The journey had taken all of the day and all of the night.

It had taken all of the day because the tyres of the car had been bald and the front left had punctured on the road between Belgrade and Bijeljina, and it had been at pistol point that they had persuaded the owner of the garage in Bijeljina to replace it. And the rear left had gone between Derventa and Miskovci which was a bad place and close to the front line, and not even a pistol had won a replacement tyre from the garage in Miskovci because there were none, and they had had to wait while the puncture slash was repaired.

It had taken all of the night because, after the punctures, in darkness, the car had run out of gasoline on the road between Banja Luka and Prijedor, under the Losina mountain of the Kozara range, and the youngest of them had walked to Prijedor to the barracks, and taken four hours for it. No tyres and a shortage of gasoline, the bastard sanctions, and dawn before the car had reached the bridge over the Una river which was the crossing point from Bosnia, and they had reached Dvor.

Always the rain. The whole of the journey in rain, and uncomfortable in the Mercedes of the man from Knin because there were three of them on the bench seat in the front and four of them crammed onto the back seat.

No break in the rain, but the bitter angry mood of Milan Stankovic had lessened as they approached Glina. Coming closer to home, coming closer to the fields, farms, villages, woods, hills that were his place. The policeman was to be dropped at Glina, he would be next after the policeman, and then the car would head on south for Knin. And when he had been let off then, see if he cared, they could have four punctures, and they could have a dry tank, and they could walk ten kilometres for new tyres and new gasoline… The policeman insisted they stopped, all of them, in Glina. They banged up the cafe on the main street, by the bridge, and they hit the brandy.