Mirage Page 9

  ‘What about?’

  ‘My pay - what else? Anyway - he’s seen the justice of my case and has agreed to promote me. As from next week I am Lieutenant- Colonel Emil Kalen.’

  Leonora stared at him. ‘You? A segan-aluf! But I thought your rank of rav-seren was only honorary?’

  Emil looked indignant. ‘I’ll have you know, young lady, that I’m a full-blown major at the moment, and I’ll be a full-blown lieutenant- colonel next week.’

  ‘But, Emil - you never wear a uniform. You don’t even own one.’

  ‘Too risky. Might have people saluting me and all that nonsense.’

  Leonora smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘I don’t think I made a mistake marrying you, Emil Kalen, but there’s so much I don’t know about you.’

  ‘That’s mutual,’ Emil replied, stroking her hair. ‘There’s a lot I don’t know about you.’

  19

  In a way the real consummation of Emil’s and Leonora’s marriage did not occur at the beginning of their honeymoon but at the end - on the last day when they visited the law courts in Tel Aviv to complete the legal formalities necessary for Emil to adopt Daniel as his son. As had been previously agreed with the judge, Leonora was not required to name Daniel’s real father when she renounced his paternal rights.

  Even without the mortar of legal documentation, nothing could have stopped the natural development of the close bond that was forming between the boy and the man. A bond that grew even stronger during Emil’s precious fourteen days’ leave. No matter how exhausted the new father was after a day’s work on the moshav, he still found the energy to play aeroplanes with Daniel for an hour each night before Leonora packed him off to bed.

  In the months that followed Leonora gradually discovered that she had no need to maintain her rigid defences - defences which were as inexplicable to her as they were to Emil although he rarely commented on them. It took three years for her to accept that she loved Emil. She would ask herself if he would have been less patient had he been at home more often. As it was, his job kept him in Tel Aviv all week. And sometimes, as happened during the Suez War when she hardly saw him for a month, he would miss several weekends on the moshav. Even after several years’ marriage, she knew nothing about Emil’s work - not even the location of his real office. All she had was a telephone number for urgent messages, and a room number at the Ministry of Defence Headquarters Building.

  On one occasion, when shopping in Tel Aviv, she had on an impulse called at the Ministry of Defence and asked to see Emil, giving his room number. Once she had provided the security officer with her identity card, he politely informed her that her husband hardly ever used his office.

  20

  July 1956

  Daniel gently eased the simple control column forward and the whole of the city of Jerusalem scrolled upwards in front of the glider’s blister canopy like a hoisted scenery backdrop. The Dome of the Rock crowning the Mosque of Omar gleamed like a gold nugget that had become molten in the burning sun. Beyond the ancient city the verdant thread of the Kidron Valley reached eagerly through the Judean Hills and the haze to the northernmost tip of the Dead Sea. Despite the glider’s nose-down attitude, the altimeter continued nudging upwards. 10,000 feet and still climbing! His first solo flight and he had chanced on the most incredible thermal. No one would believe him. Or would they? Daniel looked over the canopy rim directly down at the ground and swallowed nervously. He was no longer over Israel. His exultant circling climb on the incredible thermal had taken him too far east. They would believe him all right .... The previous week all the members of his cadet squadron had been taken on a trip to Chel Ha’Avif s command centre at Tel Nof. At his present height the Decca radar installations would have no trouble tracking him, guiding the big Hewlett-Packard telescopes so that the ground observers could read the glider’s registration. Right now the telephone lines between Tel Nof and the glider field at Hulda would be burning as angry controllers demanded to know what the hell cadet glider pilots were doing intruding in Jordanian airspace.

  The sailplane’s wings flexed as Daniel pulled the glider into a tight turn. He levelled out on a easterly course and put the nose down for home. He felt sick and angry. Sick because at sixteen he had effectively dashed his hopes of being selected for a commission that would lead to fighter training. The IDF would never consider a cadet who was stupid enough to overfly Jordan by accident. And he was angry with himself for being so monumentally stupid in allowing himself to forget everything in the magic of riding a thermal that was a solid wall of air moving straight up. To make matters worse, his parents were at the airfield to witness his solo flight which meant that they would also be witnessing the rocket that his commanding officer would be administering as soon as he landed.

  Brigadier Eli Gan was standing at the edge of the field in a group that included Daniel’s parents. He had his hands on his hips, watching Daniel as he levelled out on his final approach. Daniel’s first solo landing was perfect: the sailplane touched down smoothly on its single wheel undercarriage without a hint of a bounce, and the port wingtip tipped on the grass only when the aircraft had rolled to a stop. Daniel jumped out of the cockpit and stood to rigid attention as the brigadier strode towards him. From the senior officer’s expression, Daniel knew that he was unlikely to be receiving much praise for the duration of the flight or the elegant landing. He was right. For five minutes Daniel listened in stoic silence to a blistering tirade in which the senior officer described his protege as the most arrogant, disobedient, incompetent cadet that Israel had ever had the misfortune to be stuck with. Daniel’s flight, the brigadier asserted, must have been a tremendous morale-booster for the Jordanians if his behaviour was typical of the pilots they would be tangling with in the future.

  During this sulphurous attack, Daniel was uncomfortably aware of his mother’s reproachful expression and the smirks of the two fitters who were checking the sailplane over. Emil seemed to be more amused than angry by the incident.

  ‘One last thing before I’ve finished with you,’ said the brigadier, finally running out of steam. ‘You’ve broken the Central Command record for endurance and distance. Once we get confirmation from the radar post at Tel Nof, it could be that you’ve also broken the altitude record. You will have time to contemplate your dubious achievements during five circuits of the perimeter. At the double. Starting now.’

  ‘In my flying kit, sir?’

  ‘I said, starting now!’ Brigadier Gan roared.

  Daniel gave the officer a hasty salute and sprinted clumsily in his flying suit towards the perimeter fence. One of the fitters spoke briefly to the brigadier and handed him something which he looked at in surprise. He glanced at the distant figure running along by the fence and rejoined Leonora and Emil.

  ‘My apologies for having to give your son a public dressing down, Mr and Mrs Kalen, but he deserved it. Especially in the light of this.’ He held out his hand. In his palm were two slightly flattened .303 slugs. ‘The fitter dug them out the port wing. They look as if they were pretty well spent when they hit the glider. But it would seem that his incursion upset some trigger-happy Arabs.’

  Leonora looked in alarm at the slugs. ‘Brigadier - Daniel’s set his heart on flying fighters—’

  ‘Damn good job too,’ the brigadier muttered. ‘We can’t have bloody Arabs shooting at our pilots without them getting the chance shoot back.’ He smiled suddenly, showing an unexpected human side to his nature. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Kalen. I shall be recommending Daniel for basic flying training as soon as he’s old enough. He has all the makings of a superb pilot.’

  Leonora watched her son in the distance, half staggering, half running in the heat. He was approaching a car parked inside the perimeter fence. A tall man was leaning nonchalantly against the car. There was something familiar about his casual stance. Leonora screwed up her eyes but the man was too far away for her to be certain who he was. Emil took her by the elbow and led her away. When s
he paused and looked back, Emil thought she was watching Daniel.

  Daniel drew level with the car but his eyes were too filled with sweat and tears to notice the stranger. The man knew a lot about flying. He knew that the duration of Daniel’s glider flight had to be a new record. He was tempted to call out a complimentary phrase as Daniel pounded past but instead he contented himself with a feeling of pride.

  21

  November 1963

  Along with millions of others, it was several days before Leonora could fully comprehend the shock of President Kennedy’s assassination. The second shock was more personal with her discovery that Emil had attained the rank of aluf - brigadier. It happened when she was frantically searching for some blue thread to repair a new hat she had ordered from London. The following day was very special: Daniel’s wings-day parade. She was about to turn out a wardrobe in a spare bedroom when she discovered a magnificent, polythene- shrouded dress uniform hanging on the rail. She smoothed down the polythene over the shoulder mark and saw the crossed ear of corn and sword emblem. She snatched the uniform off the hook and took it out to Emil who was asleep on a sun lounger beside the new swimming pool. Had she been responsible for feeding her husband she would have felt a twinge of guilt because his once stocky frame was showing signs of roundness. She prodded a naked stomach with her foot. Emil opened his eyes and focused them on the uniform. His impish grin was one thing that the years had not changed.

  ‘Emil Kalen. What is this?’

  ‘A uniform.’

  ‘That I can see.’

  ‘It was meant to be a surprise.’

  ‘For someone who always dresses like a bank clerk, it was. Do you know how much I paid to have your suit cleaned?’

  ‘In that case,’ Emil murmured sleepily, ‘I’d better not tell you what that peacock outfit cost.’

  ‘But what is it you have done to be made a brigadier?’

  ‘Been in the right place at the right time to make a nuisance of myself.’

  After fourteen years of marriage, Leonora knew that the flippant answer was all she would get out of Emil. She guessed that his promotion was due to those qualities that were her reasons for marrying him: that Emil Kalen was a man who inspired trust and who never betrayed a confidence.

  22

  What Leonora did not know was that Emil’s former department had been abolished in 1951 and that Ben Gurion had appointed her husband deputy director of the newly formed Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Missions - otherwise known as Mossad. In that role Emil had used his growing influence to ensure that General Dan Tolkovski - a South African - was appointed Commander-in- Chief of the Chel Ha’Avir instead of Jacob Wyel.

  Dan Tolkovski was everything that Jacob was not. For one thing, he did not subscribe to the idea of the Chel Ha’Avir as a kibbutzim wing of the army. Israel’s main enemies - principally Egypt - were being equipped by the Soviets with modern MiGs. To match that threat, Israel needed to scrap its hotch-potch of squadrons made up of innumerable varieties of piston-engine fighters and bombers, and concentrate on the build-up of an air force based on fighters backed up by an efficient spares and maintenance organization. Tolkovski defined the primary role of the Chel Ha’Avir as the destruction of enemy air forces on the ground. For that reason modern jet fighters were needed and not bombers. His reasoning was that fighters could be used as bombers, whereas bombers made lousy fighters. Tolkovski’s insistence on total professionalism won him few friends, especially when members of the old guard such as Jacob Wyel - men who had served Israel well during the fateful War of Independence - were shunted into unimportant jobs.

  Jacob’s reaction had been to resign his commission and offer himself as a parliamentary candidate to David Ben Gurion’s Mapai Party. He won a rural seat in 1956 and later transferred his allegiance to Ben Gurion’s breakaway Rafi Party. It was his undoubted knowledge of air force affairs that enabled him to survive the uncertain switchback of Israeli politics. Promotion to high office eluded him - largely as a result of rumours circulated by Emil about Jacob’s homosexuality. They were not malicious rumours - that was not in Emil’s nature. Nor were they inaccurate. Emil circulated them out of practical considerations because he did not want the problem of a senior minister who was susceptible to blackmail. His staff had enough to contend with keeping tabs on Israel’s enemies: he had no wish to start on her friends.

  Despite the brake on his career, Jacob served loyally in various coalitions as Minister of Defence for Procurement; a junior post that did not carry a seat in the Cabinet but which enabled him to keep in touch with Lucky Nathan in England, and even to steer a few minor contracts in Lucky’s direction. Jacob made occasional private visits to England to see Lucky and to check on his steadily growing Swiss bank account - fuelled by dividends from his twelve per cent holding in Luckair. A third reason was that in London he could pursue his interest in boys in a manner that would have been decidedly risky in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

  On the political front, Jacob was embittered by his failure to stop Dan Tolkovski who was pounding desks and egos in Cabinet offices in his noisy demands for a new air force. The sheer force of his undeniable logic won over even Ben Gurion who reluctantly gave Tolkovski the authority and finance to rebuild the ChelHa’Avir.

  France was the only country prepared to supply Israel with the aircraft she needed - primarily because de Gaulle and his predecessors were keen to strengthen France’s manufacturing base. Britain, the United States - the only other major manufacturing countries - operated a curious policy whereby they would sell arms only to those countries that didn’t actually need them or were unlikely to use them.

  The first jets supplied from Marcel Dassault’s factory outside Paris were twenty-four Ouragons - a sturdy, well-engineered little fighter that could, in the hands of a skilled pilot, take on the MiG-15. It proved itself in the 1956 Suez War when not one Ouragon was lost to the superior MiGs.

  This early success encouraged Tolkovski to persuade the Cabinet to order more Ouragons, followed by larger orders for the more powerful Dassault Mystere fighters. Other French companies benefited from de Gaulle’s apparent willingness to disregard Arab anger by meeting the tiny state’s arms needs. Sud-Aviation of Toulouse supplied the light Alouette helicopter and the big Super Frelon assault helicopter; and Fouga supplied large numbers of Magister jet trainers. By the mid-1960s France’s military aviation industry was in the unusual position of having in Israel an even bigger customer than her own air force - the Armee de l'Air. Equally important, because Israel was on a permanent war footing, her pilots were clocking up more flying hours on French aircraft than Armée de l'Air pilots. The resulting feedback gave Dassault’s draughtsmen the unique advantage of being able to design new aircraft based on the operational experience of first-class pilots. In addition, the Chel Ha’Avir sent teams of experienced combat pilots and technicians to advise Dassault’s licensees in Belgium and Sweden - companies that were building Dassault aircraft for their respective governments and who badly needed the sort of battle- forged views that only Israel could provide.

  23

  1964 to 1967

  For Daniel, his posting to No. 133 Squadron at Herzlia was the culmination of a childhood dream and the reward for the long hours of frustrating study while his friends from neighbouring moshavs were out riding their motor scooters and making love to girls on the dune-fringed beaches. No longer was he the wide-eyed boy staring up and marvelling at the sleek formations of jet fighters streaking purposefully across the cloudless skies. Now he was one of them.

  But there was no time to savour success. From the day he reported to Herzlia, he was immersed in an exhausting round of lectures and ground training sessions that left little time for actual flying. In their determination to turn operational fighters around in eight minutes between sorties, the Chel Ha’Avir required pilots to be as familiar with rearming and general aircraft preparation as their ground crews.

  And then the real training beg
an in earnest: low-level ground attacks on old trucks dressed up as tanks; long-range strikes that involved flying through narrow ravines so that the wingtips of the Mysteres seemed to be brushing the treacherous crags and slopes. On one occasion there was a real attack on an old merchant ship that had been towed into position fifty miles off Tel Aviv. Daniel had the satisfaction of seeing his missiles punch into the hull amidships and tear the rusting hulk apart. His first taste of combat came when he and three other pilots scattered four Egyptian MiGs over Sinai and shot down a fourth. Daniel shared his first ‘kill’ with another pilot. Two ‘kills’ the following month were all his own work even though one of the aircraft was a lumbering Egyptian DC-3 transport that had foolishly got itself lost.

  By the late summer of 1964 his logbook was beginning to show a respectable number of flying hours. The blow fell in October 1964 when he was summoned to appear before his commanding officer.

  Ben Patterson was a tall, gangling Texan from a wealthy family who had managed to reconcile an easy-going informality with the requirements of good, rather strict discipline. In early 1940, at the age of nineteen, he had branched his family’s air freight business into Palestine and had served throughout the war as a British Army reconnaissance pilot in the Jewish Brigade. He fought as a Mahal during the War of Independence - fighting during the day and throwing lavish parties at night at his magnificent architect-designed house south of Tel Aviv, overlooking the Mediterranean. The Chel Ha’Avir was too young to have become steeped in tradition. Patterson and men like him, who had fought from the very beginning, were still serving officers and were therefore unconsciously formulating those traditions. The Texan’s preference for the use of first names between himself and his subordinate officers would later become an established tradition of units other than No. 133 Squadron. For the time being, Ben Patterson’s approach was unique.