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magazines can go anytime, and I have a lot of helpless wounded to think about. Look at those fires —”
    “Sir, I think Goldstein and I can jury-rig a radio.” Improvising an emergency set had been a classroom problem at which Noah
     had excelled, in an electronics course for officers.
    “You can?” The captain gnawed his lips. “How long would it take you?”
    “If we find the components, maybe twenty, thirty minutes. It’s our best chance, sir. Otherwise the navy won’t know for hours,
     maybe all night, what’s happened to us —”
    “Give it a try. But fast.”
    Scrounging in the wrecked radio room by flashlight, he and the handy little radioman Goldstein assembled tubes, wires, and
     batteries into a messy tangled contraption, its range for sending and receiving a total guess. A bright moon shone on the
     burning ship, down hard by the stern and listing more and more, when Noah commenced calling,
“IHS
Eilat
here. Mayday, Mayday. We are sinking. Request immediate help.”
    Low crackling in the receiver, nothing more. Beaming toward Sinai, the radioman kept sweeping the crude antenna from north
     to south and back to north, while Noah repeated wearily,
“All Zahal units in Sinai. IHS
Eilat
calling. Mayday, Mayday. Does anyone hear us?”
    He and Goldstein were crouched by the anchor windlass at the bow, signalling from the highest spot on the foundering
Eilat
. Smoke still rose from flickering fires all over the ship, though the worst blazes had burnt out. The crew was crowded on
     the steeply inclined forecastle, where the wounded lay groaning in rows on the deck. Everything that could float — not only
     rafts but spare life jackets, wooden cupboards, empty oil drums — was piled higgledy-piggledy at the lifelines, for most of
     the boats were smashed. Any hope short of abandoning ship now lay in the makeshift radio. Twenty minutes, and still no human
     voice had punctuated the weak static.
    Noah had too much time to think, in the long agonizing wait. What a horror this was, his ship sinking under him, so many dead
     boys in the engine room, the terrible lineup of injured, moaning, crying sailors along the forecastle deck; himself half-numb
     from the shock of his own still-bleeding head wound, his mind drifting in and out of the nightmare amid dreamy thoughts of
     Daphna …
    “IHS
Eilat
here. Mayday, Mayday. We are sinking —”
    Barks of laughter from the radio. Noah’s heart leaped as he came alert. A harsh tumble of Arabic, then crackling silence.
    “What the devil was all that?” the captain asked.
    “
‘Go ahead and drown, Jews, and sink to hell,’
” said Noah.
    The captain cursed.
    Noah said, “Sir, sir, now at least we know we’re transmitting. It’s a break —”
    Looking around at the jammed forecastle, his eyes puffed half-shut, the captain pointed aft, where dark waves were lapping
     over the canted fantail. He hoarsely exclaimed, “Noah, I’ve got to get my wounded off, and if we don’t —”
    A deep voice, calm and friendly, in clear Hebrew:
“This is army unit Aleph Dalet Three in Sinai. We receive you
, Eilat.
Go ahead.”
    “Oh God! Captain, hear that?” cried Noah. Never in his life would anything sound as sweet or dear to him, he thought, as that
     response in Hebrew.
    “I heard it, I heard it, keep talking to him —”
    “Sinai, Sinai, do you receive me clearly?”
    “Hiuvi, hiuvi [Affirmative, affirmative]
, Eilat.
Go ahead.”
    “Sinai, we’re northeast of Port Said, thirteen and a half miles out, clearly visible by moonlight. Hit by two missiles, on
     fire and sinking. Many wounded and dead. Two anchors down, drifting toward Egypt. Danger of being captured. Abandoning ship.”
    “Ruth [Roger]
, Eilat.
All authorities will be alerted. Rescue helicopters will come. Keep in contact.”
    With his battery-powered bullhorn the captain roared this news to the crew. Cheers rose on the forecastle.
    Taking the wounded off forced terrible choices on the ship’s