Spies in Palestine

by James Srodes

  For the moment, however, Aaron had other problems. For one thing, he was broke. His War Office hosts had begun to pay his hotel bills and other expenses but he wanted to take a sizable sum of financial aid with him to Cairo to send on to Athlit for community aid and for the spy operations. This, Gribbon’s superiors argued, was money best paid out by General Murray’s paymasters, who could keep a more prudent eye on its use. Aaron predictably was insulted. He was even more frustrated when his letters to American Zionists begging for funds to take with him drew a delayed response and then, at the last minute, a wire for a paltry $500 arrived. As a final frustration, he had wanted Alexander to come at once to London to continue lobbying in his behalf before coming to Cairo to help him. Although Alexander agreed readily enough, it soon became evident that when he did come, Aaron might be gone from London.

  Other bureaucratic delays sorely tested Aaron’s temper. There were arguments over whether the Cairo headquarters staff was to take command of operations and send officers to take control. Aaron managed to quash that idea, but it was still never decided just what role he was to play in the army’s planning for a Palestine campaign—if in fact there was one finally set in motion. And at the last moment, Royal Navy forces within the War Office argued that since they had first supported the early operations when the army would not, their intelligence officers in Port Said should be Aaron’s first destination before he was handed on to Cairo. This, reluctantly, Aaron agreed to. Finally, Major Gribbon was able to secure a formal letter to a General Gilbert Clayton, who was the senior intelligence officer at Murray’s General Headquarters staff in Cairo, stating that Aaronsohn was to be used both as a director of his band’s operations and as an important adviser for the Palestine campaign that London now demanded.

  So, on November 24, 1916, Aaron boarded the P&O passenger liner Karmala bound for Port Said. On a slow and zigzag route designed to avoid German submarine patrols, Aaron continued his regimen of pacing around the ship and pouring his frustrations into his diary. When the ship finally docked in Port Said on December 12, Aaron found to his surprise that his Royal Navy handlers showed none of the enthusiasm for his arrival that he had been promised in London. He was put in the charge of a navy captain, William Stanley Edmonds, who forbade Aaron to leave for Cairo to see the army and then offered him the meager stipend of £1 a day, which would not cover a hotel room.

  Contrary to his instructions from Gribbon in London to work with the army, he was baffled to be told by Captain Edmonds that the navy insisted on a prior claim. It was the navy that had first vetted him in London, and then claimed jurisdiction over him because of the previous contacts between Absalom Feinberg and the now-imprisoned Lieutenant Woolley. Not that the navy admitted to any commitments, since Woolley had not written down any.

  Edmonds made no effort to conceal his irritation at having to waste time on this stranger, a Jew no less, and his suspicious claims of a spy operation already up and running in Palestine. Aaron was made to understand that Edmonds’s commanding officers were constantly being warned that foreign spies were being sent over by the Turks and Germans to mislead them.

  After much fierce argument, the navy grudgingly provided Aaron with a small underpowered schooner to try to reach Athlit and reestablish contact with Sarah and Absalom. He was, however, strictly forbidden to go ashore himself. Through contacts with the same Palestinian Jewish émigrés who had befriended Absalom on his earlier quest, a volunteer was recruited to make the trip by skiff from the schooner and then swim three hundred yards to the agricultural station with a leather bag of gold coins and new orders, and to return with whatever new intelligence Sarah might have collected.

  As in the past, the attempts could be made only on nights when there was no moonlight. There were, in fact, two such voyages; both ended with Aaron in a rage of frustration. On one trip the recalcitrant ship’s captain refused to get near enough to see whether anyone at the station was signaling that the coast was clear. On the second, undertaken in the last week of January, the sea was so stormy that the messengers were put ashore but had to be abandoned at Athlit with no return of information about the state of conditions there.

  The attempted landings from the trawler had been a meager gesture that Edmonds was reluctant to repeat. Worse, he refused Aaron’s requests for adequate funds to set up his own operations, leaving him having to solicit support from Palestinian émigrés in the Alexandria Jewish enclave. As a final insult, Edmonds suggested that he might be willing to send one of his own agents to take over the operation at Athlit, and the two men ended up shouting at each other.

  If Sarah was unaware of the delays in reaching her, Aaron had no idea of the peril that surrounded his sister. He assumed that Absalom and Josef were both carrying most of the burden of overseeing the spy group. He decided to bluff his navy handlers and threatened that if he could not go to the army in Cairo, he would return to London and appeal directly to his War Office handlers. Edmonds, in a mix of fear and irritation, told him to go.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sarah Gets Her Orders and NILI Gets Its Name

  January–March 1917

  On January 4, 1917, Aaron borrowed some money from his friends and traveled to Cairo, taking a room in the Continental Hotel, where he had stayed on earlier visits for scientific conferences before the war. The hotel now also housed most of the officers attached to various army intelligence services, including staff members attached to the year-old think tank known as the Arab Bureau.

  The Arab Bureau had been a hastily organized collection of scholars, archaeologists, and explorers—selected by the Ashmolean Museum’s director D.G. Hogarth—who had any knowledge of the Middle East in general and the Egyptian–Palestine war front in particular. The group had two important tasks that were desperately needed by General Murray’s planners. First, it was to produce a series of briefing booklets for force commanders to use in operations in specific sectors of the vast uncharted regions of the Arabian theater. Second, the staff was to work to win the support and cooperation of the widely diverse Arab tribes in what would, after the war, be organized into a protectorate under British control and exploitation. In neither of those two objectives was there any consideration of Palestine or of a Jewish state within that protectorate, despite what the government in London was hinting to Zionist leaders.

  Stewart Newcombe had been made a senior officer of the bureau, largely because he, young T.E. Lawrence, and Leonard Woolley had in 1913 conducted a preliminary and not very accurate survey of the Gaza and Sinai desert areas that might be used by the Turks in any attacks on the Canal. Hogarth, who was the mentor of so many of them, was given a navy captain’s rank and divided his time as a referee for the inevitable quarrels within the staff and advising General Clayton of intelligence and General Murray.

  At first the only bureau person who would talk to Aaron was one of the mythic figures in the histories of British Middle East involvement—Gertrude Bell, later known as the Desert Queen. Bell was a sister in spirit to Sarah in so many ways. At seventeen, she had been one of the first women to earn an honors degree in history at Oxford and had gone on to set records as an Alpine mountain climber. In 1900 she had begun a series of journeys throughout most of Syria–Palestine, moving ever deeper into the still uncharted deserts of Mesopotamia searching for the abandoned traces of once-famous Biblical cities. In addition to mastering French, German, and Italian, she became fluent in Turkish and most of the Arab dialects.

  There was a physical and emotional resemblance between the two women. Gertrude had bright red hair and piercing blue eyes and an athletic build made fit by her skills as an outdoors enthusiast and fearless horsewoman. She too had the open heart for romantic love, but like Sarah, her choice did not lead to marriage. Her one documented romance was with a married British diplomat and soldier and when he died at Gallipoli, she never gave her heart to another.

  When Hogarth had arrived in Cairo as an adviser to the British High Command, he had sent for
Bell especially because she, more than any of the other so-called Arabists, had the most thorough knowledge of the unexplored territories, their geography, and various peoples. Before the war, she had published a number of popular books of photographs and histories of the various sites she had visited that fueled a wide public interest in what was popularly known as the Holy Land. As early as 1909, she had begun excavations at the enormous site of the Hittite city of Carchemish, the same place that later would attract Woolley and Lawrence. She also had formed remarkable friendships with a wide number of Arab chiefs, including those of the notorious brigand tribe known as the Howeitat. She viewed Lawrence as a young, talented, but not altogether trustworthy junior colleague. She dismissed his fascination with the desert tribes led by Sharif Hussein and his son Prince Faisal as being a waste of time and money that could be better spent on her Hashemite favorites.

  Aaron, however, was someone whose encyclopedic knowledge of the geology, the flora, and the people of the entire Syrian–Palestinian region exceeded her own. And perhaps this six-foot-tall, enormous young man with his dynamic personality had a measure of attractiveness for her as well. She by now was nearly forty-nine, and the forty-one-year-old Aaron was closer to her age than the younger bureau scholars. But like Sarah, Gertrude Bell had the habit of setting her emotions aside in order to draw greater satisfaction from going her own way and choosing her friends—and foes. Her lifelong crusade was to win nationhood for her chosen people, who after the war would form the new nation of Iraq.

  Bell was intrigued by Aaron’s argument that General Murray could hasten his attack to capture Jerusalem by skillful exploitation of Aaron’s careful maps of the secret desert wells guarded by the Bedouin, and by using easily obtainable water well drills and pumps to punch no deeper than three hundred feet to tap into long-forgotten aquifer reservoirs that had made many of the old Biblical towns gardens of plenty. Sensing his isolation, she took him to Groppi’s, a restaurant that featured ice cream and various coffees and was a favorite of the Arab Bureau staff. But there was not much else she could offer, given the structure of the Arab Bureau’s hierarchy.

  She did at least direct Aaron to two newly arrived officials who could get him the audience he sought with Generals Clayton and Murray. William Ormsby-Gore and Wyndham Deedes turned out to have read Aaron’s London memorandum and were intrigued by the prospects. They had been sent to Cairo as part of the Lloyd George government’s determination to spur the pace of attacks on the Turks. They both questioned Aaron closely and offered support but, as usual, advised patience. Things were changing—but change took time. Aaron was advised to go back to Alexandria and try to secure a second attempt by the navy to reach Athlit and return this time with more immediate intelligence.

  For once, Aaron did not protest. But before he could set out for Alexandria he was surprised to suddenly be confronted by a solemn Captain Edmonds, who had come to Cairo to find him. Aaron was abruptly informed that one of his band of spies had turned up badly wounded at an Australian outpost on the battle line. He rushed to a field hospital in Port Said where he was horrified to find Josef Lishansky.

  Lishansky had been found just outside the lines with three bullet wounds in his back and arm. The despondent Lishansky told Aaron that, despite Sarah’s protests, he and Absalom had set out with a Bedouin guide to make a desert crossing to reach the British. As they were near success their guide abandoned them and may have betrayed them to other Bedouin who set out to capture them and turn them in to the Turks for a reward. In the ensuing gunfight, the two managed to get away but Absalom was mortally wounded and soon died, leaving Lishansky to stagger on alone.

  Aaron was shattered. Absalom had become more like a brother than even his own kin. His death left a hole in his heart that never could be filled. And then, to add to his misery, was the sudden fear of what was happening to Sarah, now all alone at Athlit.

  Aaron returned on the train to Cairo in a state of shock. When he confronted Edmonds and Deedes at the Arab Bureau offices, he collapsed in tears that soon turned to a rage and accused Edmonds of being “morally responsible for our misfortunes.” While Edmonds probably felt no guilt for Absalom’s death, he did manage to organize another attempt to reach Athlit two days later.

  Again, the attempt was only partly successful. But now Aaron was being pressed for more current information by the new arrivals on the intelligence staff at headquarters. Deedes had asked for specific information about the state of Turkish fortifications on the coastline as far north as Haifa and the latest estimates of troop strength.

  Aaron used his new friends to free himself from Alexandria and the control of Captain Edmonds. Deedes had assigned him office space in the Arab Bureau’s quarters in the posh Savoy Hotel, and there in the last week of January he first met a diminutive, sloppily dressed lieutenant who affected the Arab keffiyeh headdress. In his diary Aaron tersely recorded meeting a “lieutenant Laurens” and noted that he was “very well informed on Palestine questions—but very conceited.” Later, after Lawrence had begun to lecture Aaron with what the latter realized was a very superficial experience in the region, he amended his opinion further. Lawrence was, he judged, “a little snot.”

  What Lawrence thought of Aaronsohn is not recorded, but he probably paid scant attention to this enormous Jew who towered over him and seemed so sure of himself. Lawrence had other things on his mind. He was riding a wave of sudden celebrity that was as intoxicating as it was unexpected. For the past two months he had traveled throughout the desert regions meeting with Sharif Hussein and Prince Faisal, surveying what they needed of arms, equipment, and vast sums of gold, to turn the scattered tribal bands into a united military force to drive the Turks out of their positions threatening the Canal. Lawrence was only one of a number of more senior British Army officers who were working with the Arabs, and he had been sent out there by the Arab Bureau to get information and not to actually take a hand in organizing.

  Yet when he was called back to Cairo to resume his desk-bound chores of drafting analysis memos, Prince Faisal surprised everyone by formally requesting Lawrence be assigned to him as an adviser. The High Command had little choice but to send him back after only a few days of conferences, but they sent him back with little hope of any dramatic results. The British hopes in the much publicized Arab Revolt had begun to wane already. As a fighting force the Arabs were effective enough in guerrilla raids on laxly fortified Turkish outposts and isolated railway lines. But they proved to be terrified of Turkish artillery and machine guns, and it soon was confirmed that some tribal leaders who were getting huge sums of British gold were also taking bribes from Djamal Pasha to leave certain strategic positions alone. None of this concerned Aaron, who had developed a disdain for Arab dependability, and was more committed than ever before to the goal of a Jewish state in Palestine—which did not include Arabs as political equals. More pressing for him was what to do about the tragedy of Absalom’s death.

  Aside from his deep personal grief at losing Absalom, who was closer to him than even his brother Alexander, there was a sudden horror at the thought of what would happen if the Turks should find Absalom’s body. If he was recognized, Turkish security officers might connect Absalom’s attempt to reach British lines as confirmation of rumors they were checking that there was a spy ring among the Jews. He feared Athlit’s stores of intelligence might be discovered. If that happened, Zichron Ya’akov would surely suffer reprisals. There was another vexation: Jewish religious rules held that a person could not be considered dead if a body could not be found. How would the Feinberg family react if they were told of Absalom’s death without being able to properly bury their relative?

  For the moment secrecy was essential. Aaron managed to get Josef moved to a hospital in Cairo and made him promise to say nothing about the death. For those of Absalom’s friends in the Jewish communities of Alexandria and Cairo, Aaron promoted a story that Absalom had been sent to Britain for flight training so he could take part in aeria
l reconnaissance with the Royal Flying Corps. It was a thin story but it would have to do.

  Lishansky quickly recovered and joined Aaron at his office in the Savoy. Deedes, Ormsby-Gore; and other intelligence staff were impressed by his answers to the questions they had about the Turkish Army locations and strengths as well as the documents he had carried that pinpointed the most important fortifications.

  The recognition of the importance of the information Sarah and her spies could supply was now apparent. This was a crucial time for the British. In January an ANZAC force of mounted infantry had pushed the Turks out of a substantial part of the Sinai Peninsula. Murray’s upbeat report on the ANZAC action merely heated up London’s demand for more dramatic action. While the Arab Bureau continued to churn out its operational manuals and analyses, the Army established its own Eastern Mediterranean Special Intelligence Bureau (EMSIB) to plan the broad attack demanded by London. General Clayton was in charge and Aaron’s two new friends were part of the senior staff.

  By mid-February, EMSIB had formally recognized the Athlit operation as an asset and assigned it the code name “A Organization.” At the same time the steamer Managem, used by Woolley in the first attempts, again was reassigned to make contact with Sarah and Athlit. It was larger and better powered than the previous craft provided Aaron, and he hoped the next approach would be able to wait offshore to receive current intelligence—whatever the weather might be. It was now vital that Sarah and Athlit provide more current information since a formal campaign—later known as the First Battle of Gaza—was to be launched in early April.

  By the start of 1917, Sarah was solely responsible for encouraging and collecting the growing flow of intelligence coming in from the three dozen active agents—Gideonites and ordinary citizens—whom she had recruited. But to what end? None of it had reached the British who were supposed to be the liberators. The sudden solitude marked the final turning point in Sarah’s life.