Thieves in the Night (10 page)

About 1 A.M. a gale sprang up, with the suddenness and ferocity peculiar to these hills. Towards the east the clouds tore apart and for a minute the moon appeared, travelling rapidly across drifts of black steam; then the gap was filled up again with low. heavy clouds and an instant later the rain
came down in torrents, its hard, blinding jets lashing at the defenders' faces almost horizontally.

Since the first sharp gust of wind Joseph had felt by instinct that things were going wrong. The density of the rain made the searchlight practically useless. The glitter of the beam on the streaks of falling water produced a strangely theatrical effect, but behind this wavering curtain of white threads anything might indeed happen now. The youngster at Joseph's side became increasingly fidgety; Joseph had just pulled his head down with a hard grip on the back of his neck when the light suddenly went out. There was some confused shouting from the other dug-out and for a second Joseph felt touched by panic; he had the sensation of an icy jet injected into his veins. He fired three shots as a special treat aimlessly into the rain and regained his self-control. It took some time until his eyes became adjusted to the darkness; in the now total night around them the splash and splutter of the rain sounded louder while the firing of the enemy seemed more remote. He heard Reuben shout: “Cable short-circuited—nothing serious—pass it on,” and he passed the message on to the Auxiliary crouching in the connecting trench to his left. He thought that the ancient tongue never sounded more melodious than when shouted through wind and rain in the night; it was a wild and tragic language unfit for small talk. The cloudburst seemed on the point of exhausting its power, the rush of water sounded thinner, and Joseph became aware that for some time already the noise of the enemy's firing had changed in character: instead of single shots one could now hear the steady rattle of an automatic, a Lewis or a Bren. Apparently they had received reinforcements.

He was still digesting this when a dull explosion made them all jump. It had come from behind them, from the direction of the square. Reuben yelled a command over Joseph's head which Joseph did not catch, but he saw the Auxiliary jump out of the trench and run with his head bent towards the
square. “The others stay,” Reuben yelled, and Joseph turned once again towards the attackers. In all his anxiety he thought that Reuben was a brick, and that it was a great comfort to obey blindly instead of having to decide what to do. The enemy's firing now sounded much nearer, and Joseph wondered whether they had really got into the hollow. In a surprisingly short time he heard the splashing footsteps of the Auxiliary running back through the mud. “Nothing,” he shouted while jumping back into the trench. “Only tent B collapsed. Pass it on.” Joseph passed it on, and for the next few minutes he was busy shooting at a great number of gun-flashes which now were definitely nearer on this side of the hump; the enemy was obviously advancing towards the hollow, and both Reuben and Bauman were now using their automatics practically without pause. The noise became deafening, the squall had once more increased to its maximum strength, everything was dark and hellish. Joseph aimed and fired in quick succession at target-flashes which now seemed only a few yards away; he felt his head swim and yet his fingers worked with smooth precision; somewhere at the back of his mind a last spark of self-consciousness marvelled at the nimble automaton which his body had become. He was aware of two sharp explosions in quick succession only a few yards ahead of him; in the reddish bengal flashes which accompanied the detonations the silhouette of the barbed wire emerged like a vision of a delicate etching, and vanished again; then he realised that Reuben was throwing hand grenades at the barbed wire, his long dark arm swinging forward and back like a flail. Judging by the frequency of the explosions, Bauman and somebody on the other side were also throwing grenades. “Give, give!” he yelled at Reuben, but Reuben bent over him across the crouching Naphtali and said quite calmly: “No need. It was only to make sure they haven't crept up to the barbed wire.”

Joseph took that to mean that they hadn't, and felt relieved, though he did not understand how Reuben could tell. But his intellectual curiosity had left him entirely, and his only
desire was to be an automaton and obey. The shooting calmed down a little, and then Joseph saw a vicious gun-flash directly in the line of his aim, and almost simultaneously he fired. He could not say why, but this time the act of pulling the trigger and the report seemed to be different from all the previous occasions and the wild idea crossed his brain that, just as some women were supposed to know by instinct the moment when they conceived, so a man might know the moment when he has killed. In fact, he was convinced of having hit; he had the almost physical sensation of his bullet having been stopped by, and buried in, some dully and elastically resisting matter. A moment later the searchlight was on again.

A wild cheer went up from the trench and Joseph felt the conviction sweep through his whole body that from now on they were safe. It was a sensation like drinking something hot and sugary when very tired; its sweet warmth seemed to penetrate into all his tissues. Only now did he realise that his feet were all a-tremble and his knees on the point of giving way. He pulled a drenched cigarette out of his pocket but it disintegrated between his fingers.

The return of the light seemed to have a demoralising effect on the raiders. Their fire became rather desultory and more distant. Doubtless they were retreating behind the farther slope of their hillock. That white, dazzling eye staring at them from its height like a watchful giant's, and its majestic, slow movement must be an uncanny sensation for them.

Joseph badly wanted a cigarette and asked Naphtali whether he had a dry one, but the youngster gave no answer. He crouched in a curiously huddled-up position against the back of the parapet, and Joseph thought he had perhaps fainted. He went down on his knees by Naphtali's side, reproaching himself for not having looked after him better, and groped for his face. Instead of a face his fingers found a soft, dripping mess and his forefinger went straight into some slushy cavity. He withdrew his hand with a cry and began shaking it wildly through the air as if he had burnt it. Reuben flashed his torch
on the youngster and Joseph saw what he had touched, but only for a second. He turned to the other side and vomited.

The youngster by the name of Naphtali had kept some hold on himself until the light went out. From that moment he had been a shaking, teeth-chattering bundle of horror. His brain, paralysed by toxic fear, held only one idea: that the killers had got into the hollow and would in the next second burst through the barbed wire. When Reuben started throwing his hand grenades, Naphtali finally went off his head. He jumped up and down on one spot, gurgling inarticulate sounds and biting his clenched fists. His neighbours were too busy to pay any attention to him. He went on leaping into the air like a joyful child, gurgling and whimpering, until something hit him massively in the eye. He thought it was Reuben, angry because he had not kept his head down; and that Reuben did not have to hit him so hard. He saw great coloured circles spinning and crossing each other like flaming hoops that jugglers throw into the air, and everything became rather quiet; only one last fiery wheel kept turning and expanding, until it too faded and only darkness and peace remained.

About 4 A.M. it became clear that the attack had been beaten off. No shot had been fired during the last half-hour; the raiders must have returned to their own hills, anxious to reach their hide-outs before daybreak. Bauman sent the men to sleep, keeping only those on guard duty in the dug-outs.

Joseph felt that he would be unable to sleep and decided to look in at the first-aid tent, hoping that Dina might still be on duty. He had learned that, besides Naphtali who was dead, two men had been wounded at the height of the attack: one of the Auxiliaries had been shot through the chest, and Mendl
had received a bullet in his arm while repairing the electric cable, but had gone on until he had finished the job. Stamping through the mud with his torch, Joseph thought that his feet had never in his life felt so heavy. His mind was in a dreamy, floating haze, while his whole body seemed imbued with the consciousness of gravity. This, he thought, is what people on Jupiter must feel like, where every object weighs three times heavier than on the Earth. I wonder whether Jupiter too has its Jews…. No doubt it has; no species would be complete without its Jews; they are the exposed nerve, an extreme condition of life…. There was light showing from the first-aid tent; he lifted the flap and saw Dina making Turkish coffee over a spirit-lamp as if she were waiting for him. On a stretcher on the floor lay the wounded Auxiliary, covered with a rug, asleep. Dina had put the bright acetylene lamp out and lit candles instead. She seemed pleased to see him. He leaned his rifle carefully against the canvas and with a feeling of bliss squatted down on the floor. “Where is Mendl?” he asked in a whisper.

“He is all right,” she said. “It was only a flesh wound and he went to sleep in his own bed with his mouth-organ under the pillow.—You need not whisper; he's had a shot of morphia.” She spoke in a low murmur which sounded less strained than whispering, and more intimate. “They are going to send the ambulance car from Gan Tamar first thing to-morrow morning.

“It is to-morrow already,” said Joseph.

She let a drop of cold water fall on the thick brown liquid in the shiny copper pot and poured it out into two small cups. Joseph sipped it voluptuously, leaning his back against the foot of the chair.

Dina had a leather jacket wrapped round her shoulders, with its empty sleeves hanging down. She seemed to be shivering. There were dark-blue shadows under the lighter blue of her eyes and her hair kept falling into her face as if it were too tired to remain in its proper place.

“Would you like to wash your face?” she asked after a while. He touched his face with his fingers; it was all grimy. He grinned, slowly shaking his head. “Too lazy,” he said. “Just let me sit for a while. You need not look at me.”

He closed his eyes and after a while opened them again and saw that she was looking at him with a kind of approval.

“Reuben looked in before you came,” she said. “He mentioned that you had done quite well.”

So Dina had specially inquired after him, Joseph thought happily. And Reuben had approved of him. He suddenly felt the tears shoot into his eyes. Oh, it was good to be approved of. There was nothing better than to be approved of—to like and be liked. In that moment he was so full of a warm, simple certainty about everything that he felt no shame and no need to pose. He leaned his head against the foot of her chair, closed his eyes and let the tears run down his face. He felt that in this moment of abandon he lost his last chance of ever winning her. But the bliss of surrender, of shedding all pretence, was stronger than his desire. It is finished, he thought, for it is I who am giving myself, not she….

The next time he opened his eyes he knew that he must have slept though he could not remember it. The candle had grown short and old, covered with knobs of tallow like a warted gnome. Dina had slumped down in her chair and was resting with her cheek on his shoulder, asleep. At a slight movement of his she woke and moved her head away. “It will soon be day,” she said in a murmur.

“Another hour,” said Joseph.

She lay back in her chair, shivering. The Auxiliary on the stretcher moved in his sleep. “How did Naphtali die?” she asked after a while.

“I don't know. We should have watched him….” He remembered the unutterable contact of his hand with the slushy mass, and remained silent.

“Poor Naphtali,” said Dina. “I never liked him.”

Joseph said nothing; he felt no desire to speak or to move;
he only wished he could remain there, for a while, leaning against the chair, limp and desireless.

“You know,” said Dina, “I have never understood why you joined us. You don't really fit in here.”

“Do you?” he said.

“That's different…. But even by race you only half belong to us.”

“I have opted for the belonging half.”

“But why? You would be happier among the others. Why won't you tell?”

“There was some incident.” “What incident?”

“Is this a confessional?” he asked tiredly.

They remained silent for a while; he could feel through the chair, acting as a conductor, that she shivered. The Auxiliary on the stretcher moaned. Dina got up and smoothed his blanket. Her teeth were chattering.

“It is cold,” she said. “I must lie down.”

“All right,” said Joseph. “I will go.” He started wearily to scramble to his feet.

“But you needn't,” said Dina. She slid down to the floor and touched his face with her lips, “Will you let me sleep with my head on your arm?” she asked, lying down at a little distance from him and pulling the blanket over both of them. “But please don't do anything.”

“No,” he said, lying stiff and frozen with the soft warm weight on his arm. “Sleep, Dina, you are safe; we are both safe here.”

She breathed quietly against his head. After a while she asked:

“Was it very bad—the shooting?”

“No,” he said. “It was all bluff and bluster, like everything these Arabs do.”

After another while she said timidly:

“Is it very beastly of me to lie on your arm and ask you to keep still?”

He did not answer at once. Then he swallowed and said huskily:

“Anything you like, darling. Darling, anything you like.”

He could not go to sleep again. Instead his thoughts travelled once more back the worn path to the Incident. He wished he could bring himself to tell Dina about it, but shame and the fear of ridicule always held him back. It was such a squalid and grotesque story that he could not expect even her to understand its influence on his life.