Max Brodsky, watching Grossman and knowing of Deborah’s presence at the Ein Tsofar clinic, could almost read the lieutenant’s mind. He broke into the discussion.
“I know we can’t hope to split our forces and try to save each individual kibbutz or moshav one at a time,” he said quietly, “but Ein Tsofar represents more than just any other settlement. In fact, most of the other settlements in the area have been abandoned and their people concentrated at Ein Tsofar, since it always had the best chance of survival by itself. So by saving Ein Tsofar we would, in effect, be saving many settlements at one time—or at least their people, which is the important thing. Also, this attack is not by some roaming band of Arabs. This is a joint Egyptian-Jordanian army operation. If the Egyptians can open and maintain a line behind our front, and get tanks and troops to the Jerusalem sector without leaving one settlement standing that we can use as a base later to stop them …” He left the balance unsaid.
Colonel Wishnak frowned. “What are you suggesting? That we change our objectives? We can’t do that, you know.”
“I know. And I know how important Operation Horev is; it’s vitally important. But I believe we can afford to give at least three or four tanks and a company of infantry to help Ein Tsofar.” He went on quickly before anyone could interrupt him. “I suggest Lieutenant Grossman lead the force; he’s familiar with the area.” He shrugged. “Those of us who stay will just have to fight that much harder to compensate for the men who are gone.”
There was silence for a moment or two; then Colonel Wishnak sighed.
“We’ll have to take it up with headquarters …”
“Headquarters has enough problems of its own,” Grossman said harshly. He knew what headquarters would say about weakening the striking force at that moment; it would have been the same thing he would have said under other conditions. He stared coldly into Wishnak’s eyes. “The object of Operation Horev is to wipe out the Egyptians in the Negev. Well, the brigade attacking Ein Tsofar is Egyptian and they’re in the Negev. We’re wasting time.” He swung around, pointing. “I’ll take you—and you—and you. Three tanks is all. And Company B in personnel carriers. Four carriers is all.” He glanced at his wristwatch. The total authority of his voice as well as his mien made opposition difficult. “I’ll meet with the commanders outside.”
He turned and walked from the room without looking back. The three selected tank commanders as well as the commander of Company B looked at Wishnak’s expressionless face a moment, and then followed Grossman. In the area outside the command post, the commander of the infantry company brought up a point while the tank commanders waited.
“With only four carriers, Lieutenant, we’re going to be crowded.”
“You’ll be even more crowded,” Grossman said succinctly. “I want each tank and each troop carrier to bring along as large a log as they can carry either inside or on top, plus about fifty feet of chain, each.”
The commanders all grinned. It had been a tactic that had often been discussed but had not been used as yet.
“Right!” they said in a chorus, and went to make the necessary arrangements.
In the command post there was dead silence when the five men had left. Those remaining looked at Colonel Wishnak, wondering if he was going to counter the orders of the brash lieutenant. Colonel Wishnak studied the curious faces about him for a moment, and then cleared his throat.
“Back to business, gentlemen. Now, about the attack on Gaza.”
The three tanks and the four crowded troop carriers traveled almost due east at first, moving at top speed along the Israeli-controlled roads until they reached a point just north of Beer Sheba, where Israeli territorial control ended. Night had fallen before they reached the Arab-controlled area, and from there on they traveled without lights, weaving slowly between the rolling dunes, moving onto the old track on which Dov Shapiro had guided Wolf and Brodsky with the arms for Ein Tsofar so many months before, and on which Grossman had left the settlement after the battle for the kibbutz. Grossman, standing in the hatchway of the lead tank with the tank commander beside him, judged their direction from the stars; moonlight furnished the little illumination they needed to avoid the shadowed wadis. Although Grossman was desperately concerned as to the situation at the settlement, he forbade all radio communication either with the kibbutz or even between tanks. If the enemy forces were as great as Perez had indicated in his radio calls for help, his real weapon would not be his small group, but surprise, and he could not be sure that the Egyptians did not have radio-direction finders.
At three in the morning they came inching their way down the steep pass in the cliffs some six miles south of the settlement, around a sweep in the mountain range, and came to rest near the shore of the sea. Grossman could only hope that the attacking Egyptian and Jordanian forces were resting, putting off their next strike against Ein Tsofar until daylight, because there was nothing he could do before then. Daylight was essential to his plan. The tanks and the carriers waited, black shadows against the blacker shadow of the mountain, total silence imposed, smoking forbidden. Dawn seemed to take forever to break. At five the order was given to drop the logs behind the vehicles and chain them to the tow rings. In the growing light the marks made by the passing Egyptian tanks moving through to join the Arab Legion forces could be plainly seen on the shore of the sea.
Now at last radio silence was broken with a vengeance. Each tank and troop carrier began a bombardment of the air with a series of short orders, barked out in staccato style:
“Tank Force B, spread out for the attack!”
“Commander of Force E, get your tanks in line!”
“Six tanks in each column! Ammunition loaders at your posts!”
“Carriers A through G to the left echelon, mortars in position!”
“Move! Move! Move!”
With the radio operators constantly barking orders to imaginary forces into their radios, the small force moved out, fanning to cover the area between the sheer mountains and the sea as completely as their limited numbers could manage, plowing across the plain and around the curve in the mountain range into view of the settlement. In the distance across the sandy terrain they could see the faint outlines of the settlement, see the ring of tanks like dogs around a treed animal, barking with the spitting of shellfire, see the flash of answering guns from the roofs of some of the buildings. The commander of the lead tank put his mouth to Grossman’s ear, screaming to be heard.
“They’re still holding out!”
The logs behind the tanks and the carriers prevented the vehicles from obtaining any great degree of speed, but speed was not what Grossman wanted. He wanted dust, and the bouncing, leaping, twisting logs battered the sandy plain, splintering and rocketing, raising a cloud of dust that rose in a huge curtain, spreading from the cliffs to the shore of the sea and beyond, rolling behind the lumbering vehicles, towering over them. From the kibbutz it must have appeared as if the entire 8th Armored Brigade was coming to the rescue. Grossman only hoped the Egyptians would have the same impression, for he knew if the enemy decided to stand and make a fight of it, his small force would be decimated in minutes. But the Egyptian commander apparently came to the conclusion that one settlement, even one as important as Ein Tsofar, was not worth jeopardizing his main objective of reaching Jerusalem; he ordered his forces to withdraw. Soldiers ran for their carriers, tanks wheeled and lurched away to the north, raising their own dust screen as they pulled out. Ein Tsofar had been rescued without a shot having been fired by its rescuers.
Grossman’s small force drew up beside a tank trap that had not been there when he had last seen the settlement. The trap had served its purpose; two Arab tanks were upended in it, burning. They had apparently ventured into the trap in the dark, and their failure had prompted the wait for daylight that had played such a large part in the rescue. There was a brief cheer from the settlement’s remaining defenders as the Israeli tanks drew up and stopped; Grossman and the others ju
mped down and ran for the fence. The wire had been breached in many places and he could see that most of the buildings had gaping holes in them from the intense shelling. Bodies were scattered around the perimeter of the wire; dead men were draped from the small windows of the outposts. Joel Perez lay near the shattered gate, his stomach ripped open by a bayonet; his wife lay nearby, nearly decapitated by the sweep of some Arab blade.
Arab and Israeli bodies covered the area before the administration building; the fighting there had been hand-to-hand and fierce. The generator for the Ein Tsofar lighting system had been blasted from its base and was tilted to one side, half buried in the sand; the fuel that had serviced it was soaking into the sand from a ruptured tank. The flag that had been flown from the roof of the administration building was torn in shreds and lay on the ground in the blood of the Arab who had pulled it down. Grossman and several others ran for the cave that had been the hospital; the opening to the cave had been barricaded completely with beds, litters, and bedding. He raised his voice even as he started to tear at the barricade.
“Is anyone in there? This is Ben Grossman of the Givati Brigade! Can you hear? Is anyone in there?”
There was silence. With a curse and a terrible fear in his heart he started to rip at the barricade and then suddenly stopped, motioning the others to stop also; a bullet could well greet the first to remove that cover and be exposed. He raised his voice again, this time in a bellow.
“Is anyone in there? This is Ben Grossman of the Givati Brigade! We’re here to help you …”
There was a muffled scream of joy from inside and hands began to tear at the barrier from both sides; the barricade came down in minutes and the men entered. The cave was in darkness except for the slanting bar of sunlight that came from outside. The wounded were lying on the floor, the cots and bedding having been used to block the entrance. Ben stared into the blackness and then grabbed the first nurse he saw.
“Deborah Assavar—Grossman—where is she?”
“Ben! Ben!”
He turned, searching. Deborah was lying on the floor of the cave at the rear, wrapped in a sheet. She was laughing and crying at the same time and he realized it was the first time he had heard tears in Deborah’s voice. He hurried to her and knelt beside her, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, searching visibly for the wound. Then he saw that she was trying to sit up while still trying to protect a small bundle in her arms.
“Your son … I couldn’t deliver … this big cow body of mine and I couldn’t deliver … I thought I was going to disappoint you … I thought I was going to lose the baby, he was so big and he wouldn’t come out … and … and then the shelling started and a shell hit just over the cave entrance and I thought we were all dead and … and the baby … just seemed to pop out …” She looked down at the small red-faced creature in her arms and then looked up at Ben, smiling tremulously. “Our son, Ben … your son you wanted so badly …”
“Shhhh!” he said gently, and looked down in wonder at his son.
Chapter 7
The war with Egypt ended five days after the relief of Ein Tsofar and six days after the birth of Herzl Daniel Grossman, on January 7, with a cease-fire agreement that led a week later to the start of serious armistice talks, which in turn led on the twenty-fourth of February to a completed Armistice Agreement with Egypt. Operation Horev had been an outstanding success.
With Egypt effectively out of the war, the action against the balance of Israel’s enemies became largely diplomatic, and Benjamin Grossman—Captain Benjamin Grossman, now—was not in his proper element as a diplomat. Fighting was his specialty, his love, but at least he now knew what his career would be. He would remain in the army. Someone had to, and he was as qualified as any. He was also convinced, as were most, that the war would go on for a long time. After all, there had been no peace settlements to end hostilities, only armistices until peace would someday come, and that day was nowhere in sight.
The final Armistice Agreement was signed with Jordan on March 4 after a month’s negotiation; with Lebanon on March 23; and the final agreement was concluded with Syria on July 20.
The Preamble of the Armistice Agreements stated “… that the Agreements were concluded in order to facilitate the transition from the present truce to permanent peace.” Article 1 stated that “… no aggressive actions by the armed forces—land, sea, or air—of either party shall be undertaken, planned, or threatened against the people or armed forces of the other.” Article 2 stated that “… no warlike act or hostility shall be conducted from territory controlled by one of the Parties against the other Party.”
Everyone knew as the agreements were being signed that the war would go on. The armistices were meant to give time to regroup, rearm, replan. And Benjamin Grossman intended to be part of that replanning. After all, he now had to plan, not just for himself, but for his family.
Herzl Daniel Grossman was everything a father could have hoped for. He was handsome, bright, and healthy. At times Benjamin Grossman regretted that his son could not have been raised with the advantages he had enjoyed on the sweeping estates in Angermünde, of being trained in the Junker tradition to sustain him through life. But he had to admit that in those many absences of his occasioned by his increasingly important position in the Israeli Army, Deborah was doing an exceptional job of raising their child, even though she maintained her job as head nurse at the Magen David Adom. True, she was raising him to a full appreciation of his responsibilities as a dedicated Sabra, but this no longer meant very much to Benjamin Grossman. The important thing was that Herzl was growing up a happy child; thinking back, Benjamin Grossman could not recall having been very happy as a child, even with the estates and the stables and even with the Junker tradition.
In appearance, the boy was remarkably as Ben had been as a child. He had slate-blue eyes, a wide forehead beneath unruly sandy hair, an almost perfectly chiseled profile. He had a quick mind, and from his mother he had inherited a certain steadiness, a dedication to the integrity of his own convictions. A few of his teachers in school called it stubbornness, but it was actually more a refusal to concede when he felt he was right. He was, in short, everything Grossman was sure he would have been himself had he had a father to appreciate him, love him, raise him and direct him as Herzl had been appreciated, loved, raised and directed. It compensated to a large extent for the fact that Deborah could not have any more children; the difficult delivery in the darkened Ein Tsofar cave had seen to that.
Although there were increasingly constant demands upon Colonel Grossman’s time by his increasingly important position in the armed forces, he still made special efforts to get home to Tel Aviv as often as possible. And when he was home he spent almost all of his time with his son. Herzl, growing up, was a very popular boy, but he also took time from his own activities whenever his father was available to spend with a parent he respected and adored. Herzl was a lucky boy, and unlike many lucky boys, was wise enough to know it.
When Ben Grossman was home, and occasionally when he was not, Max Brodsky would drop over to have a drink, to share dinner, or simply to pass the time. Following the war, Brodsky had also decided to remain in the defense establishment, returning to Mossad, which handled intelligence and security matters, and in the years since had risen to the position of colonel. He was now assistant to the head of section, and it was predicted in the army that in time he was sure to head the section.
Max Brodsky had never married—a subject often brought up by Deborah in their many meetings, since Deborah had come to believe in the necessity of marriage for happiness—and being alone Max was free to enjoy his friendships where he found them, and the Grossman family were very close to him in many ways.
None of them lived luxuriously; the State of Israel had little money to waste on extravagant salaries either for its soldiers or for its security or intelligence personnel. Still, Max Brodsky and the Grossman family lived comfortably enough in apartments only several blocks apart in th
e Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, a little farther from the beaches Herzl liked so much than he would have preferred, but otherwise they were all quite happy there. But money, Grossman often thought on reflection, was certainly not vital to happiness. They lived contentedly; he enjoyed his work and loved his family, and the same was true of Deborah. Life before he had come to Israel—actually, before he had been forced against his will to come to Palestine, as he often smilingly admitted in Brodsky’s presence—had faded from his mind completely. He wondered to himself many times why he had set such a high value on that money in Switzerland. With it, where would he be? Wherever it might have been, it would have been without his family, without Herzl, and without Deborah, which would have been unthinkable.
He and Brodsky would often sit on the small porch of the apartment, enjoying the breeze, sipping brandy, watching the neighborhood children shouting and screaming in the street below, and speak of many things. They spoke of the vital necessity to improve the army, to organize the reserves more efficiently, to develop more sophisticated weaponry both offensive and defensive; and little Herzl, forgoing the games in the street, would sit and listen, excited to be in the presence of two men whose influence upon his country’s future—his mother continually assured him—was so important. He was proud to be the son of one and the good friend, the adopted nephew so to speak, of the other.
But the times spent with his father and his Uncle Max were not always confined to serious discussion. The two men would take Herzl with them when they went to Morris Wolf’s restaurant in the southern sector of Tel Aviv not far from Yafo, and sit for hours, with Wolf telling them of the odd and humorous things that can happen in the life of a German-refugee restaurateur in a Yemenite neighborhood; or they would go on picnics at the beach, and Brodsky would point out the exact spot where the Ruth had landed them, and tell Herzl how his father had saved them all that night by shooting out the radar scope and the floodlight on the British gunboat, and go on to tell him how his father had been picked up that night with a gun in his hands and had been sentenced to death by the British, only to be rescued and sent to Ein Tsofar, where he had met Herzl’s mother.
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