It's been two weeks since I've spoken to anyone outside our four man team.
Constantly moving at night, avoiding all contact with civilians, observing, recording, monitoring.
Our current position is south of our temporary home in Banja Luca.
We have just established an LUP near the town of Bocac.
Intel reports suggest that an isolated farm house could be targeted by Serbs.
The days drag, rarely do we even see anything to report, the occasional vehicle arriving at the farm, a few civilians moving around.
Using the binoculars I can see that most of the civilians are women and children, there is one old man we have nicknamed 'Bobby' we see him three or four times a day walking around the farm.
Bobby looks to us as if he is keeping watch, always scanning the land around him, he spends a lot of time in the roof area of the barn, and we often see his wrinkled face and bushy mustache pressing against the small window pane.
From his vantage point he can see for a mile or so down the small dirt track that connects the farm to what the locals would consider a main road.
Many times whilst watching him he has looked straight at my position, I know he can not see me, our OP is well located, but like the others I felt uneasy about the look he gives.
We arrived at this 'farm' five days ago; so far nothing has happened out of the ordinary.
We watch the children playing around the farm.
The women, who are all wearing head scarves, hurry around carrying heavy buckets, feeding chickens, the kind of activity you would expect to see on a rural farm.
A few goats are tethered next to the small house and are always milked by Bobby; sometimes one of the kids would help him.
Every time he finished the milking, I would watch him drink a cup of warm goats milk, at that moment I wished I could trade places.
Hot food for our team was only available at the LUP, the FOP was only 150 yds from the target area and protocol and standing orders meant no heating of food & drinks, toilet facilities were a small bottle and a plastic bag, worse for me was four hours without a cigarette, made worse when having to watch Bobby sitting at the barn window, with wisps of cigarette smoke spilling out into the cold spring air.
It was 8am and I had replaced Nick some 10 minutes ago.
The space he left behind was still warm but he was an untidy sod and had left all the kit in a heap.
I started to sort it all out, I preferred to have everything to hand in case I had to bug out, it would take most people 2 minutes to reach my position at the top of the hill from the farm, and I didn't want to leave anything behind.
The kit had been sorted, I settled in for my four hour stint.
Looking at my watch I noted the time (0820hrs) and made a note in my log.
I scanned the area looking for activity; I could see Bobby sat in the barn looking down the track.
One of the women was in the front yard near the entrance wall.
She was stood leaning out over the wall.
One of the children was sat on a wooden fence.
Something wasn't quite right, I could hear one of the kids crying from inside the house, then I spotted the goats, they were lying down.
an overturned bucket lay next to them, the morning sun was reflecting of its base.
I grabbed my comms kit and sent a sitrep to my TL.
Ten minutes went past very slowly.
From what I could see, something was wrong, how wrong I could never have imagined.
My Comms cracked into life.
The voice was that of Paul our TL, he told me that all three of my team were 'coming in'.
Behind me I heard the guys moving in behind the OP, pulling out I let Paul have a look, it only took 20 seconds or so before he came out.
The expression on his face told us all we needed to know.
We were going in...
not something we had ever done in daylight.
Comms checked, belt order checked, weapon loaded, as we moved off using the small copse on the hill as cover I locked my eyes onto Bobby looking for movement, nothing so far.
Our infil of the target area was to be from the barn side of the farm, cover was provided by a stone wall that ran from the woods on the hill right down to the barn.
It didn't take us long to get there.
I could still hear a child crying in the house.
I took up position at the back of the barn; I could see only the gable end of the house, a few chickens pecked at the ground 30 feet in front of me.
A small door on my left led into the wooden barn, slightly ajar.
Nick moved around me from my rear, weapon ready.
As he came past the right side of me, he stopped dead in his tracks, slowly he came down to my level as we both crouched there he turned and signaled silently that he had spotted something in the doorway, from his signal I understood what he meant, a trip wire.
This meant only one thing, someone or something was waiting for us to try and go in that door.
Slowly Nick moved forward, leaning into the open door, after a few seconds he turned to me and handed me a tin can, inside was a Russian made grenade with what was left of the trip wire that he had cut.
Aware that there may be other IED's waiting for us we entered the barn, I moved toward the large open doors opposite the farmhouse whilst the other guys went to check on Bobby.
The smell already told me that something was dead.
The comms crackled, Bobby was dead, his throat had been cut and a grenade without pin had been placed in his mouth, making him dangerous to touch.
The rest of the guys joined me at the open barn doors, we already knew that there would be other bodies, without even looking, I knew that the woman 'leaning' over the stone wall was more than likely dead.
The my mind shot to the little girl sat on the fence, she must have seen all this and be in a complete state of shock, from my position I could not see her, but I knew were I last saw her, on the fence.
Paul tapped me on the shoulder, I didn't need a verbal command, I knew my job.
I sprinted towards the main gate of the farm yard; going past the little girl on the fence I saw her look at me, I had to ignore her for now and get the job done.
As I ran I knew the rest of the guys were securing the farmhouse.
On arrival at the gates I could see from her frozen stare that the old woman on the wall was dead.
The leg that I could see was partially covered by dark coloured stockings, the blood had stiffened the material and created black stains down to her brown ankle boots.
I was knelt about 12 feet from her but the smell was already recognisable.
I was scanning the lane looking for anything that could threaten us.
I could hear the guys crashing through the house, the occasional shout of 'clear' made me relax a little more.
My senses snapped into overdrive as I spotted movement in the bushes to my right, with instinct my weapon lifted towards the bush.
Then it came, one of the goats, it skipped out of the bush and stood on the lane looking straight at me.
I started to smile, it was a bloody goat! My breathing started again.
It started to move towards me, all I was thinking of was the warm milk I was going to be enjoying.
It was then I noticed the small package attached around its neck with black masking tape.
I gave no thought to what it could be; it shouldn't be there and therefore was a threat, with a single shot the back of its head flipped right off.
As it fell to the floor I gave the contact warning over the radio.
I moved to towards the woman that was laid over the wall, I was looking to get some cover between me and the goat.
As I moved the goats suspicious necklace exploded.
I was protected by the thick stone wall from most of the blast but I still went down.
A combination of things happened all at the same time, the blast had thrown the woman's body off the wall and on top of me, my weapon hit me in the face, my right leg had been hit, there was blood running down my face into my mouth and eyes.
I felt my lungs empty of air and struggle to replace it.
I was confused as to what had just happened.
I knew I had to get this woman off me and get air into my lungs.
I heaved upwards and moved backwards and freed myself.
The intake of air tasted of cordite, the smoke and dust filled my lungs and eyes causing my eyes to start streaming, I gave a few coughs and started to spit the blood and dirt from my mouth, I noticed one of the guys at the farmhouse door, I gave him a thumbs up, indicating that I was OK.
I grabbed my weapon and sat with my back against the wall.
I looked at the faceless woman now laid in front of me and took a deep breath.
I looked down to check my leg which was hurting like hell.
I could see a large splinter of bone sticking out, I knew it wasn't mine as I could still move my foot, it was from the goat, there wasn't much blood which surprised me, I had never been injured before and was expecting lots of blood and gore when it did happen, but no, just bloody pain!I could see that the bone splinter hadn't gone in far and was mainly under skin.
I pulled it out, and for some reason put it in my pocket, maybe to look at closer later.
The radio hissed in my ear, I couldn't hear it; the ringing was still too loud.
I looked up and could see the guys looking down the lane, it then hit me, the device must have been detonated by remote trigger, which meant that we had company.
I checked my weapon and got ready to move.
A quick look at the guys and I realised they were watching something behind me.
It was then I realised the little girl was exposed to any fire fight that we may get into; I had to get her down of that damn fence.
I scurried towards her, what met me made me recoil backwards in disbelief, she wasn't sitting on the fence, she had been impaled on a wooden stake, looking upward I could see where the large pole had torn through her underwear, the blood covered all of her crotch and legs, I half laid on the ground unable to react, the blood was slowly dripping from her dirty little trainers, one was dripping on to my right boot, I pulled it back with repulsion unable to comprehend what I was seeing, and then it happened , the small moan that dragged me back into reality, she was alive, oh God what do I do.
No amount of training could help me now, I was all she had, do I lift her off? do I leave her there? I really had no idea what to do, I looked at the guys 20 feet away, I guess I was looking for an answer, none came, they were concentrating on the new threat.
My world suddenly became me and her.
I moved towards her trying to keep my eyes on her face.
I didn't want to look at the pole, just concentrate on her face, her eyes were open and she looked straight at me, no facial expression just her brown eyes looking at me.
I reached up and took her small hand.
It felt cold, I had to do something she looked at me and I heard her say 'neny' which I knew meant mother, I glanced back at the faceless body laid near the wall.
I decided I was going to lift her off, but doing so was going to expose me, I didn't care.
I stood up and placed my hands under her arms, my intention was to try and lift her straight up, as I started to grip her tight her eyes looked up at me and she gave a small smile, I leaned in to kiss her cheek, whispering to her 'don't worry, you will be alright' I knew she didn't understand me, and I knew she wasn't going to be alright.
Suddenly everything went red and I was back on the floor, my weapon clattered away down the yard.
I looked up to see her golden hair now black and wet.
Her head down, they had used her as bait.
She was dead the moment they had arrived that morning.
I sat in total disbelief, tears ran down my face, and mixed with her blood that was covering my face, the salty taste in my mouth and throat was too much and I vomited.
I rolled over onto my stomach and allowed my body to react.
I wiped my eyes and for the second time that day, I took a deep breath.
As my vision cleared I could see right in front of my face, part of the girls ear, still in place was a small silver stud, fingers shook as I carefully removed the stud, looking at it I knew I had to keep it, and I put it into my pocket.
Training kicked in, recent events went into a mental box, weapon - get it! I grabbed my weapon and ran back to the gate, crouching against the stone wall I tried the radio, Paul was there, a reassuring voice that I needed, my world suddenly became big again.
Pete joined me a little Australian guy with wiry red hair, he put his hand on my back and nodded, that's all the support I needed, and we knew what we were going to do, take out the shooter.
We crossed the lane and went into the cover of the bushes; the other side was a wide open meadow with a rusty old tractor as its centrepiece.
Pete moved off slowly toward the junction of the lane and the main road, I followed, the taste of blood still making me nauseous, we crept for about 100yds when Pete's left arm came up, his hand in a fist, the signal to stop.
We both froze like rabbits in headlights; I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, straining to hear what Pete was looking at.
I could hear frantic voices in the distance.
Pete's voice jumped into my ear through the radio, a sit rep being given to Paul, there was two men with weapons 20yds to our front, visual was confirmed by Paul.
Pete started to move straight forward, I side stepped and came out into the edge of the field, weapon raised.
As I did the two men to our front jumped up screaming at each, before they could get off any rounds Pete came out on my left the 'thwack' 'thwack' of his suppressed weapon causing one to go down the second dropped his weapon and was screaming at me, I didn't understand a word he was saying he was grabbing his Serbian Police shirt and gesturing towards the farm, I didn't care, even if I knew what he meant.
My rounds hit him in the throat as I started my run towards him.
He was laid on the ground gurgling and gasping for air, the body of his partner laid over a sports bag, the contents spilling out, a mixture of cassette tapes, gold rings and necklaces, grenades, and tins of food.
My attention was brought back to my quarry, his face blood red, his hand trying to hold together his shredded neck.
His last breath left him with undeniable finality.
As his hand slid from his neck I noticed the gold crucifix, I crouched down and couldn't do anything but stare at it, laid in a mix of flesh and thick red blood its hypocrisy offended me, I put my hand on his head and ripped it from his neck, and put it in my pocket.