"No, thanks," Menashke answered briskly. "I just want to clarify a few points. The map seems to be inaccurate here ..." Shmuel didn’t give up. "A pity, really a great pity," he said pompously, "we would so dearly like to know why it is that you sit at a table together with the ordinary soldiers. We would really be very interested to hear. Perhaps we can learn something from you ..."
That hit a nerve. Menashke flushed bright red, and the scar on his forehead shone like the rising sun. "Oh, you don’t like that? That I sit together with the ordinary soldiers? Ordinary soldiers, eh?" His calm was icy.
"Were you at Ibdis? Oh, excuse me. At that time you had an important position in Tel Aviv. As for me, I happen to have been there. That wasn’t at all pleasant, incidentally. It was more like hell. Artillery, mortars, aircraft, tanks. One assault after the other ... On the hill were eighty ordinary soldiers. Just ordinary soldiers. What I mean is, in the morning there were eighty. In the evening there were only twenty. The next morning eighty new ones arrived, and they knew that they would only be twenty by evening.
"And I ask you, why did they come? They could have left. Any one of them could have left. Did they remain because of this bullshit that you call discipline? That evaporates when the first shell lands in your trench?
"So, what kept them in that hell? I will tell you: it was decency. The self-respect of the ordinary soldier. They didn’t run away because they wouldn’t leave their comrades in a mess, they wouldn’t disgrace the honor of their unit. They simply had a bit of conscience. That is all.
"And you are so superior you think you can trample on the self-respect and honor of the ordinary soldier. You want to make a machine out of him, an order-obeying machine. But if there is a new Ibdis tomorrow, nothing will keep the men in that hell. Nothing. Not your bullshit, no standing to attention, no military saluting, and not even the olive leaves2 on your shoulders."
The club had fallen silent. Menashke walked to the door. Then he looked again at the astonished officers and continued:
"A month ago, in Isdud, I was lying wounded in the field. Five meters from the Egyptian positions. Four ordinary soldiers got me out of there. One of them was himself seriously wounded in the