Spider Shepherd: SAS: #1 Read Free Page A

to Sarajevo.’
    They piled into the truck with Shepherd wearing his full camouflage uniform, complete with red beret. Harry took one look at his beret and told him to take it off and said put it in his bergen.
    ‘But we always wear our berets,’ Shepherd said.
    ‘No doubt, but you’re not with the Paras now. We don’t wear anything that shows people who we are. We keep the enemy guessing because usually what they surmise is more scary than the reality!’
    ‘And trust me,’ Diesel said, with a wink, ‘the reality is scary enough. Harry can knock an enemy out at fifty paces just with his armpits and his breath. Isn’t that right, Harry?’
    ‘True enough,’ said Harry. He grinned. ‘Mind you when Diesel farts, he can clear an area twice as big. The only trouble is his farts don’t discriminate between friend and foe, so you’ve got to watch out for friendly fire.’
    Shepherd took off his beret and stashed it in his bergen. Harry carried on briefing them as they bounced and jolted over the rough dirt roads towards the capital. ‘As you’re fresh off the boat, Gus,’ Harry said, ‘here’s a little potted history for you. The regular Serb forces here are being aided and abetted by several hundred Russian volunteers - so-called volunteers anyway - and by Serbian police and paramilitaries, or death squads to give them another name. One group, known as the Scorpions, were run by the Serbian Interior Ministry until the end of the Cold War, and they’re still around now. They operate as freelance killers, and are about as nasty a bunch of mass-murderers as you could ever hope to meet.’
    He glanced at Shepherd. ‘You’ve been on the ground here a fair bit, Dan. Anything to add?’
    Shepherd nodded. ‘Just that the local Serb population also tend to help out the Scorpions and the other Serb forces, by informing on their neighbours and often by taking part in any theft, rape, beating and killing that’s going, and there’s usually plenty of those. The Serbs target a town or village, wipe out the defenders and then carry out what’s become their trademark SOP: the houses and apartments of the Bosnian Muslims are looted and then torched, the civilians are rounded up and herded together, and the men separated from the women. The men are beaten if they’re lucky, but many are killed, and many more are thrown into prison camps under appalling conditions. There have also been allegations of large-scale massacres - in fact, Europe has seen nothing to compare with it since the Nazis. The Bosnian women are also herded into detention centres where they have to endure the worst kind of abuses. Many are routinely raped by their jailers, but squads of Serb soldiers and police also visit the detention centres and select women who are then dragged out and repeatedly raped. It’s a bloody nightmare, And meanwhile the governments of Europe all sit on their hands and do nothing to stop it,’ he said, his fists clenching involuntarily.
    ‘We’re here, aren’t we?’ Diesel said.
    ‘Yes, but with one hand tied behind our backs,’ said Shepherd.
    ‘Mine aren’t,’ Harry said, with a chilling smile. ‘Dan’s right. The politicians have fucked this up big-time. Anyway, the Serbs repeatedly tried to capture Sarajevo but they were driven back every time and instead, beginning in May 1992, they’ve laid siege to the city. They established a total blockade, blocking the roads, cutting off all supplies of food and medicine, and severing the water mains, the electricity cables and telephone lines. There are about 12,000 Serbs dug in on the surrounding hills and pouring down fire pretty much non-stop. The Bosnian forces trapped in the city actually outnumber the Serbs by a factor of three or four but they are very poorly equipped, lacking heavy weapons and often even ammo for their small arms. Most of what they have, including the materials to make IEDs, their main offensive weapon against the Serbs, they’ve had to buy on