After we’d unloaded the precious cargo, the mayor and all the local council invited us to a civic reception in one of the few buildings that remained standing. They laid out a feast of the local produce that was still available and some potent home-made plum brandy known as slivovitch. So there we all were gathered in this room and it’s all ‘Thank you, thank you’ with clapping of hands and speeches and ‘Now we drink the slivovitch.’ I was only intending to have a couple as I knew we had to be up at first light the next day to make our way back to Split through 200 miles of bandit country. ‘Down in one,’ they instructed. Now, to say I was used to drinking after eighteen years in the SAS would be a slight understatement. I thought I could take anything that was pushed across the table to me, and some more. But this slivovitch was in a league of its own. After one gulp, I thought a flash-bang grenade had gone off in my head.
The party was soon rocking. Suddenly Big Zil reappeared and sidled up to me. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, with no sense of humour whatsoever.
I was on high alert. I wasn’t dealing with an amateur here. I kept it deliberately vague. ‘I’m in charge of convoy security.’
‘How did you get that job?’ he persisted.
‘I’m a professional soldier. Ex-British Army.’
He stared at me with his cold eyes. ‘You must have contacts in the arms world, yes?’
I thought, ‘Whoa. I don’t move in those circles. My name’s Sergeant Pete Winner not General Mike Rose.’ I was very curious as to where his line of questioning was leading, though, so I answered simply, ‘Nah, not really.’
‘You must have. I can tell you are an important man. You get me the Stinger. We knock the jets out of the sky like you did in the Falklands, yes?’
I was playing for time. I said, ‘But, Big Zil, I thought there was a total arms embargo in Bosnia.’
‘No problem. We get anything we want through our friends in Albania. Give them a good price, we get everything. You get me the Stingers.’
I said, ‘Give me your contact details. I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Good. Good. Now we drink the slivovitch.’
My kingdom for a Stinger! If I’d had a contact for Stingers, I could have cleaned up. With a couple of dozen nice shiny missiles nestling in a shipping crate, I would have been writing these memoirs sat by a pool sipping a long, cool drink in my millionaire’s villa in Barbados. But it was not to be.
Meanwhile flags were being exchanged and more speeches being made. Willie Stirling started to get delusions of being immortal and in a moment of solidarity with our besieged cousins, he decided to present his body armour to the mayor. I told him to sit down because he was too young to die. In what was one of my more insane moments I decided to give the mayor my own body armour instead. ‘Here, you have my body armour. You need it more than me. I can’t be shot. I survived the battle of Mirbat.’
This is where too much combat experience plus an excess of alcohol can turn to recklessness. I survived this, this and this, so it’s never going to happen to me. You get careless. Now I had to drive 200 miles back to Split without any body armour. At least we could get our heads down in the local lodgings and freshen up before setting off. Or so I thought. Orlando, as usual, had other ideas.
‘Right, Pete. Let’s get on the road.’
‘Orlando! Do you realize what time it is? It’s way past midnight.’
‘I must be in Split by noon. There’s an official reception at the British Embassy and I’ve got to be there.’
I couldn’t believe it. Never mind the slivovitch which I had been imbibing, what really concerned me was the fatigue. That was the potential killer. It’s exhaustion that really affects your judgement, your reaction time.
That’s when I made the biggest – and only – mistake of my bodyguarding career. I agreed, and in doing so let the principal take control. Of course, to start the journey then was madness. The drink, the fatigue, the nerves frazzled to bits with the constant danger. We should have rested up. It was a decision I would soon bitterly regret.
We left the trucks there and set off in the two Range Rovers. I was in the lead vehicle with Orlando and David Rieff, the American reporter. I thought, ‘Sod this,’ got the sleeping bags out, laid them over the back seats and fell asleep.
The next minute: BANG! Then rolling, rolling, rolling. The Range Rover was careering over and over down the mountainside. I thought, ‘Fuck it! We’ve been ambushed. We’ve been zapped.’ Our vehicle came to a jarring halt: SMASH! We were upside down. The Range Rover on its roof, wheels spinning in the air. It was pitch black. No light anywhere, a complete blackout. All I could hear was ‘Tick, tick, tick’ as the wheels slowly turned round. Then came the groaning. It was Orlando, who had come to in the front. I didn’t like the sound of that. He was obviously badly hurt. I didn’t really know what was going on. I was upside down, exhausted, concussed, my head swimming with slivovitch.
Suddenly I could smell fuel. Got to get everyone out as quick as possible. We could burst into flames at any second. Luckily, my years of training kicked in and I quickly focused. First things first. There was something more urgent even than the danger of fire. The window on my side had been smashed. I kicked out the rest of the glass, crawled through and crouched down by the side of the vehicle, waiting for the gunfire. If this was an ambush, they’d try to pick us off one by one as we exited the vehicle. Even though it was pitch black, chances are they’d have infrared night sights on their weapons. They’d see us clear as daylight. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. I strained my ears. Nothing. Everything was silent. I looked around and surveyed the terrain, trying to get my bearings. Further up the hillside, I could just make out a large truck on its side. To the right, further away, I could see the headlights of the other Range Rover. Stopped. They thought we’d been attacked. It was only later that I gradually pieced the story together. Orlando, half-asleep, had whacked into a truck coming the other way with only one headlight working – a ‘Bosnian motorcycle’.
I set about getting the others out of the vehicle as quickly as I could. Orlando was in a bad way. Collar bone smashed. Nose smashed. Ribs either broken or badly bruised. Bleeding badly. David Rieff, the American journalist who was writing about us, was staggering around. He seemed OK apart from having changed colour. All his extremities were blue – a sure sign of severe shock. I thought, ‘What the fuck are we going to do now?’ In the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. No help at hand for miles and miles.
I don’t know about being immortal, but the gods of combat were certainly watching over us that night. All of a sudden I saw another vehicle approaching, its lights all ablaze. I scrambled up the hillside towards the road as it overtook the other Range Rover. As it drew closer, I could just make out the insignia on its side. The Red Crescent! I couldn’t believe it. An ambulance! What on earth was an ambulance doing here in the middle of the night? It was truly surreal.
I frantically waved it down. It was a miracle it stopped, this being bandit country. Two guys jumped out dressed in medics’ gear. Luckily, one of them spoke broken English. It turned out they had just come from the front line. They were transporting an urgent injury back to the nearest hospital. There was just one combatant in the back on a stretcher with a leg half blown off. There was space for one more casualty. We got Orlando in and the medics gave him the once-over. The only thing that had saved him was his body armour. He’d impacted heavily against the steering column. If that had been me driving with no body armour I would have been killed instantly.