Leon Uris (60 page)

The wind blew through Kitty’s hair as she stood on the wall and the air began to cool again. They sat for over an hour with Ari pointing out the countless points of Biblical history. Finally they retreated to that point on the edge of the forest where it met the castles, and changed back to their warmer clothing. Ari spread their blankets and Kitty stretched out and grunted with a weary happiness. “It has been a wonderful day, Ari, but I am going to ache for a week.”

Ari propped himself up on an elbow, watched her. Again he felt a desire for her but he held his silence.

By dusk, parties of threes and fours and fives began reaching the summit. There were dark and olive-skinned Orientals and Africans and there were blonds who had immigrated to Israel. There were many girls, most of them straight and high breasted. There were the
sabras
with their large mustaches and the stamp of aggressiveness. It was a reunion. Palmach groups had to train in small units in different
kibbutzim
to remain hidden. This was a chance for both friends from the city and from the same settlements to see each other again and for sweethearts to meet. The greetings were warm, with affectionate hugs and back slaps and kisses. They were a lively bunch of youngsters in their late teens and early twenties.

Joab Yarkoni and Zev Gilboa had come when they learned Kitty would be there, and she was delighted.

David and Jordana came also, and Jordana was provoked by David’s attention to Kitty, but she remained quiet to avoid creating a scene.

By dusk nearly two hundred of the young Palmach soldiers had gathered. A pit was dug near the castle wall, while some of them turned to gathering wood for an all-night fire. Three lambs were prepared and spitted for roasting. The sun plunged down behind the Jezreel Valley, the fire was lit with a single bursting blaze, and the lambs were placed over their pits and couples joined in a huge circle around the fire. Kitty, the visiting dignitary, was forced into the place of honor with Joab, Zev, and Ari around her.

Soon the plateau atop Mount Tabor rang with songs. They were the same songs that Kitty had heard the children sing at Gan Dafna. They told of the wonder of the water sprinklers that redeemed the land and they told of the beauty of the Galilee and Judea. They sang of how haunted and lovely was the Negev Desert and they sang the spirited marches of the old Guardsman and the Haganah and the Palmach. They sang a song that said that David the King still walked the land of Israel.

Joab sat cross-legged with his tambour before him. It was a clay drum with goatskin head. With his fingertips and the heels of his hand he beat a rhythm to a reed flute playing an ancient Hebraic melody. Several of the Oriental girls danced in the same slow, swaying, sensuous gyrations that must have been danced in the palace of Solomon.

With each new song and each new dance the party quickened.

“Jordana!” someone called. “We want Jordana!”

She got into the ring and a cheer went up. An accordion played a Hungarian folk tune and everyone clapped in beat and Jordana whirled around the edge of the ring pulling out partners for a wild
czardas
. One by one she danced her partners down, with her red hair flying wildly in her face, framed against the leaping fire. Faster the accordion played and faster the onlookers clapped until Jordana herself stopped in exhaustion.

A half dozen came to the center and started a
hora
, the dance of the Jewish peasants. The
hora
ring grew larger and larger until everyone was up and a second ring formed outside the first. Joab and Ari pulled Kitty into the circle. The circle moved in one direction, then stopped as the dancers made a sudden leap and changed directions.

They had been singing and dancing for four hours and there was no indication of slowing up. David and Jordana slipped away quietly to the Saracen castle and wandered through the rooms until the sounds of the music and the tambour nearly vanished. They came upon a tiny cell set in the Wall of the East Winds and now the sound of the wind from the Jezreel Valley was all that they could hear. David spread his blanket on the earth and they embraced and caressed and loved each other.

“David! David!” Jordana cried, “I love you so!”

The wind died and they could hear wild music.

“David ... David ... David ...” she whispered over and over as her lips pressed his neck ...

And David repeated her name over and over.

His hand felt for the smoothness of her body. She took the clothing from her to ease his way and they pressed against each other and she asked to be taken and they blended into one.

After their love, Jordana lay in his arms. His fingertips traced over her lips and her eyes and through her hair.

“Jordana.” His whisper thrilled her through her body and soul.

“Do you remember the first time, David?”

“Yes.”

“
I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys
....” she whispered. “
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. “

It became so still that each could hear only the other’s uneven breathing and the other’s heart beating.

“
Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes. My beloved is mine and I am his.
Oh, David ... tell me, tell me.”

David whispered with his lips touching her ear, “
Behold thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks ... thy lips are like a thread of scarlet
...”

She squeezed his hand that rested upon her breast and he kissed her breast ... “
Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies
...”

And he kissed her lips ... “
And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those who are asleep to speak.
”

David and Jordana fell into a bliss-filled sleep, locked tightly in each other’s arms.

At four o’clock in the morning the lamb was served, with hot Arabic coffee. Kitty was honored with the first cut. The fervor of song and dance had slowed a little; many of the couples lay in each other’s arms. The lamb tasted wonderful.

Joab played his tambour, and the reed flute behind him made a tune as ancient as the land itself. One of the girls who had been born in distant Yemen sang in a voice filled with the mystic and melancholy of the Hebrew, right from the pages of the Bible. Her haunting voice sang a Psalm of David.

Kitty Fremont looked at the faces in the dying firelight.

What kind of army was this? What kind of army without uniform or rank? What kind of army where the women fought alongside their men with rifle and bayonet? Who were these young lions of Judea?

She looked at the face of Ari Ben Canaan and a chill passed through her body. An electrifying revelation hit her.

This was no army of mortals.

These were the ancient Hebrews! These were the faces of Dan and Reuben and Judah and Ephraim! These were Samsons and Deborahs and Joabs and Sauls.

It was the army of Israel, and no force on earth could stop them for the power of God was within them!

Chatham House

Institute Of International Relations

London

Cecil Bradshaw, the dumpy expert on the Middle East, had been studying the survey reports from a variety of sources. For three days he had been digesting the summaries. The Colonial Office, the Ministry and even Number 10 Downing Street were all bringing pressure on him. The Palestine mandate was in a muddle. A clean-cut new policy had to be formulated. Bradshaw was a man of thirty-seven years’ experience in the area. During that time he had gone through a hundred conferences with the Zionists and the Arabs. Bradshaw believed, as most of the officialdom believed, that Britain’s interests lay with the Arabs. Time and again he was able to cover up Arab blackmail and threats. This time they had gone completely wild. The current London Conferences were ending in a fiasco.

It is completely obvious that Haj Amin el Husseini, the Mufti, is running the Palestine Higher Arab Committee from exile in Cairo. Our failure to prosecute the Mufti as a war criminal for fear of religious outbursts has now come back to haunt us. The Arab attitude has reached complete unreason. They refuse to sit at the same table with the Jews unless pre-imposed conditions are agreed upon.

Cecil Bradshaw had been at the San Remo Conference when the Middle East was divided between the British and French and he had been there when the Articles of Mandate were drawn and when the Balfour Declaration was issued. Bradshaw worked on Churchill’s group that took half the Palestine mandate and created the kingdom of Trans-Jordan. In all the years, in all the Mufti’s riots, they had never been up against a band of fighters in the class of the Maccabees. The Jewish terrorists fought with a fearsome conviction.

We have time and again demanded from the Yishuv Central and the Jewish community that they assist British authorities in stamping out the gangster elements who go under the name of the Maccabees. Whereas the Yishuv claims no authority over these people and they publicly condemn their actions it is known that a large segment of the Jews secretly approve the gangster actions. We have received no co-operation in this matter. Maccabee activities have reached such proportion that we deem it necessary to evacuate all nonessential British personnel and families from Palestine.

Bradshaw read over the reports of the stepped-up terrorist raids which rocked the Holy Land from one end to another.

In addition to the costly gangster raids on the Haifa refinery which stopped production for two weeks, and the raid on the Lydda airdrome, which destroyed a squadron of fighter planes, ten major road ambushes and fifteen major raids on British installations have taken place. There is increasing evidence that the Haganah and its striking arm, the Palmach, is becoming restless and may even be partaking in some of the recent raids.

The leaky tubs, the floating slums of Aliyah Bet, brought loads of illegal immigrants into the shores of Palestine.

Despite increased naval patrol forces there has been a marked step-up in Aliyah Bet activity since the Exodus incident. The America, San Miguel, Ulloa, Abril, Susannah, and San Filipo have carried eight thousand illegals from European displaced-persons camps. We have reason to believe two other ships were successful in breaking the blockade and beached. Our embassies and consulates in the Mediterranean countries report that at least five more ships are being outfitted by Aliyah Bet to attempt immigrant runs on Palestine in the near future.

The British command had powerful forces in Palestine. Fifty-two vaunted Taggart forts spread an interlocking network over the tiny country. In addition, there were border forts such as Fort Esther and there was a regular police force in every town and there was the powerful Arab Legion from Trans-Jordan. Besides the Taggarts the British maintained large bases at Atlit in the Haifa area, the Schneller Barracks in Jerusalem, and the immense Sarafand camp outside Tel Aviv.

We have, in recent months, launched Operations Noah, Ark, Lobster, Mackerel, Cautious, Lonesome, Octopus, Cantonment, and Harp to keep constant pressure upon the Yishuv. These operations basically are for continued screening for illegals, cordons, and arms searches, and counterattacks where our forces have been attacked. Our success has been limited due to the hundred per cent organization and cooperation of every Jew in the Yishuv in their efforts. Arms are hidden in flower boxes, file cabinets, stoves, refrigerators, false table legs, and a thousand other ingenious places, making arms seizure a near impossibility. Arms are transported by women and small children who readily engage in this practice. Our efforts to obtain Jewish informers has met with total failure. On the other hand, the Jews are able not only to purchase Arab spies but are getting information from sympathetic people within the British command. The Jews are manufacturing weapons of improvised nature, and the Sten guns, land mines, and grenades are continually improving in quality and ingenuity. In a recent attempt to uncover a manufacturing plant on a
kibbutz
the women poured scalding water on our soldiers ...

Bradshaw was not only having his trouble in controlling the mandate. Other outside factors were increasing the pressure. In England, the people were living under the hardships of austerity and the economy was failing badly. The cost of maintaining the Palestine garrison was enormous. The English were sick of the bloodshed, too. On the world political scene the American Zionists had definitely caught the ear of Truman and had in him a sympathetic ally.

Since our failure to follow the recommendation of the Anglo-American Committee to allow a hundred thousand Jews to enter Palestine, our prestige has fallen greatly among our allies. Also damaging our prestige is the manner of humiliation by the Maccabee terrorist operation. British authority has never been so badly flaunted as in the recent kidnaping of a British judge who passed sentence on a Jewish terrorist.

Cecil Bradshaw took off his horn-rimmed glasses, wiped his red eyes, and shook his head. What a mess! He thumbed through the reports once more. Jemal Husseini, the Mufti’s nephew, was again wiping out Arab opposition within Palestine through assasination. The Haganah through Aliyah Bet and the Maccabees under Akiva had made things impossible. British officers had been horsewhipped in public streets and British soldiers were hung in reprisals. The Jews who had preached and obeyed the rules of self-restraint during the two sets of prewar riots were showing less and less restraint against the Arab acts of aggression.

It was said in official circles that Cecil Bradshaw had lost his stomach for fighting the Jews after the
Exodus
incident. The Palestine mandate was nearing its twelfth hour. The little country occupied a position of tremendous economic and strategic importance. It was the pivot of the empire itself. The Haifa naval base and refinery and the position in relation to the central artery of the Suez made it imperative that it be held.