"That's right, North Africa, Sicily, Holland." He wasn't too too eager to speak of it, but the Free Poles weren't kids he'd befriended -- joining them meant joining alone. Joining with Bobby? Well, he was 'Cousin Petey' even if the regimental officer that recruited them into the Grenadier Guards at the Chelsea barracks was completely skeptical. They joined hte paras together, once it became clear that the Guards were not the tip of the spear, at least not in 1941. Saul wanted Nazi blood. Bobby didn't want to wait to grow up for the war. They were two peas in a pod in most respects; Bobby was the charmer in barracks, but it was stony, silent "Cousin Petey" that picked up the reputation for cold-blooded performance in a battle -- in the ugly, fearsome scenarios that the Red Devils found themselves in over the years of the war, it was "Peter" Parr who edged out his close mate as the one with the cooler head and the better instinct for what to do.

There were a number of Jews in various parts of the British forces, many adopting pseudonyms for capture. He was Sergeant Peter Parr by the time the war was over, keeping the name even if some of the other NCO's and officers knew the truth -- he was a Polish Jew. They'd had their suspicions from his faculty with languages -- something no Parr of East London ever had -- but when the end of the war came, there was no need to hide anything. And by 1946, he could not continue on as soldier of the British Empire, the same that committed to a policy of keeping camp survivors in new camps and out of the Holy Land. He wasn't sure where to go, as Poland was not an option, but he could not stay in England.

More than that, he'd learned, almost eight years ago, the nomenclature and function of the Lee-Enfield Rifle No.1 Mk.III SMLE. He'd been trained by men that learned to fire the mad minute -- a lot of rounds very quickly and accurately, and learned how to do it like a Tommy. He had a special affinity for the rifle, particularly the Lee-Enfield with its buttery smooth bolt. The No. 4 was an alright weapon, and he'd learned the Bren and the Sten and PIAT and other items as a matter of course, but it was always the SMLE he managed to bring into a fight with him, slightly dented but deadly accurate. He was used to the notch sights, and not so in love with the No.4's. Other British weapons were inferior to their German counterparts-- the Bren to the MG-42, but only somewhat, and the Sten more considerably to the MP-40. But the Enfield reigned supreme among all other bolt action rifles -- lower recoil, smoother action and more rounds per magazine. 

"No.4 works. If you have SMLE's, so much the better," he told her. He'd done a war with the Enfield, he'd fought the Waffen-SS with one in hand, "They trained me on one. I prefer it." 

The barracks would do -- Palestine was hot, but dry. The barracks was a nice place to sleep, even if it was cramped. It was just as well that Saul brought only a bag with him, not much more than the refugees had, really. "It'll do. I've slept in worse. I suppose we all have. And it's home."

---

True to Adina's word, he was on guard the next night, after he got a little sleep. Danny, after Saul told him his preferences, managed to scratch up an SMLE and make it Saul's. Saul wasted no time breaking down the weapon's bolt, with a thumb clicking the bolt head up behind the bolt-head guides and pulling it out for an inspection and thorough cleaning. There was no firing of rounds with things as tense as they were, but Danny assured him the rifle was right. It felt right, dark walnut stock and a metal band where the thumb rested, the safety clicked tightly and the bolt head was clean and the rifling strong. The SMLE wasn't even in English service anymore, being considered more difficult to train recruits on. [i]Piss on that,[/i] he thought. 

He had a watch in the pre-dawn darkness, relieving other kibbutzniks and coming on for those wee hours of the night, though it was reckoned that Arabs were not night-fighters, and rarely tried anything this time of the day. Adina Isaacs was in charge, which Saul handled with a shrug -- the military he came from had war as a man's world, but the Jews of Palestine did things very, very differently, probably to the mortification of the rabbis. She was Danny's friend, so he played along. Some other new arrival, a jackass, started to light a cigarette when Saul told him, harshly, "No smoking on watch, damnit. You're marking us for a bloody sniper." 

That drew a glance of annoyance, but acceptance of the reasoning. Saul was unduly harsh about it, reflexively so...

Of course, the Arabs saw the flame already. It was too late.