Without success I try and persuade the platoon leader and the cor-poral to take me with them. There is no room for us. Why did I do it? I don’t know. Is it curiosity, the hope for material to write about? Or is it the misery of lying in an isolated position while your comrades are storming a fortified village?
My comrades climb in. It turns out that there is room for two more riflemen. I grab the opportunity, and they take me too. We set off along winding dirt roads without lights. Yaakov, the platoon leader, and Ezra, the company runner, are sitting in the first vehicle. We are in the second vehicle.
Then we hit a tarred road. The road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Strange feeling: going for a drive in the middle of the Arab area, on a road we’ve been fighting over for weeks.
The vehicles drive terribly slowly. You can hardly hear the motors. We get tenser and tenser. In front of us a signal rocket climbs into the air. We think the village is about a hundred meters ahead. A few bullets whistle past above us. The Arabs have certainly noticed that we are up to something, but they don’t know exactly what.
The vehicles stop. Ezra, the runner, jumps out and runs to the last vehicle. Something is happening there. Some people get out and carry something heavy into the field by the road. I understand: they are setting up the mortar. Moments of expectation. But it doesn’t work.
A command comes from the third vehicle, where Matti Arazi and the commanders are sitting - drive forward. We realize that the moment has arrived. We will have to storm the village without wait-ing for the mortar fire. The vehicles start moving. The rifles, the Sten guns, and the machine guns are ready for action. I load my rifle and slip off the safety catch.
An unattended roadblock. We drive around it. I look at the time. It is exactly twelve. "This is the very moment of the founding of the State of Israel" I say to Bulli, who is sitting in front of me next to the driver. "OK," he answers, without turning round. "Maybe we’ll find some wine in Qubab."
The driver closes the steel shutter in front of him. Now only a small slit is left. That feels better: when the shutter is open we are directly in the line of fire.
We drive into the center of the village. We all lower our heads a lit-