two young Arab prisoners, and Asherov is interrogating them. Then they are sent away. One of them has a bullet wound which one of us has bandaged.
Our medic takes off our bandages and puts on new ones.
Jerucham lies motionless on the road, Dov sits there as if asleep, I stagger around. We are all in shock.
Asher allows Ovadia to drive us to the medical station. Ovadia sets off at high speed. Occasionally we have to leave the road and drive around damaged bridges. On the way we pick up Shalom, who is wounded when the Arabs fire at us, and we have to zigzag to put the snipers off their aim. The bullet hit him in the nose, and his blood sprays over the whole jeep. It is a painful drive over these rough paths. Each pothole is like a hammer blow. Now and then Ovadia looks round. He wants to see if we are still alive.
When we get closer and the medics in the station see our bandages, they jump up. Aviva, Ovadia’s wife, cleans the wounds and puts some ointment on them. I want to take some photos, but Jerucham and Dov are already in the ambulance. Aviva pushes me in too. We drive to the hospital. There we are received by a nice doctor and the pretty nurse Jocheved. The doctor is a volunteer from an English-speaking country. Dov and Jerucham are put straight to bed. My wounds are to be sewn up after lunch. I am hungry and the food here is first class - roast chicken, soup, potatoes, white bread. That is enough to make it worthwhile getting wounded.
* * *
I am lain on the operating table and given an anesthetic injection in the shoulder. The doctor sews. I feel nothing, but have to laugh. A strange idea, being sewn up like a torn shirt.
The excitement is over and I am dog tired. I go back to the base wearing only a vest. I want to sleep, though I don’t know which side to lie on. The rumor goes round the camp that we are half dead. When I am spotted, they want to know every detail - the typical curiosity of bored soldiers, who know that their comrade likes telling stories. I make my excuses and go off to sleep. I can expect two or three days of peace and quiet.
The ceasefire off dally ended at ten o’clock in the morning of 9 July. On 6 July Aryeh called us together in the mess hall. He read out our