Upfall

Yatom ran back down the ridge and gathered up Ido, now stripped down to fighting trim. Together, he and the medic ran to position on the left of the ridge, still dodging the occasional German mortar bomb. Rafi greeted them in his trench and pointed at a German assault gun which was now less than 100 meters away. It had already destroyed two nearby bunkers, killing the men inside. Rafi had the B-300 to hand, but with only two rockets available was waiting for Yatom to authorize him to fire. "Do it" said Yatom.

Rafi but the assault gun in the launcher‘s crosshairs. The turretless German tank appeared huge in the sight—the B-300 was accurate out to more than 300 meters and this would be an easy shot. He loosed the rocket. It struck the Stug III near the gun mantlet, emiting a fantastic flash and sending a jet of molten metal into the fighting compartment, instantly killing the crew. The assault gun slewed to a stop. From the surviving bunkers nearby the Israelis heard cheers. Yatom turned to Ido and handed him the Galil, already loaded with a rocket grenade—one of three that remained

"You know how to use this?" Yatom asked the medic. Ido nodded, though it had been awhile. "Take out the halftracks" Yatom told him. Yatom grabbed Rafi, still holding the B-300. "Go join Mofaz on the right" ordered Yatom. "You know where?" Rafi nodded, and ran off with the rocket launcher. Yatom headed back toward the mortar teams.

It took Ido all three rockets, but when he was done, the medic had put the cure to the German armored attack on the Israeli left. The two half-tracks were left smoking next to the destroyed Stug. Ido took the Galil, which still had plenty of bullets, and fired at the surviving German armored infantry, who to his amazement, instead of running away, were still trying to take the hill Joined by a Bren team in a bunker to his right, he managed to pin the German infantry several dozen meters away.

Yatom heard the detonations of the Galil rockets and hoped they had hit home, but he had no time to check. He continued on the the mortar pits without turning back and arrived dog-tired from his exertions. Though anxious to act, he sat down in one of the pits and caught his breath. Between the radio, the armored vest, his weapons and ammunition, Yatom was carrying over forty kilos of gear. The mortar crews, ten Jews mostly from Bohemia huddled in the pit staring at the exhausted Israeli commander, while the occasional German shell crashed around them. Somewhat recovered Yatom dusted himself off and said carefully in German "Can you shoot back?"

"Yes sir!" said Poldolsky the crew chief, a man of about Yatom's age, and a former Polish army artilleryman. "Everything is ready, we just need the coordinates."

Yatom put up his hand, to calm the eager gunner. If he‘d been back in modern Israel, the fire coordinates would have been generated automatically by artillery radar and GPS systems, but now he‘d have to do things the old fashioned way. Yatom radioed Ilan and Bolander on the hillock across the valley. The snipers had the best eyes and optics in the sayeret, and in addition to sniping duties, Yatom had put them on the neighboring hill just for this purpose—as a makeshift forward observers. Although the hillock was not quite as high as the main ridge it offered a better view of the valley below and the likely location of the enemy artillery.

"Find the enemy mortars" Yatom told Han, and signed off. The snipers scanned the distant trees, looking for the telltale signs of an artillery discharge, using optical and thermal sights. They matched their observations to a local map upon which Rafi and marked half-kilometer square grid coordinates—not particularly precise given the congested battle area. It took the snipers a few minutes, during which time Yatom and the mortarmen had to endure a more incoming rounds. Fortunately, the German mortarmen were concentrating on the front slope and top of the ridge and were apparently unconcerned with what might be on the reverse slope. On the adjacent hillock, llan and Bolander were under intermittent mortar fire too, but they ignored the incoming bombs, safe in the well constructed bunker. Finally, Ilan radioed coordinates. Yatom checked them against his own map and did a quick calculation. He gave the result to the crew chief who calibrated the mortars. They fired off a round. Ilan observed the fall of shot and called a correction. They repeated the process—twice—slowly bracketing the location of the suspected enemy battery. As they did this the German fire slackened. Yatom figured that the enemy mortarmen, realizing that they were under counter-battery fire, were holding back while they decided what to do. During this pause, Ilan finally satisfied himself that the Jewish mortars were adequately registered and radioed the call "fire for effect." Poldolsky's mortarmen began to work in earnest.