to the village of Ekron. We slowed down. The rains that had fallen there had turned the sandy soil into a viscous quagmire of squishy mud. The trucks slid to the side of the road. The armored cars rushed up to pull them from the mud, with the help of wire cables. We crawled along at a snail’s pace.
After two exasperating hours of hard work, the leading armored car announced a half-hour break. The trucks and cars gathered in the main street of the village. Through the open windows of the small white houses peeped the heads of boys and girls, while the men gathered outside in the street, next to the trucks.
The drivers made a hurried inspection of their motors and then went into the café at the corner. The boys who shared my armored car also went along. “Aren’t you coming with us?” they asked me as they went out.
“No thanks, I’ll stay here.”
I went out through the open door and remained standing in the street. My eyes strayed to the hills of Jerusalem. I had a strange feeling, as if somewhere far off in the peaks of those mountains the enemy was watching us.
The weather improved, and the sun emerged from the tattered clouds. I went on looking at the high mountain ridge; here rocks and green forests joined together in an impressive panorama. A spark of light flashed there and went off immediately. It flickered again, and then again. Heliograph signals. My feeling hadn’t been wrong. The enemy was watching us. I walked over to the leading armored car and reported what I had seen.
“Yes,” the report operator said, “we noticed the signals and asked for an aerial patrol. A Piper plane will pass over Sha’ar Hagai in about fifteen minutes.”
I went back to my place. The flicker of the heliograph stopped. Meanwhile everybody was getting ready for the next stage of the journey. The drivers and armored car men went back to their vehicles.
“What are you standing there for, like a bloody pole?” one of them jeered at me. I told him. “Oh, we know the Piper’s reconnaissance flights,” he sneered. “Those little one-horse planes. Every time, they go over and tell us the land’s clear and they can’t see a thing. Then later on we find out there’s an Arab behind every rock.”
Another soldier chimed in: “It’s not easy to spot their positions. They’re camouflaged. What can they do?”
“OK, OK,” the first one snapped angrily. “You can always find excuses. But meanwhile we’re getting the worst of it.”
The argument stopped when we heard the noisy voices of the returning soldiers, carrying oranges and bottles of squash. One even held a squawking chicken. They stuffed the goods into one of the cars.
“We’re leaving in five minutes!” someone called out from the leading armored car, which sped along the line of trucks. “Everyone load up at once!”
The soldiers clustered together in front of the cars. They were joined by several of the villagers, who waved goodbye warmly.
“Good luck!” came the voices of the women and girls, from the windows of their houses.
“Good luck!” whispered an old farmer who stood next to me, waving his battered old hat. I returned his greeting. He was the only person in the whole crowd who paid any attention to me.
The signal was given, and the convoy began moving toward the mountains. I opened the roof covering once more and looked out. On both sides of the road stretched green, verdant orchards and well-tended fields. I couldn’t see a soul about.
“We’re in enemy territory already,” the radio operator announced. His words sent a slight shudder through my body. I took a sharper look at the landscape. It looked the same as the countryside on our side of the border. The hum of a plane engine sounded far above us. The Piper patrol plane was flying overhead, its noisy motor chugging away and its squat, clumsy wings rocking from side to side.
“That Piper! Just a heap of scrap iron!” grumbled one of the soldiers. “I’m surprised it gets off the ground!”
It went on flying low over us, until it disappeared among the wadis that cut through the mountains.
“We’re getting close to Sha’ar Hagai!” the radio operator remarked. His thick, hoarse voice sounded faint and indistinct, as if he was talking to himself. Then he added, in a louder voice and a more definite tone: “I’ve got a feeling they’re waiting for us.”
“You’ll have to close the window just now,” the machine gunner warned me. “They can get you from those damn hills.” I shivered.
“Alright.” My eyes were fixed on the heavy machine gun lying on the floor like a faithful watchdog, sitting with its feet stretched out in front of it. “I’ll close it when we get to the hills.”
The hills came closer, and the pounding of my heart made them jump in front of my eyes. Then I calmed down a little, and the hills stopped shaking.
“Here’s Sha’ar Hagai,” my neighbor called out. He pointed to the place with his finger. I stared at the ridges of the hills, which seemed to merge into one another. A café built of yellowish stone stood on the crossroads leading from Jerusalem to Beit Guvrin. The shutters of the café were closed, and there was nobody about. On both sides of the winding road were steep, rocky slopes covered with pine trees. The densely-packed trees were inclined inward, as if they wanted to fall onto the road. A cry of warning echoed in my ears: “No entry!”
The roof covering had to be closed. For the last time, I looked back, at the coastal plain strewn with squares of green and patches of yellow sand, vanishing from sight behind the hills. I had a powerful urge to go back. If only I could go back to the training camp. But it was too late for that. I had to carry on. My worried eyes fixed on the road ahead once more. The narrow mountain pass we were now entering looked like a dark tunnel, long and closed.
I slammed the roof opening shut. It closed with a heavy metallic bang. It was pitch dark inside the car. I stretched out my hand to the shutter next to me and opened it wide. Through it I could see the white stones at the side of the road. They moved toward me. The speed of the armored car increased their blinding glare, as if the lights of thousands of small projectors were sending their rays toward me. My gaze strayed to the side of the road. Almost vertical slopes, strewn with stones, ran down to the edge like breakwaters.
The engine of the armored car groaned heavily, struggling to climb the road, which wound up the steep slope. Its incessant groan grated on my ears like the whine of a drill driving through my skull. I pressed myself against the opening. At that moment it seemed like the only avenue to light and sun and the green young life outside. Inside the car, the heavy iron plates pressed on me, radiating a stifling heat. The choking fumes of the engine seeped inside. I drew them into my nose and throat, coughing and swallowing my spit with difficulty.
The car sped past the water pumping station that stood on the rib of a rocky hill, next to the road. At the entrance to the station was an armored half-track, in front of which stood three British soldiers in black berets. They signaled to the passing trucks, pointing toward the hills.
“They’re telling us there’s an ambush over there,” the driver shouted.
“Don’t believe them,” the radio operator shouted back. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they put a few bullets into us themselves—” He didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence, before he was propelled into the air. I, too, was lifted into the air, floating. The sound of a heavy explosion hit me. A blinding streak of lightning covered my eyes.
