A mistake. Start thinking about it now, Sharavi. There's no use merely floating when you can learn how to swim.
Four weeks later they were belly-down on a muddy slope northwest of Scopus, crawling in the darkness through the cross-hatch of fortified trenches that surrounded Ammunition Hill. Two survivors of a five-man machine-gun detail sent to flush out Arab Legion snipers.
No-man's-land. For nineteen years the Jordanians had fortified their side of the hill, laying in their positions in anticipation of Jihad: trenches-forty concrete-lined wounds slashed into the hillside, some so well camouflaged they were invisible even in daylight.
No daylight now. Three A.M., an hour since the assault had begun. First, the ground had been softened by artillery bombardment; then tanks had been used to set off enemy mines. In their wake, sappers had arrived with their noisy toys, blowing up the fences-Israeli and Jordanian-that had bifurcated the hillside since the cease-fire of '49.
In the other theaters, the Israeli Air Force had been employed to fine effect-Nasser's jets destroyed before they got off the ground, the Syrians swallowing a bitter pill in the Golan. But Jerusalem was too precious, too many sacred places to risk large-scale air attack.
Which meant hand-to-hand, soldier against soldier.
Now the only ones left were desperate men on both sides. Hussein's Arab Legion troops ensconced in two long bunkers atop the hill and hunkered down in the network of trenches below. The men of the 66th, squirming upward through the dirt like human worms. Measuring their progress in meters while racing the rising sun-the cruel light of morning that would highlight them like bugs on a bed sheet.
The last thirty minutes had been a nightmare of artillery barrage and screams, the splintering of olive trees that whispered eerily as they fell, calls for stretchers and medics, the moans of the dead and dying echoing longer than could be explained by any law of physics. Three hundred meters to the southwest, the Old British Police School was ablaze, the UNRWA stores used as sniping posts by the Jordanians crackling like a campfire. Curved trajectory shells arced from Legion positions, followed by grenades and automatic-weapons fire that tilled the soil in murderous puffs, sowing hot metal seeds that would never bear fruit.
The first two men in the company had fallen simultaneously, just seconds after setting out for a shallow trench that fronted the U.N. water tank, a sniper hideout that the infrared scopes had been unable to pinpoint. The third to die was an apple-cheeked kibbutznik named Kobi Altman. The fall of his comrades had inspired him to improvise-leaping up and exposing himself on all sides as he stormed the trench, spraying it with his Uzi. Killing ten Jordanians before being cut down by the eleventh. As he buckled, Gavrieli and Daniel rushed forward, firing blindly into the trench, finishing off the last Legionnaire.
Gavrieli knelt by the rim of the trench, inspecting it, his Uzi poised for fire. Daniel slung Kobi's body over his shoulder and waited.
No sounds, no movement. Gavrieli nodded. The two of them hunched low and crept forward slowly, Gavrieli taking hold of Kobi's feet in order to share the burden. They searched for a safe spot to leave the body, a vantage point from which a grenade could be lobbed at the spindly legs of the water tower. Their plan was clear: Shielded by the aftermath of explosion, they'd run toward the big bunker on the northwest of the hill where scores of Legionnaires had settled in, firing without challenge. Lobbing in more grenades, hoping the concrete would yield to their charges. If they lived, they'd come back for Kobi.
Gavrieli scanned the slope for shelter, pointed finally to a stunted olive sapling. They slithered two meters before the thunder of recoilless guns slapped them back toward the trench.
The big guns fired again. The earth shuddered under Daniel; he felt himself lifted like a feather and slammed back down. Clawing at the soil, he dug his nails in so as not to fall backward into the mass of corpses that filled the trench. Waiting.
The recoilless attack ended.
Gavrieli pointed again. A tracer bullet shot out from the big bunker and died in a mid-air starburst, casting scarlet stripes over the commander's face. No arrogance now-he looked old, dirt-streaked and damaged, acid- etched by grief and fatigue.
The two of them began crawling toward the sapling, toward where they'd left Kobi's body, turned at the same time at the sound from the trench.
A man had crawled out, one of the corpses come to life-a ghost that stood, swaying in the darkness, clutching a rifle and searching for a target.
Gavrieli charged the apparition and took a bullet in the chest.
He crumpled. Daniel feinted to the right and retreated into the darkness, dropping silently to the ground, his Uzi pinned beneath him. He needed to get at the weapon but feared that any movement would betray his location.
The Jordanian advanced, stalking, firing where Daniel had been, missing but getting warmer.
Daniel tried to roll over. The underbrush crackled faintly. His heart was pounding-he was certain the Legionnaire could hear it.
The Jordanian stopped. Daniel held his breath.
The Jordanian fired; Daniel rolled away.
Moments of silence, stretched cruelly long; his lungs threatened to burst.
Gavrieli groaned. The Jordanian turned, aimed, prepared to finish him off.
Daniel rose to his knees, grabbing the Uzi at the same lime. The Legionnaire heard it, realized what was happening, made c split-second decision-the right one-firing at the unwounded enemy.
Daniel had no chance to return fire. He dropped, felt the bullet shave his temple.
The Jordanian kept firing. Daniel molded himself into the earth, wanting to merge with it, to seek the safety of burial.
The fall had knocked the Uzi loose. It clatterd against a rock. The Jordanian swiveled and shot at it.
