here, the enemy cannot send reinforcements to his troops who are fighting with our comrades up on the road. Here we can block the enemy’s supply routes from Ramie and Lod.
We feel our way forwards. Most of the buildings are destroyed. Only here and there is a white house still standing. Behind one of these houses our platoon stops. We gather blocks of stone from other ruins and build a little position. It is not very convincing. We have no digging equipment, and the protection of the stones is rather ques-tionable.
* * *
Behind us an armored bus is being converted into a staff room. We draw sheets over the viewing ports to prevent any light escaping. Meanwhile some squads have been stationed for perimeter defense. I look at the clock. It is past midnight. We have only a few hours left for sleeping. But there is no chance of that. We have no blankets. Since midday we have not changed our clothing, so we are now wearing short-sleeved khaki shirts. It is unbelievably cold. But the total fatigue of battle has not overcome us, that tiredness that would allow us to sleep in any place, in any position, and without any covering.
* * *
It is light. From our position we have a wonderfully panoramic view. I can see the wooded hills of Bab al-Wad, the deserted Beit Jiz, Arab Hulda, and Deir Muheisin in the south. In all directions the enemy has very good positions for snipers. But the area seems deserted. I can’t make out any movement at all.
Little Yakov, who is lying by himself in his position a few paces away, finds it boring. He comes over to ask for a cigarette against the hunger and forgets to go back. Little Yakov is a refugee who came here just two months ago from a German concentration camp. He has some stories to tell.
He is interrupted in the middle by the morning concert which we were already expecting. The enemy fires at us with rifles and auto-matic weapons. During the night we have "annoyed" him. He shot at us, but we did not reply. That makes any enemy nervous. As long as we don’t return fire, he doesn’t know where we are hiding and how many of us there are.
This time we give an answer. Our heavy machine gun fires a short