By now Ray Kerman, in company with Sergeant O'Hara and Sergeant Morgan, was on his way into the city in an Israeli armored car, speeding along Al-Qarantina Street toward the carnage at Haarat Al-Sheik. Out to the left they could hear the battle raging fiercely on the western side of the Jerusalem Road.
The Major knew there was nothing he could do at the scene of the catastrophe, but there must be something he could achieve at the scene of the fighting. When finally he swung into the fray, he was appalled by what he saw: a highly disciplined Army almost completely out of control; soldiers going berserk, charging forward in blind fury, killing anything or anyone that moved.
'Jesus Christ!' said Major Kerman, realizing immediately the Israeli troops had unwittingly been drawn into a Hamas stronghold, which the Palestinians would try to defend to the last. On the radio he already heard the Golani Commanders summoning more ambulances. God alone knew the state of the Arab fighters.
Right out in front of him he watched the battle, the Israeli troops moving into the Palestinian streets, still hurling grenades, still enraged by the massacre in the workshop, their machine guns raking buildings to the west of the Jerusalem Road.
Ray Kerman saw three Israelis priming handheld rocket launchers similar to the ones that had blown up their colleagues. When the first one fired, the damage was terrible, knocking down three houses, and causing certain 'civilian' casualties.
For the first time in his life, Ray Kerman was close to a feeling of shock. This had to be stopped. It was already out of hand, but it could still get a whole lot worse. And there was always the danger of another Arab nation joining the Palestinians, who would undoubtedly claim the Israeli Army had swooped on them in the small hours of an innocent Friday morning, and attacked innocent, law-abiding Arab citizens.
Ray could see the Paratroopers' forward Commander tucked into a doorway beyond the wasteland. Twenty feet away there were two of his men ripping out pins and flinging the hand grenades into the Arab street beyond the wall. No one was doing anything to stop this battle, and Ray assessed two glaring problems:
1. This was not winnable. Nothing good could come out of it for either side, only world headlines, more blood, sorrow, and tears.
2. The Israeli troops were now too widely scattered, and too full of fury to give up their hot pursuit of the Arabs who had blasted their colleagues to pieces.
As for the narrow street beyond the wall, it would be filled with women and children, all of whom were going to die if this firefight could not be halted. Major Kerman knew he stood an excellent chance of getting the blame for this personally. After all, a principal part of his job was to prevent this kind of thing. Any damned fool could cause chaos. The SAS were in the Negev, by invitation of the Government, to bring an element of clinical efficiency to the IDF.
This was a nightmare, and Ray seized his MP5 machine gun and helmet, and belted across the wasteland, to see the Paratroopers' Forward Commander. Already he could hear the rumble of Israeli tanks moving up to the front line of this sudden, unexpected conflict.
The IDF officer shrugged, and told the Major he could do nothing. 'Well, we could start off by withdrawing the rocket launchers and the grenades,' said Ray. 'That way we can begin to withdraw east to the dividing line. It's not as if we'll be pursued. It's up to us to stop this. No one is going to thank us for continuing. The Knesset will be furious.'
'Too late,' said the Commander. 'I'm not going over the wall — just leave it to the guys.'
'Then I'll go,' said the Major. 'Gunfire's one thing, blowing up Arab civilians in their homes is another.'
Ray made his way to the end of the wall and rounded it, crossed the street, and gained the cover of the houses on the right-hand side of the street. Crouching, he made his way forward to the gap in the row where two buildings had been blown sky-high. The next house was perfect. The top floor was gone, but there was cover on the street floor and he would be in yelling distance of the Paratroopers with the grenades and rockets.
He made the entrance, crashing through the door, and splintering the lock. Inside was rubble and the body of a man half hanging through the ceiling, plainly dead. Outside, the battle had, if anything, intensified, and the smell of cordite permeated everything. The gunfire was unceasing, and periodic explosions shook the entire street.
Ray exercised the SAS man's natural caution, kicking open a door to another empty but more or less intact room. There was only one more door, and Ray booted that open, and found himself standing at the top of a flight of stone stairs.
Just then a tremendous crash shook the remains of the building, showering plaster from the ceiling. The noise died away, and once more there was just the rattle of the gunfire, and the eerie crackling of burning, very close. In a split second Ray guessed the Palestinians had got a hold of some grenades of their own.
But then, he heard another noise, coming from deep in the cellar, somewhere near the bottom of the stone stairs. He fired a short volley into the gap, and roared a command in Arabic, 'COME OUT RIGHT NOW, HANDS HIGH… OR I'LL BLOW YOU TO HELL.'
Nothing. Every battle instinct Ray had told him this was trouble. For all he knew there were a half dozen fully armed Arabs down there, and there was no way he was going to test the theory.
Again he yelled for the surrender of all cellar dwellers. Again there was nothing. Another diabolical explosion, not thirty yards away, once more shook the building to its sandy foundations. But then, as the rumble died away, there was a lull in the gunfire, and Ray could hear distinctly the sound of sobbing, female sobbing.
'Jesus,' he muttered. 'I'm not ready for this.' But he began to walk down the stairs, pressed against the left-hand wall. When he reached the bottom, the sobbing was louder, as if a child was also crying.
Ray groped for a light switch, and to his amazement found one, and switched on a bare bulb on the low ceiling. He was still not in the room, and he inched forward, the machine gun held in front of him, ready to spit instant death at any foe.
But there was no foe. Just three terrified figures covered in dust, huddled in a corner, two of them children, neither of them more than six or seven years old. Their mother was dressed in a black chador, but the hood was pushed back. She was bareheaded, and her face was tearstained, and she was trembling helplessly, trying to hold her two children close to her.
The older, a little boy, had blood on his face from a cut deep in his hairline. The mother, a very beautiful Palestinian woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, stared at Ray through wide-set brown eyes, saying over and over, 'Please don't kill us… Please don't kill us… '
Ray had no intention of killing anyone, unless his life was threatened. He spoke in Arabic: 'I am a British officer, here to advise the military… You have no need to be afraid — at least not of me. You may stand up and we'll see about getting you out of here, somewhere safe.'
Ray Kerman had a better chance of stopping the battle than the young mother's tears. She sobbed uncontrollably, still clinging to the children. 'But the Israelis will kill us… My husband is dead… We have nowhere to go… '
'The first place we must go is out of this cellar,' he said, 'before the whole place caves in… Come on… up these stairs… '
They were all too frightened to move, and another thunderous explosion, outside in the street, again shook the house.
The mother tried to regain control, but she was shaking with fear, and she spoke again with difficulty, in Arabic: 'Please, please they will kill us if we go outside… We want to stay here… '
'What's your name?' asked Ray Kerman.
'Shakira.'
'Listen, Shakira. If we hang around down here, we just might get buried alive.'
'Well, we may not have long to live, before we go I must pray with my children… It's almost midday… We must pray for my husband… ' And then she stared at him, observing his dark eyes and complexion, and she asked, 'Are you a Muslim?'
'Not really,' he replied. Then he blurted out, 'But my parents both were.' It was a phrase he had never uttered to anyone, but he was desperate to gain her trust. They had to get out of that cellar.
'Then you should pray with us, sir. Allah is great.'
Ray stared back at Shakira. He could see she was slim and even more beautiful now she was standing. She had long dark hair, and an almost-perfect oval face, with the full lips of so many Arab women. Her little boy was holding a toy spaceship and clung to her hand, the daughter, around age five, clutched a teddy bear and was trying to wrap herself in her mother's robe.
