Is the story of Iraq Suweidan going to repeat itself, when radio contact was broken just as direct fighting with the enemy started? I swear into the microphone. May the Devil take whoever it was who invented this damned contraption!
Yitzhak appears, the radio operator of the second platoon. One of our radios is not working. Before we set off they were both OK. Now there is nothing we can do about it. We fold up the antennas and return to our units. The company will just have to do without internal radio contact.
Suddenly there is a stir around Amnon, who is in command of the company today. His radio operator is in contact with Brigade HQ. What has happened?
The news spreads like wildfire. Order from HQ: return to base ...
Damn! Now we remember that a ceasefire was supposed to begin tonight. We heard about it in the camp, but no one took it seriously. In our imagination a ceasefire means two weeks’ leave in Tel Aviv with many visits to the cinema and pretty girls, and then a crash course in modern weapons and new techniques, suited for modern warfare.
But now, at this instant, the ceasefire is a scandal. We are five hun-dred meters from the enemy and about ten kilometers from our for-ward base. We want to deal with the Egyptians once and for all, and we don’t even want to think of the march back.
"Maybe we have agreed a price with the Egyptian commanders," I suggest as an explanation. "Maybe," says Jerach, "after all we were supposed to reach our aim ‘at any price’..."
Back at the base we learn that the Egyptians have attacked and heavily bombarded Kibbutz Negba. There was a misunderstanding about the beginning of the ceasefire. Fighting will continue until a definite date is set down by the UN.
The platoon is outraged. We were relying on the ceasefire and the two weeks’ leave to follow it. "Damn them all!" said Shalom Cohen, sum-ming up the feelings of all of us. "They will pay for this lost leave. "
Toward evening the new standby order arrived. We were certain that the operation would not be canceled this time. But at the same time we knew that it would be much more difficult and dangerous this time. The enemy must certainly have noticed what was going on last night. After