Moonlight shone silver on the black harbour waters as Ruth walked along the darkened dockside. To her right, she could see the vacant warehouse where the lookout would be waiting, signal torch at the ready, and ahead, to the left, the main wharf jutted out into the harbour. In the gloom she could not make out the shipment and enclosure, but halfway along the wharf she could see the glow of a lamp.

After weeks of training in sturdy trousers and men’s shirts, she was conscious of the unfamiliar feel of her skirt and blouse – the skirt a little too tight, the blouse exposing her skin to the gentle spring breeze off the water. Her feet seemed slightly unsteady, too, in the strangeness of high-heeled shoes. Or perhaps it was nerves, she thought. But she didn’t feel nervous. She felt energised and focussed, and more alive than she’d been in years.

She turned left onto the main wharf and walked towards the glow of the lamp, aware of the tapping of her heels, wondering if the assault force could hear her. They might well be beneath her very feet right now, and she pictured them, climbing among the beams and pylons, making their way under the wharf to take up their positions in preparation for the attack.

She could see the compound clearly now. Coils of barbed wire, silhouetted in the light of the lamp that hung from a pole beside the gate, and, beyond the wire, the huge shadowy shapes of crates and boxes piled high. She didn’t alter her pace, but walked on.

‘Halt! Who goes there?’

The voice came out of the darkness. She guessed the accent to be that of a Londoner, but she couldn’t see the soldier. She couldn’t see any of the guards.

‘I am sorry …’ she said in the heavily French-accented English she’d been practising all afternoon. ‘I mean no harm …’

‘Step into the light.’

She walked the twenty yards to the gate and stepped into the pool of light.

‘Identify yourself,’ the Cockney voice barked.

‘Simone Renet,’ she said. ‘Please … I mean no harm.’

Tom Baker lowered the .303 he’d had trained upon the shadowy figure of the intruder and, through the barbed wire, he eyed the woman up and down. She was a looker, he thought, she had to be a pro. He walked the several yards from the guard hut, where he’d been standing, to the gate and the spillage of light.

‘You’re a bit off the beaten path, aren’t you, love?’ he said.

Ruth gave the nervous laugh of a frightened woman relieved to see a friendly face.

‘Bonsoir,’ she said. It was the sergeant, she noted. The lookout had reported that the captain, a creature of habit as Eli had hoped, had left at nine o’clock as he’d done the preceding two nights. But where were the other four guards? In the glare of the light, she couldn’t see them.

‘You French then?’ the sergeant asked.

‘Oui,’ she smiled, ‘I am French.’

‘Long way from home, aren’t you? What can I do you for?’ He gave her a wink and laughed at his joke, but the innuendo was plain.

Ruth played ignorant. ‘Oui,’ she said, ‘I am very long way from home. That is why I come here. You can help me? Please?’ As she looked appealingly at him, she could hear movement further along the enclosure. Like moths to a flame, the other guards were coming in for a closer look.

‘I’ll do whatever I can, love, that’s for sure,’ Tom said, aware of Cliff and Bill sidling up behind him. ‘What you after then?’

‘A ship, it will leave from here soon, yes?’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

‘I wish for passage to Europe.’ She could see the figures of two of the guards standing behind the sergeant, just out of the spill of light. ‘You can help me?’ she implored.

‘Well, now …’ Tom cast a lascivious glance at Cliff and Bill. ‘That depends on our Captain, doesn’t it? He’s the chap you’d need to see, but he’s not here right now. Would you care to wait?’

She appeared to hesitate. ‘How long he will be?’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t say more than ten minutes or so, what do you reckon?’ Tom looked a query at the two soldiers. They were standing either side of him now, plainly visible and openly gawking at the French woman’s breasts.

‘Oh yeah,’ one of them said, ‘the Captain’ll be back any minute now.’

Bill had got the message loud and clear. The Captain wouldn’t be back for a good hour yet, he’d be dining out with his mates who were stationed in the nearby barracks. Plenty of time for them to have some fun. He turned and gave a nod to Stan and Godfrey, who were in the shadows behind him, their eyes glued on the French woman.

‘You want to come in then?’ Tom asked.

Again, she hesitated, looking from man to man, uncertain, and Tom thought that perhaps she wasn’t a prostitute at all. The swell of her breasts beneath the open-necked blouse and the shapely legs beneath the short skirt had distracted him. She was French, he told himself, and French women dressed different from English women. There was a real touch of class about her, he thought.

Behind the three soldiers, Ruth could make out the shapes of two other figures.

‘Oh I do not know I can wait,’ she said, looking about nervous and uncertain, a vulnerable woman.

‘’Course you can, love,’ Tom said reassuringly, ‘come on in and we’ll make you a cup of tea.’ He nodded to Bill who opened the gate.

‘A cup of tea,’ she said, ‘that would be nice.’

As she was ushered through the gate, Tom made the introductions.

‘I’m Tom,’ he said, ‘and this is Bill and Cliff.’ The men nodded and ogled and she nodded in return. ‘And this is Godfrey and Stan,’ Tom said as the other two soldiers joined them.

‘Hello,’ she smiled. Five guards, the full complement, excellent, she thought.

‘Put the lamp on, Stan,’ Tom said, as he took her arm. French women always liked you to take their arm, he thought. Well, they did in the pictures – he’d never actually met a French woman before.

Stan went on ahead as Tom escorted her through the dark, the others following, to the prefabricated hut.

‘So where you from, love? Gay Paree?’ Tom said it as a joke for the benefit of the men, but she nodded.

‘Oui. I am from Paris.’

‘Oh, really!’ He cast a none too subtle look at his mate Bill. You know what they say about women from Paris. ‘Gay Paree, the city of love, I’m told.’ Tom considered himself a bit of a wag.

They’d reached the guard hut, which was suddenly illuminated, Stan having lit the kerosene lamp inside. He stepped out into the compound and held the door open for her, but she seemed reluctant to enter.

Tom, presuming she was nervous, gave her arm a comforting pat, trying not to stroke the bare skin as he would have liked to have done.

‘Don’t you worry, love,’ he said heartily, to put her at her ease. ‘We’ll plead your case with the Captain when he gets back, he listens to us, he does.’ As if the Captain ever listened to a word they said! The Captain was a pig. ‘He’s a good man, isn’t that right, Bill?’

‘My oath he is.’ Bill was a Yorkshireman. ‘Captain’ll see you right, don’t you fret about that.’

‘Oh I would be so very grateful.’ She looked around at the men, careful to engage the eyes of each one. ‘I will do anything to get home,’ she said. Then she aimed the promise directly at Tom: ‘Anything at all.’

Blimey, if that wasn’t an offer, Tom thought, then he didn’t know what was. She wasn’t bloody nervous at all, her look was as bold as brass, and his cock was already rising to the occasion.

‘I’m due for me break about now,’ he said. ‘Come on in and I’ll get you that cuppa.’

She stepped into the hut and he followed her, with a wink to the boys.

As the sergeant closed the door behind him, Ruth quickly undid the buttons of her blouse, giving the men who were watching through the window a show of their own as they waited their turn.

‘Jesus!’ Tom exclaimed. He’d been about to make the pretence of lighting the primus stove, but when he’d turned from the door, there she was, blatantly bare-breasted. Her blouse was open, she wasn’t wearing a brassiere, and Tom thought that, in the whole of his life, he’d never seen such a great set of tits. He fell upon them, convinced that all his Christmases had come at once.

‘Oh Jesus …’ His hands were all over the place, he was fumbling with his trousers and trying to grope her breasts at the same time.

Then, suddenly, she was taking over for him. She had his trousers undone, she had his cock in her hand and she was wriggling her skirt right up to her waist.

Oh, Jesus Christ, he thought, she wasn’t wearing any panties. He was going to come any moment, and he wasn’t even inside her. He thrust himself furiously between her thighs, feeling her mound and pubic hair. ‘Oh God,’ he muttered, ‘God, God, God.’

Leaning back against the wall of the hut, Ruth hooked a leg around the man’s buttocks, and, fingers encircling his clumsily frantic penis, she guided it to its target. But her peripheral vision was trained on the window, and the four men watching, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Suddenly, there was movement behind them and the brief sounds of a scuffle.

‘Oui, oui,’ she whispered passionately in his ear to muffle the noise, clutching at him as he finally entered her. But Tom hadn’t heard a thing, he was on the verge of explosion, and when she glanced back at the window, the men had disappeared. Ruth found it comical – one moment they’d been there, the next they’d dropped out of sight.

The man was nearing his climax, and she moaned, feigning excitement, while, over his heaving shoulders, she watched the door of the hut quietly open.

Head thrown back, mouth gasping, Tom gave a series of guttural groans. He was mid-ejaculation and still thrusting, when he felt the barrel of a pistol rammed deep into his mouth, the muzzle jamming hard against the back of his throat. He gagged. Horror-struck, his eyes sprang open. Ruth had the insane desire to laugh.

Then, as swiftly as it had appeared, the barrel of the pistol was withdrawn and the butt of the Luger struck the side of Tom’s head. He slithered down her body to the floor, and a man in Arab dress stood there in his stead. It was Eli Mankowski.

Their eyes met for a brief second. Eli gave one sharp nod of approval, gestured at the kerosene lamp, then wordlessly dragged Tom outside.

Ruth adjusted her clothing, extinguished the lamp and followed him.

In the compound, the four guards lay unconscious, already bound and gagged, and robed figures were crouching, waiting.

Shlomo Rubens bound and gagged the sergeant, and Ruth, upon Eli’s silent instruction, stepped briefly into the light by the gate. It was the prearranged signal to the lookout whose binoculars were trained on the compound. He in turn would signal the waiting Irgun boat.

The guards were dragged out of sight behind the crates and the fighters set about carting supplies to the edge of the wharf for loading. It was Ruth’s duty to watch for the warning signal from the lookout, should the captain be observed returning.

The team worked in silence, selecting the supplies which Eli indicated in the dim shielded glow of his torch. The larger crates were ignored. Much as they would have welcomed the heavy weaponry, they didn’t have the time to load it. It was the boxes of ammunition, plastic explosives and British hand grenades they were after.

Five minutes later, when the fishing boat pulled into the wharf, the six Irgun fighters aboard helped with the carting and loading and, within thirty minutes, they were clear of the docks and on their way to the fishermen’s wharf a mile down the coast where the Jimmy would be waiting. The only member of the team remaining at the docks was the lookout.

Satisfied that the captain was nowhere in sight, the lookout set off on foot to join the others, where, by the time he got there, they would have finished unloading the supplies into the truck.

 

It was shortly after midnight when Captain James Portman wandered down the wharf towards the compound. He’d had several nips of arak with his friends at the cafe which stayed open until all hours to accommodate the soldiers from the nearby barracks, and he was feeling quite mellow. The interminable night yawned before him, but he’d have a bit of a snooze in the guard hut, he thought, then in the morning they’d be off. He couldn’t wait to get out of this abominable place.

Odd, he thought. No sentry. Were all five of the bastards asleep?

He pushed the gate open. Silence, eerie, not a soul.

‘Sergeant?’ he snapped. But there was no response.

He drew out his Webley & Scott revolver as he crossed to the hut. The door was ajar; he kicked it open, weapon at the ready. No-one there. He walked around the perimeters of the compound. The place was deserted. Where the hell were his blasted men? Then he saw them – bound and gagged, all but one wide-eyed and struggling with their bonds. Good God, James thought, what had happened?

He released his sergeant, then stood back while Tom Baker released the next man.

‘What the hell happened?’ he asked.

‘We were ambushed, sir,’ Tom said as he frantically untied Bill. Shit, what the hell had happened? he wondered. One minute he’d been up the French woman, then there’d been a gun in his mouth and he couldn’t remember anything more.

‘That’s quite apparent,’ his commanding officer remarked caustically. ‘But by whom?’

Tom was at a loss for words. Fortunately Bill, freed of his gag, broke in.

‘Arabs, sir. More than a dozen of them, I’d say.’ Bill had caught a brief glimpse of Arab garb before he’d been silenced. ‘They jumped us from behind – must have climbed up the side of the wharf.’ He busied himself releasing the next man, Godfrey, who was still unconscious.

Bloody Arabs, James thought. ‘Inspect the shipment, see what’s missing,’ he ordered his sergeant.

‘Sir, I think Godfrey’s dead,’ Bill said.

All eyes turned to Godfrey.

Oh God no, James prayed. Now there’d be an investigation, he wouldn’t get away in the morning, he’d be stranded in this godforsaken hole.

‘Get a light, man, get a light,’ he ordered, and his sergeant ran to the hut for a torch.

Five minutes later, when Godfrey regained consciousness with a groan, James felt immense relief.

‘Check the shipment,’ he ordered his men, while he tended to Godfrey’s head wound.

The men eagerly jumped to their captain’s command, thankful to escape further questioning for the moment. While they checked the crates, they agreed that there would be no mention of the French woman.

As he inspected the first aid kit, James cursed the fact that the report of the theft in the morning would delay their departure. But at least it wouldn’t take long, and then they’d be out. He couldn’t have cared if the Arabs had taken the whole damn shipment. Let the Arabs and Jews wipe each other off the face of the earth, he thought, just get me out of this hellhole.

 

It was only when the Jimmy was well clear of Haifa that silence was no longer mandatory. Arab dress discarded, the truckload of young people could well have been any group of kibbutz workers returning from a night in town.

The young fighters, seated with Shlomo and the supplies in the back of the Jimmy, talked excitedly about the events of the night. The mission had gone according to plan and they were proud of themselves.

They had every right to be, Shlomo thought, they’d exercised discretion, just as they’d been ordered; no hot-headed youngster had killed indiscriminately. But he knew they’d wanted to. And they’d want to even more next time around. They’d been blooded – well and truly.

As they talked among themselves, Shlomo noted that they avoided any mention of what they’d seen, albeit briefly, through the hut window. There were a few meaningful glances but, out of deference to Ruth, seated with Eli and David in the front cabin which was open to the rear of the canvas-topped truck, no reference was made to the seduction of the sergeant. It was as it should be, Shlomo thought. Like them, Ruth was a fighter and she’d been doing her duty as one of the team. Any lewd reference would have been out of place. But these were young men with healthy libidos, no doubt frustrated by their current vow of celibacy, and Shlomo had no doubt there would be quite a deal of lascivious chat among them when they were on their own.

The three in the front cabin said nothing. When the ban of silence had been lifted and the others had started talking, David, driving, had plied Eli with questions. He’d wanted a blow-by-blow account of the mission, but Eli’s responses had not been encouraging. He had answered gruffly and monosyllabically and then stared out of the side window, and they’d quickly lapsed into silence. Eli was such a moody bastard, David thought, sulking.

Ruth was grateful for the silence. Seated between the two men, aware of the nearness of Eli Mankowski, and trying to avoid any physical contact, she felt charged with an extraordinary energy. The danger was past, but adrenalin still pumped through her, and with it the strangest of urges. She desperately wanted sex. Beneath the short skirt, her nakedness responded to the truck’s motion, and she longed to be penetrated, to rut like an animal. Her wanton seduction of the sergeant had in no way aroused her – she’d been focussed upon her purpose and the sexual act had been meaningless. But now, as the truck bounced over the rough desert road, her whole body was pulsing, and the unavoidable contact her thigh occasionally made with Eli’s made her more aroused. She hoped he couldn’t sense it.

Eli could. Her excitement was palpable, and it was having a profound effect upon him. Heightened sexual awareness was not uncommon after a mission – he experienced it at times himself – but it was always controllable. At least it had been in the past. Now, as he stared out the window, the image of her exposed, her skirt around her waist, consumed him. In the brief second when the sergeant had slumped to the floor and Eli had seen Ruth in her nakedness, the sight had meant nothing to him. He’d admired her commitment. Her orders as decoy had not specified fornication, and the lack of underwear was proof that she’d been prepared to go as far as necessary to distract the guards. She’d obviously put on a show for the watching soldiers as well, and he respected her for it. Now, feeling her beside him like a bitch on heat, he couldn’t get the image out of his mind.

They drove directly to the training camp where they unloaded the ammunition and explosives by torchlight, and Eli ordered Ruth to stand watch in the cave which served as a lookout over the approach to the valley.

A wise and tactful decision, Shlomo decided as he watched her set off up the narrow track, the boots she’d exchanged for her high-heeled shoes incongruous with the short skirt and revealing blouse. The lookout cave was well out of earshot and it would give the men an opportunity to speak openly; they needed to let off steam.

Several minutes later, Eli himself wandered off into the night, and Shlomo thought nothing of it. Eli Mankowski never shared his men’s enthusiasm after a mission, invariably choosing to be on his own.

 

Eli took her where she stood, against the wall of the cave, just the way he knew she wanted to be taken. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her boots pressed into his buttocks, the rocks digging into her back. When it was over, he left without saying a word.

As he circled behind the cave and approached the camp from a different direction, Eli refused to acknowledge any sense of guilt. He had broken one of his own cardinal rules: no sexual fraternisation among the unit. Any two of his fighters found guilty of the same action would have been instantly dismissed. But Eli had always placed himself above the others, and he told himself that one momentary lapse meant nothing.

But the following night, gathered about the finjun, Ruth’s sexuality once again beckoned, and the knowledge that he could have her whenever he wanted was irresistible. He walked off to the distant grove of olives, knowing that, given time, she would join him.

No-one commented upon his departure. They knew the commander often preferred to be alone, particularly before and after a mission, and rumours that something big was in the planning abounded, since the commander and his lieutenant had left in the jeep that morning and had not returned until the evening meal.

Shlomo Rubens found Eli’s distraction eminently understandable. The two of them had spent most of the day in meetings with Irgun and Lehi leaders at the secret joint headquarters recently set up in Jerusalem. The raid was only three days away, and the next day they would brief the unit. Eli had a lot to think about.

Eli’s mind was far from the impending raid, however, when Ruth joined him in the olive grove an hour later. Again, they coupled like beasts, feeding off each other’s lust. And again, when it was over and she’d left him, he refused to acknowledge any abuse of his leadership, but prided himself instead. Ruth Stein’s uncharacteristic behaviour was proof of the power he had over her mind and her body, he told himself – it was a measure of her dedication to both him and the cause.

It didn’t occur to Eli to question the power Ruth Stein may have had over him. Eli was not only a fanatic and a megalomaniac, but a master of self-delusion.

Ruth, too, didn’t question her actions. The drive in her was compulsive. She was obsessed with Eli and everything he represented. So long as he wanted her, and in whatever capacity that might be, she was his.

 

‘Our orders are to liquidate the enemy,’ Eli announced. ‘No prisoners will be taken. All men will be destroyed, as will any other force that opposes us.’

The briefing was held at the training camp – as specific missions were never discussed in the chadar ochel – the fighters squatting in the dust before their commander and his officers.

The strategy of aggression, Eli told them, was in direct retaliation to the Arabs’ take-no-prisoners policy and the mutilation of Jewish fighters. The goal in capturing the village was also to improve Jewish morale and obtain supplies for Irgun and Lehi bases. But, knowing that his young fighters were eager to do battle, Eli had decided to place his main emphasis upon revenge.

‘The raid will symbolise a new era,’ he declared forcefully. ‘It will be a warning to our enemies and a sign of liberation to our people. No longer do we rise only in defence. The joint forces of Irgun and Lehi will, from this moment on, attack all those who pose a threat to our homeland. Arabs will pay with their lives for the Jewish blood they have spilt!’ He raised his fist and each of his fighters did the same as they joined in the chant.

‘Obliterate – until destruction. We are the future!’

The target of the joint attack was the village of Deir Yassin, an Arab Muslim stonecutter community of approximately seven hundred and fifty inhabitants. Situated on a rocky hillside west of Jerusalem and a mile or so south of the Tel Aviv highway, the village lay inside the United Nations’ proposed Jerusalem international zone, its terraced stone houses descending to a corridor of flat land which led to Jewish Jerusalem’s western suburb of Givat Shaul.

The village’s strategic position made it the perfect subject for attack but, during the briefing, there was a great deal Eli did not impart to his fighters.

Deir Yassin had come under much discussion between Irgun and Lehi forces and the Haganah, Israel’s military organisation. Upon being approached by the two guerrilla groups with a view to a coordinated attack upon the village, Haganah leaders had rejected the idea. They’d agreed that the capture and subsequent takeover of Deir Yassin would suit their plan to convert the pathway from Givat Shaul into an airstrip – but a truce existed, they said, which prevented an assault upon the village. Deir Yassin had been steadfast in honouring a Haganah-sponsored agreement to refrain from hostilities with neighbouring Jewish areas in exchange for protection from Jewish attack. The village was docile, the guerrillas were informed.

Irgun and Lehi refused to budge, insisting they would take Deir Yassin with or without military support, and, finally, Haganah Jerusalem Commander, David Shaltiel, washed his hands of the matter.

I have nothing against your carrying out the operation, he wrote to the guerrilla leaders, aware that the takeover of Deir Yassin was, after all, to the Haganah’s advantage. He further refused his own intelligence chief’s urging to notify the town that the truce was over, maintaining that he would not endanger a Jewish operation by warning Arabs.

Eli Mankowski saw fit to communicate none of this detail to his unit, and Shlomo Rubens agreed. In keeping with Lehi’s policy of blind obedience, it was wiser they be kept ignorant of the facts, and it would make little difference in any event, Shlomo thought. The fighters were young and hot-blooded – they would follow Mankowski wherever he led them and do his bidding, whatever it entailed.

The attack was planned for early Friday morning on April 9, just two days away, and, after weeks of covert operations, the members of Unit 6 couldn’t wait to meet their enemy face to face.

Eli and his principal officers did not return to the kibbutz that night, but camped out at the training centre where a meeting had been arranged between the Lehi and Irgun unit commanders. Battle tactics were finalised, and ammunition from the stolen British cache was divided among the other guerrilla groups.

The following day, the fighters, like the farmers, retired to their barracks for the afternoon; they would be leaving the kibbutz at midnight to prepare for the dawn raid.

While the rest of the kibbutz observed siesta, Eli and Ruth again met in the olive grove. She was prepared, as before, for him to take her in silence and when their desire was sated to dismiss her without a word. But this time was different.

Slowly, he undid the buttons of her shirt, and exposed her breasts. He studied them, running his fingers over the already erect nipples. On the previous occasions, he’d paid no attention to her breasts – he hadn’t looked at her at all during the ferocity of their coupling.

She waited, breathless.

‘Are you eager for battle, Ruth?’ he asked, still intent on her breasts.

‘Yes.’ She was eager for whatever he wished.

‘You’re a true fighter now; you may be told to kill. Does the prospect excite you?’

The prospect of being told to do anything by him excited her.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Are you ready to kill?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want to kill?’

The focus was no longer upon her breasts, although his hands remained there, fingers manipulating her nipples, the manic black eyes commanding, dictating, controlling her.

‘Yes.’

‘Say it.’

‘I want to kill.’

‘Say it again, Ruth.’ His eyes didn’t leave hers as he undid the buttons of her work trousers and slid them down over her hips. ‘Say it again for me.’

‘I want to kill.’

‘And again.’

Her trousers slid around her ankles. He was undoing his own now, his eyes still transfixing hers. She could feel his erection against her.

‘I want to kill.’ She shook a foot free of a trouser leg, and parted her thighs for him.

‘Again,’ he said as he lifted her, her legs instantly wrapping around him, trousers hanging from one foot and flapping against his buttocks.

‘I want to kill,’ she panted through clenched teeth. She said it over and over as he entered her, and Eli, insane with lust and a sense of his own power, drove himself into her with brutal force.

Five minutes later, when she’d gone, he was left to reflect upon what he considered had been an extremely interesting exercise. It was unlikely Ruth would be given the chance to kill; the women of the unit were detailed as backup. With a shortage of weapons, the female fighters were to remain at the rear and gather much needed firearms and ammunition from the casualties. But he would like to see Ruth kill, he thought, and he wondered briefly whether he might place her in the frontline after all. Then he chastised himself: it had been a test, that was all, just a game really.

He mustn’t let things get out of hand, Eli thought as he left the olive grove. He’d proved his power over her, it was enough.

 

Irgun and Lehi leaders anticipated an easy victory in the capture of Deir Yassin. Given the township’s non-hostile status, the villagers would be offered the chance to flee, and a truck with a loudspeaker would take the path westward, broadcasting warnings in Arabic and urging flight to the nearby Arab township of Ein Kerem. Any who remained to oppose the invading forces were to be liquidated, but the guerrilla commanders assumed such opposition would be minimal and easily contained.

The Lehi were to approach Deir Yassin from the east. One Irgun section was to advance west from the Jerusalem suburb of Bet Hakerem and approach the strategically positioned Sharafa ridge overlooking the township, and another Irgun section was to approach the village from the south.

At dawn’s first light, the concealed units advanced on the town while, on the westward path, the truck’s loudspeaker urged the villagers to flee.

To the east, Eli Mankowski and his unit covered good ground, undetected in their advance, but to the south their Irgun counterparts were not faring so well. A village guard had sighted them.

‘Yahud!’

As the guard yelled a warning that Jews were approaching, an Irgun fighter prematurely gave the starting signal, machine-gun tracer bullets announcing to the other advancing units that the battle for Deir Yassin had commenced.

The guerrillas attacked, and chaos ensued. Above the sound of gunfire and grenades, the Arabic broadcast could not be heard. The driver of the loudspeaker truck sped up in an attempt to enter the village, but the vehicle careered off the road and into a ditch. There would be no warning broadcast.

From out of the stone houses, panic-stricken villagers poured into the narrow streets, many in their nightclothes. Women who’d been working in the bakery fled up the hill to seek refuge in the mukhtar’s house. The multi-storeyed mukhtar’s dwelling sat at the summit of the town, and as the panic continued, others ran there, some clutching children.

The Irgun fighters, like the Lehi, were young, some of them not even twenty years old, and they ran wildly through the streets, firing at everything that moved, lobbing hand grenades in the doors of open houses, yelling the guerrilla Hebrew phrase ‘achdut lochemet’: ‘fighting in unity’.

But there was no unified fighting. Command and control had been lost and with it any form of disciplined attack.

Many young male villagers successfully escaped to gather at the Sharafa ridge where they effectively repulsed the Irgun advance from the west. The township rallied its defence force, snipers taking up positions in the mukhtar’s house and the higher buildings in the west of the village.

The Irgun unit was finally forced to withdraw in order to regather its troops for a renewed assault, and, as they retreated, fearing attack from the rear, they shot every Arab they saw. The elderly, the wounded, the women clutching their children, even the children themselves. They slaughtered indiscriminately.

To the east, Eli Mankowski’s Lehi fighters had penetrated the village, securing themselves among the sturdy houses and stone fences. When word of their successful advance reached the others, Irgun forces joined them. Leaders conferred. It was seven o’clock in the morning, which meant the Sharafa ridge should have been taken and the township secured. But the Arabs controlled the ridge, four guerrilla fighters were dead, a number were injured – some out of reach and unable to be evacuated – and one commander lay mortally wounded. The attack had been chaotic and undisciplined.

The combined units massed for a concerted assault and Shlomo Rubens ordered announcements to be made from the salvaged loudspeaker urging the villagers to surrender. He also dispatched word to Haganah’s Camp Schneller in Jerusalem. The guerrilla forces needed help, he said. If the Haganah could take the ridge, it would enable the fighters to evacuate their wounded under the cover of fire.

Then Eli gave the command. ‘Achdut lochemet!’ he cried. The fighters surged into the street, their screams of vengeance soon mingling with the cries of women cowering with their children in houses exploding around them, or fleeing terrified through the gunfire in a desperate attempt to save the children they carried.

Shlomo Rubens was methodical in his attack, choosing not to waste his precious grenades on those villagers who posed no threat. The fighters were allotted only two grenades each, and Shlomo intended his for the mukhtar’s house and the higher buildings on the western side of the village where the Arabs were maintaining a successful defence. Nor did he waste his ammunition, but killed only those who opposed him, leaving the slaughter of women and children to the younger fighters whose bloodlust was beyond control.

Shlomo had seen it before in young, inexperienced fighters: this lethal mixture of fear, anger and a blind desire to kill; but he was not critical of the wholesale murder being unleashed around him. Indeed, the original Lehi proposal had suggested the liquidation of the entire village as a warning to the Arab population in general, and Shlomo himself would have obeyed such an order. But the proposal had been tempered to specify ‘all men and any other force that opposes us’ – the women and children offered no opposition.

He was deeply critical, however, of the appalling waste of ammunition and, as he dived to the ground, he inwardly cursed the young fighter who lobbed a hand grenade into a house too close for comfort. Given the current situation, with the Arab fighters holding their ground, such a cavalier use of explosives, which were short in supply, was intensely annoying.

The house erupted and, from a nearby building where she’d been hiding, a young woman ran out onto the street. She was yelling, demented; it was the home of her sister and her sister’s children, she wailed.

The fighter who had thrown the grenade – it was David Stein, Shlomo noted – shot the woman twice. She fell to the ground – one bullet lodged in her lungs, another in her belly – and lay squirming, gurgling, drowning in her own blood.

A further waste of ammunition Shlomo thought, and he ducked behind a wall to view the narrow junction of streets and the surrounding buildings for any legitimate threat. Ahead of him, he could hear Eli screaming, ‘Obliterate – until destruction. We are the future!’, others readily taking up the call.

Eli was encouraging his men’s bloodlust, but not because he himself was out of control, Shlomo knew it. Eli’s purpose was plain. He had argued keenly for the instigation of the original proposal and, despite orders to the contrary, he intended to honour it. Eli Mankowski wanted no Arab left alive. Every inhabitant of Deir Yassin was to be annihilated, including the elderly, the women and the children, and he was whipping his fighters into a frenzy to accomplish that end.

Opposite, at a corner of the junction, an Arab sniper had exposed his position on the first-floor rooftop of a cottage, kneeling to take aim at the attackers who passed below. Shlomo trained his sights on the man and fired.

The sniper disappeared from view, and Shlomo backed against the wall of a nearby building, waiting for a moment, just to be sure, eyes scanning other buildings, seeking possible danger.

From the nearby pile of rocks which had once been a house came the unsettling sound of a woman keening. Three Arab fighters lay dead, and in the centre of the small, dusty junction was sprawled the body of the young woman. She was no longer squirming, but it had taken her several minutes to die, and Shlomo noticed, for the first time, that she was heavily pregnant.

He made his way quickly up the main street, dodging around the piles of rubble, to join the battle that raged ahead.

Ruth and two other women had been following in the rear of the attack. They had dragged a wounded Lehi fighter to the safety of a deserted building to await evacuation, and they had collected two rifles and ammunition from Arab casualties.

As Ruth had pulled the rifle from the hands of one man who appeared dead, he had clutched at it, his eyes wild in his death throes. But it meant nothing to her – he was the enemy. She’d thought about shooting him, but hadn’t, leaving him in the sea of his blood; he was already a dead man.

She’d heard the screams of women and children, but had taken no notice. It was natural the women and children would flee in terror; she’d concentrated on the fallen fighters, both guerrilla and Arab.

When she came upon the pregnant woman lying dead in the street, blood flowing from her distended belly, she was taken aback. The woman was young, barely eighteen, her face contorted in agony. She must have been caught in the crossfire, Ruth thought. But it looked as though both bullets had been fired directly at her – surely that wasn’t possible?

The two fighters with her ignored the young woman – to them she was just one of the enemy – and set about gathering the weapons from the three Arab men who lay dead. Only one had a firearm, but they took the knives from the other two.

Then, between the bursts of gunfire and explosions only several hundred yards away, Ruth heard the voice of the woman in the bombed-out house nearby. An ululating lament, songlike and mournful, it beckoned her. She held the .303 rifle she’d taken from the dying man at the ready and approached the hole that had once been a doorway. She nodded to the other fighters, who sidled up beside her, all three of them with their backs to the stone wall, their weapons poised – it could be a trap.

Ruth listened for any signs of danger, but there was only the crying of the woman. She cocked her rifle and stepped quickly inside, moving away from the light of the entrance.

The woman was kneeling on the floor, rocking her dead infant in her arms, covered in the child’s blood. Beside her stood a little girl of no more than six, silent, sad-eyed and bewildered.

At the sight of Ruth, the woman staggered to her feet, still clutching her mutilated baby, and pushed the little girl behind her with a bloodied hand, trying to shield the child, while desperately pleading for her daughter’s life.

Ruth lowered the rifle and stepped outside, leaving the woman to her grief. She tried to shake off the sickening feeling that engulfed her. This was war, there were always unexpected casualties, she told herself.

But the young pregnant woman, little more than a girl herself, still lay in the street, a vile condemnation, and Ruth could not extinguish the image of the mother and her mutilated baby. These were not the enemy.

She started running towards the sounds of battle, paying no heed to the calls of her two fellow fighters who urged her to come back. She needed to see for herself. She needed to know that these hideous acts had been a mistake.

But when she reached the thick of the action, she discovered they were not. Scenes of incomprehensible slaughter unfolded before her eyes. Oblivious to the gunfire that ricocheted about her, she watched in horror as madmen killed indiscriminately. Some fighters who had run out of ammunition used knives to dispatch their innocent victims. She saw her own cousin open fire on a group of helpless women as they fled for the safety of a shop doorway. One of the women fell.

David wished he had a grenade to lob into the shop, but he’d used the two he’d been allotted. He fired another three shots through the door and another woman fell. He would have continued firing on them until they were all dead, but he was angered to discover that he’d run out of ammunition. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, took his knife from its scabbard, and charged towards the shop.

A woman gathered her three-year-old in her arms and ran out of the doorway, but she was not quick enough. She was stabbed in the chest, the knife narrowly missing the little boy, who dropped from her arms as she fell to her knees. Even as she reached for her child, the knife struck again.

David raised the knife a third time to slice the woman’s throat and finish her off, although, as she vainly clutched for her child, she was already dying. But someone was grabbing his arm, screaming. He turned, ready to plunge his knife into his aggressor, but it was Ruth. For a split second he wondered why Ruth would stop him in his liquidation of the enemy, then he hurled her aside and headed for another woman who was fleeing the shop.

Ruth picked up the child and ran to the corner of a nearby building, where she sheltered against the wall, shielding the little boy as best she could.

Two of the women escaped; the other three were murdered mid-flight. One was shot and the others were knifed to death. The frenzy was at its peak.

Fifteen minutes later, the guerrillas moved on, cutting their murderous swathe through the streets of the once peaceful town. The broadcast urging the villagers to surrender had gone unheeded. It had been meaningless. Fighters and villagers alike knew there would be no prisoners and, as the fighters neared the western side of the village where the Arabs maintained a brave defence, their frustration at not successfully securing the town drove them to further acts of carnage. Children were lined up against walls and executed in the style of a firing-squad. Women were knifed to death as they tended the wounded. Frenzied fighters even plunged their knives into those who lay already dead. The slaughter and insanity continued unabated.

Ruth remained frozen. She didn’t know how long she’d stood there, transfixed by the sheer horror of what she had seen, but the child whimpering in her arms brought her to her senses. Comforting the little boy, burying his head against her shoulder, she crossed cautiously to where the mother lay, still moving, her fingers stirring the dust as if seeking her child. The woman was alive. Perhaps if she dragged her to safety, she might survive.

But as she knelt beside the woman, Ruth realised that she was beyond saving. Her eyes were already glazing over, even as her fingers continued to clutch at the dust.

‘Your child is alive,’ she whispered, hoping that the woman could hear her. She shielded the infant from the sight of his mother but leaned close to the woman, praying that she would see her son before death clouded her vision. ‘Your little boy lives. He will survive.’

The fingers stopped stirring, the last light of life died in the eyes, and Ruth had no idea whether the woman had heard her, or whether she had seen her son.

‘Put the boy down, Ruth.’

She looked up. Eli Mankowski stood barely ten yards away, his face impassive.

‘Eli …’ She struggled to her feet, the child still in her arms. ‘… you must stop them …’ Speaking seemed difficult, she felt strangled, breathless in her urgency. ‘… they’ve gone insane … they’re murdering innocent people … women and children … you must stop them …’

‘I said put the child down.’ His voice was as chillingly expressionless as his face.

She didn’t move.

‘Why?’ she asked, although his dreadful implacability signalled the answer. The slaughter was no mistake, she realised – Eli Mankowski had sanctioned it. In all probability he had ordered it.

‘The child is the enemy. He must die like the others. Put the boy down.’

‘Since when have children been our enemy?’ She could barely get the words out.

‘Every Arab is an enemy to the Jew, Ruth, you know that.’

It was the voice of reason. He’d used it incessantly throughout her indoctrination. It had made sense to her then, but now it so repulsed her she was unable to respond. He went on, weaving his own demented form of magic, convinced he still had her in his power.

‘The boy will grow to be a man, Ruth, he will kill Jewish fighters, he will threaten our land. They must all die. The women who breed and the boys who become men, every Arab is our enemy.’

‘Only to madmen, Eli. Madmen like you and your kind.’

She’d found her voice, and outrage lent her strength. ‘What makes you different from the Nazis, tell me?’ She spat the words at him. ‘You saw the extermination of your own people in Poland, you fought in the ghetto in Warsaw, you lived through it all, and now you and your kind wish to exterminate another race, so what’s the difference? Tell me that. What gives you the right? Which particular god made you superior?’ She realised that she’d been yelling, and the child was crying. She stroked his head, calming her hysteria as much as the boy’s alarm, aware of her own terrible guilt. The young pregnant woman, the mother with her mutilated baby, the woman freshly dead on the street beside her, whose child she clasped in her arms … she’d been a part of it all. The cause she’d believed in was responsible for this.

‘We are worse than the Nazis,’ she said. What right did she have to distance herself? She had been one of Eli and his kind. ‘What we are doing is unforgivable, and I beg you to put a stop to the killing. If you can,’ she added weakly. She knew it was impossible, she could hear the demented screams in the distance, ‘Obliterate – until destruction’, she had chanted the same slogan herself. ‘I beg you, Eli, do whatever you can to stop the slaughter.’

He had remained unmoved throughout her outburst, it was impossible to gauge his reaction, and she could do nothing but wait and pray that she might have made some impact.

Eli was bemused. Her passionate address had fallen on deaf ears, but he wondered how she had so escaped his control.

‘Put the child down, Ruth,’ he said.

‘And if I refuse?’ How could she have expected otherwise, she thought, and she clasped the boy closer.

‘I will shoot it right where it is and you’ll both die.’ He raised the Luger and pointed it at the boy, where he sat nestled against her breast.

‘Very well.’

Slowly, she leaned down and lowered the little boy to the ground, his hand clasping tightly to hers; in his young mind the woman who held him was the only tangible thing in his world and he wasn’t going to let go.

Her eyes fixed upon Eli and the weapon that was now trained on the child. She shuffled the boy behind her and, as she eased her hand from his, he seemed to understand. He buried his head into the back of her knees, clutching her trousers with both tiny hands, eyes squeezed shut, breathlessly still. He was hiding, the way he did when he played with his cousins.

As Ruth stood erect and faced Eli Mankowski, the image of her daughter Rachel flashed through her mind. The queue on the ramp, ‘Links! Rechts!’ Mengele’s commands, the flick of his riding crop. She’d shuffled Rachel behind her in much the same way and, like the boy, Rachel had clung to her skirt with both hands. It hadn’t worked then, and she didn’t expect it to now.

‘You are aiding and abetting the enemy, Ruth. As a traitor, I could have you executed.’

Again Eli’s voice betrayed no emotion, but she could see the flash of anger in his eyes, and the thought that she’d broken through his composure gave her a peculiar satisfaction.

‘It is within my rights to execute you myself,’ he said.

‘Then do it, Eli.’ This time she would meet her death with the child, she thought. It was right. She waited for the shot. She welcomed it.

Eli was no longer bemused, he was dumbfounded by her defiance. He raised the Luger, training the sights directly between the eyes which were brazenly daring him.

The pistol remained poised, Ruth remained motionless, and seconds ticked by like a lifetime as Eli realised that he couldn’t kill her. What was wrong with him? One gentle squeeze of the trigger, that was all it took. How had he allowed this to happen? How had she come to hold such sway over him? All the more reason to kill her, he told himself – if she lived, she would be a witness to his weakness. But the finger on the trigger remained as frozen as the woman who stood before him. He was powerless, and he detested her for it.

He lowered the pistol, turned his back on her, and walked away towards the sound of gunfire.

Ruth watched him go, half expecting him to turn and shoot her where she stood. But he didn’t.

She gathered up the child and headed back towards the eastern side of the village. She had no plan, apart from getting the boy to safety.

Across the street, standing at the corner of a narrow lane, she saw the two female fighters and realised that they’d witnessed the confrontation between her and Eli. She held the little Arab boy closer. Did they, too, think she was a traitor saving an enemy life? Were they as crazed as the men? They were armed; perhaps they might feel it their duty to kill the child. She didn’t look at them as she hurried by, but she felt vulnerable. She wished she still had her rifle, but she’d dropped it when she’d run to the woman’s defence.

The two watched in silence as she passed.

Several minutes later, she came to the junction where the pregnant woman had been lying in the street. The woman was still there, but others were gathered around her. They were placing her gently on a hessian cloth. The mother of the mutilated baby was there too, kneeling beside the pregnant woman, who was her sister. The mother was still covered in blood, but she no longer carried her baby. An elderly man standing beside her held in his arms the small bundle of the child’s body wrapped in cloth, and he was overseeing the proceedings with an impressive authority. The women, six in all, were gently keening but there was no sense of hysteria as four of them, upon his orders, grasped the corners of the cloth and prepared to carry the pregnant woman from the street.

The man was the first to see Ruth. He barked something at her which she didn’t understand and all eyes turned towards her. The keening stopped, the women were silent, malevolent in their grief, condemning her.

The man again barked the words, his tone even more aggressive this time, as he gestured at the boy she held on one hip.

The hatred in the group was palpable and Ruth felt a rush of fear. They could kill her with ease. They could tear her to pieces and they had every right to do so.

Carefully, she lowered the boy to the ground, but he refused to let go of her hand, grabbing it with both of his. She was unable to stand straight without pulling herself free from his grip, which she was reluctant to do.

She looked over at the man. He gestured for her to bring the child to him. Clumsily bent over, with the boy still holding on with both hands, she led the infant to him.

The man passed the small bundle of his grandson’s body to his wife who was standing beside him. Then he leaned down to pick up the boy.

As Ruth relinquished her hold, the child started crying and reached out for her, but the man lifted him into his arms and spoke soothingly to him, stroking the boy’s head until the cries became whimpers.

The women did not move; eyes flickering from the man to Ruth, then back again, all awaiting his command. He gave an order and gestured to the road which led out of the village to the east. Ruth was free to go.

She avoided the guerrilla command post on the outskirts of the village and, as she left the township, she avoided the main road. For a long time she could still hear the sounds of gunfire behind her as she cut across the low rocky hillsides on her trek to Jerusalem.