Herman Wouk - The Glory

by The Glory(Lit)

  Half an hour later, unshaven and very dirty, Sharon and Kishote mount the path to General Adan's advance command post, their boots sinking in the yellow sand. As they go up, a grand Sinai panorama unfolds, full of sights and sounds of war; from the Canal direction the pale flashes, delayed thumps, and rising smoke of Egyptian heavy artillery; closer by, in the enemy's Sinai lodgments north and south as far as the eye can see, broad dust plumes of brigade-scale movements. Directly below the winding path, Bren's armored division is arrayed on the level desert, a textbook diagram drawn by a thousand machines.

  Yossi is not looking forward to an encounter with Major General Bren Adan, a soldier's soldier, all business and sparing of talk. Bren must still be smarting under his disaster on October eighth, caused in part by Gorodish's sending Sharon uselessly south and back north; and he has smarted over the years at being in the everlasting shadow of the flamboyant Sharon. Bren Adan is certainly entitled to be distant and crusty with Sharon's deputy, but he is no fun. At the top of the path, to Kishote's delight, he is hailed by Colonel Natke Nir, one of Bren's brigade commanders, sitting on the sand with two other colonels at a large map. "Kishote, to all the devils!" Kishote springs to seize the extended horny hand and pull Colonel Nir erect, for he cannot get to his feet by himself. The old friends embrace and pound each other, making rough banter.

  Kishote knows nobody quite like Natke Nir, who once served under him. The man seems to be made of pig iron for indestructibility, and in fact has much metal in him. Both his legs were all but blown off in the Six-Day War. Many operations and a lot of artificial patching have restored his locomotion, but he cannot get in or out of a tank. Yet he has waived total disability pay and risen to lead an armor brigade, always assisted into and out of his command machines. Natke,

  as everyone calls him, has been in the thick of the Canal fighting from the start.

  "So, what devilry are you fellows up to?" Kishote greets the other two colonels, both as sandy and whiskery as Natke, with a gesture at the map.

  "As a matter of fact, Yossi," says Nir, "it's exciting, though it's probably just a dream. Look here." Kishote helps him kneel down at the map, and he hoarsely expounds Bren Adan's op plan in rough army jargon, a forefinger skimming the map and making a quick sketch now and then in the sand.

  "By your life, Natke," Kishote interrupts him, "it's Hannibal, that's what it is."

  Nir blinks at him. "Hannibal? With the elephants? Why Hannibal?"

  Military history of ancient times is Don Kishote's hobby, and the great battles are at his fingertips. Crouching at the map, he describes how Hannibal ambushed and annihilated a Roman army in 217 B.C., at the Battle of Lake Trasimene. "Its a classic, Natke, and Bren's concept here is pretty much the same. The key is the lake. In Italy it was Trasimene, here it's Great Bitter Lake. An impassable water obstacle traps your enemy when you hit him head-on and from the flanks. He has no room to maneuver, and he's in a killing ground."

  From a slumping bald colonel, a dubious grumble. "217 B.C., eh? Quite a while ago."

  "Bren didn't mention Hannibal," remarks the other colonel.

  "No, and maybe he never heard of that lake or that battle," exclaims Natke, "but we've got the code name for the plan, gentlemen, it's 'Hannibal.' I'll tell Bren. Thanks, Yossi, that's really interesting."

  "It'll never happen," says the bald colonel. "The Egyptians aren't that stupid, to march a brigade into such a trap."

  "We'll see," says Natke. "They could be as stupid as the Romans."

  On the flat summit of the high dune Sharon has meantime joined the top brass. Around a large tactical map Bar-Lev reclines on an elbow, smoking a cigar, Adan sits cross-legged, and Dayan and Pasternak squat on their knees. It occurs to Sam Pasternak, as Sharon approaches with heavy swinging

  tread, tousled white-blond hair showing above the bloody bandage, that if the crossing succeeds, Sharon and his bandage may become a trademark of the war, as the Six-Day War's symbol was Dayan and his eye patch. Sharon kneels to peer at the map. Nobody speaks a word to him until Dayan at last says, "Shalom, Arik."

  "Shalom, Minister."

  Very long silence, then Bar-Lev utters his first words, slowly and tonelessly. "The distance between what you promised to do and what you have done is very great."

  Sharon's reply is composed. "How so?"

  "What can I say? No enemy collapse. No secure bridgehead. No secure supply corridor. And no bridges."

  "I don't agree with that judgment. We are across and winning."

  Bren Adan, his nigged features set in stern lines, jumps to his feet as a helicopter buzzes far to the east. "There comes Dado now." He goes off to greet the Ramatkhal, and the others walk about and stretch, talking in low tones.

  When the meeting begins Kishote squats by Sharon. The noonday desert sun is scorching, and orderlies bring cold orangeade while Dado passes around the aerial photographs, which clearly show large Egyptian reserve forces forming up, and advance units on the move toward the bridgehead. Sharon plunges to talk first, vehemently pressing for immediate attack, and Dado listens without comment. Half his force is already over in Africa, Sharon argues, so it makes sense for him to ferry the rest across at once, and smash north to Ismailia or south to Suez; objective, to panic the enemy into pulling his armor back into Egypt, which may trigger a general collapse.

  General Adan coldly objects. The original plan calls for him to cross while Sharon seizes and holds the bridgehead on both banks. Why change? The photographs only confirm the urgent need for Sharon to secure the bridgehead before anyone sallies out on the offensive. After almost an hour of abrasive talk - which to Sam Pasternak is obviously all about who will lead the assault into Egypt - Bar-Lev proposes a compromise: a brigade each of Sharon's and Adan's should start the breakout together.

  Now Dado takes charge. His bloodshot eyes are puffed

  half-shut, the heavy brows contracted in dogged resolve. His deeply lined face is gray from the days of unrelieved tension, sleeplessness, and polluted underground air. Among these desert-bronzed officers his pallor is almost pathetic, yet he speaks with all his accustomed clarity and authority. No compromise with the original plan. It is all right. Once the bridgehead is secure, Adan will cross. After that Sharon will bring over the rest of his forces, and the two divisions will exploit north and south to force a decision. "The only real question that's open," says Dado, "is whether to resume crossing at once with pontoon rafts and crocodiles, as Arik suggests, or wait until the roller bridge arrives, or at least until one pontoon bridge is up, before we commit major forces." He looks around at the others.

  "Wait," says Bar-Lev.

  "Wait," says Adan.

  Dado glances to Dayan, who waves a hand to pass the question. "Sam, what do you think?" Dado says to Pasternak, who sits beside Dayan on the sand.

  "I'm not entirely in the picture down here, sir," Pasternak replies.

  "I'd like your view, all the same."

  "Then, I say, im kvar az kvar [if we go, we go]! Those photographs show the Egyptians still off balance but starting to react to the crossing. Let's send everything over now, by any and all means."

  Dado peers around, polling staff officers and deputies and getting varying views, until he comes to Don Kishote. "So, Yossi? Let's hear from you."

  Kishote hesitates, glances at the poker-faced Sharon, then around the senior circle. General Bren Adan is regarding him fixedly and skeptically.

  "Sir, yesterday General Pasternak would certainly have been right, but the situation has changed, hasn't it? The surprise has been blown" -he leaves unspoken by Madame Prime Minister, but their faces show they understand and agree - "and today the Egyptians are alerted. We're being heavily shelled at Deversoir, and we can see big movement in the lodgments. If they try an attack on this side today, we'll crush them as we did on Saturday, providing we still have the forces here. But if they engage us on the other side, we'll

  need assured fuel and ammunition resupply over there. Therefore t
he factors-"

  "Plain language, Kishote," Bar-Lev cuts in. "Go or wait?"

  Pasternak is watching Sharon, who shows no tension or concern in the momentary pause. In such Zahal discussions juniors are allowed to speak up with candor, though the yes-men play it safe. Don Kishote is not one of those, yet the stakes here are very high.

  "Wait."

  Pasternak's are not the only eyebrows raised at Yossi's temerity.

  The talk continues round and round until Natke Nir comes hobbling up to Bren Adan and speaks in low rapid tones. "Well, there it is," Adan says to the others. "Scouts report a tank brigade from the south heading along the lake toward my sector." He turns to Dado. "With your permission, sir, I should attend to this."

  "Go ahead, Bren, the meeting is over," says Dado. "We wait for a bridge. Good luck."

  Natke Nir stumps by Kishote, and punches his shoulder. "Hannibal," he says and goes off, his eyes agleam.

  Pasternak comes to Kishote and mutters, "You had your nerve."

  "Dado asked me, so I spoke my mind."

  "Kol ha'kavod. Yael keeps calling, to find out how you are."

  "Yes, I managed to talk to her once. She had to stop Aryeh from lying about his age and enlisting. Amos's influence. Hero worship."

  "Father worship," says Pasternak.

  "Is Amos okay?"

  "Still fighting."

  "Good."

  In the seven-mile drive back to Deversoir across sunbaked wastes, Sharon says not a word to Kishote. Dayan rides with them in the command car, also silent. At the Yard there is a lull in the shelling, but the stump of pontoon rafts has not progressed far. A shell-hit damaged it, the chief engineering officer explains, killing two of his men, but it will be ready by

  four o'clock. Dayan walks out among the machines, talking to the amazed and awed crews.

  "There's Dayan at his best," Sharon says to Kishote. "Seeing for himself, sensing the mood of the men, reading the battle on the field. Not like those map room generals."

  The words are innocuous, but Don Kishote hears a new distance in Sharon's tone.

  "Sir, I've never forgotten the lesson I learned in the last war, at the Jeradi Pass." Sharon's response is a bleak quizzical look. "Just smashing ahead isn't always the answer, sir, is it? If the enemy has the forces to close up behind you, you can lose all your men in a big disaster."

  "But you didn't, at the Jeradi Pass."

  "I was lucky."

  "Doesn't luck count in war? You learned exactly the wrong lesson in the Jeradi Pass." Sharon's voice and expression harden. "You reached El Arish the first day. I took Abu Agheila the first night. With their two anchors in the north gone, the Egyptians panicked and collapsed all over Sinai. Right or wrong?"

  "That's what happened, sir."

  "Yes, and we could have won this war by crossing in force two days ago. Attack, and the logistics follow, Yossi, because they must. But Gorodish has lost us a day and a half, and now Dado's written off the edge of surprise we've still got. It'll be a bloody long slog to victory. Not very sound, your opinion, and not very collegial." Sharon pauses, regarding his deputy with a stony eye. "I'll be taking my headquarters over to Africa now. Moshe Dayan is coming with me. You will remain in Sinai, get Tallik's bridge at all cost to the Canal, and keep this yard functioning no matter what, until a cease-fire comes. Understood?"

  "Understood, sir." Kishote understands perfectly. Sharon is sentencing him to share none of the glory and career value of combat in Africa.

  So be it! His own view, which he has kept strictly to himself, is that neither Arik nor Dado was the right decision maker for the crossing into Egypt, but in tandem they have been perfect. The decision called for a warrior burning to charge across the

  Canal against all odds, and for a calculating superior to rein him in until the right moment. In this great gamble with Israel's fate Sharon might have gone too soon or too far, as he did in the Suez War back in '56, at the Mitla Pass. On the other hand Dado, not dragged by Sharon, might not have seized the fleeting moment when it came. God or luck has placed Elazar and Sharon in the right niches in Jewish history to fight this war. God or luck has put Yossi Nitzan on the wrong side of the Canal for glory. So be it.

  Hannibal happens.

  The Egyptian armored brigade, coming up from the south to close a vise on Deversoir, rolls blindly into gun range of Natke Nir's brigade, concealed on its right flank in the high dunes. Nir opens up and blasts it as he closes in, while Bren Adan sends in other forces north and south of the Egyptians. They are caught under heavy fire front, rear, and flank. Their left flank is trapped against Great Bitter Lake, and there is no escape. The entire brigade is annihilated, with all its APCs and supply trains, an enormous smoking mass of ruined war machines spread over many square miles of desert. Only a few tanks escape to tell the tale of Bren Adan's obscure victory, which protects Arik Sharon's celebrated crossing.

  To all the devils, where is Adan? Where is Adan?''' Messages from Arik Sharon in Africa begin blistering the air at Southern Command headquarters that afternoon. "The pontoon bridge has been up since four o'clock. Why doesn't he cross?" General Adan at the time is regrouping and reloading his tanks and APCs, almost depleted of fuel and ammunition by the battle. "Where is Adan? The Minister of Defense is standing right beside me and he also wants to know. Why the delay? What to all the devils is he waiting for?"

  Only half-replenished, Adan's division begins crossing after nightfall. By now the Deversoir Yard is a nightmare of red flame, choking smoke, shattering explosions; and rows of dead and wounded lie on the sand, under the ghastly light of starshells drifting in the sky. Natke Nir's jeep comes rolling into the Yard. "Yossi!" he bellows, holding out his arms. His

  driver stops the jeep and Kishote trots up to embrace him. Nir roars over the tumult, "Hannibal went a hundred percent, everything but elephants. A great battle. It's our turn now, and why aren't you over in Africa with Arik?"

  "Too much fun still on this side," shouts Don Kishote, and with a wave Natke Nir goes bouncing off into the smoke and the flaring crimson gloom.

  All night long Don Kishote is too busy to feel deprived of his chance to win glory in Africa. He is well aware that the lifeblood of battle is logistics, a sort of colorless lifeblood noticeable only if it stops flowing, whereupon the gangrene of nonsupply can be quickly fatal. His job now is of the highest urgency, and in its shadowy way exalting; to remain quite unnoticed and inglorious so as to make glory possible for Zahal in Egypt.

  By daybreak he feels on top of the job. Traffic is streaming across the rough pontoon bridge, and more traffic that has been stalled in the Sinai is loosening up and arriving. Three full divisions - twenty-five thousand men, more than three hundred tanks, a thousand other vehicles - are over in Africa, regrouping or fighting. The pontoon bridge is bumper to bumper, the ferries are ceaselessly plying back and forth, yet the clamor for resupply is on. Clearly it will be up to the great roller bridge to solve the shortfall. This it can easily do, for compared to the pontoon makeshift it is a broad highway, and after a variety of technical snags reported by Yehiel during the night, it is smoothly on its way, due at noon. Meantime the pipeline is open, the crossing so far is a success, and as the sun rises white, warm, and dazzling over the eastern crags, Don Kishote can draw breath.

  He does something he has been putting off for days. In a corner of the Yard religious soldiers have put up a makeshift sukkah of ammunition boxes and packing crates, roofed with scrubby desert vegetation. He takes his morning coffee and roll inside the narrow space to breakfast at a plank over two oil drums. Sukkot is past, today is Rejoicing of the Law, but he makes the sukkah blessing anyway. The frail booth represents the precariousness of the Jews' existence, and their ultimate dependence on God for survival. On this touch-and-go day of Jewish history, what could be more to the

  point? So he is thinking, while downing the hot coffee and the army roll with appetite, when his signal officer pokes his head in.

  "Sir,
Colonel Yehiel calling."

  "L'Azazel." This cannot be good. Yossi bolts the rest of the roll with a swallow of coffee and hastens to the signal jeep. "Nitzan here."

  "Yehiel here. We're under attack by eleven tanks that were lying in ambush, here in the dunes." Yehiel's battleground voice is terse and cool. "My tanks have cut loose from the bridge and are engaging them."

  "Any damage to the bridge?"

  "Negative, not yet."

  "Can I send help?"

  "We could use air support, but there's no time to call it in. I think we'll be all right, but there'll be a delay. Over."

  "Understood. Keep in touch. Out."

  "Yehiel out."

  30

  The Bridge Arrives

  Earsplitting concussions resume all around Deversoir, the inevitable sunrise barrage as October 18 begins. Silencing that heavy artillery is supposed to be a high priority for the forces in Africa, but obviously no luck yet. Huge splashes in the Canal, bricks jumping as a shell bursts at the far end of the Yard, and to all the devils, there go pontoons, flying from a square hit on the bridge. Engineers start to swarm over the partial gap torn near the Egyptian side. Kishote orders all traffic halted, and the Yard is again becoming choked up and smoky when Yehiel once more calls.