The Glory (45 page)

“I’m sorry, he’s gone. The Syrian columns in his sector have halted, but we don’t know why. The way seems wide open for them
down into the Galilee.”

“The air attacks have stopped them, for the time being,” says Dayan. “I knew they would. We were overextended and unprepared,
Sam, on both fronts, and we were taken by surprise. If Golda and the war cabinet will only listen to me, we may yet pull off
a miracle. That’s what we’re talking about now, a miracle to save the country.”

Riding back to the Pit, Dayan paints a black picture of the southern front. Bad as things stand, Gorodish is bent on something
worse, a plan that will destroy half the meager forces he has. “It’s a historic calamity that Gorodish is down there, Sam.
A fine armor man, Gorodish, but he can’t command a front. I knew that. I
told
Dado that. He wouldn’t listen. Well, I fought for years to get a withdrawal from Sinai, didn’t I? Remember my speech about
‘jumping into the cold water of negotiation’
? I even called for a unilateral pullback, to let the Egyptians operate the Canal and give them a stake in peace. But that’s
all in the past. Sam, the Third Temple is falling.”

“Minister, it hasn’t come to that,” says Pasternak, with a terrible chill at heart. This, from
Moshe Dayan?

“You’re sitting in the Pit, Sam. I’ve now been to both fronts, I’ve seen the field hospitals full of broken bloody boys. Whole
battalions in retreat, with shocked and frightened faces. My Zahal warriors! Our tanks smashed and burned by the dozens, all
over the Lexicon Road and the Tapline Road in the south, and the Purple Line in the north. We don’t have much time to save
the situation, and the Gorodishes and Dados can’t do it. It’s up to the platoon leaders, the company commanders, the battalion
commanders like your Amos. They preserved Israel in 1949, and they can again, but the leadership has to give them a fighting
chance.”

T
he air in the Pit, on this second night of the war, is exceptionally hazy and foul. Pasternak has to elbow a way for Dayan
through the backs of generals bunched in Dado’s office. “Gentlemen, the Minister.” They all make room, and the Ramatkhal gets
to his feet.

Dayan says, “Dado, I’m about to report to the Prime Minister what I’ve seen so far today on both fronts, and the conclusions
I’ve drawn. I’m telling you first, so that if you disagree, you can come with me to make your views known.”

“Please, sir!” Dado politely waves a hand at the wall maps.

Moshe Dayan gives his blunt views to this crowd of army seniors, the military elite of Israel, including several former Ramatkhals
and most of the General Staff. As though to an orders group, he delivers an apocalyptic vision with his usual quick-witted
incisiveness; and his magic aura of martial authority, built up over a quarter of a century, lends his words fearful force.
Pasternak can see consternation taking hold of these poker-faced officers, all Dayan-approved appointees, old acquaintances
of his, disciples, even worshippers, as they find themselves facing a choice of calamities: the collapse of Israel, or of
Moshe Dayan.

For with these judgments which the Minister of Defense is laying on the line, either the Ramatkhal has to order precipitate
retreats in Sinai and on the Golan, which will trumpet to the Arabs and the whole world that Israel is falling back, on the
second day of war, to a last-ditch fight for its very existence; or if Golda does not accept Dayan’s view, and the army then
stands its ground and in the end wins out, the credibility of the one-eyed military genius will be destroyed, his aura gone,
his image shattered.

When Dayan finishes, David Elazar’s face is calm, his tone professional, as he responds that he fully agrees a fallback in
Sinai is an urgent matter to consider. He has already ordered Gorodish to work on this. The question of where to draw the
line remains open. Meantime, holding the forward positions will preserve the various options of counterattack tomorrow, if
Adan and Sharon can deploy in time. The Egyptians themselves might try to attack, for instance, and smash themselves against
these powerful tank forces. As for the Golan, the latest reports suggest that the situation has somewhat stabilized and —

At this point a message is brought in for Dayan, a summons from Golda. “Come with me, Dado,” he says.

“There’s much for me to do here, Minister, on tomorrow’s operations.”

“I understand.” Dayan walks out.

At once the atmosphere changes. Officers start pelting Dado with reactions and suggestions, ranging from agreement with Dayan’s
doomsday view to assertive optimism that Arab weakness and Israeli strength will soon surface and reverse the picture.

“I’m for Arik’s plan,” speaks up one venerable ex-Ramatkhal. “He’s right, Dado! Cross the Canal tomorrow with the force you’ve
got there. Throw the enemy off balance and into disarray. The Soviet doctrine they’ve been taught allows no improvisation.
Our strength is in just that! In movement, in daring, in doing the unexpected.”

Murmurs of agreement.

Dado nods. “I’ve considered it, and as a rule I’m all for the bold immediate gamble. You know that. But those two divisions
are all I have between the Canal and Tel Aviv. That gamble I won’t take.”

“Arik would say,” the elder returns, “that you’re being absurd. That the Egyptian objective isn’t Tel Aviv, but a big political
victory; the capture of a limited chunk of Sinai under their missile umbrella, and then a Soviet-sponsored cease-fire.”

“Possibly, but once the road is open to Tel Aviv, as it hasn’t been since 1949, it might look rather inviting to the Egyptian
Chief of Staff. No?”

Murmurs of agreement.

The folds in Golda’s face deepen and the skin goes livid as Dayan gives his report to the inner cabinet. She is close to paralysis
by bewilderment, Zev Barak senses, and also by fear, insofar as fear can break through that iron will. She keeps looking to
General Allon and to Galili, her old bone-tough socialist cohort, the two advisers on whom she most relies: Allon for his
army savvy, the other for his political horse sense. She sees no comfort in their faces, nor do they interrupt Dayan. But
when he says that if the Arabs offer a cease-fire in place right now he would accept, Galili passes both hands through his
graying hair, scribbles on a scrap of paper, and passes it to Barak:

Get Dado here at once.

The ministers are sharply cross-examining Dayan when Barak returns from making the call. How can he consider retreating to
the mountain passes, Allon demands, giving up without a fight advance bases that are the keys to the Sinai Peninsula, built
with the finest technology at vast cost? Galili just as bitterly challenges the notion of abandoning the oil fields at Ras
Sudar and Abu Rodeis, which in themselves have repaid the cost of the Six-Day War, made Israel energy-independent, and gone
a long way to balancing the budget. Golda sits smoking with abrupt gestures, sucking hard on the cigarettes and stubbing out
just the cork tips.

Dayan fights back coolly. He is being pragmatic, he claims. The successful surprise has overturned all Israel’s security estimates
and doctrines. The initiative, Zahal’s customary edge, is gone. The Canal line is gone. The remaining boys in the moazim will
have to fight their way out at night, with perhaps some help from a few tanks, though the Sagger wire-guided missiles are
proving to be deadly tank killers. The Arabs can draw on endless resources of manpower and Soviet arms, while Israel may literally,
and soon, come to the end of fighting men and weaponry, feeding them into the meat grinder of frontline battle. The only hope
is to retreat, dig in on the mountains, and make a desperate effort at once to get more planes, tanks, and arms from America,
and even from Europe, to carry on the fight.

“Moshe, what fight?” Golda breaks a long silence in a harsh voice. “Are we going to throw the Egyptians back to the other
side of the Canal?”

“No, Madame Prime Minister, not now.”

Dado comes in, his heavy brows beetling, his square jaw set. “Madame Prime Minister,” he says at once, “we are still in a
down, but I can report that on the Golan the Syrians have been driven back out of the Nafekh command camp. Also, the air force
has destroyed a large number of Syrian missile batteries, and also several Egyptian bridges across the Canal in the south.”

Her grave expression lightens. “So, there’s some good news. Now, you’ve already heard the proposals of the Minister of Defense?”

“Yes.”

“What do you say to them?”

“They are realistic and wise. They must be seriously considered, along with other options.”

“Let us hear the options.”

He begins to lay out Arik Sharon’s crossing plan, but before long Allon interrupts him. “Forget Arik’s brainstorms, what else?”

“Gorodish has a plan for a limited counterattack tomorrow. Phase one, attack the lodgments on the flanks and throw those Egyptians
back across the Canal.” Golda’s drawn face lights up as Dado describes that action in some detail. “Phase two, if he succeeds,
send an advance force across captured bridges, and exploit the success to sow maximum panic and confusion in the main army
over in Egypt.”

“He’s dreaming,” snaps Dayan. “I discussed the plan with him thoroughly just a few hours ago. It bears no resemblance to the
military realities on the ground.”

“Agreed,” says Dado. “The crossing is not yet in the cards. However, his scheme of a flank assault along the Canal from north
to south by Bren Adan — with Sharon in reserve — might just catch the enemy lodgments by surprise and roll them up. That would
be a start toward counterattack.”

Golda looks to Allon and Galili. They are silent, thinking hard. Zev Barak admires the way Dado is handling this. After Dayan’s
cataclysmic fallback plan, and Sharon’s radical attack proposal, Gorodish’s operation as he is modifying it seems the sound
compromise. Barak has not credited David Elazar with the adroitness he is now displaying, in putting off Dayan’s pleas for
a major retreat.

“Well, it’s not my view that three options exist,” says Dayan. “Gonen’s plan, even scaled back, risks unendurable losses,
and in our situation the Arik plan is madness.”

“Prime Minister, I will fly to Southern headquarters tonight,” says Dado, “and thrash out Gonen’s operation with him. The
war rolls on. We must do something, and one way or another a decision must be made by tonight. I’ll probe the facts before
I approve
preparations
for a limited attack. I won’t signal a final go-ahead till the morning, depending on the situation.”

Golda glances to Dayan, who barely nods his head. She stubs out a last cigarette with a sweep of her hand. “We’ll see each
other in the full cabinet in fifteen minutes.” She gets to her feet, and the ministers stand up as she trudges to the door
of her inner office. Dado, Allon, and Galili go out. Barak starts to follow the Prime Minister as usual after a meeting, but
Dayan stops him with a tap on his arm, enters her office instead, and closes the door.

Barak is glad of a moment to catch his breath. Despite his pallor and tension, Moshe Dayan is looking more like himself again.
The ministerial suit and tie are gone. In his improvised field garb he is every inch the super-Ramatkhal, guardian of Israel’s
security, with Dado as sub-Ramatkhal, a sort of deputy, entitled to state alternate views to the boss’s judgment. But in this
disagreement of deputy and boss there is a final arbiter, Golda. That is why Dayan is in there.

The door opens. Out strides Dayan, the good eye sparkling, and with a rare warm smile at Barak, he darts a thumb at the door
and leaves. Barak finds Golda Meir hunched over the desk, head in hands. He can see only gray hair between knobby brown fingers.
She does not look up at the sound of the door closing. “Madame Prime Minister?” he says softly.

She raises her head. Barak thinks this woman incapable of tears, and she is not crying now, but her bloodshot eyes are filmy
and moist. She lights a cigarette with unsteady hands. “He came in to resign.”

“What!”
The thunderstruck reaction bursts from him.

“That’s right. He said,
‘Without your confidence I can’t go on. I’m offering my resignation.’
” Golda straightens up in her chair. “Can you imagine?” Her voice grows stronger. “Can you picture the effect on our people?
On the world? On the
Arabs?
The great Moshe Dayan resigning after one day of war? The next thing to a white flag! Yes or no, Zev?”

“It’s absolutely unthinkable, Madame Prime Minister.”

“Just so. I refused to accept. I did my best to cheer him up. I assured him that of course I believed in him, I took his warnings
to heart, he must go to the full cabinet with his views, he was the greatest general and military mind we had, the greatest
maybe in the world. There was nobody who could possibly replace him. I guess he heard what he wanted to hear, because he retracted.”

“Madame Prime Minister, you worked wonders. He came out a changed man.”

“You think he did? Then that’s that. So, now I go to the full cabinet, and I’ll have to sit through all that again.” As she
pushes herself up with both arms on the desk, she manages a fatigued mournful grin at him. “You’re no longer my Mr. Alarmist.
You’ve been relieved.”

A
t one in the morning of October 8, the third day of the war, returning from a meeting with Gorodish, Sharon glances up at
a red streak crossing the starry sky and growls to Kishote, “Frog missiles still coming, eh?”

“They haven’t stopped, sir.”

“Well, now at least I know Gorodish’s plan, as Dado has modified it. We’re to sit here and do nothing while Bren Adan attacks
north to south. I could make a more idiotic plan, but it would be a strain.”

They are standing outside the command bunker at Tasa. Off to the west, the thumping and flashes of heavy artillery go on and
on like a distant thunder-and-lightning storm. “Those poor lads in the moazim, no respite. Well, no help for it. Orders group
in half an hour, Kishote. All officers, battalion commanders and up.”