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shirts and shorts and pointed blue-and-white hats, were hand-planting the seeds behind them.
    Dov had been the kibbutz’s lorry driver for years. In Germany, before the war had begun, he’d been a railwayman in Berlin, which somehow qualified him to drive ‘Adolf the Beast’, as the lorry was affectionately known. Dov had only just managed to escape Germany with his wife and six children before the closure of the borders. It was an act of daring and courage, which had saved his entire family from the gas chambers.
    The other thing for which Dov was renowned was for being a thief. It was he who went on night-time stealing missions. He and a few others would park their lorry a long way from where the British Tommies had set up camp during manoeuvres, then crawl on their hands and knees and stomachs, sometimes for a mile or more. In total silence, they would steal rifles and ammunition inadvertently left against a rock or a tree after a patrol by exhausted British soldiers prostrate in the heat of Palestine.
    Dov had managed to steal more than forty rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition from the British in the years he’d been the kibbutz’s ‘lifter’. An amiable fellow, he was well liked by his comrades and had friends in many other parts of Northern Palestine. He’d even befriended the inhabitants of the nearby villages such as Peki’in, where he would trade the produce of the kibbutz for supplies.
    Everyone in the kibbutz knew what Dov did, but that didn’t stop the wiry little man from scanning back and forth around him to see if anyone was watching before he peeled back thetarpaulin cover. However Dov didn’t see that Shalman had crept up around the front of the truck and was visibly shocked when he heard the boy say: ‘What did you find, Dov?’
    â€˜Hell, don’t go sneaking up on me like that, kid.’
    Shalman was unperturbed. ‘What did you find?’
    Dov smiled, looked around once more to make sure it was just him and the boy, then pulled out from the tray of the lorry an object wrapped in an oiled cloth.
    â€˜What is it?’ asked Shalman.
    â€˜Not something your dad would want you playing with.’ Dov flipped the cloth open to reveal a revolver in shiny gun-metal grey. ‘Know what this is?’
    â€˜A gun,’ replied Shalman.
    â€˜It’s a pistol,’ corrected Dov. ‘It’s an officer’s pistol. A Webley. I took it from a British officer.’
    â€˜Did you kill him?’ asked Shalman without emotion, only genuine curiosity.
    â€˜Whoa, now that’s a question your imma wouldn’t like you asking and certainly not like me telling. Even if it was true . . .’ Dov gave the boy a wink and Shalman smiled. ‘You can hold it if you want.’
    The lad held out his hand eagerly and Dov placed the pistol into his palm. The weight surprised him, but Dov deftly reached over and showed him how to do it. ‘Hold it tight, boy. You never know when you might need a gun like that. We’ve got Brits and Arabs on all sides, Shalman. You never ever forget that.’
    From the field where he was tilling the soil, Shalman’s father, Ari, straightened up, stretched out his back and noticed his son talking to Dov. He saw something in Shalman’s hand and he felt a moment of concern. It was probably Dov’s latest acquisition. Ari shook his head. Why was Dov always showing the guns he stole to the children of the kibbutz? Didn’t they deserve a normal childhood in this warzone of a land? Hadn’t the Jewishpeople learned enough about guns now they were being forced to fight against the British, and were the victims of these Nazis in Germany?
    There was a squeal of children’s voices as a gaggle of six young ones came running towards Dov, arms outstretched, ready to embrace their father. Ari couldn’t help but smile, even as he saw Dov quickly hide the pistol away in