276
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
guns, sidearms, and grappling irons, each of the Portzim was
easily worth twenty Arabs.
As for the "Davidka," it had shattered Arab morale with
its extraordinary thunder, the like of which no Arab had ever
heard. Eyewitnesses reported hearing at least one Arab howl
Allah, Allah, and run! The "Davidka"—of which fifteen had
been fired—had an over-all length of about four feet. It
looked like a combination rocket and mortar. It was whispered that its parts were being flown daily from Tel Aviv and
assembled in Jerusalem.
A truckful of Portzim drove by the Pantiles, and from my
rooftop I was able to get a good look at these amazing fellows.
They were a rough-and-tumble bunch, uniformly young,
averaging about nineteen years, grimy and disheveled, as
though they had just come from a free-for-all campus tussle.
They were dressed in half a dozen shades of khaki, in American and British uniforms, fatigue clothing, camouflage suits,
overalls. Some wore helmets, others knitted stocking-caps.
A short time ago they had been carrying books to school.
Fighting with the precision of a well-coached eleven, in
small, well-drilled teams, they usually attacked at night for
two reasons: first, to hide their small numbers; second, to
add the element of surprise to that of terror. Frequently they
added the illusion of greater strength by noise-making devices,
one of which—I saw the instrument—simulated a rapid-firing
machine-gun. By such ruses as these, adroit diversionary tactics, superb cunning born of necessity, extraordinary proficiency in the use of small arms, and a brand of courage rarely
paralleled, the Palmach and its supercommando Portzim became the terror of Arabs from Dan to Beersheba. They were
a symbol of the "new" Jew.
Neither the Haganah nor Palmach "happened" overnight.
Groundwork for Haganah's role in the war for independence
was laid in World War II, when more than 120,000 Jews—
men and women—out of 400,000 then in Palestine registered