Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon (15 page)

Several of the Syrian positions were quickly overrun. The designers of the gun emplacements had not allowed for such a suicidal infantry attack, and now the highly skilled Arab artillerymen found themselves locked in hand to hand combat for which they were neither trained nor equipped.

They were, however, good soldiers, disciplined and well led. Every Israeli who made it into the bunkers had to kill several Syrians to get there, and huge numbers of the attackers died in the attempt.

But no Israeli soldier wanted to even think of a retreat down the cliff they had just climbed, and they pushed forward relentlessly. The Syrians fought desperately for every inch they yielded, but inch by inch and yard by yard they were forced to retreat.

Casca caught sight of Atef Lufti, wielding his clumsy shotel to murderous effect in the narrow confines of the bunkers. The close combat continued throughout the afternoon, and by sunset there were two Israeli bridgeheads on the Syrian heights.

As darkness fell Casca issued orders to regroup and hold position overnight, bringing all the
armor in through the breaches opened in the fortifications.

Medics had taken the Red general's body from his BGC, and Casca took his red helmet to the burial detail camped just outside the fortress walls. On his way he noticed Atef's silver scabbard gleaming in the moonlight and picked it up for him, wondering that Atef had not already found it. He handed the red helmet to the duty corporal and was turning to leave when the corporal spoke.

"I think we've got the weapon that fits that scabbard."

He led Casca to where Atef Lufti's body lay, the great curved scimitar on his chest.

Casca took up the
shotel and homed it in its sheath, then stuck it through Lufti's belt and folded his hands over the hilt.

A thought struck him. "What's the casualty count?" he asked.

The corporal shook his head. "Don't know how many dead, but you and an Irish sergeant are the only two of our men who made it through the wall unwounded."

The Syrian defenders had withdrawn, making no attempt to counterattack, and an uneasy quiet settled over Tel
Faq'r.

Before first light Casca woke shivering in the desert cold beside
Weintraub's Bren gun carrier. Billy Glennon, nursing a bayoneted shoulder, appeared to ask if he needed a driver.

"What about your arm?"

"Oh, I'll hold the wheel in me teeth," Glennon answered. A large Mercedes Benz limousine appeared and General Elazar got out of the rear seat, Weintraub's red battle helmet in his hand.

"
Wein was one of my very best friends," he said. "I know he would prefer that his helmet go back into battle. It looked good on you yesterday. I'd like you to keep it."

He tapped the crossed swords on the helmet. "I talked with Moshe Dayan by telephone this morning. These swords are yours too. He wants you to lead the attack on El
Quneitra, while I hold this position. We expect a counterattack at dawn."

He handed over the helmet, acknowledged Casca's salute, and got back into his car.

Casca stared a long moment at the helmet. "I've never been a general before," he muttered.

"Not surprising,
General." Billy Glennon chuckled. "It doesn't usually happen more than once in a lifetime."

Casca smiled, but grimly. "No, I guess not." He slowly put on the helmet.

Moynihan, as usual, had already done half a day's' work. He had checked with the burial detail on every man that he had lost; visited every one of his wounded in the field hospital; checked that the numerous walking wounded were, In fact, fit enough to fight again; disguising his concern as always with brutal jokes, scowls, snarls, and even abuse. Now he had inspected his replacement personnel and was checking that every weapon was in order, that every man had all the ammunition he might possibly need and as much water as he could carry.

They moved out before dawn and were on the outskirts of El
Quneitra when the sun came up.

More Israeli units had now been diverted to this front, and while Casca led
Weintraub's force in a dawn assault on El Quneitra, there were simultaneous attacks from the north near the Lebanon border, and from south of the Sea of Galilee.

The rising sun threw the Syrian
defenses into sharp relief, silhouetting the enormous bulk of the concrete fortifications, the huge guns casting long shadows across the edge of the escarpment.

Most of the gun emplacements and all of the buried tanks were pointed at the Israeli kibbutzim below the cliff. Only a handful of fixed guns faced south toward Casca's troops as they moved into position.

Epstein, quite recovered from his shock, urged that all of his big guns concentrate on the southern flank of the fortress while the tanks and self-propelled artillery circle east to attack the fortress in the rear.

Casca readily agreed and left the major in command of that sector while he led the
armor and most of the infantry to the principal attack.

Over the past few days large numbers of heavy guns had been moved into the Israeli border villages and these opened fire at the same moment that Epstein commenced his barrage.

There was little prospect that either effort could substantially damage the hardened emplacements, but their bombardment kept the Syrian gunners busy in reply, and distracted them from the threat of Casca's force that was moving toward them from out of the Syrian desert.

Casca's tanks found only a very few guns set to fire in their direction as the possibility of an attack from out of Syria had been discounted by Syria's strategists, and by their Soviet advisers. The conservative Soviets had, however, insisted on a high level of hardening of the fortifications, so that most of the shells of the three Israeli bombardments bounced harmlessly off the thick concrete.

Casca stood beside his car watching the battle through binoculars. It was not at all to his liking. The Syrians were outgunned on two of their three exposed flanks, but although Casca was trading more shells, theirs were having more effect. Casualties on both sides were very low, but the edge was in Syria's favor.

Casca racked his brains and searched his enormous experience for some tactic that might break the stalemate. He repeatedly rejected the only solution that occurred to him a direct assault on the rear of the fortress by his infantry, relying on the sappers to open breaches in the walls, which could then be further hammered by his tanks, and finally penetrated by foot soldiers.

Every one of his men who had fought his way into the trenches of Tel Faq'r had a wound of some sort, and he was extremely reluctant to ask his troops to suffer through another suicidal effort.

He got into his car and pointed to the rear. Billy started the engine and drove through the lines of tanks to where the infantry waited in their rear.

As they drove along the infantry lines Casca counted and calculated. One battalion of mainly wounded, bruised, and severely battered men from the previous day's battle. And most of his sappers were now raw reinforcements, as the demolition squads had taken the most punishment at Tel Faq'r.

He spotted Moynihan beckoning to him and
Glennon headed for him.

"I've got a Syrian radio broadcast," Moynihan shouted. "We've only got a few words of Arabic between all of us, but it sounds crazy.
Something about the fall of Hell Cuntra."

Casca took the radio and listened intently. He turned to Hymie, his radio operator.
"Raise HQ Intelligence. See if they know anything about this." He went back to listening, but although he had some command of Arabic, his puzzlement increased.

After a few minutes Hymie shouted to him. "HQ can't work it out, but Syrian radio says that El
Quneitra fell at dawn this morning."

"Who the hell, I'd like to know," Moynihan shouted, "is shooting at us then?"

Casca glanced toward the fortress, where gray puffs of smoke were bursting from the walls amongst his tanks, followed by shell bursts.

"This sure is one confusing war."

"Yeah," Moynihan grunted. "I'm sick of it already, and it's only just started. If we had – hey, lookee there!" He broke off to point excitedly in the direction of the fortress.

From its
unattacked eastern end dozens of Syrian trucks and tanks and foot soldiers were pouring out into the desert. As they watched the stream turned to a flood.

Hundreds of Arabs, mostly empty handed and bareheaded, were running from the fort,
jostling each other as they scrambled away in the wake of their armor.

Their panic grew visibly. Now there were maybe a thousand men outside the fort and more were pouring from behind the walls every moment.

Casca leaped into his car, snatched up Weintraub's helmet, and waved it around his head as Glennon gunned the motor.

"Move out. Move out. Let's go."

Casca reached the wide open gates in the fort's eastern wall as the last of the deserting troops fled.

"Easy now," he cautioned
Glennon, who slowed as they passed through the gate. "Israelis must have come up the cliff like we did at Tel Faq'r. Take it real slow. Don't want to get shot by our own men."

But there were no attackers.

And no defenders.

The entire fort was deserted. Casca's tanks were now pouring into the fortress area, and he got out of the car by the HQ building where the Syrian flag still flew from its mast.

Warily, weapons at the ready, they entered the building. Most of the inside doors were open, the rooms empty. Casca booted open a closed door and a startled Syrian corporal leaped to his feet. He quickly raised his hands and backed away from the radio he had been operating.

"What is happening?" Casca demanded in Arabic.

The Arab shrugged despairingly and gestured toward the radio. "I am trying to find out."

The only weapon in the room was a submachine gun leaning against the radio table. Casca picked it up.

"Keep trying," he said as he left the room.

The rest of the ground floor was deserted, a single closed door at the end of the corridor.

Casca kicked it open and roared with laughter.

He was looking into a kitchen where half a dozen army cooks were lying at ease on the work benches, guzzling from bottles.

Casca held out his hand and one of the drunks handed him his bottle of cognac. Casca took a great gulp and passed it to Billy Glennon.

"Carry on drinking," he ordered the cooks in Arabic and reclosed the door.

Upstairs there was only one closed door, and as it led to the front of the building, Casca guessed that it was the command room.

He knocked politely.

"Come in," a firm voice said in Arabic.

Casca swung his Kalashnikov where it hung from his shoulder, checking that he could quickly fan the whole room. With his finger on the trigger and
Glennon and Nathan hard on his heels, he pushed open the door.

The huge room was elegantly furnished, a large war table covered with maps in the
center. One wall was entirely windows, and an officer stood with his back to them looking out toward the Israeli border. Another officer, a lieutenant, sat at a desk to one side.

The lieutenant stood. The other officer turned and Casca saw that he was a major general. They saluted each other.

"I don't suppose you speak Arabic?" the Syrian general said.

"A little," Casca answered, "but I am much better in English."

"I speak English," the Arab replied. "I trained at Sandhurst."

"May I have your weapons?" Casca asked.

"Of course." The two officers took revolvers from their holsters and laid them on the map table.

"I see you have brought a bottle," the general said, and gestured toward crystal glasses on a sideboard. "Perhaps we can have a drink. Something else I learned at Sandhurst."

The subaltern brought five crystal brandy balloons and Casca filled them liberally, emptying the bottle.

"It might be premature and even silly to drink to an Arab Jewish friendship," the Syrian general said. "Let's drink to peace."

"To peace," they all said as they raised their glasses. The Arab general drained his at a gulp and they all followed suit.

"Morale is a funny thing," the general said, weighing the empty glass in his hand. "This morning I would have staked my fortune more, my life, my soul on victory here today. But an army's morale is like a dam wall. When it breaks there is no holding the flood.
Damn that fool radio news," he shouted, and hurled the goblet through the glass wall, and a moment later the four others did the same.

The general pressed a button on his desk console, and after a few seconds a drunken voice answered.

"Cooks thrive on defeat," he said to Casca. "They're always the last to desert after they have emptied the cellars."

He spoke into the intercom in Arabic. "Bring me some cognac, you drunken pig."

In a surprisingly short time there was a respectful knock on the door and one of the cooks shuffled into the room bearing a tray on which were three bottles of cognac. A white towel was draped over his left arm.

Obsequiously he placed the tray on the table and turned to leave. As he passed behind Hymie he drew a large butcher knife from beneath the towel and thrust it through the Londoner's ribs.

The drunken cook giggled like a schoolgirl as Hymie slumped to the floor. "I've always wanted to kill a Jew."

The general snatched up his revolver and clapped it to the cook's head.
"Cowardly dog," he shouted as he fired. He emptied all six chambers into the cook as he crumpled to the floor.

The lieutenant looked up from where he squatted, Hymie's head cradled in his hands. He shook his head.

The general picked up a bottle, opening it as he crossed to the sideboard. He filled four crystal goblets and carried them back to where the others stood over Hymie's body.

"I trust your comrade was a brave soldier," he said as he raised his glass.

"As good as any I've known," Casca said, and a moment later the rest of the huge window disintegrated as four goblets hit it.