by Peter Barry
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On 11 July the Serbs (maybe I should be writing ‘we’?) captured the UN-declared safe areas of Srebrenica and Zepa. In camp, everyone had a good laugh. We jeered at the United Nations, and declared that these towns were now really safe, now that we were in charge. The celebrations went on long into the night, but left me strangely uninvolved. I don’t give a damn who ends up in charge of this country – although I’d never tell my father that. He wouldn’t see my point of view. Who wins and who loses, who cares? The country isn’t worth conquering now. Whoever takes over will always be looking behind them, wondering if they’re safe, because none of the factions will ever get complete control. They’ll only be able to rule, retain their grip on power, by suppression. In ten or twenty years time there’ll be another war, to right some of the wrongs of the past, to even things out again.
I think I hate them all. If I had my way I’d put the lot of them up against a wall and shoot them. That’s what they deserve. The Christians and the Muslims, the Social Democrats, the Communists and the Liberals, the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Hungarians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Albanians and Slovenes, they’re all as bad as each other. Maybe I don’t give a fuck who I shoot now, friend or foe, it’s all the same to me. They’ll just be another notch on my rifle butt, another 500 Deutsche Marks in the bank.
After the battle of Srebrenica, it seems there was a massacre – of Muslims. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what people are saying. What I do know is that the Serbs marched into the city as victors, whereas here we just sit in the hills and shoot into empty streets. It’s not a battle, it’s a siege, and I’m beginning to wonder if I should move elsewhere, to where there’s proper fighting. But then I ask myself if I want to die for some cause I don’t believe in. If I’m simply searching for a story, then it’s probably better that I stay put. No idea on earth is worth dying for, surely? Is it?
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This afternoon, after lying motionless for hours, I decided I’d had enough for the day. I moved my head fractionally back behind the tree so that I could crawl out of sight and rest. There was a puff of air, a crack as a bullet embedded itself in a tree just a few feet behind me. I froze. I remained low, hugging the ground, my face in the grass. I watched a tiny insect crawl over the obstacles of leaves and twigs that blocked its way. Although scarcely breathing, I was thinking quite dispassionately about how that was the closest I’d ever been to being dead. I must have avoided death by a millisecond or so. I even put a hand up tentatively to the side of my head to check if there was any blood.
As I lay there, I remembered the man who’d walked up to me in the camp a few days earlier. ‘So, Englishman, you are still alive?’ he’d said.
The man had stood before me, his hands in his trouser pockets, legs apart, looking down on me as if I was some trapped animal he’d stumbled across on a tour of his estate and which he hadn’t expected to survive another night.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ I was sitting by myself on an upturned packing chest waiting for Santo, who’d gone across to the kitchen area to collect his food.
‘Not for long. You won’t disappoint me for long.’ It was said matter-of-factly, without any sign of malice.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He stared glumly, at my chest rather than my face, possibly trying to work out in his own mind why I hadn’t yet been killed, then turned away without answering my question. I almost went after him, but decided not to waste my time. It was for him to worry about, the fact I wasn’t yet a corpse, not me.
But now he’d almost been proved right.
I was a little surprised by how relaxed I felt about this incident. I wondered where the shot came from and how long the sniper had been watching me. I imagined he must have seen me move into position – over three hours ago, because I’d have been hard to spot once I was in position. I also wondered if the sniper had been aiming specifically at me, if, as Santo once suggested, my signature had now been recognised? Possibly the shot had been totally random: I was simply another enemy sniper. I thought that was more likely. I was more concerned I wouldn’t be able to move safely for at least an hour, possibly until dusk.
Back at the Vraca camp, when I mentioned to Santo that I’d almost been killed, he told me to be more careful. I was moved by his concern, but only briefly. A second later he added, ‘If you are shot I will probably lose that army coat I gave you.’
A minute later he was telling me word had come through that the Croatians had launched an attack on Serb forces in the Krajina region of Croatia, south-west of Sarajevo. ‘There has been a ceasefire down there for several months, but now it seems to be over. This is good, this is what we want. The only reason people arrange ceasefires is so they can break them, and now that has happened we can get back to fighting again.’
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Two days later there was a repeat performance, this time in one of the Grbavica apartments. There was again a rush of air next to my head, so close, like a crack!, then a two-second pause before I heard the distant bang from the rifle. Two seconds meant he was two hundred yards away, and that was too close. The bullet hit the wall behind me. There was a small crater in the masonry that hadn’t been there a moment ago. It would have been a massive hole in my head. So much adrenalin surged through me, I felt queasy. I wasn’t so much annoyed with this stranger (I’m convinced it’s the same person now) who’s trying to put an end to my life, I felt more like he was someone I was playing chess against. It had become an intriguing problem. I had to deduce his next move as well as work out a counter-attack. I wanted to win this game.
This experience – being shot at and almost killed – will prove invaluable in the future. So long as I survive. It’s a dream scenario for a writer: ‘He risked death to bring you the horrifying reality of life in the front line.’ That kind of thing.
Santo wasn’t around this evening, so I was able to take advantage of his absence to approach Radomir. I’m not sure why I preferred to set it up with him. Perhaps it was because he’d once studied to be a priest and therefore I trusted him more. It’s a little weird if that was the reason, but who knows. Maybe I just remembered how upset Santo had been not to accompany me to the farmhouse, and I felt like upsetting him again.
The next morning, early, Radomir and I went to the apartment block in Grbavica. It was pitch black. I guided him to the room I’d been in the day before. I wasn’t concerned using the torch. It was unlikely anyone would see us, but if they did, so much the better. I offered to leave Gilhooley with him – stimulating, educated company for his long wait – but he said he’d brought his own decoy, so the headmaster accompanied me. We arranged for Radomir to make his move at ten. We checked our watches. ‘Be careful,’ I said.
‘God bless you,’ he replied. I almost did a double take, wondering if he was being ironic, but he didn’t seem to be.
I headed back downstairs on my own soon after five.
There were red and white blocks of flats, three stories high, with balconies front and back, a hundred yards upriver from where I left Radomir. They were shaped like boomerangs, the two end ones concave towards the river, and a middle one convex, with each building slightly overlapping its neighbour. They were perfect for my plan. As I walked there, I was careful to keep a building between myself and the river, just in case there were any Bosnians already up and watching. It didn’t seem likely at that hour.
I chose the furthest building and went up to the second floor. There’d been a fire inside and the walls were pock-marked with bullet holes. Cautiously I raised Gilhooley above the window ledge … Nothing. I lowered him and then took a look myself. I had a perfect view of the building where I thought my sniper friend was hiding. It was a little to the west of the main railway and bus stations, and looked like some kind of power station covered in tiles, with four small windows – more like portholes – at the front, plus half a dozen ventilation outlets. I could see that e
nemy snipers had been inside before because the porthole at the bottom of the structure was scarred all around by bullet holes and the tiles had been dislodged to reveal the bare concrete underneath. It seemed like a good place to hide, the building isolated in the middle of a large patch of derelict land. Bricks, sheets of corrugated iron, weeds and rusting railway equipment lay everywhere round about. The railway line, now disused, ran directly behind the building.
I retreated to the back of the room, opened my thermos flask of coffee and lit a cigarette. I was nervous, but it was mainly excitement. I felt I was hunting someone, and I liked the feeling. Hemingway said something about the hunting of armed men being the best kind of hunting there is, and once you’ve had a taste of it you never want to do any other kind. And he was a Nobel Prize winner!
I prayed that the sniper who’d been preying on me hadn’t moved, that he’d grown complacent. I was hoping that having enjoyed some success from this position, and doubtless including me in his kill total, he’d be persuaded to stay put.
At nine o’clock I moved into position and set my sights. Gilhooley sat beside me. He was holding his breath, not talking at all. He was excited, I could feel it. After all, this sniper had blown a hole in his head and almost killed him. He wanted revenge too.
The minutes ticked by slowly. Just before ten, I was tense with concentration. Radomir was about to raise his decoy in the building further along the riverbank. I stared at the tiled power station. Suddenly there was a muzzle flash – not from the building at all, but from beneath a sheet of corrugated iron lying on the waste ground immediately to the right. I caught it out of the corner of my eye. No wonder I’d had problems tracking this sniper. I moved my rifle ten degrees, lined up the gap between the corrugated iron and the ground, aimed about three feet back from the flash, and slowly squeezed the trigger.
I waited about a minute, chambered another round and repeated the shot, only this time a fraction higher. Then I retreated from the window as fast as possible and leaving Gilhooley, who was beside himself with excitement, I leapt down the stairs two at a time, and sprinted to the other end of the three apartment blocks. I knew it would be more directly opposite where the sniper was situated. I ran up to the first floor and, acting totally unprofessionally – because I was pretty sure I’d already killed my friend – I threw myself carelessly down by the window and fired another shot beneath the corrugated iron from this slightly different angle … and then another. Then I waited. I waited an hour. There was absolutely no movement, no sign of life. This didn’t mean much. I knew that if by some miracle the sniper had survived our trap, he wouldn’t attempt to move until after dark. But I was fairly confident he wouldn’t be moving anywhere. At worst, he’d be severely wounded and bleeding to death.
I met Radomir back at camp. We congratulated each other on our successful mission and drank Slivovitch together. We ended up having a bit of a chat.
‘What did you do before this happened?’ I asked him, even though I knew the answer from Santo.
‘I was studying to be a priest.’
Although I pretended to be surprised, it wasn’t so difficult to imagine him saying Mass, being kind to old ladies and blessing children. I also knew that for the villagers in this part of the world, there were really only two options if they wanted to avoid a life of poverty and hardship: to become a priest or join the army. Radomir certainly looked the part. He was a Botticelli angel, with black curly hair, a peaceful, understanding smile, and startling blue eyes that really did twinkle.
‘So why are you now a soldier, and not a priest?’
‘I ask myself that question, Milan. It was lots of little steps, I think. There is a time when you are studying for the priesthood, and then a little later you are studying to be a soldier, and you do not even realise you have travelled the distance in between.’ He shook his head, as if to show he did not understand how the process worked either. ‘The main reason, I think, is my best friend wanted me to join the army with him. He said I could study for the priesthood once the war was over. It is probably because of him.’
‘Will you go back later?’
‘I do not know. I’m not sure that I believe any longer, that is the problem I have now.’ And he gave me this broad smile, revealing a perfect set of dazzling white teeth. A minute later he frowned. ‘Have you heard of the Marquis de Sade?’ I nodded, a little taken aback by a Catholic priest raising such a subject. ‘You know what he said? He said that if God kills and rejects mankind, then why should we not do the same? Those words have been in my head a lot during this war.’
I wasn’t sure what to say.
‘It is true that God kills us, mocks us, makes all of our lives miserable every day, so it is difficult to argue against why we should not behave in the same way. Why should we behave well when He does not?’
‘Do you believe He’s on our side, Radomir, or on the side of the enemy?’
‘I think He is on no one’s side. I think He has gone off on holiday and said to Lucifer: “It’s all yours, Lucifer. They do not interest me, those people in the Balkans. I leave them in your capable hands. Do whatever you want with them.” That is what I think.’
I couldn’t imagine Radomir returning to the seminary after this, after what he’d seen and doubtless done. Yet what struck me very forcefully was his seeming lack of conscience: so far as I could tell he had absolutely no guilt about what he was doing now. He was quite at peace with himself, and had perhaps made his peace with whomever he believed was ‘upstairs’.
‘My life was very quiet before this.’ He grinned, his face open and uncomplicated, totally without guile. ‘You know the most exciting part of my life before the war?’
‘A woman?’
‘You forget, my friend, I was studying to be a priest.’
‘Before that were there no women?’
‘A mountain village is not like where you come from. It is many decades behind the times.’ I nodded. ‘No, for me, it was fishing. It was feeling that pull on the line when you have hooked a fish, that was the most excitement I had in my life. I am not complaining, however; it was more than enough for me.’
‘You did a lot of fishing?’
‘It was all I did, all I ever wanted to do. Whenever I had time I would head off to my favourite spots by the river. I could sit there for hours. It was like I was in a trance. I did not move. I was happy. Even if I did not catch any fish I was happy. For me, being by the river, that was enough.’
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Earlier today, there was an incident a little out of the ordinary. I feel bad about it. I don’t know what came over me, it was so … well, out of character. But I must write down what happened, even though it will be painful to do so.
A mother and her child had been to the well at Bascarsija, in the hilly eastern section of the city. There’s a strong Turkish influence there. The district, between the river and the city’s main mosque, the Chusrev Beg, is a maze of narrow alleys and small shops. I believe it’s many centuries old, but don’t know how many. The well is ornate, with an imposing wooden tower set on granite steps, the water being collected from scalloped marble pools at its base. It’s situated in a cobblestoned courtyard, and would normally be surrounded by trees (although these have now all been cut down for firewood), quaint shops and traditional coffee shops, called kafana. I imagine it would make a popular postcard in peacetime. I’ve often looked down on the district and thought how much I’d like to visit there, to sit in the shaded courtyard, listen to the trickle of water from the fountain, and watch the locals go about their business. Maybe I’d enjoy a coffee while I read a book or worked on my novel. I spotted the mother and child when they left this well. They disappeared behind some buildings, but I could work out the direction they were heading in and knew they’d reappear about a block away. I waited.
When they came back into view they were hurrying, but not taking any great care to keep out of sight, the woman probably believing the child would be her
passport to safety. She was struggling with a large container of water, carrying it with one hand, the other holding her child. She was dragging the child along, trying to get him to hurry, but he was fed up – I could see that despite the distance between us. He probably wanted to run off and play.
I was about to shoot a hole in the container – something snipers do every day just for the annoyance factor – but changed my mind. I didn’t want to warn her. So I shot the kid first. Kids are the future, so it’s important to get rid of them. No kids, no future, that’s what Mladic is always telling us. He was about six, but it was too far to be certain. He was pale and skinny, and had the appearance of someone who had lived underground all his life. He didn’t look as if he’d ever stepped out of doors to play in the street. That was likely to be his life, hidden in a dim basement, holed up like a rat, so I probably did him a favour putting a bullet in his head.
The mother continued to clasp her boy’s hand as he went down, maybe hoping to hold him back in this world, to stop him from falling off into the void, into the black abyss. But I knew he was dead; I could see it from five hundred yards away. I hadn’t messed up the shot, I was certain of that. The mother dropped the container of water and, as she turned towards her boy, falling to her knees beside him, I put a bullet in her stomach. It was an impromptu thing, something I did without thinking. Almost on a subconscious level, it was as if I understood I didn’t wish her to die instantly. I wanted her to die, yes, but before she died I wanted her to know that her little boy was dead, that he’d never live the life she’d imagined for him, that her dreams for his future would never be realised.
