The Blood Price

5. Broken Bridges

They came from both ends of the street at once, two Jeeps with four blue-helmeted soldiers in each, and both of them pulled up on the side of the street opposite me, stopping perpendicular to one another, headlights crossing right where the group of Tigers stood. The Tigers split off into two groups, one facing each Jeep. It was dark but the headlights and bright rear-mounted searchlights of the Jeeps illuminated the scene clearly and kept the British hidden. The block on which I sat was just far enough away that I remained in darkness.

"Put down your weapon immediately," a crisp British voice demanded. His voice was quickly followed by the Croatian translation.

Dragan bellowed something. I didn't hear what the NATO translator said, but it certainly didn't defuse the situation. The doors of the Jeeps opened and the soldiers took up armed positions behind them.

"Go fuck yourself," Josip said loudly, his English slurred and accented but unfortunately very understandable. "This is our city. Our city. We fought for it, we bled for it, we fucking died for it. Fuck you. Fuck NATO, fuck you. This is our home. Our home. Not your home. Ours. So we, we," he staggered with the force of his inebriated emotion and just prevented himself from falling, "we will do what we want here. So fuck you, fuck every one of you, fuck your mothers, fuck your sisters, fuck your daughters, fuck yourselves, fuck yourselves up the ass, fuck each other, fuck you, fuck off, eat shit and fucking die."

I thought it was an impressive display of profanity considering that English was at best his second language. The British leader didn't seem to share my admiration. "You have ten seconds to put down that Kalashnikov," he said coolly, "or you will be arrested."

Josip and the NATO translator raced to convey their versions of that. The threat of their leader's arrest galvanized the other armed Tigers– half a dozen, it turned out, carried small pistols on their persons – into drawing their weapons. No guns had yet been aimed at the NATO troops, but it seemed like just a matter of time.

The British leader agreed with my estimation: I heard him speak, probably into a radio, and calmly report, "This is second squad. Our situation has escalated. Request backup."

The searchlight of one of the Jeeps described a slow arc around the street and latched onto me. I shielded my face with my arms against the blinding light.

"You!" a young and nervous voice shouted, not the leader's. "Get up here with your mates!" When I didn't respond immediately the same voice barked, presumably to their translator, "Tell him to get his bloody arse up here. Last thing we need here is more of them skulking around."

"All right!" I said angrily, loudly enough that the Brits could hear me over the dark muttering of the Tigers. "Christ. Stop pointing that fucking thing at me already, will you? Jesus." I stood up, still shielding my eyes, and walked over to the space between the Jeeps, moving fairly steadily, the sight of guns and the incipient standoff had half-sobered me in a hurry.

"Who the fuck are you?" the young voice asked, astonished. "What's a fucking Yank doing here?"

"I'm Canadian, asshole," I said. And then, inspiration striking: "And these are my friends, and if this is anyone's fault, it's mine, so why don't you cool the fuck down and stop pointing your guns at my friends here? And for Christ's sake get that goddamn light out of my face!"

My stew of poisonous emotions had found an unexpected outlet: the British Army.

My appearance and irritable complaints were so out of place that they alone half-defanged the situation. The Bosnians, coming from a land where you never trusted armed authorities, who could not even imagine treating soldiers as if you had rights that they dared not violate, were bewildered and to some extent impressed by my grumpy demands and total lack of fear that Brits might shoot me or arrest me, and my strange behaviour crowded the worst of their macho persecution complex from their minds. The British, on the other hand, nonplussed at finding an annoyed Canadian amidst this gang of thugs, were suddenly no longer certain what they should do.