hundred meters away. They are well trained. Move in accordance with the art of war. Meanwhile reinforcements for the Arabs are streaming in from Ramie. They are approaching from the left. It is clear that we will be lost within half an hour. We keep up continuous fire on the enemy in front of us so that our comrades can get the wounded to safety. The Arabs are advancing in a broad line, and our automatic weapons are hitting many of them.
The enemy is getting closer and closer. One of our machine guns withdraws. Moshe’s is the only one left. But just as the Arabs present a wonderful target silhouetted against the horizon, the gun jams. Moshe almost goes crazy. Nachman flies into a rage. But the machine gun goes on strike again. Moshe picks it up and heads toward the rear. On the way he will take it apart and try to get it working again. I want to try out an old ruse.
We have to hold the enemy off at least a quarter of an hour. We have only four soldiers with rifles. I explain the trick to them. We must shoot one after the other in quick succession, so that it sounds like a salvo from an automatic weapon. It works. Rat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-tat. Like a machine gun. The enemy lies on the ground and waits. We have won the necessary minutes.
Meanwhile Yaakov, our chief, has turned up. At first he wants to stay. But when he sees the enemy to the left and right of us, he realizes that the time has come to withdraw. We go toward the south-east, to go around the hill and meet the road about a kilometer further down.
On the way we meet two comrades standing next to a wounded man. He has a shrapnel wound in the chest and is covered in blood. His dressing and his clothes are red and dripping, but he is fully conscious. We take turns in carrying him on our backs. After two hundred meters we are exhausted. We shout out to some comrades who are walking in front of us. They come back and help us. Under covering fire some other comrades get the wounded man to the road. We are all bloody. Bulli looks like a butcher with his hands and arms all red.
When we reach the road we can hear our heavy machine gun shooting again. Suddenly an armored car races across the road in the direction of our base. We don’t know if it is one of ours or not. If it belongs to the Arab Legion then we are cut off in this direction too. Then we would have to find our way back through the hills. We are