10/07/2008

Over the next few weeks, allmediascotland.com is to publish, each weekday, extracts from the memoirs of Scottish war correspondent, Paul Harris. ‘More Thrills than Skills: A Half-life in Journalism’, is being scheduled for publication next year.

There were few defensive positions remaining for the Croat defenders. We went to one in a modern flat block on the outskirts of the town. Surrounding blocks were, unpromisingly, shattered by what appeared to be aerial attack. We ran from the car into the block where several flats were still occupied.

Not by the normal quota of domestic residents but, almost exclusively, by what appeared to be a mixture of soldiers in a hotch-potch of imaginatively-created uniforms, and civilian enthusiasts, all bearing an extraordinary range of weaponry.

I was shown the technique of moving about the rooms and stairs: close to walls, at the backs of rooms and at the double past windows and through open areas. There was a distinct air of unreality. Like we were preparing for a movie shoot rather than a shoot-out.

We sat down in a curtained room for the usual beer with brandy chaser. A body lay behind the sofa a few yards from where we drank. It was very still. I wasn't sure whether it was dead or dead drunk and didn't feel inclined to find out.

The talk was all of when the EEC or the UN would come in to relieve the siege. I found it impossible to disillusion these embattled and dedicated men trying desperately to defend their homes. I was embarrassed by their touching faith in the toothless lion of the EEC. Flavia Kingscote felt the same way in 1941 when she wrote from personal experience about the German attack on Yugoslavia: “I cannot convey in adequate words the faith, the expectations of those people. I pray they may never be disillusioned and that may see the day when we justify their confidence in us by actions equally worthy of their trust.” 
 
Another hair-raising drive then followed to the centre of military operations at the police station.

Whilst I was at the police headquarters a deafening barrage started. I had never been under that sort of sustained attack before. It was the coping with the noise which seemed to take over all the senses. Not just the noise of exploding shells all around but, as the Croatians returned fire from the basement with automatic weapons, the deafening confusion of sound was like an anaesthetic which denied all senses. I couldn't actually see the enemy but I assumed - at the time - that the frenzied defenders could, as they unloaded their magazines. In retrospect, I realised they couldn’t . . .

In a lull in the fighting we ran a zigzag course back to the car punctuated by a mortar round which, thankfully, only showered us with no more than dust and debris but quite did for the borrowed BBC tape recorder I was carrying. We left Pakrac at speed. Despite the rain of bullets, mortars and general unpleasantness, incredibly, it seemed to me, we were still alive.

All the fire - the snipers excepted - seemed to be totally indiscriminate and I mused that most people were probably killed 'accidentally'. I ruminated on the statistical chances of death in this war. Were you more likely to be killed by accident in this disorganised multi-fronted war than in one of the more regimented variety?  Without doubt, I did, that day, take risks that later I would never have taken.

Back in Prekopakrac, the girls had been having a whale of a time. They had been fed, watered and generally entertained royally by the local soldiery. Empty bottles and pitchers of wine littered a table in a barn. An inquiry from Judy about the nearest shop selling photographic film - I wouldn't have had the nerve - had, incredibly, produced within a matter of minutes a whole box of films salvaged from the ruins of some local emporium. One of the fighters simply took Judy down to a local shop, kicked in the window and wandered around sweeping the goods from the shelves until he found a stock of celluloid. I wasn’t really too sure about associating with looters.

My travelling companions seemed to have taken a shine to the notion of staying overnight. The local head Rambo has announced we could stay at his aunt's house. I was none too keen. Even less keen when we arrived at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with no welcoming old auntie in evidence. The girls seemed captivated by the rural solitude. Captives they certainly would be, I reckoned. After all, a chap fighting in the frontline, laying his life on the line, is likely to think it pretty unreasonable of a woman who fails to lay herself down by way of thanks for a spot of hospitality and a drop of slivovich. The girls were utterly appalled at my cynicism about the motives of the 'bambinos.

The journey back to Zagreb was largely uneventful. Except, ten kilometres up the road, Judy discovered she'd left her mascara in the 'bathroom' at Prekopakrac. I declined to go back. Then it really did get unpleasant.