The Legionnaire stopped for a split second; then agony and shock seemed to double his strength. He struck out wildly, sunk his teeth in Daniel's shoulder and held on until Daniel broke three of his fingers, hearing them crack like twigs.

Incredibly, the Jordanian kept going. Gnashing and grunting, more machine than man, he pulled away from the murderous embrace, lifted the rifle, and brought the butt down on Daniel's solar plexus. The flesh-cushion lightened the impact of the blow but Daniel felt the air go out of him. He was swimmingin pain and momentarily helpless as the Jordanian raised the rifle again-not attempting to fire, trying to take the Jew's life in a more intimate manner: stabbing down with the bayonet, his eyeless socket a deep black hole, his mouth contorted in a silent howl.

I'm going to be killed by a ghost, thought Daniel, still sucking for air as the bayonet came down. He forced himself to roll; the blade made a dull sound as it sank into a corpse. As the Legionnaire yanked it loose, Daniel reached out to grab the weapon.

Not quick enough-the Jordanian had it again. But he was screaming now, begging Allah for mercy, clawing at his face. His eyeball was hanging from its cord, bobbing against his cheek, artificial-looking like some macabre theater prop. The reality of his injury had hit him.

Daniel tried to push himself upward, found himself swallowed by torsos and flaccid limbs

The Jordanian was trying to push the eye back in with his broken fingers. Fumbling pitifully as his other hand stabbed wildly with the bayonet.

Daniel grabbed for the moving weapon, touched metal, not wood. Felt the tip of the bayonet enter his left hand through the palm, a biting, searing pain that coursed down his arm and into the base of his spine. His eyes closed reflexively, his ears rang, he tried to break free, but his hand remained impaled bv the bayonet as the Jordanian pushed him down, twisting, destroying him.

It was that image of destruction, the thought of himself as just more human garbage added to the heap in the trench, that fueled him.

He raised both feet and kicked, arched his body upward like a rocket. The wounded hand remained pinioned, sinking into the corpse-cushion.

He was throwing the rest of himself at the Jordanian now, not caring about the fiery mass that had once been his left hand, just wanting something to remain intact.

Wrenching upward with abandon, he felt the blade churning, turning, severing nerves, ligaments, and tendons. Gritting his teeth, he traveled somewhere beyond pain as his boot made contact with the Jordanian's jaw and he was finally free.

The rifle fell to one side, tearing more of the hand. He pulled loose, liberated the ravaged tissue.

The Jordanian had recovered from the kick, was trying to bite him again. Daniel slammed the heel of his good hand under the bridge of the man's nose, went after him as he fell, ripping at his face like a jackal gone mad-tearing an ear off, gouging out the other eye, turning the enemy to garbage that whimpered helplessly as Daniel formed a talon with his undamaged hand and used it to crush the Jordanian's larynx.

He kept useless, leaking pad, but what else was there to do with it? Squeezing and clawing and forcing out the life spirit.

When the young Jordanian had stopped twitching, Daniel turned his head and vomited.

He collapsed, lay there for a second, atop the pile of bodies. Then gunfire and Gavrieli's whimpers brought him to his elbows. He foraged in the trench, managed to pull a bloody shirt off a corpse and used a clean corner of the garment to bind his hand, which now felt as if it had been fried in hot grease.

Then he crawled out of the trench and went to Gavrieli.

The commander was alive, his eyes open, but his breathing sounded bad-feeble and echoed by a dry rattle. Gavrieli struggled, tossing and shaking as Daniel labored to unbutton his shirt. Finally he got it open, inspected the wound, and found it a neat, smallish hole. He knew the exit side could be worse, but couldn't move Gavrieli to check. The bullet had entered the right side of the chest, missing the heart but probably puncturing a lung. Daniel put his face to the ground, touched blood, but not enough to make him give up hope.

"You're all right," he said.

Gavrieli lifted one eyebrow and coughed. His eyes fluttered with pain and he started to shiver.

Daniel held him for a while, then climbed back into the trench. Fighting back his own pain, he yanked combat jackets off of two dead Jordanians. Clambering back up, he used one for a blanket, rolled the other into a pillow and placed it under Gavrieli's feet.

He found Gavrieli's radio and whispered a medic call, identifying his location and the status of the rest of the company, informing the communications officer that the trench had been neutralized, then wriggled over to Kobi's body. The kibbutznik's mouth was open; other than that, he looked strangely dignified. Daniel closed the mouth and went searching for both the Uzis.

After several moments of groping in the dark, he found Kobi's, then his, handle dented but still functional. He brought the weapons back to where Gavrieli lay and huddled beside the wounded man. Then he waited.

The battle continued to rage, but it seemed distant, someone else's problem. He heard machine-gun fire from the north, a recoilless response that shook the hills.

Once, Gavrieli gasped and Daniel thought he'd stopped breathing. But after a moment his respiration returned, weak but steady. Daniel stayed close by, checking him, keeping him warm. Cradling the Uzis, his arm enveloped by pain that seemed oddly reassuring.

Suffering meant life.

It took an hour for the rescuers to arrive. When they put him on the stretcher, he started to cry.

Three months later Gavrieli came to visit him at the rehab center. It was a hot day, choked by humidity, and Daniel was sitting on a covered patio, hating life.

Gavrieli had a beach tan. He wore a white knit shirt and white shorts-apres tennis, very dashing. The lung was healed, he announced, as if the state of his health had been Daniel's primary worry. The cracked ribs had mended. There was some residual pain and he'd lost weight, but overall he felt terrific.

Daniel, on the other hand, had started seeing himself as a cripple and a savage. His depression was deep and dark, surrendering only to bouts of itchy irritability. Days went by in a numbing, gray haze. Nights were worse-he fell into smothering, terrifying dreams and awoke to hopeless mornings.

"You look good too," Gavrieli lied. He poured a glass of fruit punch and, when Daniel refused it, drank it himself. The discrepancy between their conditions embarrassed Gavrieli; he coughed, winced, as if to show Daniel that he, too, was damaged. Daniel wanted to tell him to leave, remained silent, bound by manners and rank.