The cicadas. The cicadas chirp. And they never stop, not for a moment, during all the nights of battle. People died and the cicadas sang. The wounded are left in the field and the cicadas sing them a lullaby, till they fall asleep and die. No. I don’t want to think about it. Shut up, damned cicada! There, far away, a radio is playing. Where? Perhaps in the nurses’ tents? No. They have no radio. In the mess hall of the neighboring barracks? It is a tango. That should remind me of something nice. But what? I always was a poor dancer. I just lack the talent. So I act as though these things are beneath me. What it is really? A socially acceptable form of petting in public! But secretly I am jealous of the dancers, of course ...
The tango stops. Someone laughs. The radio plays an Arab melody. Immigrants from Morocco must be sitting there. An Arab tune ... Arab, Arab ... what kind of face emerges from the sea of memories? The turncoat from Sudan who came to Negba with the machine gun in his hand? A pleasant face. Under the heavy mortar bombardment he was next to me in the trench. We smoked together. We cursed the Egyptians and talked about home ... No! Not him. It is a different face.
Perhaps the Sudanese major we captured in Beit Daras? He was old. Over fifty. He came all the way from Khartoum to take part in the Holy War. What a strange combination of words: Holy War. A brave man. When we captured him, he was wounded. But he would not let us treat his wounds before a more seriously wounded private from his unit, who lay next to him, had been looked after.
No. It is not the major’s face either. A different one. Before that. The first I saw. Latrun? No, before Latrun. Earlier, before Maccabi. Nachshon? Yes. That’s it. An Arab face ...
Arab face.
Since the early hours of the morning the company has occupied the position overlooking the road to Latrun, waiting. Everyone knows that there is no point waiting. Someone "up top" had this glo-rious idea that the Arabs might go for a stroll around here, although any idiot can see the Arabs know that stretches of this road are in our hand. And so the company lies here the whole day, from early morn-ing till sunset, in this ridiculous position, to trick the naive Arabs. But the Arabs are not naive. Only the British occasionally drive around here. The observation posts radio a report of vehicles on the road.