Steinschneider leapt from his jeep to shoot into a trench full of Egyptians, returned to the vehicle to bandage Freddy Gltickmann, and suddenly noticed that his back was wet. It turned out that he had been hit some time earlier, in the jeep, by four shell fragments. David Kalkess, the radio operator of the first jeep, told the story for the tenth time of how Freddy Regenstreif left the road, how he drove over bodies, through the middle of the enemy position, without a single person in the jeep being hit.
The most incredible of all is the story of the third jeep. The driver, Yitzhak Neuhaus, was hit in the chest by a burst of fire, collapsed dead, and fell out of the jeep. Asher Asherov, who sat next to him, was also hit. So the two soldiers sitting behind had to do something. Reuven Huber, who had never in his life driven a jeep, took the con-trols. Micki Rosenblatt got out - ten feet from an enemy position - recovered Yitzhak’s corpse and only then did Reuven drive backwards to the other jeeps which had already withdrawn.
* * *
Two jeeps drive to Julis, where company number one is assembled. We are afraid that they may have more wounded. The soldiers are dog tired. One of their officers, the same Dov Feit who "fled" from his unit to take part with us in the attack on Isdud, is sitting there. Two bullets have hit him in the arm after he had finished off eleven Egyptians with two hand grenades.
* * *
As dawn breaks we reach our forward base. But something is missing. It takes us a while to notice what it is: the usual background of enemy firing. It has stopped.
Our mood has its ups and downs. It’s always the same after heavy fighting. First it sinks. Our best comrades have been killed or wounded, people we were swearing and joking with yesterday. Some had been with the company since it was formed. Without them the unit is no longer what it was. But slowly the bad mood dissipates and is replaced with simple, primitive joy. We are glad to be still alive and to see the sun! We know that death was very near. Only chance has arranged for one to be hit and another not.
It is Micki Rosenblatt’s birthday. "You’ve got a lovely present," we tell him. "A lovely present." "What sort of present?" he asks in puz-zlement. "Your life, my friend. Your life!" We sit together and tell