This rain. It will turn the positions into hell. The weapons will be smeared with mud, and we will have heavy lumps stuck to the soles of our boots. Fighting in rain is an invention of the devil.
Jamus is standing by the door directing the singing. He has a good voice and likes to hear it. The men are singing. What are they think-ing at this moment? Do they think the front will be romantic? In twelve hours they will know that the front is a trench with mud up to your knees. An image appears in my head: a company of recruits is marching toward the assault on Beit Jamal. They are singing cheer-fully. About a hundred young men. Ten or twenty of them came back under their own steam. Others came back in my jeep, bloody and groaning. Still others did not come back at all.
In the headlights a stretch of barbed wire and a British steel helmet with holes in it. Where are we? Of course. Position 125. This is where we raced that night in our jeeps, before we drove over the Egyptian trenches. At the side of the road was a body. And we didn’t know whether it was an Egyptian or one of ours.
"Attention!" Jamus shouts. "Pay attention. This is where the big night attack started, that..."
We are not only squad leaders, but also political commissars and history teachers. We have to form the men into one body. That is an important task. In our job description it is not mentioned.
Who was the soldier who lay at the side of the road? He was wearing a British steel helmet, like those worn by the Egyptians. But in the battle for Position 125 our soldiers also wore such helmets.
It is dark. Fine drops of rain, singing, the familiar warmth of a group of young men. Words appear in my mind and form them-selves into verses. One of my youthful sins. Without having any talent for poetry. I started getting involved with military and political themes too early. Poetry and politics don’t go together. Still I can’t stop myself.
He lay at the road side
As I drove past in my jeep to the battle
He lay alone, motionless, quiet,
His eyes closed in death.
* * *