The Glory by Herman Wouk Page A

first signal of Arab defiance in defeat. It proclaims that the “no’s”
     of the Khartoum Declaration were not mere Arabic rhetoric, but hard policy. After the war our optimists were saying that it
     was only a matter of time before King Hussein or Colonel Nasser called Moshe Dayan on the telephone, offering peace for return
     of their lost territories. The telephone call came, all right, and it sank my son’s destroyer.
    The military loss is serious but endurable. The political damage to Israel’s newfound world stature is something else. Our
     reprisal must be sure, swift, stern, and adequate to discourage any further such gross violations of the cease-fire agreement.
     For the Egyptian casualties, however heavy, that must result, Colonel Nasser will bear full responsibility, as he does for
     the lives lost on the
Eilat
.
    As for the form of the reprisal, air strikes would cause an uproar in the UN and bring on Soviet threats which could get ugly.
     Back of the Egyptians always stand the Russians. That is why Nasser has risked this stroke. An armored raid in force across
     the Canal seems more likely. We lack bridging equipment, but a crossing on pontoon rafts against the demoralized Egyptian
     army may be feasible, razing army bases, industrial plants, perhaps Port Said harbor facilities before the Russians can intervene.
     But even such an operation will require a logistical buildup, and much planning and rehearsal. A reliable yet daring commander
     will be absolutely essential —
    Barak stopped writing and stared at the opposite wall, where a picture of the Defense Minister, now a world hero, returned
     a one-eyed stare. An armor man himself, Barak was thinking how he would mount such a cross-Canal strike, given the assignment.
     A big challenge, a big opportunity; yet if things went wrong and the Egyptians put up any resistance at all, a big risk of
     an operational fiasco and political disaster. The sinking of the
Eilat
showed that their will to fight was far from crushed.
    His eye fell on the weekend
Ma’ariv
lying on his desk, and there on the front page was the picture of just the man to pull it off. Don Kishote! The news story
     was that Lieutenant Colonel Yossi Nitzan had been awarded the Medal of Valor, Second Class, for his risky and costly tank
     dash to El Arish, which had spearheaded the victory in the Sinai ground fighting. Kishote was now the operational officer
     of Northern Command, a long step upward on the
maslul
but a post very far from Sinai. There were able field commanders in Southern Command, but nobody quite like Don Kishote.
    He put in a call to Pasternak. Sam knew and admired Yossi Nitzan, and he had Moshe Dayan’s ear.

3
Reprisal
    At about the time the
Eilat
went down, Lieutenant Colonel Yossi Nitzan was driving across the Golan Heights under lowering gray clouds, while around
     him tanks and armored personnel carriers roared and rumbled to their night positions in a haze of exhaust. Addressing the
     brigade after a dry run of a live-fire exercise, he had been hard-nosed and unsmiling, balancing brief praise for good performance
     with severe ticking off of sloppy lapses. No trace of humor had lightened his admonition that in Dayan’s presence tomorrow,
     the hazardous drill had better come off without incident. To his army equals and to some women, Yossi Nitzan could be the
     prankish high-spirited Don Kishote, Hebrew for Don Quixote, a nickname he had acquired as a daredevil teenage recruit; but
     in the field he was the soberest of commanders, except when a rare combat situation called for savage boldness.
    Back in his headquarters tent he was at a plank desk planning a last early-morning rehearsal of the drill, when Dayan telephoned.
     “Where is Dado, Yossi?”
    “At Kibbutz Gal-Ed, Minister.”
    “Why there?”
    “He felt he should go and talk to them. A tractor driver was killed by an infiltrator mine.”
    “I know about that. Tell him tomorrow’s plans are changed.