We know what that means. In daylight we cannot remain in this area. There is no cover at all and you can’t even dig yourself in prop-erly. As long as we are in his rear area, the enemy can easily cut off our retreat.
It is getting light.
The enemy bullets are now flying directly over us. Salvo after salvo. Yaakov Burstein, the acting deputy company commander, crawls to us and gives Jerach the order to withdraw. I am a kind of traffic policeman - slow down one squad, hurry the other one up, pass commands to take cover. We climb over a hill that is within full view of the enemy. We are inundated in fire, but cross the danger area without losses. On the north wing a wild close-combat battle is rag-ing, which distracts the enemy a little from our part of the front.
It is six thirty.
After a few hundred meters we are exhausted. Jerach tries to get us to go faster, explaining that the danger for our lives is growing from minute to minute. But we are back in that stage of exhaustion where arguments have lost their effect. We reach the wadi and hide in it. We are almost out of danger here - the bullets fly past over our heads.
To the left we can see a white two-storey house. That’s where Kotzer’s company is fighting. Every few minutes the house disap-pears from view in the smoke of a shell.
The company had initially managed to set up a half-way fortified position. Now they are withdrawing in the direction of the white house. Aryeh reports from there that they have heavy losses. All our medics, including Israel, the section medic, are sent there. Yaakov Rachmilevitch, the company medic, who was lighdy wounded in the back earlier, got a whole salvo in the chest this time.
Of all frontline soldiers, the medics are the real heroes. Behind the lines they are sometimes regarded as non-combatants. But nobody exposes themselves to more danger than they do in the attempt to save human life.
We crawl wearily through the fields toward Gan-Yavne. Near the road Moshe Shatzky, our lanky machine gunner, is wounded. A bullet in the leg hit the bone. Reuven, Micki, and Freddy take it in turns to carry him on their backs, each about fifty meters. Moshe rides piggyback and cracks jokes. From behind they are calling us. In Kotzer’s company some wounded men are lying on the ground, and