by Dayan, Yaël
The Nahel Ambush
Nahel is a godforsaken place in spite of the fact that it has plenty of water. You should have tasted the water! It was smelly, sickly sweet, and greasy. Arik and Dov knew Nahel by heart from last time. A few houses, an army camp, a hill or two overlooking them and the road to the Mitla Pass, and the Canal doing a 90 degree bend. Last time we took it in matter of minutes, had some canned bully beef, and sped to the Mitla.
How will it be this time? Motke got his orders through Itzik, who came by helicopter. His Centurions were sent earlier to the aid of Iska’s brigade of Jaffe’s division, they shouldn’t be too far away. “Call them back and place them in ambush southwest of the road a mile or two outside Nahel.” The Shermans were a mile ahead of us; they should wait just outside west of Nahel on both sides of the road. Hertzel with his infantry in half-tracks would hit the rear of the Egyptian column, coming out into the plain from behind Nahel ridge. Motke got the helicopter for a few minutes, had a look at the convoy, and was quite pleased with what he saw. “Open fire only from 200 yards,” was the order. Sason was moving in full speed because the observation post on the hill reported the enemy tanks pressing toward Nahel. In the very first minutes of encounter his men knocked out seven to nine tanks. Some of the tanks were changing direction, leaving the road and heading for the village and Nahel army camp. Sason was in a jeep and his N Company followed him to destroy three or five more tanks. Minutes later the Centurions arrived and hit the convoy a mile farther. Arik took Hertzel and his half-tracks to the rear and east of Nahel. His own half-track broke down so he abandoned it and jumped into our jeep. We were running like mad in the dust to an observation post on the edges of Nahel ridge. Suddenly over our radio we were told the air force was going to give us support. We stopped the jeep on the slope and climbed up the side, the profile, of the hill. We saw Egyptian Centurion tanks, six of them, on the road. They looked massive and well protected among many more vehicles. It would be silly to expose oneself in half-tracks or jeeps to the guns of these behemoths of Centurions. Arik was given by Motke, the night before, a sickly Centurion of our own as his personal anti-tank bodyguard. This became useful now. Hertzel got the Centurion from Arik as it and the antitank weapon followed him behind his jeep.
The air force appeared in the blue sky. Four super-Mystere’s came in low strafing and pouring napalm on the tanks. We all got very excited, Dov standing and calmly taking in the whole scene on his 8-mm. Canon Cine camera “just like on maneuvers.”
The planes dived two or three times. I hoped they recognized us. Their hits were too precise to risk not being identified. We were too near their targets. On their fourth circle they waved shalom to us, tilting their wings. A few days later I met one of the pilots—Arik, a classmate of mine from Nahalal. “I always knew we’d operate together one day,” he said. They flew northeast, and we jumped into our jeep and sped to the road below. We got dangerously close to the burning tanks; ammunition was exploding in all directions. We were ordered by Arik to go back. He himself got into another jeep. He was trying to spare me the sight of the chase, the hunt for the remnants of the enemy. Dov wasn’t very happy to go all the way back and suggested to Arik we should go along with the armored infantry, on the road to Nahel. Arik was weighing what was the greater risk. Suddenly there was fire behind us. Some of our men were exchanging small-arms fire with Egyptian soldiers hiding in a bush a few yards away. We must have been lucky, because only ten minutes earlier we had passed the same bushes raising a protective cloud of dust. We were allowed to follow the armored infantry on their mopping-up way into Nahel. Half-tracks, Russian jeeps, tanks were burning and smoking all over the place; guns, armored personnel carriers were thrown in all directions and positions. Hundreds of Egyptian soldiers were running away in the direction of Nahel. Later they told us they thought the place was still theirs. Our soldiers were calling for them to surrender. Some did, others answered with a shot or a burst or ran away. In front of me I saw a young soldier from one of our half-tracks shoot an Egyptian, run behind the armored car, put his arm against the backboard, and vomit, then instantly compose himself and catch up with his section.
I was holding a Uzi submachine gun, Dov was driving, Katz was at the front machine gun, and Itzik was pointing a Russian automatic gun. None of us fired. Others were doing the job and we were watching. Corpses lined our way. We went down to pick up their guns, those hiding in bushes engaging us were shot at and groups were running away in all directions. Those who stopped to aim were killed. Some escaped, but I couldn’t free myself from the feeling that it was a hunt rather than a fight. I was not going to shoot. The men in the jeep were armed and if we were shot at directly they could return fire. Yet, my gun was loaded and cocked. My face was burning—the skin tight with dust and sweat which turned into mud. My sunglasses were useless, and in my eyes there was a stinging pain. Added to the midday heat was the heat of the burning vehicles, a miniature inferno, hateful and ugly.
We came into Nahel late in the afternoon. There we met more destruction, wholesale as only tanks can do to tanks. This was the Valley of Death of the Egyptian army. About one hundred and fifty tanks were counted on the road from Temed to Nahel. Nobody counted the vehicles, the guns, the big heavy ones, the small anti-tank, the light antiaircraft, the heavy tractors towing the guns, the big ammunition trucks all in unnatural positions, or in piles, looking like pieces of modern sculpture.
The sight was depressing and Dov was very silent at the wheel. Later that evening, while we were having tea, he told me he was almost crying for the fate of these Egyptian soldiers. “What a miserable fate they had depending on such bastard leaders and officers. In 1948, they had the pashas and their incompetent sons as officers; in 1956, in the Sinai, you could excuse them somehow—they weren’t yet educated and prepared, the socialist revolution hadn’t yet had enough time to close the gap between officer and his men. But now, sixteen years after the revolution, with officers trained in Russia, with Russian experts in Egypt, where is the spirit of socialism? How come we had only one or two officers prisoners and countless soldiers? How come we didn’t take or see one staff car? Where were all the laughing officers in their glittering uniforms and wavy hair smothered with brillantine, so confident-looking on Cairo television and in the pages of the illustrated papers? The poor felaheen were abandoned to their fate, to the mercy of our troops, the enemy. How could he, Nasser, whom I considered to be an honest leader of his nation, play with the lives of his people, bluff at the expense of these thousands and thousands of obedient sons of Egypt, how could he play high politics, putting them as a pawn in the game? He was in no position to play Napoleon to close the straits of Tiran, to threaten us with a thousand tanks in Sinai and arrogantly to invite General Rabin, for what? He had more pressing problems to solve than prestige. He didn’t have enough to feed his population but spent billions on arms, his people were illiterate. Why the hell did he start all this when he used to tell the world he wasn’t ready yet? Why didn’t he let us and his own people live in peace?” I let him talk, half-listening. Some needed silence, others needed words. Arik, the legendary fighter, let a mist of gray cover his face. “It is horrible,” he said, “I hate it,” and found escape in a couple of hours’ sleep on a camp bed under a tent erected between two half-tracks. He asked Dov to look for a better place for headquarters. We were surrounded by corpses where we were and we drove to look for a relatively clear site. I didn’t believe my skin would ever regain its natural softness. “Don’t put water on it,” someone said. “What happened to you?” I was asked. I dared look in the mirror—finding a shelter in a cabin of a jeep from the sandstorm that swept through the camp. It was not my face that I saw. My eyes were red, humid pools in the middle of a yellow deadly tight-skinned image. I rubbed cream on my cheeks. The skin peeled off in large swatches. It changed colour from yellow to red to brown patches—I didn’t care. I knew nothing would be the same now. I had looked at cessation of life, destruction of matter,
sorrow of destroyers, agony of the victorious, and it had to leave a mark. The Syrians continued to shell our settlements—Tel Katzir, Haon, Hulata, Gonen, Shamir—places I knew well, populated by classmates, friends from the scouts’ movement, acquaintances, relatives. The war was still on there; in some places it hadn’t yet begun, but for us in Nahel it was over. The aftermath of battle, the results of war, the total fatigue were evident, and we were to live with them for a while, but the actual fighting in the Sinai was over, we had won our battle. Now we had to live with the victory. It was almost dark, and the few buildings of Nahel were silhouetted against the desert backdrop. The sandstorm receded, and silence took over. The horn of a burning vehicle was operating—a wan sound of alarm not to die for hours—like a soft reminder of what was.
During the Sinai Campaign Dov and Arik found a stock of bully beef in Nahel. While approaching it, Arik expressed the hope that it was still there and we vaguely were looking for it. I don’t know of a place uglier than Nahel. The wilderness of Paran. Here Hagar dwelt with her son exiled by Abraham. It is supposed to be an oasis, and a few trees indicate the presence of water. We soon found the well and filled up containers after the doctors had examined the water. If we drank the water, it was for lack of any other for the taste was abominable. We drove toward the group of buildings—rather new constructions, some only half-finished—and looked for beef cans and a site clean of corpses to move the headquarters to. A small house painted white and blue had a neat feeling about it, and Dov entered. Through the window I could see an iron bed and a corpse on it. In front of another house a pile of watermelons was prey for flies—the first watermelons I’d seen this season, and the local bakery had trays of wood with dry dough formed into pita-bread shape set to be baked.
The flies, the dirt, and the dead were everywhere, and the purity of desert air, the absence of objects and smells and colors, was gone. Instructions concerning loot were very strict and only brigade commanders were allowed to add to the brigade supplies local goods found in a few abandoned stores. It was dark now, a moonless night, and we returned to the half-track. I prepared some food—it was the end of our Krations and the supply convoy was delayed on the axis we had left in worse shape than it originally was. I don’t remember a sadder evening. Very few words were spoken, but we shared the depression and avoided looking at one another. A great part of it was owing to fatigue, and although a commanders’ meeting was to take place in the half tent where the beds were, I covered myself with a blanket and fell asleep.
FRIDAY, JUNE 9
Friday morning found me surprised by the fact I was asleep on a bed. It took me a minute to realize where I was. Arik was asleep on the second bed, Dov between us on two benches, and the helicopter pilot who by now, unshaved and dirty, looked like a regular infantryman, on the ground next to my bed. “We’ve got to move from here,” Arik said, and indicated the visible fact that we were surrounded by corpses.
A suitable place was found a mile or so away, exposed to sandstorms and as unappealing as the rest of the “oasis” but it did seem cleaner and it was time to get organized. The trailer arrived from Shivta, shaken and filthy, and we spent an hour while Arik was on tour to wash and clean it. A couple of tents were erected and an Indian tent for the kitchen. Rachamim was grinning. “I really couldn’t work under field conditions, on the move,” he admitted. “Now we can cook!” Two pup tents were our provisory homes and a barbed-wire fence was erected around the headquarters site. The rear headquarters arrived as well and undertook the burden of administrative, personnel, and logistic problems. Colonel Uri, with the battalions from Kseime, joined us.
Arik issued disciplinary orders. The men were to shave and wash and field showers were erected. The water was good enough for washing if for nothing else, and the post-battle anticlimax had to be met by imposing order and a field routine.
Operational activity continued. Patrols circulated in the area returning with more prisoners, and the Temed–Nahel road was still an unsafe axis. Egyptian soldiers who fled during the battles were searching for water and food, and their sources were the well-guarded well in Nahel and the radiators of destroyed vehicles along the road. Some surrendered themselves asking for water as they did so, but many were still carrying guns and constituted a danger. Toward lunchtime a patrol returned and arrived at headquarters with a stretcher covered with a blanket. They had been patrolling the road when out of one of the tanks a few soldiers emerged. They raised up their hands, there were seven of them, confronting three of ours. Our soldiers by now didn’t expect resistance and while they were approaching, one of the Egyptians fired—one of our men died instantly, the others took revenge, soon enough, but they brought the dead with a feeling that his death was not inevitable. The first helicopter evacuated him and patrols yielded to stricter rules.
I went to see the prisoners. They were sitting on the ground, shoeless and bareheaded, and a few of them were slightly wounded. A group of soldiers surrounded them staring, and after the patrol’s incident some were teasing them. Arik instructed them to be moved to a site next to ours and forbade our soldiers to approach them. Zeevale and I checked with them again later in the day. They were now given blankets and hats and sufficient drinking water. There were about seventy of them and new ones arrived on the hour. They ate the same K-rations we were given and to judge by their faces, they had never had better food. We talked to our armored brigade doctor and he said he could treat the wounded and sent an ambulance to fetch them.
I asked the guard, who spoke Arabic, whether any of the prisoners spoke English and he introduced me to George. George was a man in his thirties. Profession—a physician. His slacks were torn and he wore a blanket around his midriff; an arm band indicated his profession. Zeevale offered him a cigarette and we sat apart from the others chatting. When the convoy was attacked, he remembered, he was in his hospital car but abandoned it. He fled to a nearby hill and watched the battle. When it was over, he walked a few miles raising his hands until he met an Israeli patrol and was brought here. He knew Jews in Cairo and didn’t mind his present position. Complaints? He would have liked to be able to treat the wounded among the prisoners. There was dysentry and he wanted a supply of tablets. He also wanted to be able to assure the other prisoners—he was a major—that they were not going to be maltreated or killed. Zeevale smiled. His smile was boyish, a Nahalal boy. You can certainly assure them, he said. We explained to him that we ourselves had shortage of water. George said the food was good and in quantity. His wife of one year was pregnant. “That’s the only thing that makes me want to go back.” The ambulance arrived and George pointed out the wounded. Three of them had fragments in hands and legs, by now infected. Two who suggested they were wounded were dismissed by George as “not serious,” but our doctor took them anyway. One had a head wound and had to stay in hospital. George was promised tablets and disinfectants as many of them had lice. “Tell me,” Zeevale asked him. “Why did they run away? Why did tank crews desert their tanks? Why didn’t they use their arms?” “They were astonished,” George replied. “We didn’t expect it to happen like this. Radio announcements told us of victory and we knew you to be inferior. The officers ran away a day earlier and confusion set in.” He kept murmuring—“We were astonished.” We left them to go back—a small barbed-in group of pathetic creatures, happy to remain alive, frightened and prideless, squatting and clutching a water can, awaiting their fate.
Something was going to happen in Syria, we knew or rather sensed. The Sinai was ours and the west bank of the Jordan was in Israeli hands. The Syrians were shelling our settlements and we didn’t think this was the end of the war. Our officers were restless. Uri, whose home village was not far from the Syrian border, asked permission to go north. “My men will be all right here. I have to go, up north is my war, and I’ve got to be there. Here our job is done.” Arik consented halfheartedly, leaving the final decision to Uri. Somewhere, half-admittedly, he, too, would have liked to be transferred north w
here a job still had to be done. Egypt and Jordan accepted a cease fire, Syria did not, and if a couple of days earlier soldiers and officers had said, “I wish I were in Jerusalem,” now they were saying, “I wish I could be sent to Syria.” Fighting in Syria, more than on other fronts, meant the protection of settlements permanently exposed to fire and infiltrators.
A helicopter landed in the early evening with the most precious of loads—mail and newspapers. Reading the paper, Friday the ninth, felt like reading science fiction. Somehow we were unable to digest the news items.
Zim, the Israeli navigation company, announces it reopens its Eilat–East Africa Line. Egged, the bus company, renews No. 9 bus to Mount Scopus after ninteen years. The driver of the first bus is the son of a bus driver killed in 1948 on the same route.
Kibbutz Nahal-Oz, on the Egyptian frontier, for years battling infiltrators and fire, thanks the army for placing them in the rear. Soviet Russia demands a general and total retreat, and the Israeli air force is attacking targets in Syria. Zubin Mehta, the Indian conductor, will conduct the Israeli Philharmonic in a “victory concert” on Mount Scopus. A list of movies, a list of contributors to the emergency fund, Ben Gurion’s visit to the Wailing Wall—“This is the second great day in my life. The first was when I immigrated to Israel.” Helicopters rescuing jet pilots, greetings to the army from plants, farm settlements, and factories. Kibbutz Haon greets its soldiers but adds—“The parents are worried, please write, at home all is well,” and the first poems of war: