Day of War (19 page)

Gareb had supported David once. He’d thought what Saul had done to him was awful, but that was years in the past. Now, he could not understand why the man would abandon his brothers to slaughter at the hands of pagan Philistines. He knew Jonathan wanted to join David—he could tell when they spoke — but he didn’t understand it. Jonathan was more a man than David could hope to be: loyal, true, and faithful to his fellow Israelites until the end. Which is today, Gareb thought. Faithful and loyal and dead.

Saul continued facing his army silently, then turned around, raised his arms, and shouted something. A challenge. He wanted the Philistines to come. He was provoking them.

Water bag in hand, Eliam watched Saul yell at the Philistines. He rehearsed in his head everything he was supposed to do: Run the water to the lines when men retreated for rest, pull out bodies as they fell so that no one tripped, and plug the hole in the lines if
one opened nearby. And watch what the armor bearers did. Every major leader had an armor bearer who would be supporting them. But surely that was madness. How would he possibly see them in the fray?

There were more Philistines than he could count, against just a handful of Israelites. Eliam watched the Israelite soldiers mutter and joke and laugh nervously. Strange, how they did that right before battle.

Eliam clutched the water skin in his shaking hands. He was cold. The sun was out, but he was cold. Everything Gareb had said was coming true.

Then came a massive yell, and the echo of it rolled among the rocks, sounding as though it was everywhere at once. The Philistines were yelling, advancing now at a run. But it had happened so quickly! That was it? No other buildup? He had expected a long, drawn-out series of taunts and silences, but now there was yelling and the first ranks of Israelites were rushing downhill to meet their enemy. They moved in close formation, with shoulders touching. Then they met the first ranks of the Philistines and began to strike low.

It all seemed slow and unreal. Numb, Eliam watched helplessly as the men struggled and pressed, then started moving so slowly that Eliam half thought they would eventually sit down and take naps together. From where he was sitting, it looked as if there was nothing happening at all, just men swinging shiny objects and scuffling as if playing together.

A shout. Someone pointed at him, and he stood and ran forward, seeing the first ranks of Israelites falling back for rest. He reached a man, and immediately the noise of battle finally hit him. Screams and shouting and cries for help, clanging of swords and axes on shields and flesh.

The soldier took the water pouch from him, his face covered in
thin bright blood, his breathing raspy. He drank, then threw the skin back. Eliam picked it up and ran back to the supply tent to refill it.

He struggled for balance among the rocks as he sprinted, expecting to feel an arrow bury itself between his shoulders at any moment. He reached the tent doubled over, panting, exhausted from the uphill sprint. Eliam wiped his face, heard the screams, wiped his face again, and snatched another skin. He made eye contact with the boy refilling the water skins from larger containers they had filled from the spring below.

Back down the slope, he saw the fight spreading along the side of the mountain. But where were the archers? No arrows had flown.

Eliam climbed to the top of a boulder in several quick steps. Finally able to see over the heads of the Israelites, he saw that only part of the Philistine army was pressing up the hill. They had still not sent the full force. Even the archers were still down the slope. He leapt from the boulder and ran downhill, filled now with dismay. The men were fighting hard, holding their lines, but there were not enough of them.

The sun relentlessly drained him of energy. He ran better in the evenings and in the cool of a forest, not in the brightness of the sun.

Another man shouted over the noise, close by, and Eliam ran to him, water splashing over his chest and sand spraying his face. The soldier took it, thanked him, poured the water over his head, took a long drink, and handed it back to him. The battle moved even slower now. The men were getting tired along the front ranks, and the replacements were slow to move forward. The Philistines would be putting fresh troops in at any moment.

Eliam turned and ran back up the slope.

Jonathan looked back toward the forest and shook his head violently. Put the thought away. Never again.

He ran from the tree line and into the open field, ashamed of his hesitation. The battle had begun, and he was angry at himself for hiding in the trees. With leaping strides he reached his equipment, checking as he ran the progress of the Philistine push. His father was in command, a short way behind the lines, but Jonathan’s regiment was moving sluggishly and chaotically.

He picked up his sword and shield. No armor this day — he needed to move quickly, to finish well. He snatched up his bow and quiver and ran down the mountainside to his lines.

The men were disorganized and tired but holding. They were good men, and he would not abandon them again. Forget the desert.

Jonathan stopped himself by planting his foot against a boulder and pulled an arrow out of the quiver, fixing it in place and releasing in a single motion. The shaft spun through the dusty battle lines and hit a Philistine officer so hard that the breaking of the man’s ribs could be heard across the field. He fell sideways, his face wide-eyed with shock, unable to shout or breathe from the impact.

Another arrow, another officer crashed to the earth, and Jonathan screamed with anger as he fixed a final arrow and drew the bow back as far as his strength would allow. Across the haze of the slope he saw several rows of officers wearing fish-scale armor. They were pointing at him and ordering their men to advance, assuming they were too far out of his range to be endangered.

Jonathan held the string next to his cheek, feeling the wispy sinews on his lips, and aimed the tip two cubits over the head of the closest man. He watched the dust to gauge the wind direction and moved the tip slightly to his left. Two cubits high, two cubits left.

The officer he aimed for was clearly the one in charge of that side of the front, driving his men forward and almost penetrating the
Hebrew lines. Next to him was an armor bearer. Jonathan’s elbow ached from the strain, but he held his breath once more to steady it. He thought of the old saying David’s warriors used.

Praise to our God, and arrows to our enemies.

The tip whistled away suddenly, disappearing in the immense dust cloud obscuring the battlefield. Jonathan could not follow its path, but as he began to run again, he saw the officer’s head jerk to the side. As he pulled out his sword and ran in the direction of his own lines, a gap formed in the center of the Philistine rank.

The arrow had sliced through the neck of the first officer, almost severing his head, and embedded itself in the throat of the shield bearer.

Philistine discipline broke for the moment, and the troops pulled back from the assault, terrified by the warrior who had struck down two of the mightiest fighters on the field from such a distance.

Jonathan reached his own men and elbowed his way forward, shouting encouragement and trying to reach the front. Some who saw him cried out in relief and gave the regiment’s war cry. Jonathan forced his way through the ranks past his men and came out directly in front of a Philistine’s shield.

He raised his own shield and struck hard, shattering the man’s teeth and knocking him backward into his troops. He slashed downward with the sword and killed him, then leaped away from a blow by another.

He darted straight ahead, across the short gap between the two armies, and past and through the surprised ranks of Philistines, until he was directly behind their first line. It was so bold a move that the Israelite soldiers believed him slain and began to wail, until at last he emerged between the helmets of their enemies, alone and moving fast.

The enemy soldiers still faced toward the Israelites, unaware of
the break in their ranks. Jonathan was free to dart behind them, severing tendons that crippled their legs forever. He moved so swiftly that none of the Philistines even noticed him, and many fell, clutching their useless legs. He ran hard, ignoring the sweat in his eyes, and swept his blade again and again.

As he ran, on his left up the slope was the first rank of Philistines he was attacking, and on his right down the slope was the second wave making its way up the mountain. Philistines in the second wave pointed at him and shouted, but he ignored them, yelling and cutting. An arrow flew past his head and buried itself in the back of the Philistine soldier next to him, then another arrow did the same. The archers were firing at him foolishly as he ran among their own men.

Jonathan’s heart was pounding blood through his veins so hard that he thought it would erupt from his chest. He sliced, bringing down many men without them even being aware of him. A sound penetrated his concentration: the Israelites cheering him. He looked back. The entire left flank of the Philistine assault had been beaten back. Keep moving, don’t stop, need to move, he ordered himself.

The next wave of assault came, but he was still behind the first rank of Philistines, and the commanders of the Philistine archer regiment had ceased their men from firing. Holding his bloody sword over his head and waving his shield, muscles burning, Jonathan bellowed a war cry to his men, who returned it. They fought harder.

He turned slightly to the right, down the hill, and before the startled Philistines could react, he burst through the second wave of them, another one-man attack right into the mouth of the monster, calling aloud, calling for the covering, shouting and swinging his sword at any exposed flesh that came in front of him.

He reached the last of the second wave and shoved through it, feeling a sudden burn as a blade cut across his side. It wasn’t deep,
so he ignored it and turned back uphill, toward the forest, and staying behind the second rank of men, starting to run and cut once more. Men fell screaming, and he screamed also.

His blade moved and flashed. Philistines dropped. Their archers, waiting for their chance, were nevertheless held back by their officers, probably because they saw how thin the ranks of the Israelites were — too thin for archers to be effective.

Jonathan ran, swung his sword, and stumbled over rocks. His arm ached, but he willed it up again. The fire was coming. He felt it increasing and burning and raging into his body.

The archers began firing arrows at him again, and he held up his shield, hearing the clanking and pounding against it from the iron tips, and feeling the sweat blur his vision. Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.

He drove his sword into the neck of a terrified archer and felt the wash of blood as it sprayed him. It felt warm and good, as it had in the old days. He laughed deliriously. Before he realized it, he had reached the flank of the Philistine line.

One last man, another archer, stood at the end of the line. Jonathan feinted as the Philistine stabbed wildly with the staff of his bow. Then the Philistine turned and tried to flee, but Jonathan ran up behind him, thrust his sword through the man’s back, and forced it upward. The tip exited the man’s throat. The Philistine seized violently, shaking and coughing blood.

Jonathan let the man slide off his blade and drop. Battle rage had taken over. He charged up and over rocks to his men, who faced him, shouting.

The Philistines had ceased their assault for the moment, regrouping after the surprise attack from the rear. Commanders, afraid to lose even more troops to the Hebrew demon warrior, pulled their ranks back and reformed skirmish lines. There was shouting, but for now it was calm on this side of the field.

He threw the sword to the ground and fell forward, collapsing onto his shield, too tired to look up, letting his face fall into the dirt. Around him were the cheers and shouts and the war cry of his regiment — his men, the regiment he had trained and led and fought with, called out to him. But he lay still, listening to his breath, letting himself heal.

Gareb had seen Jonathan rush out of the forest, press through the line, and crash directly through the ranks of the Philistines. It was an attack worthy of a madman, and now he shouted alongside the other men in jubilation. There was a man, he thought, and he charged forward. There would be no one left among them at the end of this day to write the song about it, and none of their own people would remember, but it did not matter.

It would be remembered by the Philistines.

Eliam struggled to pick up the water again, unable to believe that he could make another trip back up the mountain. Blisters and raw skin covered his hands, and his toes were bloody from striking against rocks. He had no idea how long it had been since the battle started, but he was surprised to see the sun a good distance lower in the sky. It was confusing—how could it have gotten so much lower?

He cursed the pain in his foot from the arrow that had struck him during his last climb up the mountain for water. He’d managed to break off the shaft, but the head was still buried deep between the bones of his foot.

And then he was angry—angry that the stupid arrow had managed
to fly perfectly toward his foot. It could not have been aimed at his foot, only fired randomly through the air by some lazy Philistine archer, and it had been a perfect shot. Of all the ways to be wounded, he thought, furiously biting down on the broken shaft he had put between his teeth to control the pain.

He stumbled and fell, dropping the water skin, then watched in horror as the precious liquid disappeared into the sand. He cursed and beat the ground with his fists, then bit down harder on the wooden shaft. He reached down in another effort to loosen the buried arrowhead, but if anything he only pushed it further in. The point had exited through the bottom of his foot, and he could feel it stuck into the sole of his sandal. There was screaming and shouting all around him. He was closer to the lines than he’d thought.