MUJAHIDIN

by

Jerry D. Mohrlang

 PART I
ISRAEL
1973

 CHAPTER 1

  Yom Kippur 

     "What do you make of it, Issy?  Is Asad just rattling his saber like General Dyan and Military Intelligence seem to think or are we looking into the teeth of a possible Syrian invasion?"  Major General Yitzak Alon swept his hand across a sector map of northern Israel lying on the table in front of him and glanced up at the tall officer standing across the table from him.

     Colonel Isser Zarius absorbed the detailed markings of the map, thinking aloud.  "I count ten Syrian divisions spread out between Baniyas on the north to Rafid, east of the Golan Heights-six armored, two mechanized infantry and two regular infantry divisions.  Any report on reserves, General?" he asked.

     "We have reliable information that the Syrians have as many as two divisions here...near El Quneitra," General Alon said, circling the Syrian village with a wooden pointer.  "Beyond that, we're in the dark."

     "Anything on air activity?"

     General Alon shook his head.  "Only scattered reports, nothing confirmed.  Damascus has been sealed off tighter than Solomon's tomb for the past two weeks.  Our latest communiqué reports sighting massive air activity over Damascus, mostly at night."

     "Russian?"

     "Most likely," the general said, massaging his tired eyes with his free hand.  "It's unconfirmed, but we believe some of the aircraft seen were new Russian Mig-27's."

     A whistle of surprise escaped the colonel's lips.  Word had it that the Russians had been experimenting with the sophisticated fighter for some time, but no one expected it to be operational, much less mass-produced by this early date.  "The Russians have been busy," Colonel Zarius said.  "What's the Prime Minister's assessment of the situation?"

     General Alon stroked the few remaining strands of stray hair from his worry-wrinkled forehead and slumped into a chair.  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the table, unconsciously rapping the wooden pointer against his palm.  "Golda concurs with Military Intelligence," he said with a heavy sigh.  "Our illustrious brain trust in Tel Aviv seems to believe that the Syrians are just flexing their muscles a bit...trying to create an atmosphere of unrest for us during Yom Kippur tomorrow."  Alon shook his head in frustration, settled back into his chair and rapped the pointer against his palm with increasing vigor. "I tried to contact the Prime Minister this morning to make one more attempt to persuade her to cancel the military leaves, but-"  General Alon tossed the pointer to the table and threw his hands up in exasperation, "-she wouldn't even take my call!  Her secretary informed me that the Prime Minister feels that the morale of our nation during Yom Kippur would be best served by disregarding the rumors of invasion that my few, unsubstantiated reports imply.  And that's a direct quote!"

     General Alon leaned forward on his chair and slammed his palms on the table hard enough to ruffle the maps and bounce his pointer to the floor.  "Damned politicians!" he blurted, his round face flush with anger.  "Golda wouldn't know an exercise from an invasion if it jumped up and bit her on the ass!"

     A moment of silence followed.  Then General Alon lifted his blood-shot eyes and motioned to an empty chair at the end of the table with a weary sweep of his hand.  "Sit down, Issy," he said.  General Alon fastened his tired eyes upon his subordinate and contemplated the question he was about to ask of the man he admired more than any of his other staff officers. 

Colonel Zarius had earned the general's respect during the Six Days War in '67 when Zarius had led a battered armored battalion in a daring nighttime counterattack against a vastly superior Egyptian force along the Sinai.  The success of Zarius' assault had given General Alon time to regroup his scattered forces and drive the Egyptians back across the Suez.  Since that time, the two men had developed a mutual admiration for one another and General Alon trusted the colonel's counsel.  "I want your honest appraisal of the situation, Issy.  Do you think I'm overreacting to the Syrian buildup or not?"

     Zarius rubbed his thin chin for a moment while studying the sector map and then said, "Truthfully, I don't like the looks of it, General.  The buildup is too massive.  The Syrian economy isn't strong enough to allow Asad the luxury of mobilizing his reserves unless he intends to use them.  My guess is that Asad expects our forces to be depleted by the wholesale leaves granted for Yom Kippur.  What better time to launch an offensive, particularly with the huge advantage in firepower they've amassed along the border below the Heights?"

     Colonel Zarius' eyes strayed slowly from the map and locked firmly upon the general.  Sweat stains had formed on the general's rumpled field blouse and Alon's sleep deprived eyelids slumped noticeably over his fatigued and blood-shot eyes.  It was obvious to Zarius that General Alon had been pondering the situation without yielding to rest or sleep for some time.  Now, the general's weary eyes seemed to beseech Zarius, silently asking him to find a flaw in his evaluation of the situation.  But Zarius couldn't.

"General," Zarius said finally, "if I was in command of the Syrian forces with the advantage they have, I'd attack."

     As if his trusted subordinate's assessment lifted the weight of the general's few lingering doubts about Syrian intentions, General Alon stood up and stretched himself to the full height of his squat, five-foot six-inch frame.  He pressed his palms against the desk, leaned heavily against it and studied the sector maps once again, "For Israel's sake, let's hope the Syrians don't have a general who thinks like you do, Issy," he said with a defeated sigh.

     "What about activity among the other Arab States?" Colonel Zarius asked.

     "All quiet it seems, except for some scattered reports of Egyptian movement in the Sinai."

     Colonel Zarius frowned.  "A coordinated attack?"

"Could be," General Alon responded, his brow wrinkling into deep furrows of concern.  "I've been in close communication with the other sector commanders for the past few days.  Most are taking the enemy build-up seriously,  but they're all in the same predicament as I am-too few resources and too few significant intelligence reports."

The general clenched his jaw and bit at his lower lip as much to express his mounting anxiety as to relieve it and stared at the markings on the map that showed the deployment of his pathetically thin Israeli forces.  "We can only do the best we can with what we've got and the rest is up to God," he whispered with solemnity.

Colonel Zarius rose from his chair, his eyes joining the general's in absorbing the map's deployment of the Israeli defensive line along the Heights.  "What do you plan to do, General?" he asked. 

     "I can't ignore my instincts on this one, Issy.  I'm going to deploy every man and piece of equipment at my disposal-treat the situation as if an attack is imminent."  General Alon had reason to trust his instincts.  His instincts had served him well in the past and he had no reason to doubt that they would serve him again.  After all, they were the same instincts that had saved him from deportation to a 'training facility' during the Nazi occupation of his native Poland and the same reliable instincts he had called upon to defeat superior Egyptian armored forces during the Six Days War.

     His decision made, Alon's countenance changed visibly and with renewed vigor, he retrieved his pointer from the floor and moved it rapidly from place to place on the sector map, explaining his strategy to the colonel.

     "I'm placing everything I've got...here...along the Heights.  Everything, that is, except for one brigade of the Third Armored Division.  No doubt the Heights will be pounded with air strikes and heavy artillery before they send their armor at us but, with luck, our fortifications around the hills here might protect our forward elements from sustaining severe damage until we can counterattack, particularly if we can get some air support."

     General Alon's voice gained in confidence as he spoke.  His previous few days spent weighing the possibility of a Syrian invasion and the inertia of indecision had finally been overcome, thanks in part, to Zarius' corroborating assessment of the situation.  General Alon no longer considered the possibility of an invasion-he expected it.

     "It's my intention, Issy, to hold the Heights as long as I can.  We're too weak to prevent an eventual breakthrough, but if we can stall the Syrian attack long enough, we might be able to recall our troops who've been granted leave for Yom Kippur before the Syrians capture all of northern Israel."

     Zarius' study of the map confirmed to him that the general's assessment was correct.  General Alon's only chance was to fight a holding action until the Israeli units were at full strength.  But could Alon buy enough time, he wondered?

     "Will you keep the Third Armored Brigade in reserve, General?" Zarius asked, knowing that it would be the tactically sound thing to do.

     Alon frowned and shook his head. "I wish I had that luxury, Issy, but I don't.  We both know that a Syrian breakthrough is inevitable.  It's my guess that once they've broken through the Heights, they'll push for Safad, along these open plains...here," he said, marking his projection of the Syrian incursion by sliding the tip of the pointer from the Golon Heights to the town of Safad.

     Weilding the pointer much like an epee, General Alon sliced the map in a criss-crossing line between a village designated as Yesud Hama'ala and Safad, the largest city in northern Israel.  "Safad is the key," he said.  "If the Syrians reach Safad with their armor before our troops on leave can be mobilized, they'll be able to break through to any area of northern Israel they choose, including Haifa.  If they capture Haifa, our supply line will be cut and all of northern Israel will fall into enemy hands."

     Colonel Zarius cleared his throat.  "Excuse me, General, but if you're not going to hold the Third Brigade in reserve, how do you intend to use it?"

     "I won't, Issy, you will.  I'm placing you in command of the Third."

     Colonel Zarius glanced quizzically at the general, aware that he didn't have the rank to command an entire brigade, even if it wasn't at full strength.

     "Don't look so startled, Issy," General Alon said.  "Even if I was at full strength, I'd still pick you for the job."

     While Colonel Zarius absorbed the significance of his elevated status, General Alon returned his attention to the map and traced an arcing path with his pointer from Yiftah, near the Lebanese border, through Safad and then eastward to a small village, Mishmar Hayarden.  "I want you to deploy the Third Armored Brigade along this line, Issy," the general said, retracing the imaginary line from Yiftah to Mishmar Hayarden. 

     Colonel Zarius frowned.  "That's a lot of territory to cover with a single brigade, General."

     "Hell, it's impossible!" the general exclaimed and slammed the pointer against the map harder than he intended. General Alon massaged his neck and allowed the frustration to drain from his face before he raised his head and gazed directly into the eyes of his subordinate.  His voice softened when next he spoke. "That's why I picked you for the job, Issy.  You pulled off the impossible against the Egyptians in '67 and I'm counting on you to do it again.  Once the Syrians break through along the Heights, your armor will be the only thing standing between them and an unopposed sprint down the length of Israel.  I know I can count on you to do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening."

     Colonel Zarius' eyes locked upon the general, silently acknowledging what had been implied by the general's words- if necessary, the supreme sacrifice had been asked for.  A subtle nod of Zarius' head conveyed his promise that the general's unspoken request would be honored.

     "Will I have any artillery support?" Zarius asked.

     "Some.  I'm assigning the 5th Artillery Battalion to your command.  I think you know its commanding officer, Major Gedaliah?"

     Colonel Zarius cracked a thin smile and nodded.  He felt fortunate to have the old, intractable artillery officer assigned to him.  Major Moshe Gedaliah was as good an artillery commander as the Israelis had, despite his reputation for recalcitrance and insubordination. 

     "And battalion commanders?  Who have you assigned?"

     "Unfortunately, it's not good, Issy," General Alon said.  "Golda hasn't left me with much and I've got to keep the few remaining and experienced armor commanders I have with the units on the Heights...that leaves Major Gonen to command your mechanized battalion."  General Alon looked almost rueful and then asked, "You know Major Gonen, I believe?"

     Colonel Zarius nodded that he did, successfully masking his disappointment for being given a recently promoted and green officer who would be in command of nearly a quarter of his brigade.

     "Gonen's raw, as you know, Issy, but his record is solid..."  General Alon's voice trailed off and then he added almost apologetically, "I wish I could do better, Issy."

     "I understand, General."  Zarius couldn't fault the general.  Had their roles been reversed and given the current circumstances, he would keep whatever experienced officers he had on the Heights also. 

     "The other officer I'm assigning to the Third is a Major Harel, an American," General Alon said.

     "An American, sir?"  Harel?...Harel?  The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Colonel Zarius couldn't immediately place it.

     "An ex-patriot.  His mother was an Israeli, a sabra...  his stepfather an American diplomat.  Before coming to us, Major Harel was a career officer with the American Army and has had some armor combat experience in Vietnam.  I'll have his file sent to your office.  I think you'll find that the major has a very impressive background."

     "There's a big difference between commanding armor in the jungle and commanding it here in the desert, General."

     "I'm aware of that, Colonel," General Alon said, more sharply than he intended.  "But at the moment, Harel's the best I have available.  You'll have to make do."

     "Of course, General," Zarius hastily replied.  I didn't mean to imply-"

     "I know you didn't, Issy," General Alon said, stepping from behind the table.  A placating smile dented his face.  "This Syrian threat has us all on edge.  But who knows?  Maybe Golda and MI are right about Asad's intentions.  Perhaps none of us will be tested tomorrow."

     "Maybe so," Zarius said, but inwardly, he failed to convince himself of that possibility.

     General Alon dropped his arm and glanced at his watch.  "It's now 1030 hours.  Prepare for a general staff briefing in two hours.  I want all of our units in position no later than 2400 hours, Issy.  If the Syrians are coming, it's my guess that it will be early tomorrow morning.  They'll want to give themselves a full day of sunlight in which to operate."

     General Alon led his subordinate toward the door and extended his hand.  "I don't have to tell you that somehow, some way, the Syrians have got to be stopped.  We all know what would happen if we fail, don't we?"

     "Yes, sir," Zarius replied, shaking the general's proffered hand.  He knew perfectly well what the general alluded to.  Every Israeli serviceman knew.  Failure meant a second holocaust.  "You can count on me to do my job when the time comes, General," Zarius added.

     "I know I can, Issy."  General Alon released his grip on the colonel's hand, replacing it with a more personal pat on the tall colonel's shoulder and opened the door for his friend and subordinate.  "Good luck tomorrow, Issy.  Shalom."

     "You too, General.  Shalom."

     Colonel Zarius stepped into the bright October sun, his mind already beginning to focus on the enormity of the task he had been given and the two replacement officers he had been assigned to accomplish it.  Harel?...Harel?  Somewhere I've heard that name.  But where? 

     As Colonel Zarius' pace quickened, an uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

Chapter 2

Deployment

I

Zarius

     Colonel Zarius stood in the opened command-hatch of his British-made Chieftan tank, his tall, two-hundred pound frame blending well with the Chieftan's 51 tons of steel.  He raised his forearm until a sharp ray of pre-dawn light cut the crystal face of his wristwatch and read 0645 hours.  He hoisted a pair of powerful binoculars to his eyes and followed the magnified image of a wide wadi that meandered in a sloping northwesterly direction to the Golan Heights from his position near Mishmar Hayarden.

     The dry, semi-arid land to the west of the wadi succumbed to a succession of smooth, low-lying hills, eventually giving way to a wide expanse of desert that continued on as far as the strategically important city of Safad.  To the north and west of his command position, the flat hills extended their northern and eastern progression toward the border nations of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, growing in size as they merged with the elevated slopes of the Golan Heights.  Northward, near the Heights, the rolling, arid plain imperceptibly changed from shades of tans and browns into distinctive bands of yellows, greens and blues as the vegetation marched toward the strategic summit of the Heights.

     Colonel Zarius focused his binoculars on the distant Heights and imagined the most likely route the enemy would follow after overwhelming General Alon's defensive position, trying to assure himself one final time that he had correctly deployed his own meager forces.  Like the general, Zarius was convinced that the Syrians would follow the path of least resistance, initially attacking southward, below the Heights, and then swinging their armor and mechanized units westward to capture Safad.

     To counter the obvious, Zarius had concentrated Major Gedaliah's artillery east of Safad.  Colonel Zarias was confident that the bellicose artillery commander would give him the most from his big guns when the time came.  The man assigned to command Zarius' mechanized units, Major Gonen, however, was another matter.  Zarius swept his binoculars east of Safad where he had deployed Gonen's mechanized battalion and tightened his jaw.  He expected that the inexperienced Major's first battle would be his last, knowing as he did that Gonen's lightly armored mechanized battalion would be woefully outgunned in the face of a Syrian armored attack. 

     Unable to see Major Gonen's position through the early morning haze, Zarius lowered his field glasses and expelled a sigh of sadness.  He wished he knew the young officer better.  But then again, he thought, maybe it's better this way.  After the battle, perhaps his own grief for the dead under his command would be lessened because he knew so few of his men personally.  But Colonel Zarius failed to convince himself of that thought.

Instead, Zarius invoked another thought and murmured softly to himself, "In Israel, it is always a matter of surviving today so that we can die tomorrow."

He didn't bother returning the binoculars to his eyes when he turned to the far northwestern horizon where he had stationed the American, Major Harel.  Harel's command of American-made M-60 battle tanks was hidden from his view behind the rolling hills near the village of Yiftah.

Nor did it make a difference that Zarius had remembered why the major's name seemed familiar to him.  If the Syrians followed the route Zarius and General Alon expected them to take, Major Harel's armor would be forced to engage the Syrians in a frontal attack and Harel's command would most certainly sustain severe casualties.

Colonel Zarius positioned his own battalion of Chieftans in a position to deliver a flank attack on the Syrian armor after its anticipated sweep westward, toward Safad.  He hoped Gonen's and Harel's impending sacrifice and his own attack would be sufficient to buy the Israelis the time they needed to mobilize.  He tried to convince himself that it was possible to slow a full-scale Syrian invasion, but a quick reflection of his depleted forces suggested otherwise.

"Sir?"  Zarius' beret-headed tank operator poked his head out of the forward hatch of Zarius' Chieftan and while simultaneously wiping the sweat from his brow and blocking the daggers of sunlight piercing his eyes said, "Enemy units are still maintaining radio silence, sir."

"Thank you, Corporal," Zarius replied.  "Keep monitoring and inform me if you pick up any traffic at all, no matter how subtle."

"Yes, sir."  Dutifully, the radio operator slid himself back inside the Chieftan's warm steel bowels, leaving the forward hatch open.  The morning sun had steadily inched skyward and already it had warmed the tank's interior to an uncomfortable temperature.

Zarius glanced at his watch.  0732 hours.  His previous battle experience told him that if the Syrians were coming, it had to be soon.  He leaned his torso against the warm rim of the tank's cupola and, shading his eyes with his hand, surveyed the row of Chieftans flanking his command tank.  Those of his tank commanders who saw Zarius scrutinize his forces gave the colonel a thumbs-up signal and tried to relay a sense of confidence that most of them did not feel.

Zarius wondered if they felt as he did, fight and die today, so our own children won't be forced to shed their own blood tomorrow.

II

David

"What do you think, Sergeant?"  Lieutenant David Cohen, tank 103's driver, straddled the turret of the American-made M-60 battle tank and applied the finishing touches of powder blue paint to the side of the tank's turret.

"Pretty," the tank's gunner pronounced without much enthusiasm.  A career soldier and veteran of the Six Days War, the sergeant had never ceased to be amazed by the peculiar things officers did, particularly young ones like Lieutenant Cohen.  He sat on the ground beneath tank 103's camouflage netting and leaned against the tank's tread.  He was much more interested in consuming the contents of his rations than he was in the lieutenant's artistic endeavors.

"Pretty?  Is that all you can say?"

The gunnery sergeant gave an evanescent glance at the freshly painted lettering, shrugged and returned to shoveling a spoonful of cold rations into his mouth.

  "Do you think Major Harel will like it?" Lieutenant Cohen asked, choosing to forgive the gunner's nonchalance.

"Who cares?" the gunner grunted.

Lieutenant Cohen replaced the lid on the paint can and stared down at the sergeant.  "You don't care for the major, do you, Sergeant?"

The gunnery sergeant shrugged his broad shoulders and, choosing to ignore David's question, asked through a mouthful of flavorless food, "What's it supposed to mean, anyway, Lieutenant?  Isn't 'Aquba' the name of that Jordanian port on the Red Sea?"

David admired his handiwork one more time, set the paint can aside and with the agility of a gymnast, placed his hands on the warm surface of the tank's steel glaccis plate and vaulted to the ground next to the gunnery sergeant.

"That's right, Sergeant.  Most of the Middle East as well as the city of Aquba was held by the Turks prior to the First World War," David explained, his voice filled with youthful ebullience for his story.  He sat down next to the gunner and picked up his box of morning rations. "Did you ever see the movie, Lawrence of Arabia, Sergeant?"

"Can't say I did."  The gunner scrapped away at the bottom of his ration tin before tossing the spent can to the dirt and licking his spoon clean.

"Well, the movie is about this British soldier by the name of Lawrence-he's played by Peter O'Toole...you've heard of him haven't you, Sergeant?"

"Nope, don't think so," the gunner replied, tearing open the wrapping from a chocolate bar.

David couldn't believe someone wouldn't know of the famous British actor but he went on to say, "Anyway, the British could never take the city from the seaward side so Peter-I mean, Lawrence-leads a bunch of Arabs on camels across the hottest desert in the world and attacks Aquba from the rear.  No one thought it could be done, but he surprised the Turks, whipped their butts and captured the city."

   Gazing in the distance beyond the horizon of the crusted earth as if he were watching a movie screen, David said, "I'll never forget the scene where Lawrence leads the Arabs on a camel charge against the fort shouting, 'Aquba!  Aquba!  Aquba!'"

     David turned his head to the gunnery sergeant and his smile widened.  "Boy, Sergeant, there was something about that scene that made my hair stand on end.  To be honest with you, if there had been a recruiting station set up outside that movie house when I walked out, I wouldn't have cared if they were recruiting for the Arabian Camel Corps-I would have forgotten I was a Jew and joined up on the spot!"

     The gunnery sergeant stopped chewing in mid-bite, turned his head toward the lieutenant and asked incredulously through a mouth full of chocolate, "You're kidding, aren't you, Lieutenant?"

     Cohen chuckled.  "Yeah, I suppose so, but I was really taken by that movie," he said.

     The gunnery sergeant crushed the chocolate wrapper in his fist and tossed it to the wind.  "Just a movie, Lieutenant," he said.

     David sighed wistfully, set his partially opened rations to his side, closed his eyes and leaned against the tank's tread. "I suppose you're right, Sergeant."

     A long moment of silence ensued before the gunner interrupted. "Lieutenant?"

     "Mmm?"

     "Do you think the Syrians really are going to invade?"

     David opened his eyes, surprised by the sudden serious tone of the gunner's voice.  "I don't know, Sergeant," he replied.  "Are you worried?"

The gunner shrugged. "Some...I guess."  Then he hastened to add, "Don't get me wrong, Lieutenant.  It's not that I'm scared or anything.  It's just that I don't

like sharing my turret with a new man, a foreigner, that's all."

     When he and the lieutenant were assigned to join Major Harel in the command tank the previous afternoon, the surly gunner made a quick evaluation of the two men his life would possibly depend upon.  Lieutenant Cohen, with his prematurely thinning blonde hair, youthful features and dancing blue eyes, seemed to wear a perpetual grin that was part friendly, part mischievous.  It was obvious to the gunner that the men who knew the lieutenant liked him and respected him despite his youthful appearance.  The gunnery sergeant considered David competent enough since the lieutenant served in various mechanized and armor units for most of his short career.  Still, without combat experience the lieutenant remained a question in the sergeant's mind.  The gunner found it even more difficult to evaluate the major.  The major's piercing hazel eyes revealed little about the man.  True, Major Harel had armor combat experience in Vietnam, but in the sergeant's eyes, Aaron was a foreigner and, as such, the gunner found it difficult to trust him completely despite the fact that they both wore the same uniform.

     "You mean, Major Harel?"

     The gunner affirmed with a nod of his head.

     "The major isn't a foreigner," David said.

"He's an American," the sergeant countered.  "That makes him a foreigner in my book."

"His stepfather was an American," David said.  "The major's real father and mother were Israeli."

"No kidding?"  The gunnery sergeant stopped chewing and glanced at the lieutenant quizzically.

"Yeah," the lieutenant confirmed.  "His real father was killed just after he was born...one of the enfatahs, I think, and his mother and stepfather were both killed in an airplane crash awhile back."  David picked up his packet of morning rations, read the contents on the box, grimaced, then set the packet aside.

"That so?" The gunner sounded as equally disinterested in that piece of information as he had been about the lieutenant's paint job.  He eyed the lieutenant's box of rations with a covetous stare and decided to keep the conversation going.  "So, how do you know so much about the major, Lieutenant?" he asked.

"Before I was assigned to the Third Armor, I was stationed near Biet Shean.  Major Harel was there too.  Have you ever heard what happened at the kibbutz there about a year or so ago?"

"No, don't think so," the gunner said, shaking his head.  He burped loudly, folded his arms behind his head and then settled back against the tank's tread and pretended to listen to the lieutenant's story.

"Of course the major wasn't in the Army then.  He was just another kubbutznick living in the compound and tending orange groves outside the kibbutz.  My unit's job was to patrol the area and that's where I first remember seeing him.  The only reason he sticks in my mind was that on a couple of occasions when we would enter the kibbutz on a routine patrol, I'd catch a glimpse of him and he always seemed to have this real pretty woman with him-a real looker, know what I mean?"

"Yeah...listen, Lieutenant, are you going to eat your rations?"  The gunner tapped his empty spoon on David's unopened box of field rations.

David shook his head and wrinkled his nose to indicate that he wasn't about to sample the rations after examining the contents but added aloud, "But leave the chocolate."

"Thanks, Lieutenant."  The gunner greedily opened the box of rations and settled himself back against the tank's tread.  Listening to the young officer was a small price to pay for an extra portion of rations, he decided.

"Anyway, the day of the incident, my unit was on a motorized patrol, heading for the kibbutz. Dawn was just breaking, six or six-thirty in the morning.  Several miles or so out, we got a call reporting small arms fire coming from the orchard.  We cut cross-country to investigate. Evidently, sometime during the night, feyedin commandos had infiltrated the kibbutz and ambushed a group of kibbutznicks on their way to work in the orchard.  The feyedin killed nine of them.

"Fucking terrorists," the gunner spat, taking added interest in the lieutenant's story.

"That's not all of it," David said, as a look of solemnity shrouded his face.  "Two of the Jews were taken alive by the feyedin-two women.  The feyedin raped and mutilated them."  David grimaced at the memory and swallowed hard before continuing.  "We found their bodies-or what was left of them-in a ditch not far from the orchard.  One of the women was the girl I had seen earlier with the major."

"Bastards,"  the gunner spat.  He stopped eating, set his unfinished rations aside and gazed at the lieutenant with renewed interest.

"I don't know for certain what actually happened after that," David continued.  "From what we could piece together, the major was on his way to the orchard with a truckload of packing crates.  The major must have arrived shortly after the feyedin's ambush, but he wasn't at the orchard when we got there."

"Did you catch up to the bastards, Lieutenant?"

"Yeah," David said with a slow nod of his head.  "We tracked them for the better part of the morning.  We found six of them in a shallow wadi near the border.  They were all dead."

"The major?"

"That's what we figured afterwards.  When he didn't return to the kibbutz, we assumed he had been captured, maybe killed."

"You sure it's the same man, Lieutenant?"

"Yeah, I'm sure.  Same name...looks...everything."

The sergeant clucked his tongue and suddenly felt a new appreciation for the major.  "Took guts, going after a feyedin commando team like that...alone."

"Sure as the hell did," David concurred.  "And that makes the major some kind of hero in my book.  The kind of man I don't mind sharing space in the 103 with."

The sergeant concurred with a nod of his head, and felt somewhat differently about being a part of the American major's tank crew than he had before listening to David's story.

III

Aaron

"Anything?"  Major Aaron Harel asked.  He slid his lithe, six-foot frame over the edge of a sandstone boulder and landed lightly on the floor of a wind-blown depression that served as his battalion's observation post.

"Not a peep, sir."  A young soldier with a rubicund face and corporal chevrons sewn upon the sleeves of his blouse lowered a pair of powerful field-glasses from his eyes and turned his head to face the major.

A second soldier sat adjacent to the corporal and intensely manned a portable radio set.  Hearing the conversation, he began to remove his headset and said, "No trace of radio activity since the Syrians began radio silence earlier this morning, Major."

With a hand motioning toward the soldier's headset, Major Harel said, "Keep the headset on, soldier.  We don't want to miss anything coming over that radio, particularly if we get an order to stand-down."

"Yes, sir."  Quickly, the radio operator returned the headset to his ears and once again concentrated on trying to hear something, anything through the silence. 

Aaron pressed his chest against the wall of the wind-hollowed depression and scanned the horizon for a moment before turning to the spotter.  "Borrow your binoculars for a moment, Corporal?"

Dutifully, the young man peeled the leather strap suspending the binoculars from his neck and handed them to the major.  Aaron took the field glasses and crawled to a prone position along the rim of the outcropping.  He raised the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the lenses until the terrain before him came into focus.  Slowly, Aaron scanned the wide plain from left to right, committing its every detail to memory.  Like Colonel Zarius had done moments earlier, Aaron determined the most logical route for the Syrian spearhead once the enemy broke through General Alon's defenses along the Heights.  Aaron surmised that if the Syrians made their advance along the line suggested by Colonel Zarius in their final briefing earlier that morning, his armored battalion would be forced to engage the Syrian force in a frontal attack and that possibility settled within him as a disquieting mixture of both excitement and fear.

But was the logical route the only route the Syrians could take? Aaron asked himself.  He pulled himself forward on the sandy ridge and gazed eastward beyond the Hasbani Wadi.  He brought the powerful binoculars to his intense hazel eyes and adjusted the lenses until the terrain beyond the wadi loomed into view.  A warm, gentle breeze rippled Aaron's khaki blouse and in the distance dust devils danced, twirled and dissipated like exhausted dervishes along the far eastern bank of the Hasbani Wadi.  The topography along the eastern side of the wadi was flat and wide and also conducive to a major advance of armored vehicles.  It was also the shortest route into northern Israel.  But, Aaron reasoned silently, if the Syrians chose this approach they would need to move fast because it would leave them exposed to artillery fire during the time that they would be traversing flat, open ground.  More importantly, it meant that his role and Colonel Zarius' would be reversed; it would be the colonel who would be forced to engage the Syrians in a suicidal frontal assault.

Aaron slowly scanned the remaining landscape from south to north until he satisfied himself that he had accounted for the only two possible routes a large force of Syrian armor could take to penetrate the heart of Israel.  In his mind's eye, Aaron could visualize the Syrian forces racing towards his position like a swarm of angry army ants on the move, devouring every living thing in their path.  That Asad's forces were overwhelming in numbers and well equipped with the latest in Russian equipment was made clear to Aaron in the earlier briefings, but there was one intangible that Aaron now considered.  How well trained were Asad's forces?  How motivated? 

Aaron removed the binoculars from his eyes and stared for a long moment at the dry, barren landscape and allowed it to evoke boyhood memories of a time and place long past.  From the dusty recesses of his mind, Aaron conjured an image of his adopted father and recalled something that he once had said.  It is much wiser to prowl with lions than swim in a pond with swans.  As Aaron reflected on those words, he wondered if the Syrians would exhibit the tooth and claw of the lion or the feathers of a swan.  It was the one intangible that remained to be known.

As Aaron pondered the question, he muttered aloud, "Asad, you bastard.  What are you going to send our way?  Lions or swans?" 

"Sir?"  The young observer had crawled up next to Aaron and gazed at him with puzzlement.

"Huh?  Oh, nothing.  It was just something I remember someone telling me once," Aaron said without an offer to explain.  Aaron's momentary fugue passed as suddenly as it had come, but it left him with a strange sense of loss.

"Do you think the Syrians really are going to invade, Major?" the soldier asked. 

The apprehension on the corporal's voice was palpable, but all Aaron managed to do to relieve the young soldier's anxiety was to shrug noncommittally.  "I guess we'll both know the answer to that question within the next few hours, Corporal."  He handed the field glasses back to the young soldier and crawled back into the sandstone depression.  "In the meantime, keep those glasses glued to your forehead, soldier.  Let me know the second anything changes, understand?"

"Yes, sir!"  Dutifully, the soldier complied by leaning his torso against the wall of the sandstone depression and placing the binoculars snugly against his eyes.

Aaron passed the radio-operator and tossed him another reminder to keep his headset on and then pulled himself out of the hollow and began to retrace his tracks along the loose, gritty soil of the trail meandering back to his command.  He glanced upward to the awakening burst of sunfire just now bulging above the horizon.  If the Syrians were planning an invasion, they should have launched it by now, he thought.  With every passing minute, the arcing path of the sun would move westward and favor the Israelis by eventually announcing the end of the Day of Atonement and the return of the Israeli forces to the front lines.

Aaron contemplated the situation while his subconscious mind guided his footsteps down the uneven path.  Why would the Syrian's delay?  It wasn't logical, he thought. Perhaps the Syrian's build-up along the border was simply to disconcert the Israelis as the Prime Minister believed.  No, that too, was illogical given the size and cost of the amassed Syrian force.  What then are the Syrians waiting for? he asked himself again. 

Aaron reflected upon his boyhood memories and of his early knowledge of the Moslem mind and contemplated the questions he was asking of himself.  The answers to his questions didn't reveal themselves in coherent sentences, but in the guise of sentient certainty.  The Syrians are coming, he confirmed silently.  And Aaron also had the suspicion that they wouldn't follow the route suggested by his superiors either.

God help Colonel Zarius!

IV

Aquba

"The Major's coming in!" someone announced.

David and the gunner stood up and walked to the rear of the tank and sought out the path that the major had taken some minutes before when he went to check on the forward observers.  David placed a hand to his forehead to block out the piercing shafts of sunlight penetrating the weave of camouflage netting suspended above tank 103 and watched the shimmering outline of the major descend the path leading to the hidden column of armor.

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about the major; lean, highly tanned body spread in good proportion over a scant six-foot frame.  His hair, glossy and the color of pitch, was cropped closely to his head more typical of an American GI than an Israeli.  He wore a navy blue beret forward on his head and cocked slightly off center to the right, exposing a smooth three-inch scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to his forehead.  His facial features, sharp, angular and well-defined, appeared to have been carved with a hatchet.  A hawkish nose, solid jaw and a thick, prominent brow and dark skin all served to give him the appearance of an Arab rather than a Jew.  To conclude that the major was handsome would overstate the man's physical features, but his steel-carved face and penetrating hazel eyes conveyed power, resolve and a hardened masculine strength that few men possessed.

David jogged out to intercept the major just as Aaron completed his descent from the winding path.  "Any news yet, Major?" he asked, falling into an easy walking stride alongside the American.

"Still quiet," Aaron answered.  "Did you get the 103 checked out, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir.  She's fueled, loaded and her engines are purring like a lion.  She's ready to roll, Major."

Arriving at his command tank, Aaron stopped and glanced at the freshly painted letters on the tank's turret.  After studying the inscription for a moment, Aaron's deep hazel eyes suddenly shifted to the gunner.  As if Aaron's piercing eyes sliced him to the core, the sergeant nervously shuffled his feet and stepped away.

"Are you the one responsible for this, Sergeant?" Aaron asked with his finger pointed to the powder blue inscription on the tank's turret.  His voice expressed neither dismay nor delight.

"Uh...no, sir!"  The gunner stammered.  "It was...it  was Lieutenant Cohen's idea, sir!"  For that one instant, while Aaron's cold dark eyes were fastened on him, the sergeant felt a spark of disquieting fear pass through him. At that moment, he knew with certainty that the lieutenant's story about the major was true.

"I took the liberty, Major," David responded, suddenly thinking that christening the tank may not have been such a good idea after all.  "I didn't think you would object, sir."

"Why 'Aquba'?" Aaron asked, turning his attention to the blue lettering above the tank's identifying numbers, 103.

"I saw a movie once, sir.  Lawrence of Arabia. Did you see the movie, Major?"

When Aaron said he hadn't, David hastened to tell him the same story he previously told the gunner.  When he finished telling the story, both he and the gunner held their breath while they awaited Aaron's judgment.  "Do...do you like it, sir?" David asked, with a hint of apprehension on his voice.  "It was Peter O'Too--I mean, Lawrence's battle cry."

What passed for an amused smile cracked Aaron's granite face.  "Well, Lieutenant," he said, "I've never had a tank named after an Arab town by a British actor in an American movie before.  It has a nice international flavor to it.  I think you've picked an appropriate name for the 103, Lieutenant."

The gunner wheezed a sigh of relief.  David grinned widely and gave Aaron a snappy salute.  "Thank you, sir!"