On the Hills of God (40 page)

“You’ll learn.”

“He was like a brother to me. You could’ve saved him.”

“Too late now.”

“You let me down, Basim. You really did.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“No, damn it. I won’t.”

Basim wheeled back and gazed at his younger cousin. “Listen, Yousif. A
yahudi
is a
yahudi
to the core. When it comes to Palestine, everyone of them is and will always be our enemy. Don’t ever be fooled by their tears or their smiles.”

Before they reached the top, more gunshots opened up from below. Basim and Yousif spun around.

“Damn!” Basim said, aghast. “Look at all those men. At least fifty.”

Dark shadows of men were six or seven fields below. They would have been hard to recognize had they not moved. Quickly Basim hid behind a stone wall and started to fire back. So did the men on top of the hill. Yousif knelt down next to Basim. In the moment of danger he wanted to test whether or not he could shoot. But for the life of him he could not pull the trigger. Finally he gave up, knowing that it was not in him.

During a pause Basim ran to the hill top, followed by Yousif.

“Spread out,” Basim told his men, moving. “And aim well. We don’t have enough ammunition and this may be a long night. Also, look around the mountain slopes. Make sure we know all the directions they’re coming from.”

“What do you think they’re after?” Costa asked.

“These two hills,” he said, pointing, “control the road to the Jerusalem-Jaffa road. Maybe they’re trying to cut us off from Lydda and Ramleh. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“Do you think they may be invading the other hill too?” Salah Shaaban asked.

“Maybe,” Basim answered. “But Rassass and his men will do what we plan to do right here, give the bastards a lesson they’ll never forget.”

Like the men around him, Yousif cocked his ear to determine whether the opposite hill was being simultaneously invaded. Basim walked briskly, checking all sides of the mountain.

“Let me have the pistol,” a bicycle repairman, wearing shorts, said to Yousif.

Yousif handed it to him gladly and stood by watching. Basim returned to where Yousif was standing. Basim crouched behind a stone wall, fired cautiously, took his clips out, loaded and fired again. It was hard for Yousif to determine whether anyone was hit. Then he heard someone below shriek.

“They’re firing too much,” Basim said, referring to his own men. “Damn it, tell them to take their time. Tell them to wait until they get closer. I don’t care how many Jews there are. We can hold them.”

Yousif carried his cousin’s orders to all the fighters. “Basim says take your time,” he told them.

The mountain turned metallic. Violence bloomed. Bullets flew all around Yousif as he returned to watch the invaders below. They were now only four fields away. His worst fears were fast becoming real. He was in the midst of a war. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t fight. What should he do? Anguished and confused, he relied on prayers.

“Lord,” he murmured to himself, “I smell a plague. I hear the footsteps of the angel of Death echoing throughout the land. Rein him in, Lord. Stop him before he plunders, burns, and kills. Lift the evil spell off Your hills and restore peace, harmony, and contentment to the hearts of men. Make our enemies dream a different dream before we inflict so much pain on each other. On my knees, and in the name of Jesus, I beseech you, Lord, to stretch Your arms out and save
all
Your children.”

The hand of God did not muzzle the firing guns. Within half an hour Basim and his men were running short of ammunition. The enemy was pounding relentlessly. With all the firework, Yousif wondered why the British army had not come to stop the fighting. Until the Mandate was over, keeping the peace was still their responsibility. No doubt they were busy packing. May 15 was less than a month away.

“They are spreading out,” Omar hollered.

“I can see that,” Basim answered, running around to inspect the four slopes, his gun at the ready.

Yousif could see the Zionists in constant motion. Red fire punctuated the darkness.

“We must prevent them from outflanking us,” Basim commanded. “Omar, move that sub-machine gun fifty yards to your left. Jawad, move your Bren fifty yards to your right. Someone help them carry the stands. This way we’ll catch them in crossfire. In the meantime, we’ll keep the mortar in the center and I’ll handle it myself. But I need someone with me. Costa, come over here.”

“I don’t know how,” Costa whimpered.

“Never mind, I’ll show you,” Basim said.

Yousif was mortified. Ill-trained and ill-equipped, what saved them so far was the high ground. The whole mountain was rife with men anxious to kill each other. Movement below paralleled movement above. Bullets flashed and whizzed and echoed throughout the valley.

Yousif wished he could have another look at the dead soldier Basim had left to rot. Had he been in love with a girl like Salwa? How would she get the news? Would his family tell her or would she read it in the paper? Had the dead soldier’s mother missed him for supper that night? Was she now sitting somewhere in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv wringing her hands? Or had she died in one of Hitler’s camps, and her son had come to Palestine with fury in his heart? Yousif wished he could tell all mothers, Arab or Jewish, Kiss your husbands and children whenever they leave home.

When the two Bren sub-machine guns were in place, Basim ordered the gunners to open fire. Omar threw his fine blazer on a nearby stone wall and loosened his silk tie. Jawad rolled up his long sleeves and stomped his cigarette. Both responded to Basim’s command with relish. Yousif watched the impact of their onslaught on the Zionists four fields below. He could see them scampering in different directions. Some were leaping over stone walls, others falling to the ground.

Costa took out a pocketknife and gingerly opened a box full of bombs for the mortar. Yousif could see three rows of fours. They looked like cactus.

“Now what?” Costa asked.

Basim was busy adjusting the cross-leveling device and raising the barrel toward the sky. It seemed an odd angle for shooting downhill, Yousif thought.

“When I tell you, drop one in and get the hell out,” Basim told Costa. “The minute it hits the bottom of the tube a pin will puncture it and ignite the dynamite inside the shell. There’s no trigger to pull. The bomb will take off on its own. What I do is control the angle. Understand?”

“I guess,” Costa said, hesitant.

“Come on, let’s kill a few,” Basim told him.

Yousif shook his head and watched Costa take out a bomb. Out of the box it looked more like a light bulb: broad at one end, narrow at the other.

“Ready?” Basim asked.

“Here it comes,” Costa said, placing the bomb at the mouth of the barrel.

“No, no, no,” Basim said, alarmed. “Turn it around.”

Costa looked confused.

“It’s not a light bulb you’re screwing on,” Basim instructed him. “Broad base first.”

A bullet whizzed between Yousif and Basim. Had Yousif turned it would have caught him in the nose. It reminded him that they were not play-acting. Death had just whispered in his ear.

Basim didn’t even seem to notice the bullet that had almost cut him down. “O.K.,” he was telling Costa. “Drop it in and get out.”

Yousif stepped back a few yards and watched. Seconds after Costa had dropped the bomb in, it shot out at a frightening speed. It went up about two hundred yards and then zoomed down behind a stone wall four fields below, exploding on impact. Its noise was thunderous. Yousif could hear rocks tumbling down. He couldn’t tell if any Jews were killed, but he could see many of them running. A couple of them couldn’t run fast enough, for they were indeed caught in the crossfire. The immediate area surrounding the blast was covered with white phosphorous smoke. Before the swirling smoke cleared, Basim sent another bomb hurling at the enemy below.

“I want the bastards never to come back,” Basim said, gritting his teeth.

No sooner had he finished uttering the last word, than a bullet smashed into his right shoulder. Basim twitched but held onto the mortar with all his might. Yousif rushed closer to him, shocked. Death was inching closer and closer. But no bullet and no wound would stop Basim now. He went on angling the mortar, his shirt soaked with blood. His men saw him and tried to stop him, but he pushed them aside.

“Basim, you must stop,” Yousif insisted. “You’re bleeding.”

“Never mind,” Basim shot back like a man obsessed.

“But you must. You’re losing too much blood.”

“Then run along and get your father. I won’t leave this hill.”

Basim began giving orders, undaunted by his wound. From the looks of things, Yousif thought, Basim was losing too much blood. The least he could do was stop the bleeding until his father arrived.

Yousif rushed to the unfinished watchtower in which he had placed the First Aid kit, grabbed it, and went back to Basim.

“Didn’t I tell you to go and get your father?” Basim said, his left hand pressing his right shoulder. The handkerchief he was applying was soaking wet.

“Just let me do one thing first,” Yousif said.

Inside the kit were three bottles: iodine, alcohol, and peroxide. Yousif didn’t know which one to use to wash the wound. He decided not to use any; he’d let his father take care of that. He piled up ten or fifteen cotton balls, each as large as a small egg, then wrapped them all up in a gauze. He hoped to God he was doing the right thing. The memory of old man Abu Khalil’s mishandling of Amin’s arm was too fresh on his mind.

“Please, Basim,” Yousif said, “let me tape you and I’ll be on my way.”

A bullet whistled by a foot away from Yousif, and he belatedly ducked.

“See what I mean,” Basim told him, “I don’t have time to worry about a silly wound.”

Yousif touched his cousin’s shoulder. “It’s not silly. You’re losing too much blood.”

While Basim was rearranging the angle of firing, Yousif managed to unbutton him to see for himself. The underwear shirt was torn and wet. His own fingers became messy. He was trying to stop Basim’s bleeding, unfazed by the stickiness and smell. The bullet’s point of entry was about five inches below the armpit, more to the front than to the side. But Yousif could feel no exit wound in Basim’s side. The bullet was still trapped inside his body.

“Akhkhkhkhkh . . .” Basim hollered when Yousif accidentally touched the collar bone.

It felt fractured to Yousif’s sensitive finger tips. But it also must have blocked the bullet.

“I’m sorry,” Yousif said, removing his fingers swiftly. “But I think this broken collar bone saved your life.”

“And you may be endangering it right now,” Basim told him, “unless you get out of my way.”

“Just one more minute,” Yousif said, raising the T-shirt with one hand and applying the gauze and the cotton ball with the other. Only after he had finished taping him, did he realize what a hairy devil Basim was.

“How does it feel?” Yousif asked.

“O.K.,” Basim grunted, turning the mortar halfway toward Omar.

“One more thing, please,” Yousif said. “I need to bind you around the shoulder to cut the flow of blood.”

“Hey, be careful there!” Basim said. “What are you trying to do, kill me?”

From his tone Yousif could tell that Basim was having luck lobbing bombs in the midst of the enemy. Yousif humored him long enough to arrest the bleeding by binding and twisting a bandage tightly under the arm and over the shoulder.

Raising and lowering and turning the mortar’s barrel, Basim looked and acted as though he had never been hurt. “Get going,” Basim told Yousif. Then looking at the clumsy binding Yousif had just finished, he added: “Jesus! An army of amateurs!”

With bullets whistling and flashing up and down the hill, Yousif ran down the other side of the hill to his car and sped to town. Most of the lights were out. The streets were deserted. He rushed home and found his parents as he had expected—waiting.

“Basim has been wounded,” Yousif explained, excited.

“Good God!” his mother said, staring at his blood-stained fingers and shirt. “Are you wounded too?”

“Oh, no,” Yousif told her. “I just finished taping him.”

The doctor, who had been smoking his pipe and playing solitaire, dropped the cards and ran to get his jacket.

“Why didn’t you bring him down with you?” the doctor asked. “It would help if I could see what I’m doing. We’d better check the flashlight in the glove compartment to make sure the batteries aren’t dead.”

In the meantime Yousif ran to the bathroom to wash his hands. He ended up washing his face too, for blood was splattered on his cheeks and forehead. But he didn’t change clothes. There was no time.

“Hurry up, please,” Yousif said, drying himself with a fluffy yellow towel. “And I want you to know that my hands weren’t clean when I taped him. We don’t want a repetition of what happened to Amin.”

“I understand,” his father replied. “Anybody else hurt?”

“I heard a few screams,” Yousif answered, following him to the door. “I didn’t bring them with me, because I knew you’d be going up the hill to see about Basim.”