The explosions silenced the Egyptian fire. I clambered up the dune, peered into the firing position, and saw two mangled bodies beside the blood-drenched Browning M1919 machine gun. I was about to signal the rest of my unit to advance when I heard a loud pop and felt a searing pain in my belly. A third Egyptian soldier had survived the grenades unscathed by cowering behind some crates at the far end of the gun position. He had shot me and was about to do so again. I raised my rifle and we fired simultaneously. I saw a spurt of red where his left eye had been and felt a massive punch to my chest. The force of the blow knocked me backwards, and I rolled down the side of the dune to the soft desert sand below. There I lay, unconscious, bleeding from two bullet wounds.

I would have died that day were it not for Reuben Tzanani. He had lifted me on his back and carried me over a kilometer to the rear of our lines, where I received the emergency treatment that saved my life. I heard all this much later, after I'd regained consciousness in the hospital in Tel Aviv. At first, the doctors thought I would not survive; then they feared I would be permanently handicapped. But I recovered fully, and, in five weeks minus two days, was discharged.

Reuben's actions that day were made all the more remarkable by the discrepancy in our physiques. I was six foot three, while he was five foot four with army boots on. I also outweighed him by forty pounds at least. For being able to carry more than his body weight, and for saving my life, he received the nickname "Ant." For my actions that day, I received a medal, the rank of sergeant, and was celebrated as a hero in the newspapers and on the radio. I'd always felt that, of the two of us, Reuben was the true hero.

Reuben was a slight, gentle man, who seldom raised his voice. But his tender appearance hid a rock-solid interior. He was one of the bravest soldiers I'd fought alongside of and one of the finest, most honest men I'd ever met. The latter, I suspected, was why he had not made it far on the police force and why he was given an office job instead of a street assignment. The ugly truth was that to get ahead in the police, you couldn't be as pure as a lily. You had to have some dirt on you.

"Adam," he said, "come in. Come in. Clear that chair and sit down. Want me to get you some coffee?"

The second chair—the one not currently occupied by Reuben—was laden with a tall stack of papers. Reuben motioned me to set the papers on the floor, which I did. Sitting down, I said, "No coffee for me, Reuben. I know what police station coffee is like."