By Robert Fisk in Gracanica, Kosovo
In the visitors' book of the 14th-century monastery of Gracanica yesterday morning a Serb called Blagujevic wrote these words: "Dear Jesus Christ and Lord of all Kosovo Serbs - help the Serbs to endure this justified struggle and to save their state of Kosovo-Metohija - and punish all the enemies who want to destroy your people. Amen."
A Nato jet flew through the firmament high above us as we read Blagujevic's prayer. There was a whisper and a low drum-roll of sound that buried itself amid the high walls and candle-blackened frescos of Saint Sava and his father at Gracanica. At the door, four Yugoslav soldiers had arrived, one of them with two crosses dangling on his chest alongside his steel military identification disc. They lay their Kalashnikov assault rifles on top of each other by the ancient stone door and walked silently into the church to pray for their families.
So many prayers there are now as Kosovo's day of reckoning grows nearer. An hour before, beside the Casablanca discotheque and the monument to the eternal unity of Serbs and Kosovo Albanians - Tito's little joke from the 1960s - God was asked by Archbishop Artemje of Decane to protect Kosovo's Serbs in the coming days of darkness. The 600 Serb men, women and children - unemployed factory workers, soldiers with their rifles on their backs, girlfriends and wives and old men who once loved Tito - crossed themselves beneath the dreary sun. The ministry of interior had banned this rally, they were told, so they were meeting "in the shrine of God, under the holy sky".
And what Archbishop Artemje in his long black robe told them was this: "We will show our true patriotism for our holy places. Don't be frightened. Don't leave your holy place empty. A wrong historical step cannot be corrected. Whatever happens to us, we must stay in our homes, our villages, in our cities."
Moma Trajkovic, who founded the Serbian Resistance Movement in 1989 in support of President Slobodan Milosevic - though not any more, dear reader, not any more - delivered a message that was directed at Nato and the Belgrade government as well as God.
"We are sending a message to those who want to take revenge - that revenge is not the answer," he shouted.
"Peace cannot be achieved by revenge but only in a shared life. We are not for a war or for conflict but we will not be slaughtered on our doorsteps like lambs. This is what we ask of those who make decisions about this area - to come between those who would slaughter each other. Brothers and sisters, we intend before the whole world to stay. Remaining in Kosovo is our only chance.
"Unfortunately, those who brought us here will not allow us to fight. We want to organise ourselves and to stay, no matter what the price, to stay in our homes. If we leave Kosovo-Metohija, we shall never return, ever."
To decode this message, God will have understood the lambs as a reference to Muslim sacrifice, and the bit about "those who make decisions" as an appeal to Mr Milosevic and General Sir Michael Jackson of the still virginal "K-For". No hint, of course, as to why the returning Albanian refugees might want to take revenge or do any lamb-like slaughtering. A "shared life" was not exactly on offer last month. Or even last week.
So it was a relief - once they had completed their prayers - to talk to Ljuba and his three soldier comrades from Toplica in the little cafe opposite the gateway at Gracanica. They could not have known we were coming - I only decided on the trip to the monastery a few minutes earlier - and it was we who chose to talk to them. These were frontline soldiers under bombing, the voice of those whom Nato - whom we - are still trying to kill in Kosovo.
We ordered coffee and the men sat down nervously although not without some eagerness to talk. Ljuba was the first to launch into the attack. "Nato are not fighting in uniform," he said. "They are at war against our sacred places, our factories, our bridges, our kindergartens, our hospitals ... The Nato soldiers don't have the guts to look us in the eyes. They are cowards. We just pray to God that they come and put their boots on our soil."
Ljuba was still praying for the ground war that Nato plans to avoid. A bombing war was not what he wanted. "It's tough for everybody," Ljuba's colleague Srdjan said. "No parent can say, 'It's OK - my son is in the war.' But they know we have to preserve this." And he pointed towards the monastery. "My father told me before I left for the war, 'Don't be a coward.' I said to him, 'Don't worry - I won't shame my family'." Then Srdjan paused for a moment. "I came here to arrange to be baptised this week," he said. "Everyone would like to be baptised in such a holy place."
Ljuba - the most talkative of the four and the most thoughtful - wanted to explain their presence. "We went to pray for our families' health and to pray that the Nato bombers leave them alone. The last thing I told my wife was, 'Take care of our son.' He is eight-and-a-half years old. His name is Stefan. She was crying. Just a little."
It was a war against Orthodox Christianity, Srdjan complained. The Serbs were hated because they believed in forgiveness. So of course, I mentioned the unmentionable: Albanians. And out it poured. "They had everything - more than any minority anywhere in the world," Ljuba announced. "But they cannot build their state on Serbian soil. Would you allow Irish people to build their state in Britain?"
And the story followed its familiar course. The Albanian villages had not been "cleansed" but were already deserted when Nato attacked, the fires untended because of Nato bombs. But were there not - I used the usual paraphrase - some "uncontrolled elements" among the Serbs? "Yes, against the terrorists, yes," Ljuba suddenly replied. "Against those who were shooting at us, yes. But I love my wife and children, I couldn't hurt a woman and child. Now the UCK (KLA) fire at us from their own columns of refugees in order to provoke us. But normal men cannot shoot at women and children."
These words of Ljuba must stand against the record of death squads and executions and dispossession that the women and children - whom no "normal man" could shoot - have spoken of after crossing Kosovo's borders. It was therefore a double relief when Captain Nebojsa arrived, a realist from Yugoslavia's Third Army and the only officer in the little cafe.
"I was in the Croatian war," he said. "This is much worse because of the bombing. In Croatia, it was man-to-man. Our army now is preparing for a withdrawal if the agreement is signed. The civilians will go with us. They have started leaving already. Those who decide to stay, I don't know what will happen to them. They are confused. They talk to me. They say if all the army withdraws, they will withdraw too. As for the KLA, there is no chance they will respect the agreement because they have no chain of command and are fighting each other for power. All along the roads now there are (KLA) ambushes - just in this last period, since the start of negotiations."
The soldiers know what this means. They know what has happened here. And they read a message in the monastery of Gracanica.
For Kosovo's day of reckoning has been visible on the frescos for centuries. Take a look at the faces of Saint Sava and his father, Stefan, of King Milutin and his tragic child- bride, Simonida. Every Serb is shown the Arabic script that desecrates the holy vestments.
And the painted eyes of Sava and Stefan and Milutin and Simonida which, centuries ago, under Muslim rule, were gouged out with knives.