sound of a tired bee. They were just firing at random without taking into account the distance. A counter-attack was no longer to be feared.
The men dispersed around the village and walked through the narrow alleys looking for prisoners, ammunition, and souvenirs. In particular for souvenirs. They were not looking for valuables. An Arab headdress, a dagger, some prayer beads were enough. One day the explosives expert came back with a decorative water pipe - that was something special.
Rafi split off from his group and headed down a dark alley. He wanted to be alone. The reason he gave was to check even the darkest alley, that his comrades were happy to ignore. After all, snipers might be lurking there. But that was just an excuse. What really drove him, as always, was a mixture of curiosity and a sense of adventure.
"At the front you can’t afford to be an adventurer," his friends used to preach as he volunteered once again for a special task. "At the front you have to be an ordinary soldier, you understand? You get an order - then you go. No order - then keep your nose out of things that are nothing to do with you." And Joske the clown added dryly, "If I were to be killed on a job like that, it would annoy me till the end of my days."
Rafi cocked his Sten gun. Behind any of these wooden doors there could be an Arab sniper or just a Fellah who didn’t want to leave the village of his ancestors. Strange that so very few had chosen this way. That must be an inheritance of slavery. They never were free. For generations they were the victims of foreign rulers.
What the hell, Rafi grumbled. These philosophical thoughts always descended on him when he made his way alone through an Arab village. It was like a curse. You shouldn’t think too much about the dark side of war. It just makes your life more difficult. Maybe the others think the same, just don’t dare talk about it because they don’t want to appear soft?
Behind him a door clattered. A second later he was standing in front of a corpse dressed in black. For one moment he was a wild ani-mal, with a well-oiled instinct for self preservation. In a single move-ment he had jumped to one side, turned, and shot. And now the corpse was lying there.
His heart had missed a beat, but now resumed. His first reaction