Knife Edge: Life as a Special Forces Surgeon (42 page)

If you are male, the most important part of body armour is the groin flap - psychologically at least. Being shot is one thing, but being shot in the balls is another. When I go to my grave, however God chooses, my manhood goes with me. The groin flap is your salvation. Normally concealed within the body armour it can be pulled out any time you wish. If you genuinely think a Serb is about to take a pot shot, pull it down. It won’t alter his aim, but it will certainly make you feel safer. I look at male war correspondents with renewed interest now. If their groin flaps are down I know they are
really
worried.

Political protection was also essential. What, I asked, would happen if the Serbs overran Sarajevo while we were there? When the project was first suggested, no contingency existed for our rescue whatsoever. We would be on our own. Operation Irma saved the day. The young girl, perilously injured, had been evacuated to London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital. The politicians wanted Britain to appear fully involved as soon as possible. Our group was poised to move, which suited the UK’s Overseas Development Administration well. Suddenly, after a mere handful of telephone calls, we changed from an independent charity to a team under ODA control. Having ODA backing would not force a sniper from his target, but was a major layer of protection for the team. If the SAS had taught me nothing else, it showed successful survival is based on precise organization and anticipation of impending disasters.

First stop, via a tiny Fokker aircraft chartered specially for the team, was Ancona in Italy. Its airport was a hive of activity, Hercules transports from a variety of countries coming and going regularly. It was the home of Maybe Airlines - maybe you’ll make it, maybe you won’t - the unofficial name of the massive United Nations airlift needed to keep Sarajevo alive. Ancona also highlighted one of the tragedies of war-relief work. In the pouring rain stood tons of flour being ruined by damp. Damaged medical equipment lay scattered in puddles of water to one side of the runway, in company with several discarded containers of military rations. Service life trains you to be a magpie, so within minutes I had encouraged the others to take what they could carry from the pile. If it was no use for us, we could certainly leave it behind in Sarajevo. Looking at the mound of damaged goods and equipment made me doubt how coordinated such massive relief projects can ever be. Public funds, and individual donations, had probably been used to bring the items together. I would be horrified if my hard-earned charitable donation lay in a puddle of water somewhere in the world. The fantasy of aid to an area of conflict is a sharp contrast to reality on the ground.

War zones are not pleasant places and Sarajevo was no exception. The first thing to strike you, surprisingly, is the silence. Much of the time there is eerie quiet interspersed with the occasional thump of a mortar round, or crack as a bullet flies by. That day, Sarajevo airport was deathly silent. All around lay evidence of the intense shelling that had gone before. Shattered glass fragments, earthen craters, surrounded by the hulks of burned-out personnel carriers and aircraft. The soldiers were similarly silent. No smiles, no warm welcomes. Just a lifeless stare as you walk by. Many had seen friends killed or maimed by the conflict.

Sarajevo airport stands outside the city itself. No APC, ‘armoured personnel carrier’, was available to take us to the United Nations Headquarters at the post and telecommunications building, the PTT, so a routine minibus it had to be. Largely unprotected, I could see the bullet holes crazing the driver’s window. Despite their white colour, and blue UN flag, minibuses were fair targets in this crazy Balkan war.

As we drove towards the PTT, the true horror of a city under siege became apparent. Everything was destroyed. Not one window intact, not one wall spared the irregular pitting of shrapnel damage. Every building was gutted, roofs in tatters, their bare and charred beams in full view. It was a depressing sight, as if a huge tornado had passed by, destroying everything in its path. Occasionally there was an oddity. A bright orange Volkswagen Beetle, completely untouched, parked close beside the ruins of a house. Perhaps the pride and joy of its owner, I have no idea how it had escaped. There was no petrol to run it, but why a bored Serb gunner had decided to spare it was a mystery. Our minibus driver remained silent throughout the journey. I learned later he had been wounded three times since the conflict began, and had lost every member of his family. His sister had been raped before she was murdered. When he eventually told me this, I was struck by the impassive way he described events. War does suppress emotions — for both hunter and hunted.

The PTT was a busy place, people and vehicles coming and going continuously. When we arrived, our driver exited the minibus without saying a word, leaving us where we sat. No one had said where the Serb front line was positioned, so I had no idea whether or not we were in a firing line with a sniper at the other end. Consequently, I felt the only safe place was tucked away in the parking area between two large APCs. We crept from the minibus and cowered there until I noticed the strange looks from passing UN staff. One eventually beckoned me forcibly. ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘There’s no problem at the moment. You don’t need to hide there.’

Walking into the PTT itself I could see a complete mixture of people. Long-haired, ragged aid workers worked alongside immaculate UN soldiers. Meanwhile many well-known television journalists flitted to and fro the various offices, gleaning what little information they could. No office had curtains, or very few, and every exterior window was criss-crossed with sticky tape. The PTT fared well during the siege, though came under attack occasionally. Communication with the outside world was difficult, as fighting had destroyed most telephone landlines. However, there was one satellite fax, running night and day, and a telephone in the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the UNHCR. They guarded it for their own needs closely, as it was one of the few ways of communicating elsewhere. To use it without being caught or challenged was one of the only ways of having fun in Sarajevo.

Our contact at the PTT was a charming Scandinavian, working on behalf of the World Health Organization. He had seen most of the war through its various stages and knew everything about the conflict and its warring sides. He greeted me as if we had known each other for ages when, in fact, we had never met. After an initial, warm handshake and the only smile I had so far seen in Sarajevo, he looked at me seriously.

‘We were going to cancel you,’ he said, his voice quiet and low.

‘Cancel us? Why?’ I asked.

‘There didn’t seem any point in you coming. All electricity is off, there’s no water and gas is non-existent. We didn’t think you could do very much without basic power.’

‘I’m sure we can do something to help. Prepare an appreciation if nothing else. Perhaps it would be best for us to find out what Sarajevo is lacking and set the scene for later visits.’ After so much anxiety and emotion to come this far, we were not giving up at such an early stage.

The Scandinavian appeared to agree. ‘Yes, I thought that too. We decided to let you come and do the best you can. I understand you’ve done this sort of thing before.’

I nodded and avoided saying I had never before entered a city under siege. ‘Where will we be going?’ I asked.

‘The State Hospital. It’s where little Irma came from. No teams have been there before. At least no team has
stayed
there before. But I’m afraid it’s a little close to the front line.’

‘How close?’

‘A hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty metres.’

‘Shit.’

The drive to the State Hospital was an adventure in itself, directly through the heart of Sarajevo. To get there, our sad little minibus had to negotiate the lethal Sniper’s Alley, so-called because of its proximity to Serb snipers. The Alley
was
the front line. Snipers would sit, or lie, in buildings only fifty metres from the Alley. You survived a journey down that road from the goodness of their hearts, what little remained. It was impossible for even a one-eyed beginner to miss. Naturally it was important not to draw attention to yourself. You did not drive the route with headlights blazing or sirens wailing. You drove fast, steadily and looked neither left nor right. Unless, of course, your name was Beverley.

Beverley, Bev, is one of the best operating theatre sisters in the trade. In a moment of weakness, her weakness, I had persuaded her to join the Sarajevo project. Keen for adventure, she had agreed. It is astonishing what some will do to escape the National Health Service. Despite what were undoubted worries for her, she never once expressed those concerns to me. Bev had not been to a war zone before and had come armed with her tiny camera, poised to take photographs for what I assume will one day be her memoirs. The camera was one of those automatic affairs that decides for you whether or not to use its flash. As we drove down the middle of Sniper’s Alley, each minibus occupant looking steadfastly forwards, I suddenly realized not everyone was trying to remain inconspicuous. There was a whirr, a click and a rustle from my left. Then, as bright as sunlight on this overcast evening, Bev’s flash went off. Every one of us jumped out of our skins. I was convinced I had just been shot. ‘Oh bugger it! I’m sorry!’ she said. Worse still, the picture never came out.

How we survived the Alley, I do not know, but the Serbs were feeling kind that day. At one end, though a little beyond, stood the State Hospital. As we rounded a final corner I could see it to our front. It was a mess, its high-rise structure completely shell-blasted and destroyed. The hospital was also a military hospital and, as such, fair game for Serb gunners in the early days of the war. The Geneva Convention was not widely honoured in the Balkans. Such things are excellent ideas, but practice is so different from theory. No wonder its local name was the Swiss Cheese Hospital. Full of holes, it was a dangerous place to be.

By the time we arrived, the war had been running for eighteen months. The once-attractive Sarajevo had been reduced to a barren hulk. From a pre-war population of over 500,000, only 350,000 remained. Sixty-four thousand Sarajevans had been killed or wounded, of whom 16,000 were children. Of those who died, most had perished from explosive blast; but bayoneting, strangulation, rape, cold and starvation had killed many more. Of the 38,000 women, and girls, raped in Bosnia, 3000 had been assaulted within Sarajevo itself. More than 9000 pregnancies, 200 of which were Sarajevan, had been the result. This was ethnic cleansing,
etnicko ciscenje,
in all its horror.

No establishment is more exposed to the realities of war than a hospital. The Swiss Cheese Hospital was a classic example. For most of the war it dealt with up to thirty operations every day, week in, week out, month in, month out. It had to do this without an external electricity supply, limited fuel and a maximum of two hours’ running water each day. So extensive was the damage that all hospital activity above the fourth floor had been abandoned. Most clinical work took place on the lower four floors, and as much as possible on the first two. Red still stained the hospital forecourt where, at times of enormous casualties, buckets of scarce water were used to wash the blood away. Large concrete paving slabs rested against ground-floor windows as protection against blast, while a damaged, non-functional ambulance stood uselessly to one side.

The hospital’s orthopaedic surgeon was waiting at the front door, greeting us with open arms. ‘Welcome to Sarajevo,’ he said, an impressive smile across his otherwise pale, drawn face. ‘We have tried to make your visit as safe as possible, but I am afraid it is going to be difficult.’

Staying outside, in the exposed, open air of Sarajevo made us feel naturally insecure. We were delighted to be taken indoors, breathing a sigh of relief as we entered the moderate protection of the hospital building. Our host led us through the gloomy maze of hospital corridors. Every window was either shattered, or contained several bullet holes. Even internal walls had been fragmented and destroyed. As we passed the kitchen, he indicated a sequence of large, irregular, gaping cavities extending through several walls, from street outside to kitchen itself. ‘Tank round,’ he said. ‘It went through five walls and killed our cook. He was a good man.’ He spoke without emotion, devoid of feeling, as if it was an everyday occurrence that an innocent cook should die. I looked at the surgeon’s face. It was an expression I got to know well. I saw it on every face in Sarajevo. Passive eyes, expecting nothing from life or the world, pale sallow skin and slumped shoulders.

Only rarely did anyone venture outside. Lack of daylight, for months on end, living like rabbits in a burrow, made the Sarajevans look terrible. Yet staff would walk the hospital corridors, heads silhouetted against shattered, uncovered windows for any sniper to see. At night it was common to sit in uncurtained rooms, by the light of a candle or single electric bulb, for all outside to view you. It was as if the Sarajevans had now seen so much, endured such hell, that they had become acceptant of their fate. Each one had a tale to tell, of near misses, or woundings, or families lost and killed. ‘Every day is a black day,’ one surgeon said to me.

Unlike Sarajevo airport, the air around the Swiss Cheese Hospital was full of continuous noise. Crack! Crack! Boom!
Sniper putsa -
‘Sniper shooting’ - could be said over two hundred times each day. High-velocity bullets cracked everywhere. Due to the urban environment it was impossible to say from where the round was fired. In open areas it is easier. First you hear the ‘crack’ as the bullet flies past - you naturally do not hear it if it hits you - then the ‘thump’ as the metal breech of the rifle moves to and fro. It is the ‘thump’ you listen for, not the ‘crack’. It gives you the location of the sniper. The time and interval between ‘crack’ and ‘thump’ tells you the distance. ‘Crack-thump’ demonstrations are commonplace in the Army, where rounds are intentionally fired over your head in training to teach you this direction-finding skill. In Sarajevo, using crack-thump was difficult due to noise deflection and echo off the buildings. Any thump you might hear was normally the bullet hitting a body or brickwork, not the metal breech of a rifle. It was safer to assume that snipers were everywhere and take precautions accordingly.