On down his checklist… ammunition magazines for the Kalashnikov, knife, gloves, the radio that thank Christ he wouldn't be bent under, cold rations, the balaclava, the water bottle that wasn't full of bloody brandy or the usual slivovitz piss, map and compass, field dressings… The big fear, what tightened Ham's gut, shook his hands, was of being wounded, of being left. It was better in the old days, better when there were Internationals on the ground like flies on meat, because then there was the promise that the Internationals, the 'meres', would look after their own if one was wounded. You wouldn't know with this lot, wouldn't know if they'd fuck off and get the hell out in a stampede back towards the river from behind the lines. They were chuckling at him, the others, and it was because they laughed at his care and his thoroughness that Ham felt the fear.

They were dumb bastards to be with, but there was no one else who would have Sidney Ernest Hamilton, late of 3 Para, late of east London, late of the Internationals attached to the Croatian army. His fingers found the twin dog tags hanging from the dulled chain at his neck. The tags were bound in sellotape to keep them quiet. The tags gave his number from 3 Para, his name, and his blood group, and his number and name and blood group from the Croatian army. He knew it would be bad bloody news for any of them if they were wounded, captured, across the river, and double bad bloody news for a mercenary.

Ham didn't eat any of the bread that was offered him, and he turned down the alcohol, and he thought the Croatians must have known that he was shit stiff scared.

It would be late evening when they moved off down towards the Kupa river where the inflatable was hidden.

Under the new scene, the new mood, there were little chores for a senior executive officer.

The little chores were adequate to remind Arnold Browne that he was outside the mainframe of Service operations.