Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon (10 page)

To be sure, the position was secure for the moment, the field of fire open, the scope for enemy counterattack limited. But it might take only one tracer bullet, or a single grenade not to mention a rocket to blow the whole shebang into eternity.

An idea came to Casca. He tried to push it away, but it persisted, so he entertained it and explored its possibilities.

Very well, he thought, here he was, right back where it had all started 1,935 years earlier. Long enough time surely. Maybe by now he was within reach of release. The Jew had cursed him to wait for his return, so there was the implicit promise that the curse would not last forever. The dying revolutionary had not said when or how or why he would return, but a thousand other prophets had
chanced their arm on the point. And most of them, almost all of them, made it about now. But from their words, it had looked like about now for most of the nineteen hundred years that Casca had waited for his release.

Yet this time there was one big difference. He was back in the land where the curse had first been laid upon him.

The poet that lurks unrealized in every man cried out in Casca for a final resolution of his eternal dilemma in the place where it had been born.

And now, perhaps in a way that he could have never thought of, the resolution might be in sight.

If, as seemed likely, one round from the Arabs were to arrive within this building stacked to the ceiling with high explosive, then surely he would die.

Surely, he would really die.

How could even the curse of the vengeance minded crucified one put back together a body so blown apart? The flesh wound in his side had already healed, but that had been a mere scratch.

Casca had a horrifying but also liberating vision of being blown apart, blasted to the four winds by any chance round that might arrive. And, surely, that must be the end.

Across the top of a pile of rockets his eyes connected with Hyman Hagkel's. "The End of Days, do you think?" Hymie smiled at him, his fanatical eyes clearly lusting toward his own death.

In Casca's soul a tiny dissonance trembled. He shook his head.

"Just one more end to one more day," he said. "And it's up to us how it ends. Let's get to it."

With sudden determined resolution he moved to where Billy
Glennon's Browning commanded the field of their most likely source of attack. "See anything?" he asked.

"Damnedest field of fire I've ever looked over,"
Glennon grunted without taking his eyes from the area covered by his gun. "Where the hell are they? If they don't want to fight, why don't they just lie down and die?"

Throughout the area that was exactly what the Egyptians were doing. Some of them were simply collapsing behind their guns, paralyzed with fright; some were hiding; some were running. But almost none were fighting.

The officer led Israeli Army had found for its enemy an officerless rabble of young boys and tired old professionals.

And none of the boys, and few of the pros, had ever experienced a battle like this one. They were reeling in horror and despair from scenes of spurting blood and spilled guts that were all the more terrifying because they happened in the dark. And the bits and pieces of dismembered bodies flying around alerted the Arabs to their own imminent fate.

As dawn broke over the Sinai there was not a single Egyptian officer in effective command in the whole of Al 'Arish, although here and there a captain or a major, a colonel or a sergeant tried to rally around him a few Arabs in the defense of their Jihad.

A few succeeded, but these heroes died as painfully, as brutally, and as uselessly as the cowards and the sensible ones who were running for the horizon.

Casca's company played little further part in the action. The arms store was a fine place to rest but no sort of bunker to fight from. And, hell, the company had lost enough men for one day. The Egyptians were either unaware that they had occupied the building or were too busy running, hiding, and dying to care.

Only when the Arab
defense positions emptied in a wholesale, every man for himself retreat, did Casca permit his troops to open fire. They sprayed the few Arabs who came close with lead, but attracted no return fire amid the general chaos. As the sun came up Casca was delighted to realize that his ammunition store had survived intact and that the fleeing Arabs were making no attempt upon it.

Over the Regimental Headquarters a large blue and
white flag was rippling in the light morning breeze.

"Well, you learn all the time," he said with a laugh to Harry Russell. "The last place I'd have ever wanted to be in turns out to be the safest position there is."

Harry sat down on an ammunition case. "Yeah," he said, "it sure is an unusual sort of bunker but I like it."

Brigadier General Israel Tal invited his field officers to a working breakfast in the luxuriously appointed Egyptian general officers' dining room.

"Fruits of victory," he said ironically as he passed around a plate of fresh figs. "A brutal battle, but we have set the stage, as we planned to, for the victories that are to follow.

"I have just been advised that an Egyptian relief column is on the way here consisting of an armored brigade and a brigade of mechanized infantry." He paused for effect. "I must also tell you that we will not be waiting for them as they will not get here: They had the misfortune to encounter Avraham Yoffe's men at Bir al Lahtan." He grinned happily as his officers cheered. "So we will be pushing on immediately to Suez."

There was another general cheer. "Some of us, that
is. Some of you I am sending to the assistance of General Sharon, who is about to attack Abu Agheila. He is at present, encircling the whole area, which is, as you know, an extremely complex maze of fortifications that has been built up over many years, and will not be easy to take.

"But we must have it. It commands the central axis through the Sinai. Ariel Sharon will launch a coordinated attack of infantry and
armor at nightfall today. Colonel Weintraub's regiment will join him. The force will be lifted from here by helicopter."

"Sounds like a fun way to start the night," Moynihan said when Casca told him the news. "I suppose they'll put us down right in the middle of it all."

Moynihan had guessed right. The helicopters swooped into the center of a ring of fire.

General Sharon's concerted attack was occupying the Egyptians at every point of the compass. For an hour every gun that he could bring to bear had been firing as hard and as fast as the barrels could stand.

Shells were landing all along the perimeter of the fortress's outer defenses while other guns were pouring more and more shells into every corner of the inner perimeter. The Israeli Air Force had spent the last two hours of daylight plastering the entire area.

The attacking bombers and strafing fighters had the sky to themselves as there was not an Egyptian plane left in condition to fly.

Wave after wave of Vautour bombers pounded the fortifications. The Arab antiaircraft gunners tried valiantly to make up for their lack of air defense, but only succeeded in exposing themselves as targets for the escorting fighter planes. By the time Colonel Weintraub's helicopters arrived there was scarcely a gun crew left that could fire into the air.

The timing was meticulous. The incessant bombardment cloaked the arrival of the airborne force and ceased only half a minute before the first choppers set down and troops leaped from them.

The dazed, bewildered, and thoroughly scared defenders barely registered that the helicopters were coming. Their attention was entirely devoted to the desperate effort of trying to answer the encircling artillery barrage.

Casca deployed his men in a protective circle around his heavy weapons squad and succeeded in keeping at bay the few Egyptian troops who attempted to attack them.

Then the mortars and the Brownings opened up and the startled defenders discovered that their front was behind them. After hours of heartbreaking, suicidal effort to organize their fire onto the attackers out in the desert, they now had to try to regroup to fight into the center of their own area.

And they had barely managed to start thinking about that when General Sharon's
armor and infantry came swarming at them from all over the desert.

The battle was over almost as soon as it had begun. Sandwiched in the dark between the paratroopers and the encircling force
,. the Egyptians scarcely knew which way to turn. When they fired, they frequently hit their own troops. When they thought about running, they ran into some sort of fire, no matter which way they ran.

It was a situation that would easily enough bring brave men to tears and most of these defenders were mere schoolboys. Last night they had dreamed of glory, medals, admiring women, envious men. Tonight this nightmare was real beyond all dreaming.

Terrified, they broke out of their own defenses to run directly into Sharon's machine guns.

The carnage continued.

And ended only when the Israelis tired of the slaughter. Gradually, first in one section of the circle, then in others, Israeli soldiers stopped shooting. The despairing Arab survivors rushed out as the Israelis walked in, their guns held loose in their hands, or even slung over their shoulders.

Section after section quieted until there was only sporadic fire here and there.

And then silence, except for the panic stricken shouts of the thousands of Arabs who were running heedlessly into the dark, the screams of the wounded, and the hideous groans of the dying.

The battle was over.

"An unjoyous victory," Billy Glennon muttered as he recapped his canteen. "I haven't even raised a thirst."

"No," Moynihan said, grimacing, "me neither. But I'll bet
ye these boyohs who are heading away could use a drop."

"Yeah,"
Glennon agreed. He well knew the truly unquenchable thirst that followed defeat in a firefight. "Dunno where they'll find any."

"Well," Moynihan said, "Screw '
em, they picked the wrong side."

"Born into it," Harry Russell said, "but we seem to be on the right side this time."

"I wish you hadn't said that."

"So do I. Damn my big mouth, so do I."

Part of General Tal's task force racing west from Al 'Arish had already made it to the Suez Canal.

The helicopters returned to Abu Agheila and the Red colonel's regiment was ferried out but not back to rejoin General. Tal. They were delivered to Jerusalem, where fierce fighting was raging as possession of the ancient city was contested by Israeli and Jordanian troops.

In the 1956 war, King Hussein had kept his troops aloof from the action, and it had been Israel's hope that he would do the same now, but Jordanian forces had opened fire on the Israeli part of Jerusalem within twenty five minutes of the Israeli sneak attacks on Egyptian airfields that had
signaled the start of the war.

Minister for
Defense Moshe Dayan, hoping for a Jordanian withdrawal, had withheld permission to retaliate until one o'clock that afternoon. Even then he gave the Israeli commander, General Uvi Narkiss, strict orders to ensure that on no account should any damage occur to any of the holy places sacred to either Jews, Moslems, or Christians.

All day and all night Monday and Tuesday the battle had continued. Israeli troops had captured the headquarters of the UN truce force and had advanced through the
Mandelbaum Gate to fight a fierce battle for the Police School. The British trained Arab Legion put up a stubborn and almost successful defense. Throughout Monday and Tuesday nights the Jewish quarter of the city was subjected to heavy artillery bombardment. There were almost a thousand casualties amongst the Jewish civilian population. Now, in a series of flanking movements, the Israelis had taken the high ground around Jerusalem, sealing off the Old City, but leaving an escape route into Jordan for the Arab defenders.

Casca's company was landed on the Mount of Olives to the east of the city above the Garden of Gethsemane. Israeli artillery was firing slowly and intermittently into the city, the coordinates for each shot being carefully studied before the commanding officer would give the order to fire. Major Epstein was trying to clear the Jordanians from the area inside St. Stephen's Gate on the north
-eastern corner of the city. But he had to ensure that none of his shells landed on the Christian Church of St. Anne or the nearby Dome of the Rock. He was doing a sterling job of it, but as a result the Jordanians were not being dislodged. They had ensconced themselves beyond the western wall of the Church of St. Anne, between Herod's Gate and the sacred site of the Antonia Fortress.

Casca watched the artillery officer poring over his maps, checking and rechecking his coordinates.

"Oh, wouldn't I just love to land a shell on that damn dome," Epstein said with a scowl.

"Fire away," Casca said. "History has forgiven Napoleon for destroying the Parthenon, and it was a much grander temple than the Dome of the Rock."

"History is apt to be kinder than Moshe Dayan. Like myself, he doesn't even go to synagogue, but he has forbidden me to so much as put a scratch on any sacred site."

Casca laughed. "Every corner of this city is sacred to somebody."

"You said it," Epstein moaned, "and Dayan has made them all sacred to me. And I'm a died in the wool atheist."

"You're not a Sabra, are you?"

"Hell no, I'm Dutch. I'm just an Arab hater on principle."

"What principle is that?"

Epstein laughed easily. "Who knows? Everybody needs somebody to hate. I hate Arabs." He thought for a moment. "You know, I suspect it's because they are really Semites, and I really am not."

It was Casca's turn to laugh. "Now you're getting me confused."

"Anybody who is not confused about Arabs and Jews simply has no idea of what is what," Epstein answered. "As far as I can tell, my problem dates back to medieval Russia when, on the advice of his scholars, the czar ordered his subjects to embrace the Jewish religion. They resisted mightily, and the czar invented the pogrom, massacring and torturing for a generation until a number of areas did, in fact, convert to Judaism.

"Then the czar changed his mind, declared Judaism an illegal religion, and applied his pogroms to trying to wipe it out."

"And these new Jews resisted?" Casca asked.

"Strenuously
," Epstein replied. "Even more strenuously than their parents had resisted conversion. They had been cowed once and could not accept it a second time. Besides, by this time they believed themselves to be the chosen people – something not easy to give up.

"So the pogroms and persecutions continued as they do to this day. Somewhere along the way my people fled to Poland, a few generations later to Germany, and eventually to Holland.

"And eventually, I fled here so that I can feel persecuted. In Holland we are no longer sufficiently ill-treated for me to feel like a real Jew. Understand?"

"No." Casca laughed.

"Nor do I." Epstein laughed too.

"And the Arabs?"
Casca asked.

"Well, meanwhile, a madman, somewhat in the style of Christ, but more violent
– his name is now Mohammed – was busy here running a program of his own, putting to the sword every Jew who would not bow down to Allah.

"So, at the point of the Muslim sword, most of the Jews who had stayed here after the fall of Jerusalem became Muslims. A few, the Sephardic, held out and fled to Abyssinia. Today they scarcely even speak Hebrew. They're called
Falasha.

"So now, we Jews of Russian race, the
Ashkenazis, but of Jewish religion, are fighting a Semitic race that is Muslim by religion. Moses, Christ, and Mohammed would all be confused if they were to come here today."

"And how," asked Casca, "
will it end, do you think?"

"It will never end." Epstein shrugged and returned his attention to his maps.

The Red colonel trundled his armored car up to the wall near where the Arabs waited in safety by St. Stephen's Gate on the edge of the Muslim Quarter. Weintraub called up a Centurion tank and waved it on past him and into the wall. As the masonry crumbled Weintraub followed the Centurion through the broken wall, and Casca and his company rushed behind his armored car.

They came under heavy fire from all around the Church of St. Anne and were forced to take shelter behind the
armor, trading rifle shots with the Jordanians.

Every burst of fire brought several in reply from the well placed Arabs. Casualties mounted rapidly on both sides as the tedious firelight continued under the ever hotter sun.

Moynihan led his squad in a blistering charge that dislodged Arabs from a large house, but then they were pinned down by Arab fire from several quarters.

Harry Russell led another charge that took the adjoining house and then Casca, Billy
Glennon, and a whole platoon managed to leap frog these positions and occupy the old inn on the corner of the street that led to the Damascus Gate.

Moynihan and Russell brought up their squads and as the rest of the troops moved up, they had command of several blocks of the Muslim Quarter.

"Just like fighting the cops in Belfast," Moynihan muttered as he charged back into the street again.

At the end of an hour they were halfway to the Damascus Gate. But the Jordanian troops rallied strongly and mounted a series of furious charges along the narrow, twisting streets that surrounded Casca's men.

"B'Jazus, but these Johnnies can fight," Harry Russell cursed as he fired around a stone wall, covering his men as they fell back toward the old inn.

He was limping painfully when he made it back to the inn. An Arab bullet had singed his buttock as he had turned to run after his men.

"It's a right mournful thing for an Irishman to get shot in the ass," he groaned. "It's bad enough to have to run, but to bear the mark of it is a bitter pill."

"Better than being shot in the balls," Moynihan said.

"There is that about it," Russell agreed, then scowled and cursed as Casca poured alcohol over the graze. He twisted his neck to try to see the undignified wound. "It's a sorrowful place to be hit for certain," he lamented. "Can't be bandaged, I can't sit down and it's ruined me best Sunday trousers."

"We'll get you a smart new pair made by the best Jewish tailor as soon as we're through here," said Moynihan. "Which might be a wee while," he went on, peeking around a window shutter at a street entirely held by Jordanians. "I think they've got us holed up here."

Russell was gulping water from his canteen. "Have you ever noticed how your thirst increases when you're taking a licking?"

"Aye," Moynihan said, drinking, too, as they all were. "Don't know if there's any decent water here."

"Bound to be some wine," Russell said.

"I suppose so, but that's not what I need."

"I'll just have a look," Harry Russell said and headed toward the steps that led down to the cellars.

Moynihan looked after him with a puzzled frown. When it came to drinking Harry was no slouch, but only a novice alongside Moynihan. But neither of them ever drank on the job.

Russell reappeared with a bottle in each hand. He craned his neck around the shutter and withdrew it smartly as a shot ricocheted from the wall. "Aye, we're going to be here a wee while."

He ran his bayonet up the sloping neck of the bottle and beamed as it popped off the top inch of glass and the cork. He held the neatly broken neck just away from his lips and gulped several mouthfuls.

Moynihan shook his head as Harry offered him the bottle. So did Casca and the others. Russell shrugged and drank some more. "I'd enjoy this more if I could sit down to it." He laughed.

He drained the bottle and, using the same technique to open it, started on the second. Moynihan glanced at him and shrugged. Well, two bottles of light table wine was no big deal for a drinker like Harry, especially with the battle thirst on him.

Casca was thinking along the same lines. His old comrade's behavior had him slightly puzzled, but his mind and his eyes were mainly on the street.

House to house fighting was his element. He had survived more street confrontations than any hundred men alive if only because he had also died in a dozen or more inner city battles. But this city was something else.

And he knew this city.

In this very inn, nineteen hundred odd years earlier, he had stabbed to death his own sergeant.
And had died for it. And lived again.

Over the intervening centuries, the inn had been ruined and rebuilt a dozen, perhaps a hundred times. The room where he and the sergeant had fought over the whore now lay beneath his feet, under the accumulated debris of the ages. The cellar from which Harry had looted the wine was built way above the roof of the inn where that fight had taken place.

The Damascus Gate was still where it had been then. So was Herod's Gate, and several other landmarks. But the territory between had changed beyond all recognition. Where there had once been hollows there were now hills, built up by the endless rebuilding of the city upon its own ruins. And the great landmarks, the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Citadel, and the Tower of David, which had all once stood proud upon heights, were now sunk in the hollows between the giant mounds of the repeated reconstruction.

And in between, the streets were a mad, meaningless maze that twisted and turned in every conceivable direction, a warren of cobbled alleys winding through arches over and around the mounds of the ruins below. Streets that had once run level now climbed in flights of steps or descended in steep ramps, or simply came to an abrupt end in blunt walls.

And the Jordanians they were fighting had lived here for generations. They knew this territory, and they, knew how to fight.

It came down to the old dilemma. When all strategy fails there are just two choices: run or attack.

And there was nowhere for the Israelis to run.

"We're going to move out," Casca said.

"About time, I reckon," Harry Russell said. He pointed west down the one straight street, the Via Dolorosa. "Okay if I take my squad right down there?"

Casca had been thinking of leading that charge himself. "I think that will be pretty rough."

The big Paddy smiled and Casca caught a whiff of the wine on his breath as he spoke. "If ye've got a better idea, I'm here to take orders."

Casca nodded. "Okay, Harry, it's yours. Move out."

They poured out of the inn a dozen different ways, through doors and windows, over courtyard walls, up into the middle of the street from an old storm drain. The sudden fury of their charge set the Arabs reeling.

Casca and Moynihan and their men made it to the Damascus Gate and forced its defenders from the towers.

Now they had command of another straight street, the el Wad Road, a major north south artery that intersected the Via Dolorosa. From atop the gate Casca could see Harry's men fighting their way along the Dolorosa one house at a time. When they occupied a house on one side of the street, they would use its windows and roof to lay a withering hail of fire on the house opposite. Then a sudden pause and a mad charge directly across the street to storm the enemy held building.

Then this new vantage point would enable them to pour similar fire on the next house opposite. Casca noticed that Harry was limping much worse, and guessed that he had been hit again.