Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [52]
“Oh, honey, honey,” she cried. “Poor Shalimit. She’s going to have a baby ... oh, honey. I’d better go see her.”
“I saw her along with the battalion commander, this morning.”
“God dammit,” Val cried. ...“Oh, honey ...oh, damn.” She got to her feet and stood over him and tousled his hair. It was sticky. “You’re a real mess, buddy,” she wept.
“I’ll clean up.”
Alpha Company of the Lion’s Battalion was sent out to bypass the fort. They set up an ambush on a hillock overlooking the road into Kalkilia in the event the Jordanians tried to reinforce the fort.
It took longer to capture and blow up the fort than expected. With the timetable fucked, the battle plan went out the window. It was just like at Tarawa when the first wave of Marines failed to reach their objective. Officers and men in little groups had to improvise.
The Jordanians sent a unit of the Arab Legion toward Kalkilia but did not play sucker or fall for the ambush. They went off the road, encircled Alpha Company, and had them trapped.
Only after the balance of the Lion’s Battalion retreated for the border did they realize that Alpha Company was surrounded by the Legion and being chopped to pieces. The rest of the night turned into a frantic effort to break the encirclement.
It turned into a bloody mess. Infantry, artillery, tanks and, later, planes had to try to open a hole. The Arab Legion hung tough when they realized they could annihilate an entire Israeli company. If they succeeded, they could claim victory. Translated into Arabic, this would make Jordan and King Hussein a more dangerous and adventurous foe.
About dawn some Israeli tanks and halftracks broke through to Alpha Company. The dead and wounded were loaded on. Some of the dead were tied to the tanks. Alpha Company did make it back but twenty-eight boys had been killed and thirty-five wounded.
The Israeli raid succeeded but it was a terrible toll for a small country where everyone knew everyone.
Val pushed Gideon’s chest gently and made him lie down on the bed, then unlaced his boots and tugged them off and unbuttoned his clothing.
“Golly, I haven’t undressed you like this for years. Remember when you were writing your first book? The girls wouldn’t fall asleep until they heard your typewriter. You’d come home from work and go up to the attic and write till two or three in the morning. I’d come up after you, but you’d be so tired you couldn’t make it down the stairs by yourself, and I’d have to undress you.”
She tugged him out of his clothing.
“Help me to the shower, baby.”
“Just lie back,” Val said, “just lie back.”
Valerie pulled her blouse over her head slowly and unsnapped her bra and wiggled out of her jeans and stood over him.
“What a time to be looking at tits,” he said. “I’m a goddam animal.”
Valerie lay on top of him, covering him.
“It’s so crazy. They’re dead. But I want you.”
She wrapped herself around him as best she could, blotting up his sweat with her body, kissing and licking the grit and dirt from his eyes and cheeks, rubbing her hair into the circles of sweat staining his neck, gripping him with her legs.
“Fly away, buddy” she said, “fly away.”
IT HAD BEEN a sticky wicket from the beginning. When Gideon first arrived in Israel, he promised the Israelis that he would not seek out intelligence from the Americans or carry it back to them. In exchange the Israelis agreed to give him the help he needed to research his book.
Rich Cromwell, the American CIA station chief, badgered Gideon for information from time to time, without success. Gideon knew that without earning the deep trust of the Israelis, he would never get the information he needed to write the novel he wanted.
The call for a luncheon date at Cromwell’s Ramat Aviv villa carried an unmistakable sound of urgency. Gideon never failed to marvel at the lack of discomfort American Embassy personnel “survived” in. Now, take the huge silver bowl in Cromwell’s foyer. It brimmed over with petite calling cards, in the language of the caller and in French.
Israel was a tiny country insofar as the number of embassies,