Isaac's Beacon

by David L. Robbins

  Two orderlies raised the young man’s stretcher. Rivkah followed outside.

  Beneath the hospital’s pitted wall, only half could walk. The surgeon divided the thirty patients into three groups and assigned stretcher bearers.

  Out of the darkness, a dozen Jews arrived, led by Gabbi.

  Rivkah stood aside while her sister assigned four guards to each group. Gabbi alone was Palmach, the rest were settlers with guns. She beckoned Rivkah to join her group.

  The sisters hugged, then looked each other over. Gabbi said, “I heard you were at the monastery. I was afraid for you.”

  “You were right. You were on Yellow Hill.”

  “We almost melted our mortars. It’s good to see you, sister.”

  Gabbi shrugged her rifle into her hands. She turned to her group. “Let’s move.”

  So no one would stumble, Gabbi set a slow pace into the Abu Rish. She led the seventy settlers, stretcher bearers, and wounded through thorns, over loose rocks. The guards held their rifles tight to keep them from rattling; the wounded tried not to moan. Out front, Rivkah and Gabbi could not whisper. The Arabs on Yellow Hill would have patrols out.

  A mile away, Massuot Yitzhak was lit only by starlight, like the procession. Rivkah stroked the back of her stern sister’s head.

  Before they arrived at the quarry road, the night sky buzzed. A plane, one of the small Austers, appeared out of the west. Gabbi halted the troupe to let the stretcher bearers and the wounded rest.

  The Auster, the only plane of the day, banked in a far echoing arc around Gush Etzion, getting its bearings. The drone of the engine dropped closer to earth, over Revadim in the north, then barreled for Yellow Hill.

  From the Mukhtar’s Saddle, from the monastery, Lone Tree, and the Hebron road, all in Arab hands, tracers streaked to find the plane. Hundreds of bright-burning bullets bathed every part of the bloc in their glow. The plane appeared inside the white web of them. The Auster held its course, then it dropped a bomb on the Arabs who’d taken Yellow Hill.

  A fireball flashed on the crest. The plane climbed for another run. More tracers scratched the blackness reaching for it.

  Rivkah, Gabbi, and the seventy were all crouched in the open wadi, every face and bandage whitened by the tracers. In her full voice, Gabbi called down the file, “Can we run?”

  Litters were lifted. She told Rivkah, “You know the way. Go.”

  Rivkah took off for the quarry road. The Auster and the gunfire of angered Arabs masked the commotion the seventy made.

  Red Yakob and a dozen others waited at the foot of Massuot Yitzhak’s hill. They relieved the exhausted stretcher bearers and ran up the slope on fresh legs. Rivkah patted Yakob’s matchstick cheek, then pushed him onward.

  Gabbi’s orderlies and settlers followed. The Auster stopped circling, finished with bombing. The pilot had done what he could and flew west. The Arabs settled down.

  Alone with her sister, Rivkah said, “I’m going back to Kfar Etzion. They’ll need help. I want you to stay in Massuot Yitzhak.”

  “No. I go with you.”

  “You can’t.”

  Gabbi folded her arms. “A long time ago, you did this to papa. You left him because you didn’t think he could protect you. I can.”

  “That isn’t why.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Vince and Mrs. Pappel are in Tel Aviv. I need you, my blood, to be away from me, like them, for a little while. If we’re apart, we can survive. Like an orchard. Some trees will live.”

  “What about the child?”

  “If I could choose, the child would be far away, too.”

  Rivkah stepped back, fading like Malik, but she was not so dark as him. She held out both hands to leave Gabbi, a strong young warrior Jew, and to say to her, there you are.

  Chapter 119

  Rivkah

  May 14

  Kfar Etzion

  Rivkah used a bale of straw for a pillow. No one rushed past her; every defender of Kfar Etzion was in place. She had no gun and lay on the open ground.

  Rarely had the stars winked this brightly. They’d dazzled once on the sea and again in the first days of Massuot Yitzhak. And with Vince after the Bernstein concert. Perhaps never so brightly as with Vince.

  She didn’t close her eyes; she had more need of the minutes. Rivkah tried to think of others, Mrs. Pappel and Hugo, red Yakob, the young families in Jerusalem, even Pinchus. Each led Rivkah back to herself and Vince and the child under her hand.

  She sat up to the cry of bugles. The night had little left to it. Rivkah wished it would end, to get on with things.

  She shouldered her medical bag. The bugles didn’t stop but were overmatched by the rumble of machines.

  The sky shrieked. Mortar shells rocked homes and farm buildings, orchards and terraces, bare earth catapulted on the concussions, the straw shed caught fire. The Haganah answered, and gunfire rang all around the kibbutz. On the shaking earth, Rivkah had no safe place; she could not be still, so she ran to the fight.

  At midmorning, two hundred Arab villagers attacked the main gate into Kfar Etzion.

  They massed first in the Wadi Shahid, then advanced like a spear, the boldest in front, the rest fanning out. Bugles spurred them on.

  From behind sandbags and inside Neve Ovadia, thirty Jews defended the gate, armed with rifles, Stens, machine guns, and Molotov cocktails.

  A Haganah fighter pulled Rivkah behind the wall of a greenhouse. He said, “Stay,” then ran off to a better position for his rifle.

  The attackers entered a fig orchard beside the road. When they emerged, they came under fire on their flank from a handful of Palmach who’d snuck into the crevices of Rock Hill.

  Suddenly taking rounds from an unexpected direction shocked the Arabs. Some dashed back to the fig orchard; many, confused, ran straight at Rock Hill and fell there. The fighters behind the gate poured it on then, and the Arabs’ first surge at the gate fell apart.

  An armored car bustled into the wadi and fig orchard. A dozen wounded called to be found. The handful of dead waited their turn.

  Rivkah rested her back against the greenhouse wall. The seeding tables had nothing on them; hoes and rakes lay in piles unused for months, but there were no pickaxes, which had all gone to digging the trenches for this day.

  Ordnance men ran forward to distribute ammunition and repair weapons. Rivkah hustled her medical bag to the defenders. None had been hurt yet, and their morale was high.

  On the road beyond the fig trees, a motorcyclist puttered among the Arabs. The rider seemed to be delivering orders. A dozen armored cars began to line up on the road; behind them, hundreds of Legion soldiers joined the irregulars for a second push at the gate. Rivkah hurried back to the cover of the greenhouse.

  Among the Jews, someone yelled, “For Jerusalem.” The call was taken up. Some raised voices for Kfar Etzion, or Revadim, Ein Tzurim, or Massuot Yitzhak, for wives and children. Rivkah stood to call out, “For Mrs. Pappel.”

  On the road, the armored cars surged forward. The first in line was a colossal steel truck. At high speed, it disappeared into the orchard; the rest followed. When the great vehicle broke out of the trees, it powered across broken ground, staying off the road to thwart the mines laid there. The other trucks hung back to lay down blankets of covering fire.

  Around the main gate, the defenders racked weapons and readied Molotov cocktails. Bullets pelted their sandbags and the library walls. The Haganah and haverim waited, heads down, with no way to stop the giant charging their way.

  At full speed, the truck crashed the gate. Poles cracked out of the ground, barbed wire snarled across the grill. The truck thrust deep into the farmyard, dragging the remains of the gate.

  The defenders rose up to fire at the vehicle with every weapon available. Bullets sparked and pinged off the truck’s armo
red hide; a woman fighter was the first to rush forward and break a burning Molotov cocktail against it. Flames licked over the armored car’s flanks, bullets puffed in the dirt around the tires to flatten them.

  Tangled and flaming, the great truck backed out of the farmyard. The gate had been shattered. Kfar Etzion stood wide open.

  The defenders of Kfar Etzion’s gate fell back to Neve Ovadia.

  The library had taken a beating in yesterday’s bombardment. One pitted wall teetered near collapse; holes were blown in the roof. Debris lay everywhere; all the window frames were empty of their windows. Haganah and haverim spread through the building to tip up tables in every opening.

  Rivkah bandaged an officer’s neck wound. Others fired at the armored cars and Legion soldiers streaming into the settlement. The officer thanked Rivkah, then called a fighter to him. He handed over his Sten.

  Rivkah asked, “What’s going to happen?”

  “I’m going outside to negotiate our surrender.”

  “It’s over?”

  “This part is.”

  “Is there nothing else we can do?”

  “There is. But I see no need for it. How much gauze do you have? May I see?”

  She showed him. The officer said, “Find a broom. A stick, anything. Go up on the roof and make a white flag. Put it up as fast as you can. I’ll wait. Not long.”

  Rivkah spun away for the staircase, over plaster and stone litter. In the wreckage of a second-floor room, she found a bare curtain rod and ran with it for the stairwell to the roof.

  Outside, she tied strips of gauze to the rod until she’d made a banner. Rivkah stood in full view of the Legion troops, all hurrying to find their own cover. Six armored cars and the scorched giant with wire stuck in its grill took positions in the center of the yard.

  She hoisted the white streamers. Weapons tilted up at her, making her step back. She retraced the step, then the bandaged officer exited the library, hands raised. He looked to see Rivkah was there, then strode into the open. The Legionnaires trained a hundred guns on him.

  She waved the surrender flag while the Haganah officer called to the Arabs, “Halas.” It is finished. One Arab walked toward him. The Haganah man dropped his hands. The Arab raised a pistol.

  At the report, Rivkah almost lost her grip on the flag. The officer staggered backwards, struck in the stomach. The Arab fired again. The officer backpedaled into the shrubs of the library where he tripped and fell, gutshot.

  In the library under Rivkah’s feet, the defenders’ guns erupted. Rivkah lowered the white flag. Below, Arabs scattered; a few were hit and went down. The one who’d shot the officer got away.

  She crouched to observe the end. The Legionnaires and the defenders exchanged a terrific fire. The library took so many rounds from the armored cars Rivkah feared the wall might collapse beneath her.

  In the bowels of Neve Ovadia, the cry slowly took hold. One by one, the weapons of the Jews went quiet. As each silenced, the call could be heard more distinctly.

  “Cease fire. Cease fire.”

  Chapter 120

  Rivkah

  The settlers and Haganah beat their weapons on the floor and walls. They crushed two machineguns with concrete chunks and scattered bullets into the rubble. A radio was wrecked. The white flag in Rivkah’s hands was left intact.

  Another officer gathered the defenders; they came dusty and downhearted. From the farmyard, Arabs shouted for the Jews to come out.

  The officer said, “Everyone’s head up. You fought well. You’ve done everything asked of you. You know this.” He raised an arm to Rivkah. “Give me the flag. I’ll go first. All of you stay here until it’s safe.”

  Rivkah was among the many who said no. The defenders of the gate would surrender together. She held the white banner back from the officer. He smeared a hand over his lips to bite back emotion.

  He led the way out of Neve Ovadia. Rivkah came next with the flag; the rest followed empty-handed past the Haganah officer dead in the bushes.

  In the workshops and farm buildings, the mob was already looting. Arabs pushed past the defenders into the library to strip it.

  Sporadic shooting continued around Kfar Etzion. Some reports rang from the homes among the looters. Dozens more haverim and Haganah drifted to the farmyard, hands high, with Arabs herding them at gunpoint.

  Rivkah stood in the sun with the defenders, all battle-weary. Many had wounds, but she could not bind them. Armored trucks and half-tracks rumbled through the kibbutz to snuff out the last Jewish resistance. An Arab grabbed the flag from Rivkah to toss it into the shrubs beside the officer’s body.

  When the last of the hundred defenders shuffled into the farmyard, Legionnaires and irregulars gathered to see them. Ten Arab fighters walked forward. One screamed at the Jews, snatched a grenade from his vest, and made furious gestures. A second Arab leveled a Tommy gun. The defenders recoiled, Rivkah at their center.

  Out of the Arab crowd strode a small man in a white keffiyeh and a European suit. A camera hung about his neck. He commanded the two red-faced Arabs to walk away. They stomped off, consoled by their armed comrades. The cameraman raised apologetic palms to the defenders.

  With gestures, he ordered them to sit, then measured the scene through his camera. He retrieved the white flag from the bushes but changed his mind and told the Jews to stand without it, hands in the air.

  The photographer snapped several pictures. Finished, he lowered his camera to remember the defenders of Kfar Etzion with his eye, then turned away. The hands of the Jews came down.

  On every side, the fellahin ransacked Kfar Etzion. They danced out of homes holding up clocks and pots as if the things they stole were the heads of their enemies. The Legionnaires showed no interest in plunder but gazed hard at the Jews who’d surrendered to them.

  An armored car shunted through the Legionnaire’s ranks. At fifty yards, the vehicle turned broadside to Rivkah and the fighters. Guns stuck out from firing slits. The defenders packed in denser, raising hands as if they might fend off bullets. Rivkah covered her belly.

  The first automatic fire cut down those closest to the armored truck. Rivkah’s legs failed, or she was knocked over, but she was not hit. The Jews screamed, Rivkah, too, on the ground. Bullets whisked over her head, mowing down settlers and Haganah, toppling them onto each other; still, many scrambled to their feet. Rivkah’s world became two choices, lie down or run.

  In panic, heart pounding in hammerblows, she pushed off the dirt, unaware if she was wounded, only that she was in motion. Some Jews rushed right at their slaughterers, dying or managing to wrestle away a few guns. The ones who survived this sprinted away, firing behind them. Legion soldiers and Arab villagers together shrieked “Deir Yassin” as they gave chase or fell on the surviving Haganah and haverim. Horror drove Rivkah’s legs; she might have followed the boys galloping away, but she was too far behind and alone. She dreaded a bullet in the back as she bolted, madly searching for a hiding place. Rivkah took the first chance at concealment and jumped into a trench, to gather her exploding heart and think how to escape.

  She lay face-down, panting into her arms, too frightened to look back at the farmyard where gunfire and wailing wore on. She begged the child not to kick, not to know. If Rivkah lay unmoving in the ditch, she might be thought dead, be passed over. Her breathing betrayed her; she could not silence her lungs. The end of a rifle prodded her ribs.

  In English, a voice demanded Rivkah get up. A second voice echoed, “Get up, Jew.”

  By her arms, she was hauled to her feet. Two Legionnaires with beards and bandoliers yanked her out of the ditch. Locking her arms at her sides, they steered her back to the farmyard.

  Bodies spoilt the ground, eighty, ninety defenders, and a few dead Arabs. The blood reeked. The two Legionnaires forced Rivkah through the carnage, past wrenched faces and akimbo limbs.
/>   They marched her past milling troops stunned by the butchery they had done. The two shoved Rivkah behind the looted barns, under a copse of trees. They did not speak, and their hands were vice-grips. She had nowhere to look for help, no one to hear her. Kfar Etzion lay murdered.

  With no hope, she said, “Please don’t do this.”

  The two halted her among the shade trees, trying to be hidden. They turned Rivkah loose. One hefted his rifle to warn her from running. The other spit and grabbed a fistful of her white sleeve. Until now, Rivkah had not noticed the spattered blood on her. She knocked the Arab’s arm away.

  The soldier with the gun grinned; the other did not. He raised a finger as if it were a knife, another weapon to warn her. He stepped forward.

  Rivkah swung, but the Arab dodged her fist.

  He leaned in as if he would pounce. She readied to leap and meet him; they would spring at each other.

  The hands of the other Arab, the one watching, flew off his weapon, the gun fell at his backpedaling boots. A roar in the trees had kicked him over. The Legionnaire reaching for Rivkah had a moment to shift his eyes away before more bullets pinned him backwards against a tree trunk where he slinked down dead. The first Arab tried to crawl away, but Malik walked from behind cover with a Thompson submachine gun, black robes unfurled, stood over him, and killed him.

  One of Rivkah’s knees buckled, the other held. She braced against the ground and stood.

  Malik approached, one hand out as if to ward her off. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

  Rivkah tried to fly into his arms but Malik held her away.

  “You cannot. Others are watching. Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head.