Herman Wouk - The Glory

by The Glory(Lit)

  "Ah, oui! That cosy cabin of yours! Rocked like a baby. Ai!" Another cry as the wind snatched at her scarf, tore it from her neck, and fluttered it aft, out of sight.

  Amos said, "The Israeli government owes you a scarf."

  "Most assuredly."

  When the Gaash tied up, the raiders were all on deck, a ragtag unshaven lot, and the crew was mustered at attention. Assorted high brass who were in on the secret operation came aboard and went shaking the hand of every raider, one by one.

  "For victory, many fathers," laughed the blonde, leaving the bridge. Sam Pasternak stood aside from the ladder to let her pass, then came up and bear-hugged his son. "Go shake hands with the big shots, my boy."

  "Abba, you look awful. When did you sleep last?"

  "Well, now I'll sleep."

  Amos saw the Frenchwoman descending the gangplank with the Mossad men from Beirut. "Excuse me, Abba." He hurried after them, and intercepted the woman as she was about to get into a car.

  "Goodbye," he said to her, "and many thanks."

  "Mais pourquoi? Au revoir."

  "Look, how do I get in touch with you?" She faintly smiled. "I mean it. What's your name?"

  "Ah, Major, it's all over, but I won't forget the pretty lady with the cold clammy stockings and the wet clothes. What was her name, by the way?"

  "Her name?" He laughed. "She didn't exist."

  "Justement. Neither do I, Pasternak fils."

  As he stared after the departing car, his father came beside him. "Abba, who was she?"

  "Nobody. A volunteer, recruited for the purpose. Amos, it

  was a great coup, it's the talk of the media. Of the world. Well done."

  "We had losses, Abba."

  Pasternak nodded. "I heard. Now you had better get back to your battalion."

  "Why? Something doing down south?" Amos asked wearily.

  "Heavy enemy troop movements, Amos, on the Sinai and Syrian fronts. Supposedly war games, but the estimate is that these may not be games."

  "Let them start something," said Amos, aroused out of his fatigue. "It'll be a slaughter, and then maybe there'll be peace."

  Pasternak kept to himself, secrecy being second nature to him, that in the innermost government circle a state of highest alert already prevailed for a possible enemy surprise attack on May fifteenth during the Independence Day parade; code name for the crisis, blue/white.

  15

  The Big Parade

  Amos and Noah snapped to attention with the other raid leaders and missile boat captains, all in dress uniform, as the Prime Minister entered an anteroom of her office where a few select onlookers waited, including the Minister of Defense and the Ramatkhal, who had just concluded with her an urgent conference on blue/white. Sam Pasternak had been invited to see his son honored, and Zev Barak came in with Golda, for he was now her military secretary, probably his last army assignment.

  When upon his return, she had asked him face to face to take it on, he realized that sector command had gone glimmering. He had been away too long. So close to power, though wielding none, he figured that he could at least speak the plain truth to Golda Meir whenever asked, and that too would serve the Jewish State. For from his Washington-acquired perspective, the truth about his euphoric country's situation was somber. Perhaps that was why she had chosen him. She had already dubbed him Reb Ma'azik, Mr. Alarmist. Anyway, how could he have refused the Prime Minister?

  On his visits home during his attache years it had sometimes struck Zev Barak that Israel was a sort of asteroid, floating somewhere near the earth but not quite of it. Now that he was back from America for good he was recovering

  his roots, sinking into the Israeli frame of mind, enjoying the sense of being truly home at last, but the outlook of his Viennese boyhood still caused him to look about askance at the complacency prevailing in the little land. When all was said and done, he was a transplant, and perhaps that had given him his fatal skill at "handling Americans"; if there really was anything to that image, which had shaped and in effect closed down his army career. Still, he was back in the bosom of the family he loved, walking the soil of Zion he loved, and there stood his son, a hero among heroes, about to be honored by the Prime Minister of the Jewish State. Good enough. He had no complaints against the old Jewish God.

  "It's a hard thing, my dear young heroes," Golda was beginning hoarsely, "that the brave achievements of the elite services can't be publicly recognized. Some of your boldest feats may have to go unsung for a hundred years. By then my generation and yours will all be dead, and forgotten from men's hearts."

  The stately sentences rolled as though they had been written out for her. But Zev Barak, whose eyes moistened at seeing Noah in his dress whites, knew that the words were extemporaneous, since he now drafted most of her written utterances.

  "However, when the records are opened at last, the world will learn what great deeds young Jewish fighters like you performed in the early years of our struggle to survive. Then with God's help we will be living at peace with our Arab neighbors. Perhaps then, even they will join the world in saying, "This was a Jewish generation like Joshua's.' For now, speaking for the Jewish people, I can only humbly thank and bless you." One by one she shook hands with all of them and trudged off into her office, followed by the ministers and generals.

  Zev Barak stopped to shake his son's hand. "Kol ha'ka-vod."

  "Abba, all I did was run a ferryboat."

  "You brought them there and back. The operation was a great gamble. The navy gave us an extra dimension of capability. Well done. Do you have time to see your mother?"

  "I will, Abba."

  "Good, good. She hasn't been too well."

  Sam Pasternak left with Amos to drive him to the Sde Dov airfield. His ancient Peugeot twice stalled on the way, causing angry honking from the heavy traffic, already much thickened by the rental cars of tourists who were piling into Israel for the big military parade celebrating the Twenty-fifth Independence Day. "Time you got yourself a new machine," said Amos, "and a driver."

  "I can't afford either. Yonatan wants to come and work for me." Yonatan had been his army and Mossad driver for seventeen years. "When somebody hires me, I'll hire him. I'm still looking around."

  "I'd like to see you in politics."

  "What, and be a kabtzan [beggar] the rest of my life? I'm already having a taste of it,-and I don't like it."

  "Well, this rotten political system can't go on, Abba. It's a worse danger to our survival than the Arabs."

  "So everyone's been saying since 1948, and here we are." Pasternak abruptly changed the subject. "Now, what about that bridge project? Are you really involved with it?"

  "Well, one of my companies will be doing the towing, yes."

  "Isn't the thing a monstrosity? A fashla? So I've heard."

  "Not at all. The idea is a stroke of genius. Whether it will work-"

  "What is the idea? Why, to all the devils, a giant mobile bridge, a thousand feet long and weighing seven hundred insane tons, that travels on rollers?"

  "Those aren't the figures. How much do you know about it?"

  Maneuvering the car past a pileup of snorting busses, Pasternak almost shouted, "Not much, not my field."

  Amos described the concept, and the present state of the incomplete bridge. His father nodded as he listened, pursing his lips in disapproval. "No wonder it's eaten such a hole in the army budget."

  "Well, it's a colossal job, but it may indeed win a war, if we have one. 'Carry the war to the enemy!' Not that I think the Arabs are really about to start anything." He looked keenly at his father, who returned not a word.

  Driving through the guarded airfield gate, Pasternak saw Yael Nitzan's red Oldsmobile parked, and her son Aryeh

  nosing around a small army transport plane, recognizable mainly by his blond curls, tall as he now was. He came loping toward Amos in the long effortless leaps of a cheetah, as Sam Pasternak entered the terminal hut. "Amos! Ma nishma? I ran ten miles yest
erday with some Gadna guys." Gadna was a paramilitary youth troop.

  "Don't push yourself too much. You're still growing."

  "It was easy." Aryeh's eyes shone, and he laid a hand on Amos's arm. "Oo-wah, that Beirut raid. I bet you were in it. Were you?"

  Amos's face stiffened. "Learn not to ask childish questions."

  Aryeh said meekly, "Sorry."

  "Okay. I'm a tank battalion commander in Sinai, and whoever did that raid won't talk about it, maybe not for years. Ten miles, eh? With a sand pack?"

  "The Gadna guys wore packs. I didn't."

  "That was sensible."

  Sam Pasternak found the Nitzans inside the hut. "Yossi, your battalion commander's outside with Aryeh," Pasternak said, drawing lukewarm coffee from an urn, "ready to return to Sinai."

  "No rush. Sharon's not here yet." Yossi Nitzan looked a lot older to Pasternak these days. The antic Don Kishote was metamorphosing into a hard-driving colonel, sure to make brigadier and a front-runner for higher posts.

  "Well, Sam, how are you?" said Yael. "What are you doing with yourself?"

  "Collecting unemployment insurance, Yael, and looking for work."

  "Oh, you," she laughed. "You'll land on your feet, I bet, if you haven't already."

  The sharpest Mossad agent, thought Pasternak, could not detect that she was faking, that in recent weeks they had been talking long, earnestly, and often on the phone. In her fashion Yael was unbeatable.

  General Sharon ambled in. "Sam, good to see you." He took a coffee cake from the plate by the urn and wolfed it, smiling at Yael. "Hello, darling. I've eaten nothing all day." His ogre reputation made the pleasantry very engaging. Yael said her goodbyes and walked out. On the instant Sharon's

  smile changed to a glare. "Kishote, you know who they've picked to relieve me? Gorodish. Gorodish!" He turned on Pasternak. "Do you believe it? Gorodish, commanding the southern sector? Gorodish, versus the Egyptian army? Gorodish?"

  Pasternak was in fact surprised. Shmuel "Gorodish" Gonen was a good armor officer and a Dado favorite, but junior to other qualified generals. A clash of cliques in the army, complicated by civilian party politics, must have brought this about. "Well, Arik, Shmuel's a tough field commander."

  "He is that," said Yossi. "I was his number two in the Six-Day War."

  "I know you were," Sharon snapped. "But you've been observing those Egyptians across the Canal, Kishote. It's a different army today. Their uniforms, their maneuvers, their discipline, their numbers."

  Pasternak said, "Well, to be frank, I'd be happier if you were remaining in the south, Arik, at least until they stand down from those war games. They and the Syrians."

  Sharon threw up meaty hands. "Sam, the cabal has done its job, and I'm out. A farmer I was, a farmer I've always wanted to be again. If there's a war, and to me it looks like fifty-fifty right now - I can't tell those Arab war games from a mobilization, myself-it'll all be up to the brigade and battalion commanders, and to you, Don Kishote, to you. Gorodish! Let's go.".

  As Barak drove home, gloomy sentences and paragraphs were forming in his mind. Golda had asked him for a written comment on the blue/white alert.

  On every side he saw preparations for the big Independence Day parade: banners, bunting, flags, placards, bleachers, grandstands. All Jerusalem was breaking out in festive blue and white to hail the ' 'great march of the New Jew,'' as the exultant newspaper rhetoric went; the Jew of the straight back, the Jew who had risen like the phoenix from the fires of Nazi Europe to go home again and reclaim the Holy Land. And this display of Israel's armed forces, which for twenty-five years had beaten off Arab attempts to wipe out the new Zion, would be a simple peaceful warning, "Don't tread on

  me." Some politicians were decrying the expense of the martial extravaganza, and some academics and editorial writers were clucking at such arrogant un-Jewish imagery, but their spoilsport voices were few and lost.

  Ever since coming home, Zev Barak had felt out of step with this exultant mood. Had he been away too long, after all? The giant United States was in a morass of worry and self-doubt over Vietnam, a war ten thousand miles away; and minuscule Israel, with huge enemy forces maneuvering at its very borders, was acting cock-of-the-walk. Like their idol, the Minister of Defense, most Israelis these days seemed to be seeing things through one eye.

  He found Nakhama busy in the kitchen, where there was an appetizing smell of roast lamb. She flashed her old smile, which he had not been seeing of late. "Galia is bringing Dov Luria to dinner."

  "Oo-wah, so she's caught herself a Phantom pilot. Not bad."

  "Well, let's say he's circling her. And Noah came by. So handsome! Why was he called to the Prime Minister? Can you say?"

  He shook his head. As he bent to kiss her, she turned her cheek, her usual way since his homecoming. With a shrug he went to his den, took a writing pad to the armchair, and began scrawling.

  April 18, 1973 My dear Madame Prime Minister:

  As your Reb Alarmist I am against the very grave decision not to go public with the Blue/White alert. General Zeira states that the Arabs now can strike heavy blows on both borders but that the chance of their doing it is "very low." That is his estimate as chief of military intelligence, but he is one man, calculating intentions. I reply that it is irrelevant whether the enemy maneuvers are innocuous war games, or another Sadat cry of "wolf," or a political nudge to the superpowers. They can also be a start toward a war. The capability exists. That is what matters.

  I know something about the Americans. Most Israelis, including you, Madame Prime Minister, can't quite

  fathom what the Watergate fuss is all about, but believe me, the Nixon presidency is disintegrating. An Arab offensive now would jeopardize the detente with the Soviet Union, with which a desperate Nixon hopes to revitalize his wounded image. Our going public with Blue/White would if anything galvanize him into warning the Arabs to cut out the troublemaking. That's my estimate.

  Madame Prime Minister, you will bear a ghastly historical responsibility if, knowing the threat, you fail to share the truth with the people, and then a war ensues. Why not consider, at least, calling off the big parade? What clearer signal could be sent to our enemies and to the superpowers that we are on guard and mean business? Tourism must take second place to security, surely.

  The Arabs will keep trying war until they are convinced that the price for land is a treaty of peace, and nothing else. They are now in all respects ready to try war once more. Blue/White should become an alert of the nation, not just of your kitchen cabinet. To do otherwise, given the facts at our borders, gambles with the survival of the Jewish State -

  He was trying to think of a less apocalyptic way to finish when his daughter Ruti looked in. "Galia's here with Dov. Dinner is ready."

  "I'm coming."

  ' 'Dov's brought a nice present. And Mama told me to give you this." She dropped on the desk a gray envelope with a red-white-and-blue airmail stripe, and no return address. Emily? Had it crossed his letter, asking her to write no more? He had done this hoping to pull Nakhama out of the dumps, for something was clearly amiss. He closed the door, ripped open the envelope, and found two handwritten lines on a plain white sheet.

  Wolf dearest,

  I completely understand. Until I hear otherwise from you, mum's the word. I love you always.

  Queenie

  He shredded the letter into the wastebasket and went into the dining room, where the girls and Nakhama were admiring a small glazed statuette of a stout woman in biblical robes, dancing with a tambourine. The name scratched on the base was miriam, but the gnarled face was clearly Golda Meir's.

  "My sister's getting pretty good at this," Dov said. "She's even sold a few things. Cats. Americans buy cats. Cats and menorahs."

  "I think it's wonderful," said Galia, looking radiantly at the Phantom pilot, who wore faded jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt. He kept a modest mien at dinner, praising Na-khama's lamb and rice, eating heartily, and scarcely looking
at the girl he was visiting. He opened up only when Ruti asked if the air force would be in the parade.

  "Oh, sure, we'll do a flyover. We rehearsed it this morning, in fact." He turned to Barak with a grin. "Just before Golda makes her speech, sir, the Phantoms will pass over Jerusalem in a Star of David formation. It was mighty ragged today, but we'll get it right."

  "The people will go wild!" exclaimed Galia.

  "Look here, Dov," said Barak. "Suppose the Arabs take it into their heads, while you're flying your Star of David over Golda, to launch attacks at the Canal and on the Golan Heights?"

  "We have a contingency plan for that," Dov returned, with a short nod. "If they're interested in committing suicide, we can accommodate them."