Herman Wouk - The Glory

by The Glory(Lit)

  "I'll take it." Kishote peers at the soldier. He is short, roly-poly, very young and very unshaven. "Who are you?"

  "I was his runner, sir. Mostly I worked for his aide, Sergeant Barkowe."

  "And where is he?" The soldier does not answer, but his sad face grows sadder. "What, is Dzecki dead, too?"

  "He's not dead, sir." The sergeant points at a parked yellow hospital bus. "They're taking him to the dressing station, where the helicopters come."

  Kishote boards the bus. The wounded lie in two tiers, some moaning or crying, several with needles and tubes stuck in them. The smell of blood, antiseptic, and rank bodies is

  strong. He comes on Dzecki in a lower tier, where a corpsman is holding a plasma jar over him. His uniform is blood-soaked, and Kishote's stomach turns at seeing most of his right arm gone. The stump is heavily bandaged and very bloody.

  Dzecki is conscious, and even manages a smile. "Hi, General," he says in English. "I was lucky, I'm left-handed. They say Colonel Lauterman's dead."

  "I know, Dzecki. This is his clarinet. Your runner brought it to me."

  "Good. He's a nice boy." Dzecki sounds weak but peculiarly cheery. Kishote has observed this before, in soldiers in shock from terrible wounds. "Yo-yo actually played the clarinet one night at Yukon, you know. Played Benny Goodman and then Mozart. Not bad, in fact. He said his son played better than he did. You should give it to his son."

  "I'll be sure to."

  The corpsman says, "General, I think the bus will be starting."

  "It's my mother I'm worried about," says Dzecki. "She'll be mad as hell, and the trouble is she'll blame the Israelis, not the Egyptians."

  "She'll be great. Don't worry."

  "Sir, will you give me a kiss?"

  Kishote kneels and puts his lips to the bristly face bathed in cool perspiration. "God bless you, Dzecki, and send you a quick healing."

  "Thanks. The guys are always saying I was crazy to come here from America'' - Dzecki's voice is fading, and his eyelids droop - "but I helped get the bridge to the Suez Canal, didn't I?"

  "You're a lion, Dzecki." Don Kishote kisses him again, presses his sweaty hand, and leaves the bus. A glittery edge of sun is just creeping up over a distant Sinai ridge, glorious and blinding. It warms his tearstained face, and strikes the steady stream of thunderous traffic on the roller bridge with a blaze of light.

  31

  Golda and Kissinger

  On this day, Friday, October 19, thirteen days after Yom Kippur, with the Israeli army starting a three-pronged rampage into Egypt and the American airlift coming to flood, Anwar Sadat yields to Russian insistence and accepts the proposal of a cease-fire in place. At once Brezhnev cables President Nixon, urging that he send Kissinger to Moscow to negotiate the cease-fire terms, and Air Force One leaves Washington at 2 a.m. with the Secretary and his entourage.

  Now unfolds a rapid-fire international comedy-drama such as the world has never seen, nor indeed is likely to see again. For it takes place in the shuddery Cold War era of Mutually Assured Deterrence, or MAD, the quite serious acronym of the time for the nuclear stalemate, when people are living with the half-buried awareness that if one superpower leader makes an imbecilic misjudgment, or a supposed fail-safe military control mechanism malfunctions, much of the world can be cremated or fatally irradiated in a few hours. It is in this frame of reality that Dr. Kissinger, who has just received the Nobel Peace Prize for his Vietnam War negotiations, wings off to Moscow.

  Once he gets there, cables, telephone calls, letters, despatches, threats, pleas, cajoleries, snarls and counter-snarls spark at all hours of the day and night among five points on

  the globe: Washington, Moscow, Cairo, Jerusalem, and New York, where the Security Council keeps convening at very short notice and very odd times. Meanwhile in "Africa" the Israeli attack rolls on: General Adan's division, with Natke Nir in the van, driving southward toward Suez City to entrap the Third Army lodged on the Sinai side of the Canal; Sharon pushing north to Ismailia to cut off the Second Army; and a third division battling westward on the main road to Cairo. At the height of the frenzied diplomatic signalling, Golda Meir sends for the Ramatkhal and puts a blunt question. "Dado, how much time do you need?" "For a decisive result, Prime Minister, three more days." "All right, I'll do what I can. But with Kissinger in Moscow," she raises her hands and her eyes to heaven, "who knows? Who knows?"

  Monday, October 22. To the cease-fire negotiated in Moscow, Israel has agreed; Egypt, not yet. In bright sunshine the unmistakable Air Force One, with its immense Stars and Stripes and the united states of America painted on the gleaming white fuselage, taxis to a stop in Lod airport, and out steps the Secretary of State in a very creased gray suit. He appears nonplussed, not to say startled, at his reception by the Israelis: sightseers at the terminal, cargo handlers swarming at the big airlift transports, and soldiers guarding those planes are all cheering. Descending the ramp, he holds out his hand to Zev Barak, who awaits him in dress uniform. "Ah, the vite eminence again. General Barak, is it?"

  With a polite smile at the pleasantry, Barak says, "Correct, sir. Welcome to Israel. The Prime Minister is eager to see you."

  "Is she? I hope so." The visitor uncertainly waves at the Israelis applauding him, as he walks from Air Force One to a waiting limousine.

  "Congratulations, Mr. Secretary," Barak says, opening the car door, "on your Nobel Peace Prize."

  "Aren't you nice. Thank you." He settles into the back seat and makes an inquiring gesture toward the driver.

  Barak mutters, "English is all right, sir."

  "Vat is Golda's mood?"

  "She's furious."

  "Oh? Tell me vy."

  "We'll be in Herzliyya shortly, sir. She'll do that better than I can."

  An owlish look through thick glasses. "No doubt. So, vat's the schedule?"

  "She'll meet with you alone first, sir, for forty-five minutes, before lunch with ministers and army leaders."

  "Very good. And after that? I must take off again at five o'clock."

  "After that, sir, General Elazar will brief you on the military picture."

  "Ah. Now that will be damned helpful. I kept begging Dinitz from Moscow for a battlefield update. Nothing! I had to negotiate in the dark. Under the circumstances, I've truly done my best for you." Kissinger looks at him earnestly and touches his arm. "As you see, at Golda's insistence, I even changed my return route in order to stop here. It meant clearing a new flight plan over the Soviet Union, and arranging an escort by our carrier fighters through the war zone. It wasn't easy."

  "Sir, I know the Prime Minister appreciates that."

  "She does? Good. Anyway, here I am."

  At a bleak villa on a knoll surrounded by barbed wire, Barak escorts him through a side entrance to a glass-enclosed porch where Golda waits alone. Stubbing out a cigarette, she rises to greet Kissinger, and they sit down side by side on a threadbare red couch. Her subtle eye-signal tells Barak to remain. After chitchat about the flight from Moscow she abruptly turns harsh. "Mr. Secretary, why on earth did you rocket off to Moscow at two in the morning on Saturday? What was the big rush? Why not take at least a day or two to prepare for such a momentous meeting? Wouldn't that have been more reasonable? And much more helpful?"

  "I couldn't. It was a forced move, believe me. Sadat was in great distress." Kissinger adopts a placating tone. "At any moment, Madame Prime Minister, the Soviet Union might have put a resolution to the Security Council, ordering you to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines under threat of sanctions. Except for us, it probably would have had unanimous support." Kissinger lifts his thick eyebrows and peers at Golda Meir. "Do you understand? Where would that have left you?

  And for my government it would have posed a grave dilemma. If we'd vetoed it we'd be kaput with the Arabs. If we abstained or supported it we'd be betraying you. I forestalled all that, you see, by hurrying to Moscow."

  "What you forestalled was our victory." She brandishes a paper at him. "Th
is despatch you sent me from Moscow is not a communication between allies. It's an ultimatum."

  "An ultimatum!" He looks pained. "Nothing of the kind, Madame Prime Minister, I assure you."

  "What else can I call it? It arrives at eleven last night, just before the Security Council goes into session to take up the deal you made in Moscow. And simultaneously I receive a cable letter from your President, warning us to accept your terms for a cease-fire immediately or face an end to the airlift, and no U.S. support in the Security Council vote. Not an ultimatum?"

  "Forgive me, Madame Prime Minister, but you must have misconstrued the President's letter."

  Barak has read it and thinks it is probably Kissinger in style, but it is not his place to put in a word.

  "I did not, it was in plain English. Too plain. Our cabinet had to stay up all night figuring out exactly what your terms cabled from Moscow implied, while the Security Council debate was already going on. You'll meet some frazzled people at lunch."

  "I'm very sorry. You'd have received the terms at seven o'clock, not eleven, but there was a communications disaster. For four hours we couldn't get messages out." Kissinger's German accent seems to thicken with fatigue. "Maybe the Soviets jammed us. The result may have been a discourtesy, vich I deeply regret, but it was certainly not an ultimatum."

  "And the President's letter?"

  "He wasn't threatening you. If the phrasing was unfortunate -''

  She interrupts, "Mr. Secretary, why did you agree to an urgent night session of the Security Council, altogether? Why a midnight vote on a cease-fire resolution? Why couldn't they have met today? Wasn't that soon enough?"

  With a sharp satiric look from under drooping lids, Kissinger says, "Yes, while your army kept advancing and advancing, eh? Brezhnev was in such a sweat to put the deal

  through that we wrapped it up in four hours. His hurry proved greatly to Israel's benefit, as you're bound to agree when I give you the details."

  He glances at Barak, and she gestures at her military secretary to leave. In a big room cloudy with cigarette smoke, various cabinet members and generals sitting around on motel-style furniture begin to fire questions at him as soon as he appears. Moshe Dayan holds up a hand. "Let him talk. What happened at the airport, Zev?"

  "Minister, they cheered him."

  "Cheered Kissinger?"

  "Yes. He seemed surprised."

  "He should be," says a bitter voice out of the smoke, "after selling us out."

  Another bitter voice. "The people are tired of the war, and they don't know the cease-fire terms."

  "What's his demeanor?" Dayan asks. "What did he say?"

  After a moment, Barak replies, "He says it's the best deal he could get for us. And that he detoured here with much difficulty."

  "Ha! He had to come," says old Yisrael Galili, and it occurs to Barak that here is Golda's true white eminence, with snowy thick hair suited to his years. "It was getting close to a vote in the Security Council, and she wouldn't knuckle down to his terms, not until he promised to come straight here from Moscow and explain himself. He was worried enough to do as she insisted. I predicted that he would."

  Later the bigwigs are lunching at a large U-shaped table with Golda at the head, Kissinger on her right, and Dayan on her left. At the foot of the table sits Barak, convenient to the orderly who brings him a despatch as he eats a compote dessert. One glance and he hurries it to Golda. She peers at it and passes it to Kissinger. He clinks a glass with a fork. "Gentlemen, I have the pleasure to tell you," he says, "that Egypt accepts the cease-fire terms."

  The hand-clapping is temperate. "Interesting, isn't it, Mr. Secretary?" observes Dayan, with a shade of sarcasm. "They were pressing for the cease-fire, not us. Yet we accepted it the moment the Security Council voted it, ten hours ago, and they've waited until the very last minute to agree."

  Kissinger says in his slow accented rumble, "Conceivably

  that has been done for domestic political reasons. In any case, it's a great relief."

  "Your time is short, Mr. Secretary," says Golda aridly, "so let's go on to the military briefing."

  "By all means."

  In a smaller room lined with rows of chairs, Dado describes at a blown-up army map how Adan's division is about to cut off the Third Army at Suez, while Sharon, with smaller forces in worse terrain, is well on his way to Ismailia. It is a deliberate disclosure of top-secret battle intelligence, for Golda has ordered Dado to tell Kissinger everything.

  "I thank you, General," he says to Dado. "You must understand that I was getting none of this information - none - in Moscow, though I pleaded and pleaded for it."

  "Anyway, now you know," says Golda. "Can't you see what a difference a few hours would have made? In fact, would still make? And it would only strengthen your hand with the Soviets, Mr. Secretary. Against them, we've been fighting America's battle in the Middle East. You and I both know that."

  "Well, anything that's really a matter of a few hours, Madame Prime Minister, can hardly be prevented by a cease-fire. There's always a little slippage in cease-fires, such as we encountered in Vietnam." He smiles ingenuously at her. "And now I really should be going, or my staff will be wondering whether I've decided to make aliya and stay here."

  This unexpected sally about his own Jewishness brings a burst of relieving laughter from the Israelis. Dayan escorts him from the room and Golda says to the others, " 'Slippage'! How do you like that? 'Slippage'!"

  Galili says, "No doubt Mr. Sadat knows all about slippage too."

  "Well, if he tries it, we'll show him slippage," she says. "Excuse me, gentlemen, while I see our Jewish friend off."

  In a mud-splattered uniform, rifle slung on her shoulder, Galia Barak stands by a runway watching dark shadows flit roaring across the faded orange streaks of sunset; Phantoms returning to Tel Nof, releasing their drogue parachutes as they land. Among the pilots leaving their planes she recognizes Dov Luria, shorter than the others and walking with his

  own jaunty spring, swinging his helmet. But Dov does not notice her, absorbed as he is in thinking ahead to this last debriefing (so it seems) of the war. Are the great scary days really over? He feels exhilarated at having survived, yet strangely let down. Much later, emerging from the squadron room, he halts amazed. "Galia! How did you manage this?"

  "Glad to see me?" The demure smile is somewhat marred by the mud streaks on her face.

  "Why, sure, but what to all the devils happened to you? You're red mud from head to foot."

  "Oh, a stupid lorry went splashing through a puddle on the road and got me."

  The bulky G suit makes their brief embrace awkward. As they walk to the base commander's quarters she tells him how, on hearing that Egypt accepted the cease-fire, she wheedled a twelve-hour leave from her supply depot supervisor. She laughs, hugging his arm. "It helped to tell him that my fianc6 flies a Phantom."

  "Syria still hasn't accepted," he says soberly, "and I'm sorry Egypt did. We'll soon see-"

  "You're sorry? By your life, Dov, haven't you had enough of this rotten war?"

  "Hamoodah, we had them on the run. We should have smashed them so they wouldn't try it again for twenty-five years. All this cease-fire does is throw a spanner in the works and save them. Damn Kissinger."

  "Leave it to Golda. She knows what she's doing."

  "Ha, en brera,' poor Golda. What does your father say? Have you talked to him?"

  "Not in days. Even my mother hasn't. He's never home."

  Tea and cakes are on the table, where his parents and brother sit waiting for him. They greet Galia with warm badinage about her muddy state, and as she goes off to clean up, Danny presses Dov to describe his last strike. With the usual hand gestures and aviator jargon, Dov holds forth to the shiny-eyed redhead, now much taller than he is, while the parents exchange wry glances. "Anyway, it's stopping," says his mother, "and thank God for that! Now let the politicians pick up the pieces. A fine fashla they made of it."

  "It isn
't over, I bet," says Danny.

  "It's over," says the base commander flatly. "I have no air

  operations scheduled for tomorrow. It's over, and none too soon." Both parents are relieved to their very souls that Dov has come through safe, though neither has said a word about it.

  "We were told at the debriefing," says Dov, "that we remain on Aleph Alert."

  "Of course," says his father. "That'll go on for a week, Dov, till we're sure the truce holds. Golda's broadcasting at eight, and we'll learn more then, but it's over."

  "Well, then off with this suit for a while, eh?" He jumps up to kiss Galia with unabashed ardor as she returns, freshly washed and combed. "Motek, did I mention that your coming here was a great, great idea? I love you." The words and the kiss make her visit worthwhile. The suit smells of fuel and sweat. She adores the smell, the coarse suit, and the aviator inside it.