“Gershon, what’s the matter?” I yelled. His eyes moved over my face indifferently. The whites of his eyes were turned red, shot through by a thick network of veins. His mouth was wide open, and a choked, bitter cry burst from his chest.
“They’re dying,” he cried. “All of them dying . . .” His eyes were shut tight.
“Who’s dying?” I shouted desperately, holding his shoulders with both hands and shaking his body with all my strength. “Answer me! Who’s dying?” He didn’t reply. But his weeping grew fainter, and his vacant eyes opened again. “What happened?” I asked again. He shook his head weakly.
“I’m going to die,” he wailed. “I’m going to die.” His face quivered, and his howl turned into a sob.
“Shut up!” I yelled at him, feeling his madness taking hold of me. “Shut up . . . shut up . . .” If only I could have shouted like him, cried, released all the weight of fear that pressed on me. But I couldn’t. Something inside me, stronger than I was, prevented me from doing this. Was it sanity that was stopping me? Or madness? I screamed at him in helpless anger: “Shut up! Shut up!”
But he didn’t stop crying. His sobs grew louder: “I’m going to die,” he wept, “to die . . .”
“You’ll die alright, if you don’t shut up,” I shrieked, at the end of my tether. Seen through my burning eyes, his head became a ball of human flesh that wouldn’t stop screaming.
“I’m going to die,” the red ball screamed. I put the barrel of my gun to his neck, in a murderous rage, and began pressing. His yells turned into a hoarse, broken rattle, which in turn became a strangled gargle. Spit and foam came from his mouth, and his voice died down.
What was I doing? I stopped pushing the barrel, in alarm. Gershon drew a little air into his lungs. A rasping groan and suppressed fit of coughing shook his chest. His eyes remained fixed on me. Then he turned over so that he was lying on his stomach, sobbing quietly to himself.
The shelling stopped. The thunder of the explosions grew fainter, but went on echoing across the hills. That was a bad omen. Soon the enemy infantry would start to attack. This interval was curiously relaxing: a sort of calm accompanied by a feeling that retribution was on the way. It hung in the air, like a cloud over my head. Soon it would burst on top of me.
The machine guns from the nearby hill began barking in measured anger, like a pack of mad dogs. A hail of whistling bullets slammed into the rocks. Their furious, monotonous whine cracked against my ears. I wriggled my body into as small a shape as possible and lay on the earth, clutching pieces of it in my hands. A terrible, dull, abysmal fear of losing my grip on the soil seized me. Because my face was squashed against the ground, I stared right at the slivers of stone scattered in front of me. They seemed to be getting bigger, longer, until they were as high as lofty mountains whose peaks were out of sight. I was tiny compared to them. I couldn’t climb them. My hands and feet turned to stone. Heavy lead had engulfed them.
The machine guns were silent now. My senses started coming back, and my staccato breathing grew a little steadier. Weak, crowded voices flowed in from afar, as if they came from the bowels of the earth. They grew louder and became an angry uproar: the enemy’s battle sounds. Whistles blew, and voices shouted guttural cries of encouragement. The voices came closer. They were climbing the slope. Through the mist it was hard to see what was happening. All I could make out was the blurred shape of the sun, enveloped in clouds of smoke. The commotion grew louder, and the sound of a new kind of shot joined in: the chatter of machine guns firing single volleys. The sense of approaching danger wouldn’t let me stay there. I had to see what was happening. I glanced at Gershon. He was breathing heavily. I shook him firmly.
“Try to get to the first-aid station,” I shouted in his ear. His face still showed no expression. I pushed him with my foot to get him moving, and then I started crawling forward. I turned my head toward him for a last look. He began crawling on all fours, like a robot set in motion, toward the rock outside the smoke.
I straightened up and peered over the rock carefully. I could see down the slope. Figures . . . shapes . . . movement . . . Two lines of soldiers pushed upward relentlessly, checkered keffiyehs flapping around their heads in the wind. My heart beat faster as I watched the crouching figures and the way their bent knees rose and fell. The hundred meters that separated us didn’t prevent me from sensing the heavy rhythm of their breathing. They panted through their gaping mouths and screamed with all the strength of their lungs as they fired off shots from the machine guns and rifles held next to their hips. A cloud of dust, the dust from the rocks chipped by the hail of bullets, moved in front of them.
They were coming closer, a broad chain of soldiers surrounding the hill on three sides. I could see the expressions on their faces quite clearly; fatigue, anger, and hatred etched in them. Or was it only a mirage? For a moment I was tempted to think so. I closed my eyes . . . a babel of cries, the roar of shots . . . my eyes opened again. I couldn’t take my eyes off the black muzzles of the guns held in their hands. They frightened me. So black and deep . . . One of the dark circles came up to me rapidly, growing and expanding until it looked like the angry mouth of a volcano, which omitted fire and smoke. The thunder of the machine guns made my whole body shudder and transfixed me to the spot. My heart beat crazily until I felt my arteries were going to burst. What was the matter with me? Fear? I didn’t know. Nausea seized me. My stomach turned over, my head was thudding, my temples were about to burst.
I gripped my machine gun weakly. I had to do something . . . I had to act . . . to do something . . . to move . . . To rid myself of the paralysis that was seeping through me . . . To shoot! I had to shoot at the enemy, although I didn’t have much of a chance of getting away with it. But I had to try!
But why weren’t our guns firing? I glanced to my right, at the low stone outpost next to the poplar tree. The stones at the lip were chipped. Nothing left of the place. I could only see part of a machine gun. It lay upside down between the slivers of stone that nearly covered it. What about the men in the outpost? I screwed up my eyes and straightened up to get a better look. Bullets whistled above me, but I hardly heard them. What about the men in the post—Yosef, Hayim, and Sasson? Were they alright? The case of ammunition lay on its side. Sasson’s powerful body leaned against it, motionless. I couldn’t see his face. His head lay inside the box. He was dead alright. Like the rest of them. Next to him lay Hayim, flat on his back, his hands held out to the sides as if he was trying to say, “What more could I do?”
Movement. Something was moving on the heap of stones. A figure emerged from behind the fallen heap. Yosef moved about, his one hand groping in the air, trying to find a way out. His other hand was clasped over his eyes. “Orderly! Orderly!” he cried out as he crept up the slope of the hill. He might be able to reach the first-aid station near the road. Might make it . . .
They were coming closer. Their shoes clattered over the stones. This is how the hangman’s steps sound to the condemned. A giant foot in a hobnailed boot with long, shining iron spikes moved toward me. The boot was coming down, coming down on my writhing body, crushing me. The iron spikes sank deep into my flesh. A cold chill passed through me, the chill of living flesh crushed by cold, sharp steel. What a horrible feeling.
I leaped wildly in the direction of the post, with its abandoned machine gun. The ground around me shook with bullets, which buzzed like a swarm of troublesome wasps. I went on running. That was the only chance of escaping from the ring of soldiers closing in on me: to move on. I couldn’t stop. I rushed toward the post and banged into it, falling so hard that I pushed aside Hayim’s still body. I pulled the machine gun madly out of the pile of shattered stones that almost covered it. I pulled it out and cradled it in my arms. The chill of the wooden barrel, which I put next to my cheek, encouraged me: its pleasant touch gave me strength and hope. I hugged the machine gun, feeling my pulse beat against its iron body. I held it longingly, clinging tightly and trying to merge with it, to make it part of me.
The machine gun’s