now we lay on our beds under mosquito nets and felt like the masters of creation. Our greatest pleasure was provided whenever a "green" comrade accidentally came into our room. Seeing the luxury and the maps, he apologized in embarrassment, and left with the firm impression that he had stumbled on the room of no less than the brigade commander.
One late evening the composerMordechai Zeira2 appeared in the "villa" near Jaladiyya. We assembled around a burning candle and listened to the tender notes he conjured out of his harmonica. It was a special atmosphere - the darkness, the tones, the forms of the comrades, the comradeship that surrounded us. In my head, words were coming together as verses. The Foxes’ song was taking form.
In the jeep’s headlights, which I turned on from time to time, I wrote the words with pencil and paper. When I was ready I gave Zeira the sheet. He was also drawn into the atmosphere, and so the song got a tune - a melody of roaring jeeps, howling foxes, and the nocturnal sounds of the southern landscape.
* * *
Later I wondered whether anyone had ever thought about the feelings of the foxes as the torches were tied to their tails. And what happened to them? There is nothing about that in the Old Testament. But we were given the name "Samson’s Foxes"...
Convoy into the Negev
"Oh how sick I am of that ..." complained Freddy Regenstreif and put his cards on the ground.
* * *
The company was stationed in a large Arab house on the path to Jaladiyya, near the road to Castina. Freddy had a good reason to curse life. He lost a pile of money at poker. But we were all sick of this kind of life. We longed for action, followed by the two or three days’ leave that would follow. Since the start of the ceasefire we hadn’t had any leave. And I was weighed down by the sad duty of bringing the news of the death of Jochanan Silbermann to his parents. "If only we