Zion (Jerusalem)

by Colin Falconer

  “You are German?”

  “Before the war I lived near München. What about you?”

  “Frankfurt. But I lived in Belgium since 1936. My parents sent me there to get me away from the Nazis. Can you believe it? Three years this couple looked after me. Nice people. He was a postman.”

  “What happened?”

  “His own brother betrayed him to the Gestapo. Can you believe it? I never found out what happened to them.”

  Netanel glanced down at the man’s wrist. “Where did they send you?”

  “Maidanek. Fifteen months I was there.” He pointed to the gap in his mouth. “A kapo knocked them out. Rifle butt. A Jew like me, and he did that. Can you believe it?” He held out his hand. “My name’s Chaim, everyone calls me Hymie. What’s yours?”

  Netanel thought of his own cousin Chaim, frozen like a board on a flatcar somewhere in Poland. “Rosenberg. Netanel Rosenberg.”

  “You know anyone in Palestine?”

  Netanel shook his head.

  “My cousin lives in Tel Aviv. He went there in ’34. His whole family. I told him he was crazy. How are you going to live in a place like that? I said. Those were my actual words. ‘How are you going to live in a place like that?’ Can you believe it?”

  “No one could have seen what was coming.”

  “His name’s Uri, Uri Aizenberg. He has a restaurant on Dizengoff Street. You should look him up. Maybe he can help you find a job.”

  There was a shout, taken up by others, and everyone was pointing. A dull yellow streak had appeared on the eastern skyline, like a pencil line drawn across the horizon.

  “Palestine,” Hymie said.

  As they drew closer they could make out the sand-dunes at Akko Bay and the green-black of the pines on Mount Carmel. There slate grey thunderheads over Haifa. The sun dropped, and golden fingers pointed them the way home.

  Then it was night, and they sailed on through the bitter dark, towards the glow of the Haifa refineries. The veterans of the wire filtered back to their holds to be warm and wait out the last few long hours in private contemplations. The ordeal was almost over.

  Haifa

  Three men and one woman were hunched over a table in a tiny room above a restaurant in HeHaluz Street. Rain slapped against the window, leaking under the pane to gather in a widening pool around their feet. The remains of a meal of omelet and salad was scattered around the table among the glasses.

  Asher looked around at the others. “We’ve just had a signal from the captain of the Eretz Israel. He will land our guests at ten o’clock tonight near the village of Qiryat HaGefen.”

  The man on Asher’s left, David Shapira, tapped the table with his forefinger. He was dressed in the khaki uniform of a sergeant in the Jewish Supernumerary Police. “The earlier the better. We must have them all hidden before dawn.”

  The other man, Uri Ben-Carmel, spoke next. He was the local manager of the Egged Bus Company so he played a vital role in the Haganah’s plans. “I will have four buses standing by, and I have persuaded some of the Solel Boneh drivers to bring their trucks to the rendezvous point.”

  “How many can you guarantee?” Asher asked him.

  “At least six. There are three others, but . . .” He shrugged his shoulders. “They say they have families and they are worried.”

  “What else have you arranged?”

  “We have at least two dozen taxis. All good Haganah men.”

  “What if something goes wrong?” the policeman asked. Asher told them about the telex they had intercepted from CID headquarters in Jerusalem.

  “They will be waiting, then,” Shapira said.

  Asher shrugged. “Yes, we have to assume that. But there is a Haganah team on board. They will ensure that the captain delivers his cargo to the beach, whatever happens. After that it’s up to us.”

  Ben-Carmel took a swallow of vodka. “Even so, it will be almost impossible to get them into Haifa and Acre tonight. There will be roadblocks everywhere.”

  “Yes. We may have to take most of them inland to the kibbutzim at Kfar Atta and Kfar Yassif.”

  The others fell silent.

  “We will have to arrange something else to keep the British occupied,” Asher said.

  “What do you have in mind?” Shapira asked.

  “Obviously, we need to stop the British getting to the rendezvous. But first we will have to ensure that they do not arrive in strength. That’s where we need you, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca Orenstein nodded. She was a large- boned girl, with the faint shadow of a moustache on her upper lip. She wore khaki shorts and a denim blouse, and sat with her legs splayed and her arms folded on the table, like a man. “I have two dozen Palmachniks ready. You only have to give us the word.” The girls of the Haganah were treated as equals to the men; many were members of the Palmach, the organization’s elite military wing.

  “What sort of armory do you have?”

  “We have seven Sten guns, thirteen rifles, ten handguns and a two-inch mortar.”

  “How many rounds for the mortar?”

  “Only three I’m afraid, Ash.”

  “Hand-grenades?”

  “Perhaps a dozen.”

  Asher gave her a rueful smile. “It’s enough. It’s better than throwing rocks.”

  “We’ve done that as well.”

  “All right. Uri, you’re in charge of the transport. Shapira, we’ll need you to arrange a few delays for the British between Haifa and the rendezvous. And you, Rebecca. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you and your Palmachniks to attack the British fort at En Josef.”

  Chapter 3

  SS Eretz Israel

  Netanel lay in his hammock feeling the vibration of the engines through the hull and listening to the excited chatter of the people around him. Now they were so close, everyone had come alive. They had forgotten their despair during the storm.

  He heard a voice bark out a command in German. He winced. Would these nightmares never leave him?

  Then he heard it again.

  It wasn’t his imagination . . . everyone else was listening too.

  Now he could make out the words: “This is Captain Sunderland of Her Majesty’s Navy. You have illegally entered the waters of the Palestine Mandate. We are coming aboard. If you do not stop your engines immediately, we will be compelled to fire on you.”

  He felt the engine’s vibrations increase. They were putting on speed!

  Netanel leaped from his bunk and ran up the companion-way.

  The deck was washed in the phosphorus glare of a searchlight. He held up his hand to shield his eyes. He could make out the silhouette of a navy patrol boat less than a quarter of a mile away on the port side, heading across their bows.

  “Eretz Israel, this is your last warning. If you do not heave to, I shall have to fire on you.”

  The ship continued to pick up speed. The patrol boat was almost directly ahead of them now, positioning herself between them and the land.

  People swarmed onto the decks from the holds. Up on the bridge an officer ran to the railing and screamed at them to get back below.

  Netanel heard something ping! against the metal above his head. He heard screams and saw three bodies lying on the deck.

  There was a panicked rush for the hatches.

  He could not believe it. The British were firing on them!

  Belatedly, he threw himself on to the deck.

  The whine of the engines had risen to a scream, the boat juddering as it reached full power. The patrol boat fired again. Bullets bagatelled around the deck. I have to get below, Netanel thought. But now the hatchways were jammed with people. He saw a woman crumple to the deck, clutching her leg. She was trampled under the surging mass.

  Netanel peered over the bulwark. The captain of the Eretz Israel was steaming straight at the patrol boat, now perhaps less than fifty yards away.

  Another volley of machine-gun fire punched huge holes in the upperworks. The glass on the bridge blew in.

/>   He braced himself for the collision.

  It never came.

  He looked back and saw the patrol boat wallowing in their wake. The captain was still screaming at them through the loudhailer, but he could no longer make out the words over the howling wind.

  Two bodies lay prone in the darkness a few feet away from him. A black river trickled from one of the bodies and into the scuppers. The patrol boat’s searchlight swung around again, illuminating the deck and the dead men’s faces. One of them was Mendelssohn.

  The other was Hymie.

  Can you believe it? he thought.

  En Josef

  The Tegart fort dominated the coast road, perched on top of a hill just a mile north of the town. There would be only a skeleton watch, Rebecca knew. The last thing the British expected was an attack on one of their own forts.

  Three rounds from their two-inch mortar would be like throwing felafels at an armored car, but if they could land the shells inside the walls it might be enough to cause an hour’s panic. The important thing was to make the garrison think it was a concerted attack.

  She crouched in a shallow depression below the walls and signaled for two Palmachniks to bring up the mortar. It was raining heavily again, and their boots splashed in the mud.

  Calculation of the trajectory was pure guesswork. At this range, it shouldn’t be too difficult, she decided. I could toss an orange to the guard on the wall if I had a decent run up.

  She set the mortar herself, and kissed the precious shell before she dropped it in. She supposed it would not be wasted if it helped five hundred of her fellow Jews get into Palestine.

  The WHOOSH! of the mortar erupted in the silence.

  There was a white flash, followed by a heart-stopping explosion. A siren went off inside the walls and she heard British soldiers shouting out in alarm, and an officer screaming orders.

  A hundred yards to her right a Sten gun raked the walls. Other guns soon bark into life. Her Palmachniks were ringed around the fort. If they were careful with their ammunition, and kept moving, they could almost be mistaken for an army.

  Qiryat HaGefen

  Asher stood on the beach searching the darkness for the SS Eretz Israel. The moon scudded between the clouds making visibility difficult. The rain plastered his hair across his face, and beads of water dripped from his chin.

  As the moon came out again he raised his field glasses and at last he picked out the silhouette of the freighter to the north of the bay. There was a light blinking urgently on the sea to her stern. That would be the British patrol signaling the shore.

  He put down the glasses, and swore under his breath.

  “What is it?” Ben-Carmel said.

  “She’s too far north. She’s close to the reef.”

  Asher ran back up the beach to his car and fetched the Aldis lamp from the boot. He had to warn her before it was too late.

  Haifa-Acre Road

  Captain Tom Hughes of the 6th Airborne tried to steer his jeep around the line of stalled cars, his hand pressed on the horn. He gave up and climbed out, staring in the direction of his headlights in utter disbelief. He was a Yorkshireman, and not given to mincing words. “What the fookin’ hell’s amiss ’ere?”

  The road was completely blocked. Two trucks lay on their sides, surrounded by police cars and ambulances. Onlookers were crawling over the wreckage and crowding around the medical personnel as they worked.

  A policeman in a khaki uniform ran through the rain and saluted smartly. “Sergeant David Shapira of the Jewish Supernumerary Police. Sorry to hold you up, Captain. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”

  “Get this fookin’ mess off the road!”

  “We’re trying to sort it out as fast as we can.”

  “Fook me!” Hughes roared. His patience was being sorely tried. First he had had to send half his force to En Josef when the colonel in charge of the fort there - he knew the man, a complete idiot, and a Southerner of course - had reported he was under siege.

  Now this.

  Hughes shoved the policeman out of the way and strode through the crowd. A man was lying on his back near one of the trucks, his face a mask of blood. The other driver was still trapped in his cab and two Supernumeraries were trying to extract him.

  The rain beat down harder.

  Wait a minute. There was something wrong.

  “They must have collided head on,” the Jewish sergeant was saying. “The loads are all over the road. I don’t think we can get it properly sorted out until morning.”

  There was definitely something wrong; all this rain, two hot engines. There should be steam!

  He kicked at the truck’s bonnet. Eaten through with rust. It had been painted over. “Corporal! Give me your fookin’ torch!”

  Hughes bent down and took a closer look inside the bonnet.

  “What’s the matter, Captain? Have you spotted some-thing?”

  “Yes, I have. This truck don’t have no fookin’ engine!”

  Shapira shook his head. “Amazing.”

  “Fookin’ miracle, I’d say. But then, this is the country for fookin’ miracles, ain’t it?”

  Shapira grinned back. “I suppose so.”

  Trucks with no engines. Bricks and iron pipes all over the road. In other words, a roadblock, Hughes thought. A few police cars and ambulances, and some injured civilians to add to the confusion and the delay. These kikes were brilliant sometimes.

  Hughes grabbed Shapira by the shirtfront and bent him backwards over the mangled cab. “I’m going to have your fookin’ ass for this, lad,” he growled and stalked back to his jeep.

  SS Eretz Israel

  Netanel stood close to the bows, saw the breakers smashing white around the old Roman walls below the dunes. An Aldis lamp blinked through the rolling mist of sand and foam.

  The crew were screaming orders, trying to get everyone back on deck again.

  Just then the freighter juddered violently; the grinding of the ship’s metal hull on the reef was so agonizing that Netanel put his hands to his ears to try and block it out. He was thrown across the deck and struck his head on a bollard and blacked out.

  When he opened his eyes the ship was listing onto its port side, and the sea was rushing to meet him. There was no time to think. He dived feet first into the sea and the cold water rushed over his head.

  En Josef

  Rebecca cursed at the pain in her hand. The blood was still seeping through the dressing. Three fingers gone. Three other Palmachniks had taken wounds also. That was enough for one night. The British reinforcements would be here soon.

  Almost on cue she looked back towards Haifa and saw the flicker of a signal lamp from the road. The British convoy had been spotted.

  A burst of automatic fire raked the ground close to where she lay. “Withdraw,” she shouted. “Send up the red flare! Let’s get out of here!”

  Qiryat HaGefen

  There were heads bobbing everywhere, like scores of tiny corks. The Eretz Israel was skewered on the reef, stuck fast at an angle of forty-five degrees. The sea would break her up and destroy her.

  A breaker rolled over him and crashed on towards the beach. He heard someone screaming.

  “Leah! Leah!”

  The woman was flapping at the water, trying to reach the struggling body of a little girl. Netanel struck out for the child, and pulled her head above the surface. He swam with her towards the shore.

  It wasn’t far but the undertow made progress slow. Netanel battled with the current until he reached the breakers and then rode the surf towards the shallows. There were lights on the beach and he could hear people shouting.

  Someone ran through the shallows and dragged him up the beach. “Take the child!” Netanel shouted.

  The little girl was snatched from his arms and Netanel collapsed on his knees.

  He looked up. Men and women were streaming down the sand from the village. Some of them were dragging ropes or linking hands in human chains to reach those s
till struggling in the sea. Hurricane lamps and car headlights illuminated the beach.

  Other Jews helping Jews, he thought. For the first time!

  He was exhausted but forced herself to turn and head back into the water. It was easier swimming out with the current. He found the child’s mother, exhausted, past the backbreak. He grabbed her under the arms and swam across the current this time towards the northern end of the beach.

  Haifa-Acre Road

  Hughes cleared the road behind the “accident” by the simple expedient of giving the drivers of the other cars a choice: drive their vehicles into the ditches or he would have his trucks shunt them in nose first.

  While his troops cleared the bricks and iron pipes by hand, ropes were attached to one of the wrecked trucks and two of his jeeps pulled it off the road. It took almost two hours but finally he had cleared a way through.

  Shapira sat in the back of his jeep with Hughes’s corporal. The corporal had a revolver pointed at the policeman’s head. “Better late than fookin’ never,” Hughes said. “That’s what I always fookin’ say, anyway!”

  Qiryat HaGefen

  Four times Netanel had swum out to the wreck. He knelt in the sand and coughed salt water from his lungs, preparing himself for one last effort.

  He did think he had the strength for it. But he would go anyway.

  He stumbled back through the breakers. Someone grabbed his arm. “What are you doing? Go back!”

  Netanel knocked the man away with his fist. He dived through the next wave and was lost from sight in the dark, swirling sea.

  Asher stared after him. Crazy.

  He dived after him.

  There were still people in the water, too many. He dived through the next wave, came up on the far side of the break, felt the current sweeping him out. Netanel was already fifty yards further on. A woman was struggling to support a small boy. Netanel reached them, tried to help them back to the beach.