From twelve miles away, Kishote can see the fire flashes and starshell glare all over the sky above that area. Sharon’s plan is clearly working, for Danny Matt’s paratroopers had to run right past the Chinese Farm en route to Deversoir, and the dinghies with their engineer personnel also had to get by there, to ferry them across the Canal. But the laconic reports of the brigade commanders fighting to clear the Farm are grim: many tanks burning, heavy casualties, major withdrawals to regroup.
Sarak says, “Sir, Flagpole is calling you.” He flips switches on the receiver. Sharon, level and unhurried: “Yossi, what is your situation?”
“Four crocodiles free, sir, and well along toward the Canal. Now freeing two more. The bridge is on the move. Several pontoon rafts are on their way as well.”
“Good. Find a senior officer and delegate that job. I need you at the Yard right away.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nobody better than Yehiel, thinks Kishote, if all is well with the bridge. He has no trouble finding it in the bright moonlight, a black giant horror acrawl over level sands.
“Got it!” Yehiel bares his teeth in a cruel moonlit grin. “On your way, Kishote. Lauterman has this baby under control now, and it’s on schedule. The crocodiles will be there by dawn, I promise you, and I’ll deliver some pontoon rafts, too. I’m the man for this. You’re a gentleman, I’m not. I fuck secretaries. The one officer in this army who does such a horrid thing.”
The gunfire at the Chinese Farm battlefield is growing thunderous as Yossi speeds his jeep along the sands, bypassing bumper-to-bumper road traffic. The sky is slashed with all manner of colored streaks and flashes, a colossal fireworks display paling the moon and betokening fearsome carnage below. At a main road junction the fat lieutenant controlling traffic shouts to Kishote, over the vehicle racket and the booming of the guns, that he is diverting movement southward, because the tank battle at the Farm has spilled over across the roads to Deversoir. Evil tidings! The junction is cluttered with ambulance busses heading the other way; wounded being evacuated already, a disheartening sight.
Kishote goes jouncing across the open desert, a very rough ride, but this is terrain he knows well, and finding his way through the seam is not hard. He comes on Sharon standing amid the half-tracks and APCs of his mobile headquarters. Alone among the officers and soldiers he wears no helmet, and his white-blond hair identifies him from far off. He points to the flaring sky over the Chinese Farm battleground. “Picturesque, yes? Our battalions are fighting like lions. It’ll be all right.” But Kishote knows the man and hears undertones of deep worry in the tranquil words. “Yossi, go over in the next dinghy to the other side, have a look around and bring back a report.”
Astonished, Yossi blurts, “Sir, have you lost contact with Danny Matt?”
“Certainly not, all’s well over there. I’d go myself but I must stay close to this fight.” He gestures at the flame and tumult to the north, takes Kishote aside by the elbow, and speaks hard quick words. “We’re at a crisis. It’s happening early. Southern Command considers me a liar or a simpleton, and their yellow streak is showing already. They claim we’re cut off and surrounded! I assure them over and over that the Chinese Farm battle is difficult but going well, and that Danny Matt is securing his beachhead. Nothing doing. I’m in extremis, they say, and can lose Danny’s brigade as we lost the boys in the maozim. Yossi, we’ve got a triumph developing here, and they’re on the verge of cancelling it. Dayan’s already suggested pulling Danny back. Call it a night raid, he says, and let it go at that. God knows what’s happened to Moshe Dayan.”
“Sir, why should Dayan believe me more than you?”
“Dayan told me to send Yossi Nitzan over. Understand? Now get going.”
Kishote goes and returns, a brief eerie excursion to Egyptian soil, where Matt’s paratroopers are methodically digging in and deploying a perimeter defense in predawn twilight, as though on a night exercise in the Negev. Of the enemy, no sign there, while the inferno blazes to the north. When he gets back the sun is coming up and the Chinese Farm has at last become quiet, no more rattle and crash of guns, and no strange lights tearing the pale sky. At Deversoir tanks and APCs are crowding into the Yard, the enormous brick-paved parking area which Sharon ordered dug into the rampart years ago. Bulldozers arc tearing away at the thin sand-and-brick wall which was left after the hollowing-out of the Yard, and Kishote is not surprised to find Sharon driving one of two bulldozers. “I know exactly where to dig,” Sharon bellows at him, “and I have to show these shleppers!” As he speaks, another bulldozer breaks through the wall. A cheer goes up from the tank crews, for there across the Canal, misty green in the morning sun, is Egypt, a vision of Eden from the dead Sinai sands.
Sharon wallows down from the bulldozer, and shouts to his operations officer, “Get all those tanks to move aside, so we can launch the crocodiles.”
“They’re here?” Kishote exclaims.
“Six of them, and more on the way. That Colonel Yehiel is a man of valor. So, what did you see over there? Is Danny Matt being too optimistic? Are we in extremis?”
“By no means. We walked the whole perimeter. There’s just no sign of the enemy, sir. Total surprise so far, in fact Danny’s begging for tanks, he says with tanks he can roll to Cairo.”
“Then it’s working. Thank God. That’s what matters.” Sharon grasps his arm, and his voice falls. “It’s been a terrible, terrible night at the Chinese Farm, Yossi. They’re still taking out the dead and wounded. Hundreds of casualties, whole companies of tanks destroyed. Terrible. Fearful.” He stares at his deputy, hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked. “A horrible price, but it’s working. Now we ferry the tanks over until the bridge comes. Once it’s in place Bren Adan and I can pile all our power across, and panic the enemy into collapse. We can still win this war today, Yossi. I’m going to call Southern Command. Come with me, and stand by to report on what you saw over there. Bar-Lev is waiting.”
Outside the Yard the crocodiles, ungainly wheeled boats with puffed-up floats along their hulls, are lined up in column. Kishote strides to Yehiel, all covered with dust, and embraces him. “Yehiel, by your life, Sharon calls you a man of valor.”
Hoarsely Yehiel replies, “Let him tell that to the promotion board. Maybe they’ll listen to Arik Sharon.”
In Jerusalem Zev Barak is putting on a dress uniform as he listens to the 6 A.M. news. Top story Syrian front, next item American airlift; about the Canal crossing not a word. Good, security is holding. He is bleary from sitting up with Golda most of the night, until Dado’s report that the beachhead has been taken, the paratroopers are digging in; and by Sharon’s account, while there has been something of a problem in keeping the roads clear past the Chinese Farm, the situation is well under control.
Nakhama is at a mirror in the foyer, clad in a suit she bought in Washington and seldom wears. Fussing with her hair, she says, “You’re sure now, Zevvy? Why do I belong at a ceremony honoring the airlift?”
“Golda asked me to bring you, motek. All right?”
As they drive to Lod airport, Nakhama chatters in rare good spirits. Noah’s sudden engagement to the French girl has cheered her. They hardly know Julie, but Nakhama has come to dislike Daphna Luria, of elite family but a maddening fickle girl. Also, in the few days since his return from Washington she has been warmer to him, he is not sure why, and as for trying to figure her out, he has given that up long ago.
Parking at the terminal, they can see out on the sunny tarmac a double line of troops drawn up, an honor guard with four large flapping flags: the Stars and Stripes, the Star of David, and the banners of both air forces. In the office of the airport director, Golda is drinking tea as she smokes. “Hello, my dear,” she says to Nakhama. “So glad you could come. This is your husband’s doing, he performed marvels in Washington.”
“I did nothing, Nakhama,” says Barak, “but this is the last time I’ll deny it.”
“How are your girls, dear, and your navy captai
n? How proud you must be of him!”
An aide looks in. “Madame Prime Minister, the tower reports the C-5A will be landing in two minutes.”
Brushing ashes from her skirt, Golda Meir walks out with Barak, Nakhama, and her small entourage to the microphones on the tarmac, where the American ambassador and his military aide already stand. Shouts arise from spectators lining the fences and terminal roof. “There it comes!” The dot in the hazy morning sky over the Mediterranean is swelling into a giant aircraft. “Look at that, will you?” Nakhama cries. “A flying Empire State Building.” Golda smiles indulgently at her. As the Galaxy touches down and taxis to the terminal, and the army band strikes up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the Prime Minister draws herself up stiffly. “Thank God, thank God we did not launch a preemptive strike,” she says to Barak when the music ends, loud enough for the American ambassador to hear. “If we had done it, this would not be happening. We would be friendless in the world. We have kept the faith, and so has the American President.”
The ambassador edges toward her. “Madame Prime Minister, I should tell you that through some slipup the pilot has not been notified that there’s a ceremony scheduled. I’m sorry.”
“So what? Don’t worry, he’ll handle it.”
The Galaxy stops, the nose and tail ramps open out, the spectators cheer. Flatbed trucks roll up the ramps followed by swarming cargo handlers, and the pilot, a gangling blond young man in blue coveralls, emerges from the plane. The ambassador goes to meet him, and escorts him to Golda Meir. “Madame Prime Minister, allow me to present Major Tom Robinson, United States Air Force.”
“Major Robinson, welcome to Israel. I’m sure you’re tired and I won’t keep you long.” Her amplified voice reverberates over the field. “I said to my daughter yesterday, ‘I could kiss the pilots of these planes,’ and she said, ‘Well, then do it.’ That’s why we’re having this little ceremony.” Rising on tiptoe, she kisses the pilot on the cheek. From the crowd, laughter and cheers. Flashbulbs pop, and portable TV cameras move in.
The pilot steps up to the microphone. “Ah, uh, Madame Prime Minister, this is mah first flight here,” he says, his voice booming from the loudspeakers, the southern accent plainly coming through. “The fellers who’ve already done it told me they were greeted bah beautiful women with flowers and kisses. Mah question is, where are yo’ flowers?”
The crowd applauds. Golda laughs to the ambassador, “Nu? Did I say he’d handle it?” Walking off the field, she touches Nakhama’s arm. “Will you have lunch with me, my dear, or are you busy?”
Nakhama happily gasps acceptance, and Golda draws Barak aside. “Now listen, Mr. Alarmist,” she grates, her genial manner vanishing, “order a helicopter at once, go down south, and for God’s sake find out what’s really happening in that crossing. Don’t come back without facts. Getting information out of the military, and I include Dado and Dayan, is hopeless. In all my life I’ve never been more uncertain and on edge.”
“Madame Prime Minister, when an attack is just starting it’s hard —”
She rides over him. “I tell you, Zev, I’m starting to feel the way I did the day before Yom Kippur. In the dark, sick at heart, frustrated. How are the troops and tanks getting across? Are they still crossing? What’s happening to that bridge of Tallik’s? Is fighting going on, and if so, where, and how serious? Is this airlift all for nothing? Suppose a cease-fire proposal comes in today? I must know!”
“But even the commanders on the spot won’t know all, Madame Prime Minister. Reports come in slowly and —”
“They know something. I know nothing. Nobody wants to say anything to me, because I might hold them to account for it. Zev, my nose tells me there’s trouble. Get down there.”
Gorodish’s advance headquarters at Umm Hashiba remind Barak of the Pit on Yom Kippur; anxious officers and secretaries rushing around, clamor of loudspeakers, clatter of teleprinters, a general air of discombobulation. In the war room the huge floor-to-ceiling maps show an alarming picture. The supply corridor to Deversoir is a hairline of blue through the two thick red enemy lodgments in Sinai, and across the Canal Danny Matt’s bridgehead makes a tiny blue wart on the vast red expanse of Egypt. That is exactly how things stand, Bar-Lev and Gorodish angrily tell him. Sharon has plunged masses of troops into futile all-night butchery at the Chinese Farm. The losses in men and machines have been frightful, yet none of his promises have been fulfilled. The roads are still virtually impassable, and there are no bridges. What is worse, he is still sending forces across in rubber dinghies and a few old crocodiles, and proposes to go right on with this foolhardy ferrying of his own and Adan’s division this morning.
“Can anything be more irresponsible?” cries Gorodish. “Lodging two divisions in enemy territory, their backs to a water obstacle, with no secure supply line, and not one bridge in place? Is he insane? They can run out of fuel and ammunition in a few hours of combat! Then what?”
“He has no sense of military realities.” Bar-Lev speaks like a judge passing sentence. “His supposed brilliance is adventurousness. He takes rash plunges that others have to make good, to save the soldiers’ lives he gambles with.”
“En brera, the responsibility is ours,” says Gorodish, “and I’m about to order a halt, Zev. I’ll instruct Sharon, straight out, No more forces crossing the Canal until a bridge is in place. And if in thirty-six hours we have no bridge, I’m bringing back Danny Matt’s brigade, by God, while I still can.”
“Where exactly is the roller bridge, Gorodish? What shape is it in? Golda keeps asking about that bridge.”
“It broke down yesterday. Sharon claims it’s repaired and on the move west of Yukon. But who knows? Between Tallik’s meshugas and Sharon’s meshugas, God help the Jewish State.”
“With your permission I’ll go and see for myself.”
“By all means,” says Gorodish.
Bar-Lev dourly nods.
28
Sharon Halted
Viewed from the air, the blocked roads in Sinai appall Barak. Most war games involving Egypt have ended in a Canal crossing, but no “worst scenario” has ever contemplated such stupendous traffic jams. A paralyzing sight, those serpentine miles and miles of unmoving war machines, supply lorries, ambulances, and miscellaneous vehicles; lucky it is that Golda has not made this foray herself. What targets for strafing! With a little courage the Egyptian air force could create ghastly ruin here. Reenforcements and supplies for the crossing are piling up, backing up, choking the accesses because they have nowhere to go. If Tallik’s Israel Prize could only get to the Canal and provide a broad stable sluice the traffic would start to flow, and the crossing might have a chance. Otherwise, the pessimism at Southern Command makes frightening sense.
“Could that be it, sir?” Speaking in the headphones over the helicopter noise, the pilot points to a dark line ahead on the sands.
“Probably. It’s got AA escort, remember.”
“No problem.” The helicopter tilts in a slow wide curve. Harsh coded AA challenge in the headset. Pilot’s calm coded reply.
“Okay. Good morning, helicopter,” says the challenging voice. “Welcome to the bridge.”
“By my life, sir,” says the pilot, looking through his side window, “I thought you were joking. That bridge does crawl.”
“Well, tanks are towing it.”
“I realize that, sir. Even so.” As they descend, the bridge is traversing a gully, and the head is climbing up one side while the tail is still going down the other. “I’ll be seeing that thing in my dreams, sir,” says the pilot. “It’s a horror, sir.”
On the ground Lauterman, Yehiel, and Kishote are riding in a half-track ahead of the bridge. “Who can that be?” says Kishote, squinting up at the helicopter. “Nobody from Southern Command, surely. To them this bridge is a big creeping leprosy.”
“Then they should all be ashamed,” says Lauterman. “The bridge is an engineering marvel, like the Eiffel Tower. It’ll become a legen
d.”
“Legend, ha,” says Yehiel. “Let’s just get this verkakteh [shitty] monstrosity to the Canal.”
The helicopter settles down in a boil of flying sand and Barak jumps out, happy to see the bridge so smoothly on the move.
Kishote hails him from the half-track. “Welcome, Zev, hop in.”
“Thanks, I hear you’ve been having problems.”
“All solved. See that big dune ahead? Just wait.”
“How far are we from the crossing area here, Yossi?”
“Nine miles, maybe less.”
“Then the bridge should be across the Canal by midday, no?”
“It should. The real question is the Tirtur Road, you know, as it goes past the Chinese Farm,” says Kishote. “It’s not altogether secure, but — well, we’ll talk about that. Now just watch. You’re about to witness something impressive.”
As the half-track jolts up the dune, Lauterman explains the towing team’s braking technique to Barak. He has to raise his voice because the tanks are making their usual climbing tumult, and the bridge is clanking, squealing, and groaning in its unique Frankenstein voice. The brilliance of the design, he says, is that a single tank in the rear can brake the whole six-hundred-ton structure. Everything depends on coordinating the signals among the towing tanks; a simple question of balancing the nudging of the tanks and the power of gravity, to ease the bridge over the top. With practice, this company of tanks is getting very good at it.
“There it goes,” says Lauterman, as the lead tanks top the crest and head down, followed by the first rollers. “Now watch! It’s a tug-of-war, you see, the nine towing tanks versus the braking tank. That’s where the coordination comes in.”