Exodus - Leon Uris [287]
“They’re trying to work themselves into a heroic lather,” Ari said.
The disciplined forces of the Jews showed neither their faces nor their guns, though each man found it hard to remain controlled under the chilling abuse of the Arabs.
After twenty moments of ranting there was a sudden eruption from the knoll as irregulars poured down with unearthly shrieks, sabers and bayonets flashing a steel silhouette against the sky.
The first phase of Ari’s defense would now receive a test. Each night he had sent patrols out to plant homemade land mines which could be detonated from inside Gan Dafna. The mines formed a corrider and were so placed to compress the Arabs toward the middle of the ravine.
Zev Gilboa, in the forwardmost position, waited until the Arab charge was in full fury. When the horde of men reached the mine field, Zev held up a green flag. Inside Gan Dafna, Ari set off the charges.
Twenty mines, ten on each side, blew up at once. The roar shook the mountainside. The mines exploded on the fringe of the mob, which immediately squeezed together and rushed right down the funnel of the ravine.
On the sides of the ravine Ari had placed his forty Palmach troops, the two machine guns, and all the grenades and fire bombs in the arsenal. As the Arabs passed directly under them the Palmach opened up a cross-fire with the two guns and turned the ravine into a gory turkey shoot. Flames erupted from the fire bombs and turned dozens of the irregulars into human torches, while the Palmach hurled a torrent of grenades among them.
In addition the Palmach set off strings of firecrackers, while from loud-speakers in the trees came a recording of booming explosions. The continued din of the real and artificial arms was deafening and terrifying.
Inside Fort Esther, Mohammed Kassi frantically called for artillery to clean off the sides of the ravine. The excited Arab gunners opened fire and landed half of their shells among their own men. Finally they managed to silence one Palmach machine gun.
The advance Arab force had been cut down like cordwood, but still they poured in. They had been stimulated to such frenzy that their thrust was now that of men insane with fear.
The second machine gun stopped firing when its barrel burned out. The Palmach quit its position on the sides of the ravine and dropped back into Gan Dafna before the unabated onslaught. The Arabs’ rush came to within a hundred yards of the village in disorganized knots of screaming men. David Ben Ami had the cover off the barricaded and sandbagged Hungarian antitank gun. The projectiles had been modified and each of the five rounds now contained two thousand shotgun pellets. If the gun worked properly it would have the effect of a battery of men firing at once.
The leading bunched mass of maddened Arabs rolled to within fifty yards ... forty ... thirty ... twenty ...
The sweat poured down David Ben Ami’s face as he sighted the gun at point-blank range.
Ten yards ...
“Fire one!”
The ancient antitank gun bounced off the ground and spewed pellets into the faces of the chargers. Bloodcurdling shrieks mingled with smoke, and through it, as he swiftly reloaded, David glimpsed piles of men lying dead or wounded within yards of the gun and others staggering back in blind shock.
The second wave came in behind the first.
“Fire two!”
The second wave went down in slaughter.
“Fire three!”
The barrel blew off the gun and she was finished, but she had done her work. In three shots the buckshot cannister sprays had dropped nearly two hundred men. The momentum of the drive was halted.
A last assault was tried. A hundred Arabs again reached the edge of Gan Dafna, to be met by a broadside from Jordana Ben Canaan’s entrenched Gadna youths.
Bewildered and bleeding, the Arab survivors now scrambled back up the death-filled ravine. As they retreated, Zev Gilboa yelled out for the Palmach troops to follow him. The shepherd led his forty fighters after several hundred running Arabs. He chased them back