Most days there are wounded in the camp. They’re passing through, being moved to Pale or, in the more serious cases, to Belgrade. I feel I’m not the only one who doesn’t like having them around. Being forced to listen to their moaning, their groans of pain and the way they sometimes scream makes me feel uncomfortable. I prefer the wounded to remain at the far end of my telescopic site, several hundred yards away. Here, they often lie on their camp beds, motionless, as if they’re already dead. One of them was being carried past me on a stretcher the other evening, and he suddenly reached out and grabbed my arm. I tried half-heartedly to shake him off, but he clung all the tighter. It was in the middle of a downpour. A bloody bandage was wrapped around the top of his head, and the rain was causing rivulets of blood to run down his face. His eyebrows were arched, his eyes staring and he said something I didn’t catch, or couldn’t understand. It sounded like a question. He hung onto me, waiting for an answer. The rain was drumming on the canvas that had been thrown across his body, and I stood in the mud, cursing under my breath, wanting to escape. I looked at one of the orderlies carrying the wounded man for help, but he only shrugged. He didn’t seem to understand either. I didn’t know the answer the wounded man was looking for, so I tore my arm from his grip, almost yanking him off the stretcher and onto the ground, and the stretcher bearers carried him away through the curtain of water. It made me feel sick.
Amongst those who haven’t been wounded, there’s a definite camaraderie. I think this is because we’re all beyond the pale, outside the bounds of civilised society. Having the rest of the world against us brings us closer together. It’s certainly something I’ve always found appealing: having everyone hate us has never bothered me. The truth is, I like that. It makes me more determined than ever to thumb my nose at them. Yes, I like having the whole world against us, and having the opportunity to play the part of the bad guy. None of us cares what they think. Again and again I hear men saying, ‘They can fuck off!’ ‘Fuck them!’ ‘To hell with that lot!’ Sometimes they’re talking about the people of Sarajevo, but most of the time they’re talking about the UN, the representatives of those on the inside. Although the men were suspicious of me at first, they now believe I’ve betrayed their enemy, which amounts to virtually everyone else in the world. I’ve changed sides, or that’s how they see it. In their eyes I’m a fellow collaborator.
Often the talk that is carried on in the camp is between two people. It’s whispered, like a confession, often earnestly, and can’t be heard by anyone else. There’s also a lot of grunting. Many of the men will grunt rather than speak. They’ll grunt when they take their plates of food off the cook, grunt at the person sitting next to a vacant spot by the fire to find out if it’s free, grunt instead of answering yes or no to someone’s question.
Is that what they’ve become, animals living in the forest, grunting, eating, sleeping, fornicating, lying down in the mud, warming themselves by the fire, barely communicating with each other, concentrating solely on the basics, cut off from the world, doing what they’re doing for no reason other than that they’ve been told to do it? By Milosevic, I suppose.
Sometimes there’s singing around the campfire. It can be just one man with a guitar, or it can be everyone present. In the main they’re folk songs, some of which I recognise from childhood. When everyone sings, an air of maudlin sincerity descends, the men either closing their eyes, lowering them to the ground as if overcome by emotion, or raising them to the pitch-black sky as if seeking an answer to their struggles here on earth. Occasionally they’ll dance the kolo, a local dance. I don’t join in. They dance in the mud because there’s no grass in the campsite. They dance, not in celebration, but in order to give themselves comfort.
The campsite is the focus point for the surrounding area. Old friends greet each other, soldiers who haven’t met for awhile clasp hands or shoulders and shout affectionate obscenities at each other, standing eyeball to eyeball. Others sit in silence by the fire, brooding, clasping their bottles of Slivovitz, being consumed by the alcohol and the flames. The crackle and whine of patriotic music on Radio Belgrade fades in and out in the background. A few of the men hunch over the transistor like relatives around a death bed, hoping to catch some final words of wisdom, an explanation for what’s happening in their lives. Some information.