have heard the same thing more than once from other comrades. But still we carried the wounded on our backs, and the dying, and did everything necessary - the pressure of the awful moment made us forget our feelings. It will be the same with Joseph.
"David!"
We jump up. The bullets and shells are forgotten. A wounded comrade - we have to make sure that he gets to the medical station as quickly as possible.
"David-Goliath!"
He has a wound on the ear. Not a particularly serious case. We drive him in the jeep to the medical center. "We are almost there" Benjamin reassures him. "A few more minutes ..." "No panic" answers the wounded man angrily. "I’m OK." I know this voice. I have often heard it singing songs in the old "Jonah camp" a long time ago, before the Great Flood. It is the voice of Zalman Kamin. He is one of the few vet-erans who are still with us in company number one.
The medical center of the battalion is located in one of the bunkers in Negba. Ben-Zion and Rafael, the battalion medics, are waiting for us. We deliver the wounded man and have to go back into the night, into the fire. That demands a lot of willpower.
Waiting again. But not for long. It is a hard fight and there are many wounded. Some of them come limping, supporting them-selves with their rifle. Others are carried in by their comrades, on stretchers or on tarps.
The jeep becomes a bus - driving there and back, there and back. Interesting how the task suppresses your fear. None of us even thinks of ducking. Every delay can cost a human life. One of the wounded refuses to travel in the jeep. There are others there who are more seri-ously wounded, he says in a weak voice. He will manage on foot...
The wounded lie in a field until their turn comes to be driven away. Joseph and I load eight of them into the jeep and drive to Negba. There we ask for reinforcements. In the meantime Benjamin Friedmann and Yaakov Velichkovski have gone to the wadi near the village. There a large number of wounded, who need to be brought to the path, are lying. Finally some armored vehicles arrive. We fill them up with the wounded.
It is four o’clock in the morning. The firing is reducing. The oper-ation seems to be almost over. But we are still busy. None of the