Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [191]
“Scatter!”
The paras leaped from their vehicles and hugged the canyon walls, seeking crevices and boulders for cover.
Whoooomph! The fuel truck took a direct hit and sent a column of flames leaping two hundred feet up the canyon wall.
Gunfire came not only from the Defile, but from almost a full circle of positions in front, alongside, and behind the para column.
“God dammit!” Ben Asher roared. “They slipped back into other positions during the night! Driver! Pull into that draw over there.” It gave barely enough cover to hold the command car and the ambulance. They set up a first-aid station and message center. Ben Asher’s view was not far enough into the Pass. He looked about. A ledge above him showed more promise. He climbed to it with the radio man, the driver, and a half-dozen command post personnel. Yes, it was much better ... a good look down the wadi bed, clear to the Defile. Gideon and Shlomo hid the command car and carried the machine gun to the command post ledge and manned it.
The fire fight intensified as the paras first dug in, answered fire, then sent out squads to pick off the Egyptian nests, one by one, with bayonets and grenades.
A half-track in the wadi bed exploded and then ten thousand rocks shook loose as the ammunition truck blew to kingdom come ... then the ambulance went ... another half-track and another ...
“Ben Asher to Colonel Z., can you read me?”
“Z. to Asher, you’re coming in about three and three, very low. I can barely make you out, over.”
“Ben Asher to Z., we have lost our ambulance and ammo truck. We are completely surrounded. All troops well deployed, but we’re having to take positions one at a time.”
“Z. to Asher, ammo truck and ambulance on the way.”
“Asher to Z., you’re going to have to have the reserve company lead them in. We’re blocked. C Company has to open a hole and keep a lane, so we can move in and out around map coordinate A-12.”
“MiGs! Hit the dirt!”
Flying in a line, six MiGs came in from twelve o’clock high, strafing the middle of the wadi bed. More vehicles were torched.
“Medic! Medic!”
A dozen wounded were pulled, dragged, carried back to the aid station a few feet from Ben Asher’s ledge. Israeli tanks and mortars had established cover and were firing at the Egyptian positions, but the fire seemed ineffective. Runners and radios crackled with messages ... Hallelujah, two Egyptian machine guns had been reached and taken!
Ben Asher gained control of the battle, directing the movements of his units until the Egyptians spotted the command post and plastered it with mortar fire.
“We’ve got to get them out of there!” the major yelled. “Dammit, we’ve got to give better firing directions.”
Gideon spotted a fissure some twenty feet above them. It appeared to afford a better view down the wadi. He tapped the commander on the shoulder and pointed up.
“Good,” Ben Asher said and looked for people to run up a phone line. “Shit, where is everyone?”
“Comm truck was hit. We’re short of radio and telephone men—I’ll run it up,” Shlomo volunteered. Gideon grabbed the second handle on the phone reel. “You’ll never get up there with your leg,” Shlomo said.
“Want to bet!”
Ben Asher handed Gideon his binoculars, and Gideon and Shlomo struggled up with the wire moving hand over hand up a sheer wall to the fissure. He pulled Gideon in. Gideon scanned with the field glasses. “It’s a beauty! We can see everything! Hey! There’s Recon. They’re going up the cliffs like mountain goats!”
“Ben Asher,” Shlomo shouted down, “we can direct the tank and mortar fire from here! Send up a map!”
The map was hurled up tied to a rock as Gideon spliced on a field phone.
“Stay here with the phone,” Gideon said. “I’m going up a few more yards. I’ll call the numbers down to you.”
Shlomo looked at the place Gideon intended to crawl to. It was terribly exposed. “No, better let me go, you phone down.”
“I can’t speak Hebrew. You’ll have