company commander, holds a sheet of paper in his hand and reads out the names.
"Platoon number one. Leader: Yaakov Burstein." Yaakov, small and skinny, moved to the front of the row. "Deputy: Chaim Bulmann." Bulli, tall, broad-shouldered, always smiling, stood behind Burstein. "Squad number one. Shlomo Greimann, Uri Avnery, Moshe Shatzky..." We look at each other. We know: from now on we will live together, rely on each other, and have faith in the commanders.
Suddenly a stir in the camp - our weapons have arrived. We run, in order not to miss this historic moment. The crates are opened and there they are, the rifles. Thickly coated in grease. With plenty of ammunition. Everyone gets his own personal rifle. As evening falls we sit and clean them without having the right equipment. And the whole time, until long after midnight, we try to come to terms with events: a personal rifle for each Israeli soldier.
Sleep is out of the question. Janek Levkovitz, a refugee from Europe who knows rifles inside out, shows us how to use these guns that we never saw in training. Nobody sleeps.
Saturday 3 April, 1948
Dawn departure
At five o’clock the next morning we have breakfast. We stand in a long line, receive our food, devour it in no time, and return to our tents. Everything is packed, the weapons have been cleaned. Four companies are standing by.
The buses arrive. We get in. Our orders are: no singing! Don’t make any noise. Keep your weapons out of sight. Nobody in Tel Aviv should notice that a large body of troops is leaving the town. We drive through the empty streets of the sleeping city.
A man is standing at a corner alone. An old German Jew with a hat. He sees the bus full of young people in uniform. Suddenly he lifts his hand and raises his hat. The civilian salutes the soldiers, with a sim-pie, spontaneous, and touching gesture. I look at my comrades. I am the only one who noticed.
We leave the city. In the distance we recognize the Arab bunkers of Jaffa and Tel a-Rish. We gather our weapons from the floor at the same moment as a rousing song bursts from our lips: "Believe me,