy, climbed into a van with four of his men, and took the road to Mostar to intercept the convoy.

  * * * * *

  The valley narrowed.

  Spider decided to use the overhang of rock as protection for the convoy while he checked the crew and decided on a plan of action. The vehicles closed up and pulled over into the concave shadow offered by the mountain.

  Crowther’s thoughts ran amok.

  His hands and knees shook; he broke a cigarette and dropped one more before he could successfully light it. Like the others, he believed that he had just escaped death back at the barrier. His nerves jangled at the memory of the hole in the road that had been Michael. Now, like crazed lunatics, they were driving further into Bosnia—towards more danger. He dragged on the cigarette and struggled to quell the nausea of panic.

  The Serbs often fired small arms at the aid convoys. After the initial attacks on convoys, with no one killed or wounded, it soon became clear that the firing was pure harassment. Their small-arms fire remained clinically accurate. It was the same when they shelled the convoys; near misses, close on occasions, but consistent misses.

  Today had been different. One shell could be in erro
r, but more? It was almost as if they had known about the contraband.

  The temperature in the cab seemed to plunge, and the perspiration on his skin turned to ice.

  Of course, they knew!

  He shuddered. They did not intend to let the convoy through! But, how could they know? Was it possible, that like Paroski, their intelligence sources had uncovered the arms conduit? Or had Paroski informed them?

  He felt an unreasonable sense of betrayal. Paroski had drawn the Serbs’ attention to the weapons, but had also ordered him to go with the convoy. It was obvious that Paroski knew they were all in danger—and just did not give a damn.

  But then, why should he? To the Croat, he was dross and therefore expendable. He slammed his hands against his steering wheel in frustration. The colonel still had his passport and the evidence. What could he do?

  Crowther started when the radio crackled, reminding him that Paroski had told him to disable the long-range radio, but he still had not done so. He would have to cripple the CODAN soon.

  Sod the man!

  “Convoy Leader to all vehicles. Update. I’ve been in touch with Base and given them the situation. Our only course is to continue through as best we can. If we try to turn back, those gunners will be waiting on the same stretch of road. There’s every chance that it was a one-off and that the way ahead is clear,” Spider lied to bolster his own courage as well as that of the other drivers. There were two legs, fortunately short ones, of the remaining journey, that were within clear view of the Serbs.

  The convoy routes ran on a parallel course between the Bosnian front line and another more fluid demarcation known as the Approximate Line of Confrontation. The main supply route had several sections where alternative roads and tracks led to the same destination. It was considered that the Serbs could not cover all of them.

  The geography of the area was also in the convoy’s favour. There were stretches on the way where narrow, winding, steep-sided gorges on both sides prevented a clear view of the road. Spider knew that most of the approach was over high ground through dense pine forests on woodcutters’ tracks. There would, there should, he corrected himself, be no clear field of fire for gunners.

  He felt confident that they could negotiate them without danger.

  “Any questions? Then everything’s clear. Out.”

  As he closed down, Spider saw the next checkpoint coming up. The news of the earlier attack had reached the soldiers, members of the Malayan contingent, and the barrier was up. The trucks swept through and swung left onto the track that would lead them towards the suburbs of Jablonica.

  Once into the cover of the thick woods, Spider accelerated, widening the gap between his vehicle and the convoy. The distance would increase the warning time for the convoy should any surprises crop up.

  The heavy convoy’s momentum did not slacken. Rath’s truck led the way, bouncing and swinging on the deep ruts of the track, and the others followed eagerly. As the ground rose and they climbed more steeply, the track narrowed, following the contour of the mountain. The drop on the outside edge of the track increased in depth, falling away sharply. Several hundred feet below, a swift-flowing stream rushed over crags and protruding rocks.

  Rath, a competent driver, refused to allow the terrain to intimidate him. Despite the high speed at which he travelled, he drove defensively and kept his eyes on the track ahead as the steering wheel bucked and spun in his capable hands.

  He enjoyed the thrill and adrenalin swirl of fast convoying. The challenge of the task vitalized his whole being, mounted on this high-strung stallion of a ten-ton cross-country truck, which had a spirit and character of its own. It was a jarring battle of sinew and nerve, physique and instinct. Snaking double-S bends, narrow tracks and the rapidity of the change of gradient, rising, falling away, rising, all added to the sense of a roller-coaster ride.

  The shelling had honed his already keen awareness to a degree even he did not think possible.

  As the truck bounded across the slope, swinging around a ninety-degree, left-hand bend, to bounce onto a saddle joining the next mountain, he snatched a glance at the side mirror. The rest of the convoy was still with him. The first four continued in line, and as he spun the wheel to negotiate a right-hand turn that appeared almost immediately, he saw the remainder of the column clawing itself upward in his wake.

  Another brief look revealed that the tail vehicle was lagging. Without decreasing speed, he manoeuvred his truck over to the left until the lower branches of the pines were brushing and scratching the side of the vehicle.

  The image in the mirror confirmed that the last truck was fading—probably a clogged diesel filter. However, its particular driver would push it until it died. The Irishman knew that several hundred yards ahead, just before the crest, the track would widen to allow timber trucks, in better times, to pass in opposite directions.

  This broadened track continued for one or two hundred yards. Spider would be waiting there for the convoy to catch up. Rath decided to pull over at the start of that stretch and wait for the lame duck without impeding the progress of the others.

  He pulled the radio’s microphone down.

  “Rath to Convoy Leader. Message. Over.”

  “Convoy Leader to Rath. Send. Over.”

  “Dawke looks like he’s got a fuel filter problem. I’ll wait to check it out. Suggest you go on through with the others. We’ll catch up. Over.”

  “Convoy Leader. Understood, but fix it quickly or let’s know ASAP if you can’t. You don’t want to be stranded here. Out.”

  The remainder of the convoy roared past as Rath pulled over. Dawke’s truck, belching thick black smoke, hiccupped and shuddered its way up the slope, and dragged itself into the side behind the waiting truck. Jumping down, Rath made his way to the faulty vehicle, shaking his head in disgust as he saw the driver’s rueful expression.

  “Use your goddamned radio when you’ve got problems—that’s what it’s for. I won’t even ask if you checked the damned filters before we left.”

  He swung up on the truck and wedged himself between the cab and cargo bed. After unscrewing the reservoir cap on the fuel tank, he removed the sleeve-like inline fuel filter. It was heavy and thickly coated with dark sludge. Rath threw the filter to Dawke.

  “Get your bucket and give me a length of hose.” He stretched down for the plastic bucket the driver had removed from the cab and put one end of the hose down into the fuel tank. Blowing the air from his lungs, he sucked on the free end of the hose, then, snatched it from his mouth, and placed it in the bucket. As the diesel flowed, he spat to clear his mouth of the fuel. Passing the bucket down to Dawke, he told him to wash the filter. Dawke swished the strainer in the liquid and then started to spray it with the airline while he tried to justify his negligence.

  “Jesus, Rath, it was just back from the service station. Who’d expect to—” he halted in mid-sentence as the radio crackled into life.

  “Crowther, all vehicles,” panted Dennis Crowther who had been following Rath and was now lead vehicle. The rest of his words followed in a rush. “There’s a van parked across the track in front. Four...five fellas, with guns. They’re waving me down—”

  His transmission died. Spider, parked in the siding, cut in. “For Christ sake, Dennis, don’t stop! Repeat, don’t stop!”

  “—at me. Jesus! They’re firing—” Crowther’s transmission resumed for a few seconds then abruptly the words died.

  * * * * *

  “Quick, Dawke, the filter. That’ll have to do. Let’s get moving!”

  Dropping the filter in the reservoir, Rath screwed the top back on. He jumped down and ordered Dawke to follow but to keep at least a hundred yards distance. With that, he scrambled into his cab and restarted the engine. He had no plan of action but was determined to get the other trucks back in sight so that he could at least see what was going on.

  * * * * *

  Spider, sandwiched between the fifth and sixth trucks as he had re-joined
the convoy, cursed as he came to a stop with the rest. As he jumped down, the attackers dragged Crowther from his truck and threw him against the rock face, where he collapsed. The driver tried to sit up. Spider was relieved to see that he did not appear shot or injured. The pair turned to the other vehicles and, brandishing their rifles, waved the remaining drivers down from their vehicles.

  The men were shepherded to where Crowther sat and formed up in a ragged line. Raising his hands with the others, Spider managed to sidle into the line next to Rusty, who was the longest-serving driver and knew some Serbo-Croat.

  “Who are they?” he whispered as the men slung their Kalashnikovs and began to manhandle the drivers in their search for weapons.

  “Serb militia,” muttered Rusty without taking his eyes off the ambushers. Spider looked around and counted a total of five. Two were unlashing the tarpaulin on Crowther’s truck and two, who had completed the body search, had clambered onto the vehicle. The fifth man had stepped forward with a Kalashnikov to cover the drivers.

  The men on the truck ripped the polythene covering off several pallets, gouged open the boxes and were throwing the contents onto the bed of the truck. The man on the ground looked up as one of the searchers shouted. With an angry gesture, he indicated the second vehicle with the muzzle of his rifle. The men sprang to the ground and began to remove the restraining ropes on that vehicle’s canopy.

  “So, what could we be carrying that they’re after?” Spider wondered aloud. Crowther, standing on his left, turned to look at him but said nothing, then flinched as a guard stepped forward threateningly.