Leon Uris (72 page)

Twelve forty-five. H-Hour minus fifteen minutes.

The soldiers blocking off the jail were in position. The units on the highway outside Acre were in position.

The striking force, the two hundred and fifty disguised as Arabs, moved out of their assembly points in small groups and converged on the attack point.

Ben Moshe and Ben Ami reached the spot first. They watched their people converging. They looked over the roof tops and saw their soldiers in place. They looked at the prison where one of the four “inside” helpers signaled that all was ready.

Ari Ben Canaan walked to the edge of the rampart and flicked his cigarette out and walked quickly toward the attack point. The driver drifted along behind him in the car.

The attack point was the Hamman El-Basha, a hundred-and-twenty-year-old Turkish public bathhouse. The bathhouse, built by El Jazzar, was attached to the south wall of the Acre jail. In the rear of the bathhouse there was a courtyard used for sunning. A single stairway led up to the roof of the bathhouse and right to the prison wall. The Maccabees had discovered that from their various guard posts inside the prison the British could see every possible approach and detect every possible movement around the jail—except one place: the bathhouse and the south wall, and here was where they would strike.

One o’clock. H-Hour.

The city of Acre was burned into somnolence by the sun.

Ben Moshe, Ben Canaan, and Ben Ami drew deep breaths and gave the signal. The raid of the Acre jail was on.

Ari Ben Canaan led the spearhead of fifty men. They went into the bathhouse and through it quickly to the courtyard in the rear. His group carried sticks of dynamite.

The Arabs sitting in the steaming rooms looked on in utter amazement. Terror seized them and in a second the bathhouse was a confusion of wet scrambling Arabs. A second force moved in and jammed the bathers into one steam-flooded room so they could not escape and give an alarm.

Outside, Ben Moshe received the signal that Ari had reached the courtyard and all the Arabs were trapped.

In the courtyard at the rear of the bathhouse Ari’s men raced up the steps, crossed the roof to set their dynamite charge against the south wall of the prison. The explosives and caps and wires came out from under their clothing and the charge fixed with speed and efficiency. They retreated to the cover of the courtyard and lay flat.

One-fifteen.

An ear-shattering explosion shook Acre. The air was filled with flying rocks. It took a full two minutes for the dust to settle and reveal a huge breach in the jail wall.

With the explosion, the four inside men carried out their assignments. The first threw a grenade on the switchboard, stopping all phone operation. The second grenaded the main switch box, cutting the electricity and, with it, the alarm system. The third man seized the turnkey, and the fourth man rushed to the breach to direct the incoming Maccabees.

Ari’s men poured into the prison. The first objective of half his force was to get the arsenal. In a few moments they were all equipped with heavy arms.

The second section of Ari’s force cut off the main guard barracks so that these troops could not get out as reinforcements.

At intervals of one minute, Ben Moshe outside fed ten- and twenty-man units into the prison. Each group knew exactly where to hit. Guards were gunned from their positions and the Maccabees tore through the ancient passageways with Sten guns blazing and grenades blasting away obstacles. They fanned out, snatched their objectives, and with the precision of meticulous planning they held the interior of the Acre jail six minutes after the wall had been broken.

Outside the walls the covering force dug in and waited for a counterattack from the British garrison. The troops and plain-clothes men already in the city were stopped by the Maccabees who controlled the entrances from roof tops and alleyways.

When all two hundred men were inside the jail they turned to smashing open the cell doors and freeing the prisoners. The escapees, Arabs and Jews alike, were ushered to the breach in the wall and soon they were running in every direction through Acre.

Ari led five men with the captured turnkey to the death cells and the hanging room. The turnkey began to open the door. Inside the four guards who kept constant watch on the condemned pair began to fire at the iron door. Ari waved the others back, slapped a magnetic mine on the door, and ducked back. The door was ripped from its hinges. Ari stepped into the doorway and hurled a grenade inside and the guards fled to the hanging room.

The party quickly entered, pinned down the guards, and opened the cell doors. Akiva and Dov Landau were rushed from the prison, across the bathhouse roof, and through the bathhouse to the outside.

Dov Landau was pulled aboard a truck filled with men. Ben Moshe waved to them to move out and the truck sped off toward Nahariya. Two minutes later the staff car pulled up and Ari led Akiva into it and they fled in a different direction.

Ben Moshe blew a whistle signal for the Maccabees to begin the withdrawal operations. It was a mere twenty-one minutes since the blast of the wall.

Confused units of the British garrisons attempted to converge on Acre jail. They were stopped by land mines, roadblocks and cross fires. Inside Acre disorganized British units were trying to chase the three hundred freed inmates.

The truck with Dov Landau raced up the coast road. It had been spotted by the British and was now trailed by a motor force that outnumbered its complement ten to one. The truck pulled into the Jewish town of Nahariya. Nahum Ben Ami fled with Dov toward the Lebanese border
kibbutz
of Ha Mishmar while the rest of the force deployed as a rear guard to stall the pursuers. These Maccabees managed to hold the British long enough to allow Nahum Ben Ami to lead Dov to safety, but it was a suicide action: all seventeen men and women of the rear guard were killed.

Akiva and Ari were in the back seat of the staff car. The driver and another Maccabee sat in front. They sped from the Acre area along an inland road toward the
kibbutz
Kfar Masaryk. At Napoleon’s Hill, a Maccabee roadblock waved them down and told them to get off the main road, which was mined against British counterattack. This group was holding off two British companies trying to break through to Acre.

Ari made a quick decision.

“Driver. Can you drive through the fields here and get past that British unit?”

“We’ll find out.”

They careened off the road and banged and rattled through a field to encircle the area of action. They managed to get past the two British companies and turned again for the highway. A dozen soldiers chased after the car, firing as they ran. Just as the car touched the road again it swerved under the impact of a hail of bullets. Ari grabbed Akiva and held him down on the floor. The whine of bullets was all around them. The wheels of the car spun furiously, digging in the dirt for more traction. The driver threw the car into reverse as more bullets ripped into it. Two soldiers with submachine guns were almost on them. Ari fired through the back window. One of the soldiers dropped. The second opened up with a deadly burst of fire. Ari could see the red flames spit from the mouth of his gun.

Akiva shrieked.

Another burst spewed from the soldier’s gun.

Ari fell on top of Akiva just as the car regained the road and raced away.

“Are you all right back there?”

“We’ve both been hit.”

Ari pulled himself up and examined his right leg. He felt the inside of his leg. It was numb. The bullet had lodged deep. There was no bad bleeding or great pain, only a burning sensation. He knelt and rolled Akiva over and ripped his bloody shirt open. Akiva’s stomach was a gaping wound.

“How is he?”

“Bad ... very bad.”

Akiva was conscious. He pulled Ari close to him.

“Ari,” he said, “am I going to make it?”

“No, Uncle.”

“Then get me to some hidden place ... you understand.”

“I understand,” Ari said.

The escape car reached Kfar Masaryk where a dozen
kibbutzniks
stood by ready to hide the car and provide a truck to continue the escape. Akiva was gory and unconscious by the time they pulled him from the car. Ari took a moment to pour sulfa into his wounded leg and put a pressure bandage on it. The two Maccabees with him pulled him aside.

“The old man is not going to make it if we go any farther. He must stay here and receive medical treatment.”

“No,” Ari said.

“Are you mad?”

“Now listen to me, you two. He has no chance to live. Even if he did the British would find him here. If we leave him and he dies here it will be known all over Palestine. No one but us must know that Akiva did not escape. The British must never know he is dead.”

The two Maccabees nodded their understanding. They jumped into the front of the truck and Ari got into the rear with his uncle. Ari’s leg was beginning to hurt.

The truck streaked south below Haifa. It ascended the narrow roads working up the side of Mount Carmel. Ari held his unconscious uncle in his lap as they bounced on the dirt roads and swayed around treacherous turns, sending up a trail of dust and jolting them unmercifully. Higher and higher into Mount Carmel they drove until they were in the territory where only the Druses lived in isolation.

Akiva opened his eyes. He tried to speak but he was unable to. He recognized Ari and he smiled and then sagged in Ari’s arms.

The truck pulled into a clump of brush a mile before the Druse mountain village of Daliyat el Karmil. Mussa, a Druse Haganah soldier, waited with a donkey cart.

Ari crawled from the truck. He rubbed his leg. He was drenched with the blood of Akiva.

Mussa rushed to him.

“I’m all right,” Ari said. “Get Akiva. He is dead.”

The tired old body of Akiva was carried from the truck to the cart.

“You two men are Maccabees. You are not to reveal Akiva’s death to anyone but Ben Moshe or Nahum. Now get the truck down from here and get it cleaned. Mussa and I will bury my uncle.”

The truck sped away.

Ari got on the donkey cart. It bypassed the village and moved to the highest point on Mount Carmel, the south ridge. At twilight they entered a small forest that held the altar of the greatest of all the Hebrew prophets, Elijah. It was on this ground that Elijah had proved the power of God against Jezebel’ s priests of Baal.

The altar of the prophet Elijah looked down on the Jezreel Valley. The valley below stood as an eternal reminder that the land had not been forgotten.

Mussa and Ari scratched out a shallow grave near Elijah’s altar.

“Let’s get that red suit off of him,” Ari said.

The British hanging clothes were removed and Akiva was rolled into his grave and it was filled up and the spot covered with branches. Mussa returned to the cart to wait for Ari.

Ari knelt for a long time over Akiva’s grave. Yakov Rabinsky had been born in anger and he had died in sorrow. After so very many years of torment, he could at last find peace. He could find here a peace that had avoided him in life and he could sleep eternally looking down upon the land of the Jews. Someday, Ari thought, all the world will know where Akiva sleeps and it will be a shrine of all Jews.

“Goodbye, Uncle,” Ari said. “I didn’t even get a chance to tell you that your brother forgives you.”

Ari stood up and began to sway. Mussa rushed over to him as he cried out in pain and pitched to the ground in a faint.

K
ITTY AND
D
R.
L
IEBERMAN
were both glum as she went over some business in his office.

“I wish I knew the words that would make you stay,” Dr. Lieberman said.

“Thanks,” Kitty said. “Now that the time is here I feel very empty. I didn’t realize how attached I had become to Gan Dafna. I was up most of the night going through these files. Some of these youngsters have made remarkable progress in light of their histories.”

“They will miss you.”

“I know. And I will miss them. I’ll try to get everything up to date in the next few days. There are a few special cases I’d like to go over with you personally.”

“Yes, of course.”

Kitty stood up to leave.

“Be sure to get to the dining room a half hour early tonight.”

“I would prefer it if they didn’t. I don’t think the occasion calls for a going-away party.”

The little hunchback held up his hands. “Everyone insisted. What could I do?”

Kitty walked to the door and opened it.

“How is Karen?”

“Pretty badly upset. She has been since she saw Dov at the prison. I had a bad night with her last night when we heard about the Acre jail raid. Maybe she will learn soon whether or not he escaped. That poor child has been through enough suffering for a lifetime. It may take a while, Dr. Lieberman, but I am going to make her very happy in America.”

“I wish it were in my heart to tell you that I think you are wrong for leaving us. I cannot say that.”

Kitty left his office and walked down the corridor thinking about the news that had electrified the world. The Maccabees had lost twenty men and women killed and another fifteen were captured. No one knew how many wounded were in hiding. Ben Moshe had been killed. It seemed like a high price to pay for two lives—until one considered that they were not just any two lives. The raid had been a crushing blow to what was left of British morale and British desire to remain in Palestine.

Kitty stopped before Jordana’s door. She hated the idea of confronting Jordana. She knocked.

“Yes?”

Kitty entered. Jordana looked up from her desk coldly.

“I was wondering, Jordana ... Do you happen to know if Dov Landau made his escape yesterday? I mean, with Karen’s attachment to the boy it would make her feel much better if ...”

“I don’t know.”

Kitty started to leave, then turned at the last second. “Was Ari on the raid?”

“Ari doesn’t give me a list of his raids.”

“I thought you might know.”

“How should I know? It was a Maccabee raid.”