Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon (8 page)

Casca found Colonel
Weintraub's headquarters in what had been the Egyptian command post. The young Sabra had been promoted to full colonel and now had under his command a regiment of five battalions, a total of two thousand men. He greeted Casca warmly. "Well, Major, how do you like the way this army operates?"

"Suits me fine."
Casca laughed. "I'm not thinking of resigning my commission."

"Can't be done."
The colonel laughed in reply. "That is one item where we didn't copy the British. Israeli officers do not have that privilege. In our book, an officer's resignation in wartime is desertion and is treated accordingly."

"In fact," said Casca, "I see that, in this army, officers don't enjoy many privileges."

The colonel shook his blond head. "In this army what officers enjoy is responsibility."

"Okay with me."

The Sabra appraised Casca shrewdly. "You've held command before, haven't you?"

"Some."

"Care to tell me?"

"It would take some time, and I doubt you have much to spare."

"None at all. We're pushing right on to Al 'Arish. And I don't give a damn anyway. For all I care you might have been with Hitler. You know how to fight, and that's what we need."

Casca nodded. Jews were a generally practical people. But he smiled to himself as he thought that after this was over he just might tell
Weintraub something of his history. It didn't seem quite the time now to mention that he had, in fact, fought for Hitler.

Weintraub
led him to a large scale map on the wall. The Gaza Strip looked ridiculously tiny on the northeast corner of the enormous Sinai Peninsula, which separated it from the Gulf of Suez, the canal, and beyond that, the still much greater expanse of Egypt proper.

The so far victorious Israeli Army had in hard fact barely succeeded in inflicting a
flea bite on an insignificant outpost of the United Arab Republic.

Weintraub's
hand spread over the Sinai. "As you can see, we have a little way to go. This wasteland of rock and desert, the Sinai, is where my ancestors, don't ask me why, wandered with Moses for forty years. We must take it all.

"There are seven Egyptian divisions, something like a hundred thousand men, enormous numbers of artillery, and about a thousand tanks to prevent us."

He laid a slim finger on the map. Where his whole hand had been widely extended to encompass the Sinai, his one finger covered all of Israel and a big chuck of Jordan. To the north lay Lebanon, to the east Syria and the rest of Jordan, to the south the huge deserts of Saudi Arabia.

"We are two and a half million people set amongst these countless millions of Arabs. Some of us, like
myself, have never known any other homeland. Others have been dispossessed from Germany, Poland, Russia, and the rest of Europe, or have come here voluntarily from the United States, other countries, even China.

"We have nowhere else to go, nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, other than this tiny sliver of sand and stone, only nine miles wide at the waist, that we call Israel. We have to win; we have no alternative."

He grinned. "Fortunately, our millions of enemies do have an alternative – they can learn to leave us alone."

The grin widened. "It is our job, yours and mine and our comrades
’, to teach them that they must leave us alone." He pointed to the south of Al 'Arish. "My C.O., General Yeshayah Gavish, is in command of this front. We are in three task forces, which include most of the armored strength of Israel. This armor is outnumbered two to one by Egyptian armor and theirs is in no way inferior, mainly Centurions and brand new Stalins. Ours, as you have seen, are a few Centurions, some old Pattons, and a lot of antiquated Shermans. We must knock out every possible enemy tank, and I already see that you need no instruction on that score. We are Task Force One, and it is our job to make the breakthrough at Al 'Arish.

"Here, at Abu
Agheila," his finger stabbed the map not far from the Israel Egypt border, “is the enormous complex of fortifications that commands the central axis through the Sinai. Our General Sharon is moving on it now with Task Force Two.

"Meanwhile our General
Yoffe with Task Force Three is heading across the trackless sand dunes between Al 'Arish and Abu Agheila to cut off any reinforcement of Al 'Arish from that direction. The Egyptians have left this waterless wasteland undefended because they consider it impassable. And, who knows, they may be right. If my good friend Avraham Yoffe makes it, he will set up a blocking position at Bir al Lahtan."

Casca looked at the enormous area of the Arab territories, the small slice that was Israel, and the minuscule portion of the Gaza Strip that they had occupied.
"Well" he shrugged "the day is young yet."

"Yes," the colonel replied, "we should be on the outskirts of Al 'Arish by nightfall." The cheerful grin again lit up his young face. "Fortunately we Israelis have learned to be specialists in night action our army, the
Zahal, grew out of the Haganahir and the Night Squads with which we terrorized Palestinian villages during the twenties and thirties. They were developed and trained by a British officer, Orde Wingate, and he did a damned good job."

Casca nodded. "I've had a few fights in the dark myself."

Within the hour Casca's company was on the move. His casualties had been replaced again, and he now had under his command four platoons of foot soldiers and a heavy weapon squad well equipped with machine guns and mortars.

While
Samal
Harry Russell drove,
Samal
Tommy Moynihan sat in the rear seat twiddling the dial of his transistor radio and picking up reports of the war from Radio Cairo, the BBC, Israel Radio, Voice of America, and Radio Jordan.

Some of the reports conflicted, but, piecing together the various viewpoints it seemed that Syrian planes had attacked a Haifa oil refinery and an airfield at Megiddo. The Jordanian Air Force had bombed an Israeli airfield. In retaliation the Israeli Air Force, which seemed to be everywhere except where Moynihan would have wished
– overhead – had attacked the main Syrian air base near the capital city of Damascus, and the biggest of Jordan's airbases. In both cases, as in the earlier attacks on Egypt, the Israeli fliers had surprised the Arab air forces on the ground and wreaked near total destruction.

But at Al 'Arish there was to be no element of surprise. The Egyptian 20th Palestinian Division had lost fifteen hundred men and countless thousands were wounded in the battle for Rafah on the Gaza Strip. Al 'Arish would be the first battle in the strategically vital Sinai, and the Egyptians were determined not to lose it. They were well prepared, well warned, and ready and waiting when the Israeli vanguard came upon the post's outer fortifications as the sun was setting.

"Oh, b'Jazus," Harry Russell groaned from behind the wheel as Casca's jeep topped the last rise, "this is going to be even worse than I thought."

"Yeah," Casca grunted, "the sun is sure not going to help us too much."

The great, golden orb was glaring directly into the windshield so that they could scarcely see their objective. The Arabs, on the other hand, had the sun at their backs, spotlighting and almost blinding their attackers while they blended into long shadows.

Israeli ambulances were rushing back and forth to where sappers were at work, trying to detonate pathways through the minefields. From the distance Arab gunners were having a field day, pouring heavy fire onto the sappers, who were suffering enormous casualties.

The Israeli artillery was searching for the Egyptian guns, but were probing blind without recon information from aircraft. Now fresh Arab fire opened up, reaching for where Casca and the rest of Colonel Weintraub's regiment had arrived in sight. To be sure, the shells were all falling short, but the Egyptian gunners would soon get that right. Besides, the Israelis had to advance into their guns anyway.

"Where's our fucking air cover?" Moynihan fumed. "Feels just like 'fourteen," Casca muttered, almost to himself, "when we didn't have any planes."

"I thought you were older than me," Harry Russell said, chuckling, "but I didn't think you were that old."

Casca bit his tongue. Yes, he had been thinking of his time in the Great War when the only aircraft had been the rare reconnaissance patrols.
Got to watch that.

Suddenly the war was updated as a squadron of French
built Vautour bombers appeared out of the Israeli sky. Flying almost on the ground, they swooped on the Egyptian guns and took the heat off the sappers.

A flight of
Mystere fighters screamed overhead, coming in, it seemed, just feet off the ground, avoiding all possible detection by the Egyptians. The Arabs heard the engines and the cannon of the Mysteres at about the same time, and the effect was devastating and demoralizing.

One moment the Arabs had the field to themselves, plastering the Israeli sappers at will and laying down a barrage of discouragement for Casca's men. One moment
more, and they were cowering amongst the wreckage of their guns.

"Well," came the voice of Moynihan in the back of the jeep, "
things is improving a bit in the air anyway."

"But where is the Egyptian Air Force?" demanded a puzzled Harry Russell.

"Retired hurt is what we call it in Rugby," said Moynihan.

"Sure, but they can't be that bad hurt can they?"

The Vautours came back in another pass, unloading another rain of death on the Arab gunners. The sappers made good use of the respite, their practiced eyes now discerning the inevitable pattern in the distribution of the mines. All mine layers strove to avoid any regularity, and the harder they tried the more clearly the pattern showed once sufficient mines were detected.

From his vantage point atop a twenty foot dune, Casca saw the pattern, too, and discerned the safe, or anyway half safe, track through the minefields.
"Let's go," he said without thinking about it further. "The sooner we get there the sooner we're through with it.”

Billy
Glennon seemed fired by the same idea and had his foot hard down on the accelerator almost before Casca finished speaking. The trucks charged forward to keep pace behind Casca's jeep.

"Any idea where you're going?"
Casca shouted to Billy. Glennon shot him a quick, worried glance, then returned his attention to what the sappers had accomplished ahead of them.

"I thought I saw the safe line," Billy said, a tinge of uncertainty in his voice. "Didn't ye?"

Casca laughed and hoped his voice sounded confident. "Yeah, we're going right – I hope."

But had his seat in the jeep permitted it, Casca would have been kicking himself in the butt.

"Let's go," was easy enough to say. If you happened to be a major leading a company of combat experienced, disciplined troops, it was just as sure that they would follow. But where the hell were they going? And what were they going to do when they got there?

Casca shrugged off the thought. From the first he had never really understood too well what he was doing as he went into battle, and two thousand years of experience had not enlightened him.

"Let's go. Let's go. Let's go." His repeated shout was taken up by everybody in the jeep, and then by all of the others.

There was a tremendous explosion behind them as one of Casca's drivers strayed a few yards from Billy's lead and encountered a mine.

"Keep going," Casca shouted, looking back.

The disaster was already under control. The following truck had stopped and its troops were already pulling wounded from the wreckage. Two ambulances were racing for the position. The other trucks had deviated gingerly in single file to avoid the wreck, and were now back on the tail of Casca's jeep and catching up fast.

Farther back Casca saw tanks, APCs, and trucks full of infantry rushing to follow his lead. Colonel Weintraub's red helmet was in the lead armored car.

Glennon
twisted for a moment in his seat as he heard a tank find another mine.

"One thing," he gritted between clenched teeth, "every one we find is one less to look for."

"Yeah." Casca tried to laugh but it didn't quite work. He had lost quite a few men. He wasn't going to think about who they might have been or how close they were to him. Whoever they were they were now lying in assorted bleeding pieces behind him, and, who knew, maybe this was a half assed maneuver anyway.

A junior field officer with a few infantry in open trucks and jeeps leading an
armored attack on an extremely well protected fortress was not just unconventional, it might well prove suicidal. But they were well and truly committed now.

What the
maneuver had achieved was an astonishing turn of speed. They were now passing the last of the sappers and they left the minefield for the home ground of the defenders. Casca signaled and his trucks fanned out to either side of the jeep as Billy Glennon increased speed. Some way behind Casca's company came Colonel Weintraub's armored car, and he too was signaling to his infantry trucks to move up ahead of the armor.