No Time for Tears (18 page)

When they were finally delivered to the refugee compound of Mafruza, Moishe was shocked to see the compound overflowing with young Jews, who were undoubtedly contemplating their fate as he was. And like Moishe, they were unaware that their fate lay in the hands of men whose names they had never heard of, although they soon would …

Vladimir Jabotinsky was considered a genius at seventeen. His prose and philosophies were being read in a land that had created Tolstoy, Gorky and Dostoevsky. He was a born linguist who had translated Shakespeare into Russian, and
War and Peace
into English. By the time he was thirty his name was in the Russian encyclopedia. If he’d been a Russian his life would have been far different, but he was a Jew, and so it was his lot to be hated and discriminated against. His intellect and talents might be rare, but the misery of his people was felt deeply and shared with the lowest of them. He found himself caught up in a struggle that forced him to reexamine his own position … did he live as a Russian, isolated from his people, or as a Jew? There was only one answer after he’d witnessed the Kishinev pogroms of 1903.

Jabotinsky rejected the doctrinaire, revolutionary approach of the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia. Instead he went into the ghetto to explore its heart, to understand its hurts, to learn its language. He became an outspoken Zionist, a convert to Herzl and his dream of a Jewish state. He visited the headquarters of the World Zionist Organization scattered throughout Europe, then left for France in the summer of 1914.

One evening as he walked the streets of Paris, he paused at the square where Dreyfus had been accused of treason, and Theodore Herzl had stood that same day in the drenching rain and heard the terrible cry, “Kill the Jews.”

Jabotinsky was aware of the echoes of that cry, an echo that gave him his strongest sense yet of linkage with his people.

The next morning France was at war. And after Brussels fell to the German army and the Ottoman Empire declared war on the Allies, Jabotinsky felt that after four hundred long years of tyranny, the Turks had taken the final step toward their own demise. That would only be good for the Jews.

Now he saw his way clearly. Herzl had tried diplomacy, and for all his valor, had failed. Rothschild’s philanthropy had fallen short, and the Jewish revolutionaries of Russia had failed. Now with the Ottoman Empire about to collapse, Jabotinsky knew Jews had to take a direct and active part in the fight for their liberation and destiny. The days of counting on foreign friends and doctrines were over. An all-Jewish military unit was at hand. The Jews would fight on the side of the Allies. And that road would lead to Palestine.

That very night he packed and left for Egypt.

In Alexandria, in the refugee camp, Mafruza, Jabotinsky found the great Russian-Jewish officer, Joseph Trumpeldor. When Jabotinsky saw the one-armed Trumpeldor seated at a crude wooden table, he could barely restrain his anger at the British for showing the man so little respect Britain and Russia were, after all, allies, and this extraordinary officer had risen to heights in the Russian army that no other Jew had ever managed.

Jabotinsky thought back to Joseph Trumpeldor’s beginnings … Unlike Jabotinsky, whose family was affluent, Trumpeldor had come from humble beginnings. His father had served in the army for twenty-five years as a conscript under Czar Nicholas I. As a Jew Trumpeldor wasn’t able to attend a university. He apprenticed himself to a dentist. When the war between Russia and Japan broke out he was drafted into the army and sent to Port Arthur, Manchuria. For his sacrifice and bravery during the year-long siege he was decorated with the Order of St. George, the highest honor bestowed on any officer. After the war he had a reserve officer’s rank, which finally entitled him to attend the university and finish his earlier studies in the law. Still, in spite of the honors, Trumpeldor was a
Jew
in Russia, with no future. He left and went to Palestine, where he worked tilling the soil. And with the deportation of the Jews, he went into action. He knew what would happen to these Jews if they were sent back to Russia. And if they got to Egypt alive, Consul Petrov there would demand the deportation of all Palestinian males. Trumpeldor decided to try his persuasive powers on Petrov. He would go to Alexandria as one of the first expatriates.

By the time his ship landed in Alexandria Trumpeldor had gathered around him a group of young Jewish disciples who would follow him to the ends of the earth….

Now Trumpeldor sat at the makeshift table writing out the plans for his Jewish army that he intended to present to the British. They would have to recognize the huge stake that Jews had in this war. A Jewish legion would be the most dedicated, loyal and effective unit the Allies could possibly have. Men fired by a dream long denied them would fight to the death…

Pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts, he looked up and saw Jabotinsky framed in the doorway. No introduction was needed, Trumpeldor recognized the famous journalist and author from pictures he’d seen. Extending his hand, he said, “I’m not surprised you’ve come. If you were ever needed, it’s here. They say the word is mightier than the sword—”

“Only in certain cases. Maybe Zola’s, where Dreyfus was concerned,” Jabotinsky said, “but for our cause only an army will do.”

From that moment on these two were locked together by a common bond; their goals were identical. After dinner they went to Jabotinsky’s hotel and Jabotinsky read the memorandum Trumpeldor had prepared to present to the British high command. “None of this, I take it, has been discussed with the British?”

“No. But before anything can be presented, obviously it must be translated into English, and that, my friend, is where you come in.”

“I’m more concerned,” Jabotinsky said, “about numbers. If we could present the British with a regiment of volunteers, then we might stand a real chance of the proposal’s success. How many men do you think could be raised?”

At the moment, Trumpeldor told him, there were two hundred able-bodied men, and each day new refugees were swelling the ranks. They had fled Palestine on anything that would move on water, and one thing they could depend on was that the Turks would expel more. If the Egyptian Jews could be brought out of their lethargy there would be a possibility of at least a few thousand. A regiment would be guaranteed.

Jabotinsky nodded. “You’re right, but we still have to convince these Egyptian Jews that Palestine is more important than Cairo. These Jews, who were once slaves for the pharaoh, now employ Egyptian servants. The pendulum has swung. I don’t mean to suggest that Egyptian Jews aren’t with us, but they haven’t lived under the Turks, and the British are here to protect them.”

“They’re only a small part of the Jews in Egypt. The rank and file are starving and would jump at the chance to earn their bed and board and have daily rations. I’ve seen them hungry, roaming the streets of Alexandria.”

“I know, but the power of the Jewish community here is the rich, influential Sephardim. Whatever action we take must include them. We’ll have to cultivate their friendship.”

The name Vladimir Jabotinsky opened the right doors, and he brought Trumpeldor. The ladies were fascinated by the one-armed hero. They would certainly use
their
influence in the right places to help him recruit the young Egyptian Jews. The Sephardic leaders were convinced by Jabotinsky’s passionate oratory that Britain must accept the demands for a Jewish fighting legion on the Palestinian front for the liberation of Eretz Yisroel, and pledged their support.

Now Trumpeldor was ready to confront the British officials. When he appeared—tall, broad-shouldered, lean, with the breeding of an officer and the dignity of a gentleman (even a British one) he didn’t fail to impress Ronald Graham, Minister of the Interior for Egypt. He promised to do all he could. While waiting for a reply Trumpeldor opened a recruiting office. Names were written in Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian.

In London, General Sir John Maxwell paced the floor of his stately office with a petition rattling in his hands. They were daft, those bloody Jews, thinking they could choose the war that they wanted. How dare they even propose such an outlandish thing. There had been nothing about an offensive against Palestine. The British weren’t in this thing to gain a piece of real estate for the Jews. What ineffable cheek even to suggest that they become full partners in the British army. He poured himself a brandy, sat down, sipped it. Still … there might be a use for these Jews, even if they were such a bothersome lot. Not as soldiers of the realm, of course, but as, say,
attendant gillies.
It was, after all, a British tradition. In India, in the Sudan, natives were used and had been bloody helpful. He recalled nostalgically how in the Boer War his own personal valet had accompanied him, bringing along his tailored uniforms and sterling silver brushes. That had been a gentlemen’s war. Of course all wars were different. There was a need for transport men. The terrain might be… well, it might be rugged, getting up the hills at Gallipoli.

So the general’s secretary got off a reply … the volunteers would be welcomed into His Majesty’s Army in the capacity of a transport mule corps. This special unit would even bear arms.

When Trumpeldor read the reply he tried and failed to swallow back the bile. They weren’t going to allow a Jew the honor of fighting like a man. The young men around him had lived on this single hope, and in one month of training they had already proved themselves damned good soldiers. Now how the hell was he going to tell them?

Jabotinsky, when told, erupted. “Leave it to the British. They’ve insulted us, slapped us in the face. Good God, Joseph, you’re not really going to accept this, are you?”

Trumpeldor shot back angrily. “What choice do we have? Mules, transport troops, what does it matter? The important thing is that Britain win, and when the Turks are driven out the men will forget that they were porters to haul water and ammunition. In battle all are the same. At least it will give the world a chance to see what Jews are made of.”

When the men were told, their faces froze, the British were only using them, they’d refuse to be treated like the animals they were supposed to lead into battle. Trumpeldor waited, then: “A soldier is a soldier, whether he carries a gun or leads a mule. In the army, all are the same. The
important
thing to remember is that this will be a
Jewish
unit with its own insignia, the Star of David.
The first fighting unit in eighteen hundred years.”
He paused a moment. “Be proud, you are soldiers. Company dismissed.”

Among those listening to Jabotinsky, and at first with skepticism, was Moishe, who had escaped the hangman’s noose only because of the progress Jabotinsky and especially Trumpeldor had made in getting some sort of status for the Jews in the military, even if it was only as a mule corps. Jews were, it was decided, at least a step up now from object lessons with the hangman’s hemp around their throats. The days waiting for this day had been ugly ones … the British were hardly more civilized than the Russians or Turks, though they spoke at times with impeccable accents as they carried out their abuses. A British-run prison in Alexandria, land of the pharaohs, was a place of swill, despotic discipline and filth. All was scrubbed and shining, including the guards’ polished boots—you could see an emaciated Jew’s face in the toes clear as a mirrors reflection—but behind the polish was the spit. The sun, they said, never set on the British Empire. It also never rose for those within the gray walls of its prisons. The day they came to let out Moishe … he never did find his friend again … he thought surely it was his last. The gallows chitchat of the guards who prodded him with rifles hardly was calculated to disabuse him of such expectations. Driven in a truck like cattle, Moishe and others were taken to a primitive barracks, allowed their first bath in weeks, and then led out to hear this great leader. Imagine their surprise when instead of having a British accent he spoke as, and indeed was, a
Jew
, and an officer at that. Incredible. All right, so they’d haul mules, but at least they’d be Jewish mules … since when had progress for Jews been in a hurry… ?

When Trumpeldor returned to his barracks Jabotinsky was waiting for him. “Well, how did they take it?”

“The same as you, but they’ll do their job.”

“In that case I’m leaving for London. You were right, sometimes the word can be mightier than the sword. I’ll use words to fight for an all-Jewish military unit with the same status that belongs to any British soldier….”

The next morning as Trumpeldor drilled nearly a thousand men of the Zion Mule Corps, a British officer watched them closely. This was a sight to see. Proud Jewish warriors, as proud to be Jews as he was to be Irish.

Trumpeldor brought the men to a halt and attention, and with the aid of a regular army officer, who was to become interpreter, Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson heard himself being introduced in Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino.

“I wish you men to know,” he said, “that I consider it an honor to have been assigned to your ranks. As I look among you I see the spirit that inspired your great general Bar-Kochba. That spirit has risen once again within your ranks. I will be your commanding officer, but only with the collaboration of Captain Trumpeldor. I am proud to be a part of you.”

Patterson had led troops in Africa and India, and if a real soldier like him was honored to command a troop of muleteers, there was nothing to be ashamed of, they decided….

Looking at these young men with the Star of David on their caps brought great pride to Trumpeldor and Patterson as they ordered the men out of the compound. It was time to prove themselves.

In full uniform, packs on their backs, Moishe and his fellow corpsmen marched through the streets of Alexandria. What a sight to see. The Star of David on their caps, they proudly held their ancient rifles against their shoulders. Small boys, both Jew and Egyptian, ran alongside and cheered. Jews cheered, young and old—and Moishe noticed more than one wiping a tear from his, or her, eye. Women and young girls threw flowers in their path. They stopped at the great synagogue and were blessed by the chief rabbi in Sephardic Hebrew.