Introduction - Part 01

About a week later they again loaded me and the other wounded on horses, we joined a column and at night they took us across the border into Albania. Hidden in the woods, beyond the border, were trucks waiting to take us to a hospital in Korcha. The hospital was full of wounded. They were all ours. There was not a day that the trucks did not bring wounded or take those healed back to the battlefields. The hospital was boiling with people. There was no place for them all. Even the hallways were filled. The nurses often said the beds here never got a chance to cool down.

My wound was healing quickly but was not completely healed when they took me back to the battlefield, to my old position.

By the time I returned about half of my unit was no longer there… present in the line...

* * *

By sunset the sky was free of aircraft and we of them. That was when we were ordered to cut trees. We cut three to four metre long beech wood logs and took them to repair the damaged bunkers. We piled them in ordered rows over the damaged bunker, a row of logs, then soil, another row of logs, then stones and so on. We piled five, six, seven and sometimes more rows. Each bunker was like a house.

They were slightly raised and good targets for the cannons, aircraft and mortars… inviting… letting the enemy know that we were still here, go ahead and pound us some more...

After we were done with the bunkers, we dug holes, small burrows, behind the trenches. We hid in those holes, one or two people in each hole, when they pounded us with cannon shells and aerial bombs dropped from the aircraft.

I dug deep, the deeper the better. It was safer that way. I dug persistently with the stubbornness of a donkey and the determination of a goat. I perspired a lot and when I wiped the sweat from my forehead and face, I smelled like the soil, the roots, the moisture of rotten leaves and ferns... I dug deeper and deeper into the earth until I could no longer smell the grass, the leaves and the fresh air... Then when I was deep enough I felt as if I was losing my drive… my encouragement. I felt like I was part of the earth, twisted, bent, cramped and contorted. My face took on an earthen colour, my clothes smelled of soil and my breath smelled like dirt. Only my soul remained pure and had not taken on an earthly smell. The earth did not care… it was not choosy. It accepted me and all the others around me, to my left and to my right, those in front and those behind… It accepted all of us – the brave and the fearful, the dirty and the ones full of lice, the hungry and the thirsty, the frightened and the lame, the living and the dead – everyone… The earth did not choose… it accepted everyone…

The earth was good...

I came out of my burrow only briefly. I sat on the piles of displaced soil and deeply inhaled the air mixed with the smell of gunpowder. And I thought to myself: is this life? What kind of life is this? What is this? What do I expect from this? I thought about many things but I wanted only thing for sure, to stay alive even under the earth... and my friends to stay alive...

This was my big wish… For my heart to continue pounding, beating… from suffering, from fear… beating from joy because I still have the strength to think I am whole, that I have my legs to

walk with, my arms, my head and that I am still alive . Am I strong enough to continue?

They say that we should not think. Someone else, they say, thinks for us, all we need to do is follow their thoughts and do what they say… only they can think for us.

And that is exactly what we did.

They thought that the bunkers were weak and ordered us to make them strong and more resistant. We did that.

They thought that the trenches were shallow and needed deepening. We did that.

They thought that we should be persevering. We persevered.

They thought that we should be defending the stones and rocks. We defended the stones and rocks.

They thought that we should not budge, not even a step. We did not budge.

They thought that we should fight to the last drop of our blood. We did that too.

We did everything they thought we should do...

This is what we did! And when we marched in snow and rain during the night… and when we marched hungry and thirsty… and when we took new positions and dug new holes… and when we attacked and were attacked… and when we killed and were killed, injured and maimed… and when we rotted in wet, moldy and cold bunkers and trenches… we did exactly what we were told!

We always did what they thought we should do. They even wanted our spirit to behave in accordance with their thoughts. My spirit was the only thing in me that was mine. It lay deep in me, deep down in my soul. It cheered me… it brought me joy and pain, fear and courage… and hope. My spirit, my soul, were deeply embedded in

me and made me strong, kept me from getting lost, from being disenchanted, from sinking into the rot of time...

Stuck underground, perhaps a metre or deeper than the bottom of the trench, I felt safer, more secure, despite the polluted air spreading putrid smells. The soil I removed from the hole, I placed in front of my burrow entrance and covered it with ferns and leafy branches broken from the nearest trees.

I wanted the excavated soil to be hidden, just like I was hidden. In the battlefield, at the first line of defense, we survived the pounding of bombs and shell fire by the heavy cannons, only because we were hidden deep underground. But when the infantry stormed us, we came out of our burrows and waited hidden in the trenches, bunkers and behind rocks to welcome it...

When there was no heavy bombardment, the bunkers were our bedrooms (if we were not constantly at our position), our dining rooms (if there was something to eat) and our place to rest (if we ever needed to rest) outside of the brook. The trenches and bunkers were our home. The entire hill was dug with trenches and covered with bunkers. Our orders were to defend them...

But how long?!

* * *

Day in and day out… They pounded us all day long every day.

At the end of the day, when the planes stopped streaking over us, the cannons kept pounding. When they were done, half of our bunkers and trenches were badly damaged. Every time I saw that I wanted to cry in despair.

Someone beside me whispered:

“We were better off before, when we had no trenches or bunkers. Bang here, bang there we hit them hard and disappeared into the forests... Now they shoved us in trenches, bunkers and burrows… and what are we defending? The hills, the rocks, the burned and

mutilated tree trunks…? What are we defending? The mountains… or our burrows…?!”

His whispering was interrupted by another order barked out:

“The trenches and bunkers are in need of repair! Get to it!”

And we knew exactly what to do. In the dark of night we cut trees, carried logs and dug, dug, dug…

It was not the kind of soil that a shovel could easily cut. We had to use picks and the picks kept hitting rock and getting stuck. Sometimes the handle would break… the stone refused to give way. I scooped the soil with my hands and tossed it out… it was easier than trying to get it with a shovel. We did this until dawn. If there was no attack we spent the day sleeping. After sunset, pick and shovel in hand, we began digging again. The opponent did not attack at night. He rested, ate, slept and prepared for the next day’s attack. If he was not going to attack, he did not pummel us with cannon shells… only a few shells were dispensed… The aircraft too would not bomb us. They would fly by a few times just to keep us in suspense and rob us of our sleep…

Our opponent’s positions were not too far from ours. We heard his trumpet three times a day, in the morning before breakfast, at noon before lunch and at sunset before dinner. They had time to eat. We, on the other hand, only had time to repair our defenses… our trenches and bunkers. We ate once or twice a day on the go. Usually beans, porridge, a piece of dry bread and part of a can of meat, but rarely. A soldier that we captured told us that he regularly ate meat with lots of potatoes and pasta. Our political commissar was annoyed with him and told him to stop spreading propaganda. He loved to torment the soldier and spit at his American food. He told him that when we were free we would eat twice as much and drink as much as we wanted. Of course as we listened we laughed and looked at him with contempt. The man was fantasizing and lying... We had heard his nonsense before… as well as all the many promises he had made...

I came out of my burrow. The sky was mostly cloudy with very few stars visible. A new moon hung over the mountain peaks. I got hit in the face with a refreshing breeze of wind. I did not stay out long. I returned to my burrow.

I dug deep and then laterally. I did not stop digging and had no idea how deep or how wide I had dug. But that was okay I thought. It seemed like I had dug an entire room. I would fill it with myself, my thoughts, my dreams and I would decorate it with burned leafy branches and with withered mountain flowers. There is nothing here that has not been burned, scorched and singed and that has not withered. I would breathe the warm air in and exhale part of my soul to bring life into this underground dark burrow.

A little further away from me I could hear the hard blows of picks and the scraping of shovels. Everyone, to my left, to my right, was digging a burrow. They were looking for salvation in burrows and dens, not on top of the earth but deep underground. I continued to dig. I stopped, but only for a moment, to measure the height and width of my burrow. Was it enough?

No ray from the sun could penetrate in here because the top was covered by the thick shadow of a beech trunk which protected me from falling shells. Beside me was a great big solid rock, flint I think. The one who was digging in front of me was chipping at the rock with a chisel.

I dug a small hole in the wall of my burrow. That’s were I lit a stick of pinewood to give me some light. The smoky flame trembled as sap spurted from the kindling. I moved closer and watched my shadow fatten. I shifted sideways and watched my shadow move from corner to corner, growing smaller and larger as I moved back and forth. I was not alone. I was in my burrow with my shadow. I had a friend with whom I could talk, get angry at, laugh at and mock; two heads, four hands and two bodies, moving and bending simultaneously… After a while, after the pinewood stick burned out, my shadow disappeared. As I watched my shadow disappear I thought:

“Am I still here? Am I dead?” I was alone in the dark… all alone… without my shadow. I stuck my head out of the burrow and looked up at the new moon. Slowly I was overwhelmed with infinite sadness… it caused me great pain. Looking at the new moon reminded me of the harvest when we stayed outside all night, when we spent the entire night out in the fields finishing the harvest. The quiet night sky was embroidered with countless stars above. I could clearly see the shining Milky Way galaxy. I could hear the night birds screech in the serenity of night and occasionally an owl would hoot, advertising its presence. Looking at the moon and the Milky Way galaxy up in the sky, I was always absorbed by its vastness, I always breathed its freshness and enjoyed the night silence, the aroma of the wheat stalks… and I wanted, very much I wanted, for things to remain that way...

My memories began to bother my soul. Remembering just one thing drew many memories out of me, even of things that I thought I had forgotten. They made me remember things that happened in the past, yesterday, the day before… like a film on a reel slowly turning, slowly unwinding… like beads strung on a string… my joys, my sorrows, my love, my wishes and dreams… My memories were unwinding and unwinding, some were lost somewhere and then sprung up again… they flowed in ripples of joy, bitterness, fear, expectations, hope, dreams...

And so I leaned on the stone that lay near my firing position, very much wanting to have another night like that. I wished that a full moon would shine upon me and that I would be able to again listen to the crickets sing while breathing the fresh night air full of the aroma of herbs and mountain flowers. Those were my thoughts and that’s what I very much desired… to last forever...

It was so sweet to dream under a starry sky with a full moon... I wanted… I very much wanted to be at home, to be in a wheat field before the harvest, lying among the stalks and staring at the sky until dawn… watching the moon move across the sky... My dream was interrupted by the invisible, quiet, ringing voice of a girl singing. Her quiet melody spilled from trench to trench, filling the trenches and slowly building strength… mournfully beckoning, calling someone...

I stopped breathing to listen to the sad song. My throat clenched...

I wondered. Could this sorrow be subjugated, tamed… so that it did not bite my soul, so that it did not torture me, not burn so much in my chest?

Dawn was breaking over the trenches and bunkers.

* * *

I went outside. The air hit me hard and filled my lungs with the smell of gunpowder and burned rags. I moved back into the trench. I looked down. The starlight was reflected on the barrel of my automatic rifle. It glistened. A cricket began to sing in the grass. It sang then stopped… sang again and stopped again… repeating the pattern again and again… persistently singing aloud… again and again … the poor creature.

I thought to myself – it is full of life.

An involuntary long sigh ripped out of my chest… It brought me relief. I tried hard not to think. I wanted to suppress my memories… and to stop thinking of my past. I wanted to lie down on the moist ground, which I earlier discarded, and stare at the starry sky, at the moving clouds, at the singed branches above, at the wounded trunk of the oak tree sliced by cannon shrapnel...

The night was hot. The soil I had just dug had a raw scent which I inhaled along with the moisture that evaporated from it. I could hear my own heart beating and I said to myself - I am alive… If I could hear my own heart beating, the leaves rustling, the cricket singing… and if I could smell the aroma of the earth and hear the snoring of my fellow fighter in the next trench, then… I was alive.

He was sleeping, leaning against the wall of his trench. His face looked peaceful… he was in a deep sleep. He was snoring loudly, scaring the cricket, interrupting its song… its rhythm… The night was alive in the quiet breeze, in the rustle of leaves, in the light

flicker of the trodden grass… the cricket was singing a sad song accompanied by the loud snoring of my comrade in arms...

I was alive...

* * *

All night we waited for our opponent, hidden in the trenches, bunkers and behind rocks...

When there was no attack, the trenches and bunkers became our bedrooms (if we were not constantly in our positions), our dining rooms (if there was something to eat) and a place to rest (if there was need for rest).

The trenches and bunkers were our homes, our nests.

There were other bunkers and trenches and other very large stones and rocks up on the hill… which we defended for days. We had orders to defend them...

For how long?!

* * *

It was my turn to fetch water.

The spring was near the brook, squeezed between two large rocks. Drop by drop, like white pearls strung on a string, the clear water dripped from a leaf twisted into a cone. It flowed and flowed, hour after hour, drop by drop, stringing large, thick drops. It paused, but only for a moment, building strength and resumed again, hour after hour, dripping into the throat of the metal canteen, whispering something with each drop...

...The living water flowed... the water of life... It sparkled in the disrupted rays of the sun passing through the scorched branches and leaves that rocked in the gentle breeze… A dense shade covered the spring and only a few rays penetrated down to it...

All around it stunk of rotting leaves and everything that was rotting in the black swamp covered by the thick shade of the beech trees. There was rarely any sun down here. The dense shade covered the spring keeping the water cool.

The first canteen was full so I took it out and replaced it with a second. I watched the water flow drip by drip and listened to the sound it made when it hit the bottom of the metallic container. It had a rhythm of its own and quietly sang its unique song filling my metallic water container. I enjoyed listening to its song, to its rhythm… it was peaceful and mesmerizing and, along with the tranquility and coolness of the shadows, it made me feel good, peaceful and tranquil… and only a few steps… not far from the trenches. I sat near the spring, near the two rocks that protected it, and prayed that this moment would last a long time… just like this spring has lasted at the foot of this hill.

The string of drops continued to flow from the spring, gurgling life-sustaining water down into my military canteen. As I listened to the water burble I wished it would never stop and that the life sustaining water, which aroused immense joy in me, would continue to flow forever.

I was filled with exhilaration and excitement and wanted to flow this way through time, just like the water flowed, without a care in the world. It seemed to me that the water was inviting me to remain there and keep it company, to stay beside the spring and nap in its coolness without any fears, and dream my dreams and have my best wishes come true…

The water, tied like a string of white pearls on a silver necklace, gurgled and sang into the throat of my canteens...

Then suddenly I remembered!!!

Today I turned eighteen!

I felt no overwhelming joy, but I had a question – Would I be spending my eighteenth year running on these bare and arid hills or...?

I knelt down in front of the spring and made a cup with my hands, filled it with water and slowly drank it. It was nice and cool… life-sustaining water...

I then whispered one of my many wishes:

“God please let my years bubble like this water, let them flow and gurgle like this spring...”

All the canteens were filled. I hung them on my belt and took the narrow uphill path leading to the trenches. Walking away I could still hear the gurgling song of the flowing water in the spring… but it was inside my head. I could feel its coolness and the coolness of the shade on my face… It seemed like the water was singing to me… from inside the canteens.

My breathing began to quicken as I climbed up the hill. When I came out of the shade the sun poured its light on me. I looked up towards the sky, the forest, the hills, the mountains and at the entire panoramic view in front of me. I heard a whistle and then thunder...

The roar came from above. The air trembled. The earth moaned. Broken stones rolled down the hill.

The silence was broken. I lost the gurgling sound of the spring water that was in me.

I realized they were bombing the hill. I ran up as fast as I could with only one thought in mind – they were slaughtering us.

I said to myself:

“Today someone will not be drinking fresh, cool, clear spring water that gurgles from the depth of the earth, rocks and roots of the beech trees... The cannons thundered and pounded the hill for a long time...

And I, my greatest wish at that moment was to deliver the water to everyone as soon as possible in honour of my eighteenth birthday...

Oh!!!

* * *

There was no moon and no stars in the heavens that night, only black clouds coming from the north. There was a flash above the mountain beyond the hills and light, like a long curved cord, that lit the mountain peaks and paled the sky above. Then there was a loud boom, thunder, that echoed everywhere; it was taken over by the hills and bounced from hill to hill until its roar dispersed somewhere in the ditches. There was another flash… then another and another… again and again… each flash followed by loud thunder-like cannon shells exploding one after another, each explosion bringing more explosions. I felt a raindrop fall on my face… then another and another. They came down like beads tied by a string and pulled out of the black clouds. Water began to run down the hill, dragging soil, leaves, small branches, pebbles and mud. It built and built as the rainfall intensified filling the trenches with mud and everything else it carried. My trench was filled up to my ankles. I stood upright and leaned against the wall… I did not move. Lightning kept slicing the sky and thunder roared, tying the hills together. My trench kept filling with muddy water and I kept my back against the wall… refusing to move. I was afraid of the lightening… I was afraid of the flash… I was afraid a bullet might be waiting for me out there, hiding behind a rock, behind a thick tree, behind some thick branches… Then, when lightening flashed it would hit me on the head. I felt its presence, it was near, I felt that I could hear it breathing softly, I felt like it was watching me, had me in its sights… then when it flashed, it would hit me on the head. I did not move. It was enough that I raise my head… but only a little... A flash would be followed by thunder but it would not come from the sky, it would come from the earth. A sharp, short whistle then bang! Then, suddenly, I felt something warm drench my face… large drops dripped down my cheeks. It was blood. The young man who was standing next to me fell forward into the muddy waters. He was convulsing, kicking with his legs… his mouth was wide open. I did not know if he wanted to say something or was gasping for air. I knelt down beside him and wiped the mud off his face. In the light of the next lightning flash I looked at him. His eyes began to lose their light. His body began to slowly relax in my arms. The trench

continued to fill with muddy water until it reached my neck. I was afraid to get up, to get out of the mud pit… which was filling... I stayed crouched until dawn. My friends pulled me out the next morning. They found me holding the young man in my arms.

He was seventeen, only a few weeks after his birthday.

* * *

During the day, in the hot sun, everything in the trenches congealed.

We were all ordered to clear the mud. Heads down, crouching low, so as not to be seen, we silently began to scrape the mud, leaves, pebbles… out of the trenches. By sunset the trenches we all cleared. Then, just as we were about to take a deserved rest, we heard the commander order:

“Line up! We are taking new positions!”

We took all that we could, lined up and began to march up hill. A few hundred steps later a new order was issued:

“Take your positions!”

We climbed up on the treeless hill. The wind was blowing and the clouds were resting above our heads… and we under them. We spent the night on the hill watching the mountains, hills, rocks… waiting for daybreak. Below us, far from us, were our opponent’s cannons. All we could see from up there were puffs of white smoke followed by a delayed thunder, then the crash of the exploding shells.

I said to myself:

“Well, today too we will be beaten from heaven and from earth. At least our souls will be higher for those whose time has come… closer to the strong winds, closer to the stars.”

We had less space to maneuver… fewer hills to back into.

I must have dozed off in the quiet. Dawn was always beautiful to witness, even after a short nap… The black mountain peaks began to whiten and reveal their colours. The tiny clouds in the sky turned to gold… the entire surrounding sky, beyond the tip of the mountain, began to turn ruddy as if it was about break out into a blaze. Wow I said to myself… the dawn today is beautiful. I stood there and watched the sun climb up from behind the hill and greet my world. I looked down beneath the hills. The brooks and forests were still dark and covered in purple… The last darkness in the valley began to evaporate...

Every day we climbed higher and higher up the mountain, getting closer and closer to the stars... and as we climbed closer to the sky our opponent’s strength pushed us closer to our death. The ground up there was hard and the stone was flint. It could not be penetrated; it could not be broken, not with a shovel and not even with a pick.

We collected small piles of crushed stones and placed them in front of us, just enough to hide our heads. Stone by stone, our stone piles grew, but just enough to hide our heads from the other side. Dreadful whistles and terrifying explosions greeted us from above and from below. Cannon shells fell in front of us and behind, tossing dirt and broken rocks at our unprotected backs. The entire place was covered in smoke and hot shrapnel.

This time they did not get us… Not yet!

Maybe this afternoon or tomorrow morning they will take better aim and pound us again… we received orders not to step back… to remain where we were at our current positions. If the big guns could not dislodge us from here, then the airplanes will certainly destroy us… first chance they get.

This is what I was thinking… I was gripped with fear. But this was not the first time. Every time there was a firefight, every time there was an attack, I was gripped with fear… which protected me and kept me alive.

That day, behind the scant rock pile on the hill, I was truly afraid. I lay on the bare rocky ground trembling in the ominous silence.

The silence was deafening on that bare naked rock… bringing nothing good.

Every day our opponent beat us harder and harder with each passing day… We held!

The rocks behind which we found shelter remained durable and we behind them and beside them - hard and durable and the earth plowed by bombs and shells still supported us.

What kind of day was that day? How many days like that did we endure? How many of us went there and how many still remain?

My friend crawled over to me, sighed a sickly sigh and whispered:

“My brother was killed somewhere on one of those hills... they told me he was cut down by a burst of machine gun fire…”

I felt a hot excruciating pain cut across my abdomen. It squeezed my heart and soul and I said: “My brother too was killed on one of those hills… somewhere... on those hills... there...”

Many hills... and many brothers and sisters left on them...

We spent days and nights in defense of the hill called Kotelska Kula. Underneath it was an abyss. Its side was very steep as if it had been cut with a knife. It was all stone from top to bottom. We knew that in its bottom lay the bones of three partisans who, a year ago, had jumped to their death attempting to escape a different death.

Our battalion’s political commissar and party secretary were inspiringly weaving a tale about our suicidal heroism, which hung like an icon before our eyes... They said and repeated that those three partisans who had jumped into the abyss were real heroes and that their deeds should be an example to all of us...

We were defending the hill that day and the days and nights that followed. We were holding on hard at the edge of the Kotelska Kula...

None of us jumped into the big, deep and dreadful abyss...

* * *

We lasted for days under the rain, in muddy water, in mud, in blood, in sight of mutilated trees, split tree trunks, scorching weather and flirting with death. When it rained, everything on the slope, from top to bottom, became muddy and the rain pushed the mud downhill. Our trenches were filled with muddy water and it felt as if we existed in a bog. We were sinking in mud to our knees, some up to their waist. The mud was sticky which made it difficult to maneuver; we could barely move our legs. By day we stayed in the mud because of the silver bird, the airplane above, which constantly looked for prey. When it detected prey it informed its partners the black jackals; the cannons down below. We could tell by the sudden flash at the bottom followed by a delayed boom, a sharp approaching whistle and a deafening crash on our hill. We only had the night to clear the mud. After it rained the wind blew the clouds away and emptied the sky above, giving us a clear, starry night; a dark sky embroidered with stars. The night was warm and still as we breathed uneasily in darkness, clearing our trenches of mud...

And then we waited… for the next attack…

* * *

The dawn was fresh, a time when most birds sang. But instead of birds, airplanes were flying, coming at us from the west and pounding our backs.

They mostly pounded us this way… from the back.

Curled up like an animal deep in my trench, I listened to the roar of thunder and felt the vibration and groans of the earth. Then suddenly, there was silence. Yes, but for how long? I uncurled and sat up. I came out of the trench. The air was heavy, soaked with the

stench of gunpowder and smoke. I strained my ears to hear but I heard nothing; no voices. I shouted. Silence! My voice became mixed with the whistle of cannon shells. I rushed back into the trench. I don’t know if their aim was off but their shells were skipping over us, missing our positions and landing beyond us in the brook. There they flashed, tore apart rocks and threw stones into the air, they cracked and tore beech trees and plowed and overturned the earth. Then I heard heavy machine gun fire, unleashed by our opponent’s infantry approaching our positions. Mouth to mouth, the order was given; “Everyone remain at their position!”

They came at us upright as usual. We waited. Rifle butts tight against our shoulders, eyes on the sight and breathing shallow...

This time too we let them have it.

The fresh dawn was stained with the smell of gunpowder. At noon the battlefield, the earth under the scorching sun, smelled of clotted blood...

The day was over…

Did we have losses?

There was nothing in the bulletin but we buried two in a single shallow grave and sent five to the hospital… that I know of.

And our opponent?

In the bulletin that our political commissar always sent to higher command,the number of enemy soldiers killed was always great...

Our trenches were no longer trenches and our bunkers were not bunkers. Everything was destroyed. We repaired them during the night. Mixed in the wreckage of soil, split logs and rock we found legs, arms and heads. Body parts that belonged to the young men and women, to our friends and comrades in arms...

All of them, every body part along with the debris that we took out of the trenches and bunkers, we tossed into the abyss.

Kole was one of our favourite companions. He was quiet, a little withdrawn and knew how to tell nice stories, spoken, sometimes sung, in a quiet hoarse voice.

He knew a lot of Macedonian folk and partisan songs and frequently sang them for us. He learned them in Yugoslavia where one time he served in the Yugoslav army. And like he used to say, he was eighteen years old when he joined the Macedonian partisans who broke away from the Greek partisans and raised the red flag. This is how he found himself in Bitola and after that in Debar, Kichevo and Gostivar where his brigade was eventually disbanded.

Kole was a village boy, a young man without a craft, so he joined the Yugoslav National Army (JNA). He completed a six-month military course and the army stationed him somewhere near Dubrovnik. He used to say that Dubrovnik was an old town by the sea, surrounded by high stone walls.

His unit was tasked with providing security for Tito when Tito came with his friends to Dubrovnik. Kole spent his leisure time reading books because he wanted learn as much as possible. He became a great artilleryman and was recognized for that. High command offered him a scholarship for higher education. He received much praise for his excellent service and was sent to study artillery at the military academy. The regiment commander was an old partisan himself and had much respect for smart village children because he also had once been a peasant. He was the one who recommended that Kole study at the military academy in Belgrade. While studying in Belgrade Kole was discovered by activists from Bulkes who told him about the struggle in Greece and how much the Macedonian people were suffering. Kole listened intensely and decided to return home and fight. The train brought him to Skopje, then to Bitola and from there he traveled by truck through Bilishta and Pogradets in Albania and, along with some thirty others, ended up in Vrbnik. From there he traveled on foot to Mali-Madi. He left the military academy and his desire to learn behind him. At the end of his story Kole said:

“Had I stayed at the academy, today I would have been a general.”

And ever since then we did not call the man simply Kole, we called him Kole the general who, like he said, had a great desire to see the commanders of the Aegean brigade, but unfortunately they were not here among us, they were gone. They left and stayed in Skopje and there, as Kole the general used to say, who was the most educated among us, they were playing politics, that is why he disliked them and had no place for them in his circle...

Kole the general was a tall man, solid with a wide back. His eyes were always bright and friendly and his lips swollen. His voice was quiet and he always spoke with measured words. What a tragedy it was for a small piece of metal, the size of a finger nail, to bring down such a large body?

His life force, his youth… all extinguished from Kole’s large body! His desires, love, dreams… extinguished… We buried Kole the general’s large body together with the small piece of metal that killed him. How long would this earth take to eat his large body and a small piece of metal? We placed no cross on his grave. We buried him and the small piece of metal under the shade of a beech tree… to be together forever...

On these hills and rocks, in these trenches and bunkers, on the soil that burned, on the earth that was scorched, set ablaze… tiny pieces of metal fell and cut down the small and large bodies of many young men and women. And just like on other days and nights, today, those who knew him said:

“Here lies the body of Kole the general...”

Those were all the words that were said to remember him by...

* * *

We changed places with our opponent. In the beginning he was in trenches and bunkers, now we were. By being there, we let him know exactly where we were! We were buried, he was in motion.

Up until recently we were in motion and he waited for us in his bunkers and trenches. We hit him at night and then vanished without a trace.

We knew where he was.

Now he knows where we are.

Now we do everything at night. There is no rest for us. Our greatest concern is to repair our bunkers and trenches; fix them because our lives depended on them. That was our first order and that’s what we did most of the night; with a pick and shovel in hand. We dug deep enough and piled enough rocks to cover our faces and heads.

A large pile of rocks were stacked on the ground in front of me. I pushed them to see if they were firmly set and said to myself:

“Are these stones going to protect me or am I going to protect them…? What in God’s name are we protecting?”

The villages were far away, the cities were even further and there were no roads and no bridges. There were only hills, peaks, forests, cliffs, stones and canyons.

And so I said to myself:

“Is it just these rocks, hills and mountains that we are protecting?” We will protect them and they will protect us, I thought. The only living things here were us and those who would attack us tomorrow. There was no other life. And that life that does exist in the trenches and bunkers, and in the spaces in between, was diminishing every day. And everything became narrower... Fewer people were alive, most were crippled and in pain, and there was much blood spilled and plenty of hatred.

There was dried blood on the rock pile in front of me. My hands smelled of blood, clotted blood.

And the soil I walked on had been mixed with blood...

They attacked after sunrise. We held them back. Someone wounded was left behind in the space between us and our opponent. He was crying, begging, begging for help, swearing. He was one of theirs.

Someone on our side was praying. But who?! We were yet to be counted. He was beside me lying wounded. He was looking up towards the sky and praying. He was squeezing his chest with his arms crossed. Blood was dripping between his fingers. His eyes were filled with pain. He exhaled and stopped breathing... I was scared… my cry got stuck in my throat; I wanted to cry but had no voice. I covered my face with my hands. There was a heavy stench of gunpowder and burned flesh in the air all around me...

* * *

I leaned on the wall of my trench and felt like I was going to faint. I was on the ground but still conscious... Something inside me was still awake, protecting me, warning me of danger...

There was no light in the bunkers and we all felt alone in the dark. We saw each other only when someone lit a match. That’s when we saw faces, eyes, foreheads, mouths… That’s when we winked, smiled, or gave a sign that we were still alive. Each had their own silent signal… the motion of an eye, the raising and lowering of the eyebrows, wrinkles on the forehead… each was saying something to the others… expressing a wish, pain, desire, hope, relief… When the flame was extinguished everyone went back to feeling alone in the dark… back to their private thoughts and worries... We sat with our backs against the walls of the bunker and as long as we daydreamed something hung in us and over us, circling and protecting us, keeping us awake and ready...

Was that a feeling of fear or death?

I could not sleep and I could not even nap. I tried very had to push the thought that I was going to die out of my mind. My most hated thought was that a grenade, a bomb, was going to explode and kill me. Or, any time now a bullet was going to find its way here and hit

me, kill me, maim me, burn me or, God forbid, paralyze me. Is someone going to shoot me? I kept thinking. Death stalked me every day looking for the right opportunity to grab me. I could not be that lucky, one of these days, one of these moments it was going to happen… I was going to die. How was it going to get me? A bomb, a grenade, a bullet, a knife, a bayonet… a weapon brought here to the Macedonian mountains from far away… a weapon that does not forgive, that does not spread beauty, but grows ugly and kills; a weapon that kills day and night? That is why, day and night, I defended myself. That is why I dug deep and, with great certainty, protected myself from a bullet, bomb, grenade, flame, or fire falling from the sky. We strengthened our trenches, bunkers and burrows in the dark, in the night, in the moonlight, preparing to defend our lives so that we could survive for another day and wait for the night when we could again live and rejoice in the dark... That is why I persistently dug in the dark with all my might… I emptied and strengthened my trench so that it would save me from the storm for another day... I could go home, back to my village, only if I was alive and that motivated me to keep digging.

A few years ago this was the time of weddings and celebrations. Perhaps I too would have been wearing a wedding dress and my girlfriends would have been my bridesmaids. I would have worn a long white dress, with a white crown on my head, and definitely not military pants that were too large for me or a frayed military shirt or a military cap that constantly smelled of sweat, or torn socks, like I did now. Many times they had said that they would issue us new uniforms, Czech or perhaps Russian and new boots, but I have yet to see them. They say that those countries are far away and it takes time for the uniforms to get here and that is why we need to be patient. They have also said that they would issue us underwear made in Romania. Our pants and shirts are English made with many patches on our buttocks and knees. Now they don’t smell like mold because they were washed in the rain and dried in the wind. Now they only smell like damp earth, sweat and rot. I have been rotting in my trench and my burrow smells of rot, just like me. We all sleep on beds of fern, smelling like the earth and the ferns… waiting for the storm to end. We are waiting to get out so that the rain can wash us, take the stench out of us. When we were not in trenches, bunkers, or burrows we smelled like the green forest, like the fresh mountain air,

like early dawn, like freshly cut grass, like squeezed thyme… And now we smell like smoke, rotting roots, moldy ferns, dry leaves, singed grass and everything that is burnt and dying all around us.

I closed my eyes and imagined myself in a bridal gown. I opened them and saw myself a soldier in a uniform belonging to an unknown army, a soldier soiled with dirt and grime wearing large torn shoes, a large grimy shirt with sleeves rolled up. In place of a wedding bouquet of red roses, I hold a shovel, beside me is my pick and beside it is my German automatic rifle... Here I am just a soldier but I can’t help myself asking: “Would I last to be a bride?” Will I be wearing a white wedding gown? Will I do what I was fated to do or will I remain and rot in this burrow?

I thought a lot and daydreamed a lot… I hoped my wishes and dreams would come true… I used all my strength to dig deeper in my trench and burrow… I swung my pick harder against the hard ground and scooped away the loose soil along with all my doubts. I dug and thought:

“When I finish digging my burrow I will pick green ferns, bundle them and make my bed with them, then I will think my thoughts and dream my dreams lying down... I will think of being a bride standing before the altar wearing a wedding crown on my head. I will imagine the entire church glistening with many lit candles. I will imagine coming out of the church, standing on the stairs and throwing candy into the crowd. Then I will watch the children gather it and rejoice... And after that... After that I will think of knitting socks, mitts, hats...”

“Dig!” I heard a man’s voice order. It was the commander.

The order was not directed at me but it made me shiver. I began to toss the soil vigorously and together with it my bridal dress, my red roses, my wedding crown, my brightly lit candles, my candy and… my hopes and dreams…

Me and my wants and needs… My wishful thinking... Can a young woman who is a soldier have such thoughts and dreams?

Can she?

This is what I thought...

“Dig! Dig! Dig!” the same voice kept ordering.

The thunderous order petrified my desires, covered them with black moss and shattered my dreams...