After midnight I find myself awake. No idea what has woken me. I listen. Not a sound. No shots. Then I become aware of it - tap, tap, tap. Raindrops on the tarp.
The sky is heavily overcast. What should I do? I know exactly how I should behave if we are attacked from the left or from the right, if we are bombarded by mortars or artillery. What we are now facing is worse. Our positions are open, without any protection from the rain, and the people have no winter equipment.
The raindrops develop into a shower, the shower into a flood. I know that I have to get up, somehow rally the people to hold the posi-tion - but my willpower has left my body. I lie there feeling terribly unhappy. The water slowly seeps through the covers, the sleeping bag, and my clothing. A little stream runs from my neck along my back. Other streams flow down my socks into my shoes. Still I can’t get up.
I don’t know how long I lay like that. Maybe ten minutes? It seems like an eternity to me. Images appear before my eyes, as if I had a fever. I see myself in a dry bed in Tel Aviv. I listen to the rain tapping on the window, and pull the warm blankets over my head. I can’t even get annoyed. The water drowns all feeling.
Then I see myself at my desk. A lamp illuminates the book in front of me. A radio is playing a quiet melody, and the tapping of the rain on the window pane increases the feeling of cosiness ...
This time I swear and get up. My body is shivering with cold and wet. I sink up to my calves in mud, take a few steps, slip, and fall in the muck. Somehow I reach the next position.
The men have pulled the covers over their heads. They also have the unhappy feeling of helplessness. But the guards are at their posts. I compose my face as if I hadn’t noticed the rain, put a tarp over the wet machine gun, and say a few words intended to convey firmness and confidence.
On the way to the platoon commander’s tent I fall into the mud. Twice. My rubber soles slip at each step. I know he can’t help me. But I have the need to lean against someone, to exchange a few consoling curses. I find the chief in a corner of his tent. Here, too, everything is wet. After a while Shalom Cohen, the leader of the second squad, also appears. He is just as muddy and wet as I am.