Mirage

by James Follett

  ‘And you’re still with Philips?’

  ‘Yes. I’m an assistant designer now.’ Emil maintained his smile despite his unease. ‘Why all this interest in me?’

  The girl glanced at the Irgun leaflet that Emil had been reading. ‘You show an interest in us - we return the compliment. We attach great importance to good intelligence. Why are you interested in us, Emil Kalen?’

  ‘I saw the crowd near the Parc du Pharo the other day and wondered what was going on. The speaker wasn’t as good as the one tonight.’

  ‘Begin is brilliant,’ said the girl fervently. ‘One day he will be the leader of Israel.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ Emil agreed, smiling.

  ‘Do you want to help bring that day closer?’ ‘I want to go to Israel.’

  ‘Do as I say and you’ll get a free passage if you want to help us.’ The girl stood. ‘Port-de-Bouc is about thirty kilometres west of here. Be by the harbour wall at midnight on Monday night. You will be allowed one small suitcase for baggage. No more.’

  ‘Will you be going?’

  She flushed as if the question was frivolous. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then I’m interested,’ said Emil honestly.

  She treated his remark with a gesture of contempt and turned on her heel. Emil called out to her as she walked away. ‘I don’t know your name.’

  She turned slowly and regarded Emil. Her look drained his free will and in that precious moment, that would remain forever sharp in his memory, he knew that he would follow her no matter where she led him. ‘Leonora,’ she said simply.

  6

  PORT-DE-BOUC TO TEL AVIV June 1948

  It was incredible to Emil that the police seemed to be taking little interest in what was going on.

  At ten minutes to midnight yet another battered old bus, its horn blaring across the bay, rattled to a standstill by the harbour wall and disgorged its noisy rabble of passengers into the embraces of the cheering mob who had arrived on earlier buses. The shutters were opening on the upper windows of the houses huddled around the harbour. Whatever the Irgun were planning, they were making no secret of it. Two more bus loads arrived. By thirty minutes past midnight, Emil estimated that there were close on eight hundred men milling animatedly on the quay. Several men wearing armbands were checking names on their clipboards and issuing coloured badges. One large group that had been processed by the marshals was showing a keen interest in an elderly 1500-ton coaster that was moored against the quay - riding low in the water. A flash of blonde hair emerged from the crowd. It was Leonora. Emil felt his pulse quicken. No other girl had ever had this effect. She was wearing baggy slacks and a fur-lined flying jacket. Her appearance when she jumped on to a bollard and raised a megaphone to her lips provoked a chorus of catcalls and whistles.

  ‘The Atalena will be sailing in two hours,’ she announced. ‘All those with blue badges can start boarding now.’

  An enthusiastic stampede up the coaster’s creaking gangways started before she had finished speaking. After thirty minutes the crowd on the quay had thinned to less than thirty and the coaster was sitting dangerously low in the water. For the moment Emil was content to sit on the harbour wall clutching his carefully-packed rucksack while watching Leonora.

  A taxi arrived. Its passenger was Menachem Begin. He conversed briefly with Leonora and the other marshals before walking up the Atalena's gangplank to be greeted by a barrage of cheering.

  Emil swung his rucksack on to his shoulders and approached the girl. ‘Hallo, Leonora.’

  She turned and gave the faintest of smiles. ‘So you decided to come, Emil Kalen?’

  He returned her smile. ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘Why?’

  Emil nodded to the crowded coaster. ‘At least eight hundred men. You cannot possibly know all their names and yet you know mine.’ ‘I know many of them. You had better go aboard before all the sleeping places are taken.’

  ‘You’re definitely going?’

  Leonora nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I don’t have a badge.’

  ‘You don’t need one. All you need is the will to be there. Now please excuse me. I have much to do.’

  The Atalena sailed at 2.00am and was clear of the harbour lights an hour later. The scruffy appearance of the coaster belied its performance. Emil was not a marine engineer but he could recognize the even beat and clean exhaust of well-tuned diesels. The men were divided into ‘platoons’ of fifty, each group under the command of an arm-banded marshal. Emil’s marshal was an amiable, bullnecked Pole who insisted that his charges called him Paul. The language he had in common with the majority of his charges was English which he had learned from a Welsh NCO in a PoW camp. In the sing-song accents of Cardiff, Paul assigned Emil to a numbered rectangle that was painted on the deck and issued him with a new US Army sleeping bag.

  As Emil settled down in his allotted rectangle on the crowded deck, he realized that Begin’s Irgun was not as badly organized as he had supposed.

  Emil was a hardened camper and had no objection to sleeping in the open - even if the night was exceptionally cold owing to the Atalena’s brisk pace of about fifteen knots. The animated chatter of his fellow passengers kept him awake for an hour. Nor did he worry unduly about what the future held in store for him. Nothing could be as bad as the five years of uncertainty he had lived through under the Germans - not knowing as he cycled to work each day whether that day would be the day the Germans decided that his skills at the drawing board were no longer of use to them and that it was time to pack him on to an East-bound train.

  Whatever the future held for Emil, he was grimly determined that Leonora would be a part of it.

  The Irgun’s organizational ability was confirmed the next morning: the marshals roused their platoons according to a rota and sent them in relays through the showers and latrines that had been erected amidships. Leonora was one of the marshals supervising serving of a breakfast that consisted of plenty of bread and fresh fruit. Emil tried to catch her attention but she was either too busy to notice him or deliberately chose to ignore him. Later that day he saw her on the bridge talking to Menachem Begin. He experienced a pang of jealousy. Far from discouraging him, the incident strengthened his resolve to get to know her.

  The monotony of the fifth day at sea was relieved by the appearance of a British naval frigate. The warship invited the Atalena to heave- to by firing a four-inch shell across her bows; an invitation that the coaster’s master graciously accepted. The frigate despatched a pinnace to interrogate the Atalena over a loudhailer. The men crowding the rail caused the laden coaster to list dangerously in the swell. Leonora appeared on the bridge companionway and ordered the men back. Emil helped Paul drag men away from the rail.

  ‘Where are you bound?’ a voice boomed out from the pinnace.

  ‘Jaffa!’ Begin’s voice answered.

  A sub-lieutenant on the pinnace was studying the Atalena carefully through binoculars.

  ‘Cargo?’

  ‘Immigrants from the DP camps of Europe!’ Begin shouted back across the narrow gap between the two craft. ‘Victims of German atrocities and British arrogance!’

  The British naval officer seemed to be uncertain how to reply.

  ‘They won’t give us any trouble,’ said a voice at Emil’s side.

  He turned and smiled with genuine pleasure at Leonora. ‘With sonny boy screaming insults at them?’

  ‘Before independence they would have done everything in their power to stop us short of shelling us. Now they’ll leave us alone. The British are tired of the Jews.’

  ‘Then why have they stopped us?’

  ‘To take a close look at us to make sure we really are Jews. We’re too far south-west to be smuggling arms to the rebels on Cyprus.’

  ‘It seems that whole world is still at war,’ said Emil regretfully.

  ‘If you’ve no stomach for fighting then you should not have joined us,’ Leonora retorted.

  ‘I came because
I wanted to be near to you,’ said Emil gravely, wondering how she would react to his candour. ‘I came not even knowing what you are planning.’

  Leonora stared at Emil. He had spoken with such quiet sincerity that she hadn’t the heart to scoff. He looked in vain for a softening of her expression.

  She took hold of his hand for moment and then released it as if the innocent gesture had betrayed a weakness. There was no rancour in her voice when she spoke. ‘You’re a fool, Emil Kalen. Israel has little need of fools.’ She turned and walked away.

  ‘You must hold your present course,’ said the sub-lieutenant over his loudhailer. ‘We’ll be watching you. Bon voyage and good luck.’

  The launch sheered away and increased speed to join its mothership.

  Paul had overheard most of Emil’s conversation with Leonora. He sauntered across to Emil and chuckled throatily. ‘You don’t want to get involved with that one,’ he advised in his curious Welsh-accented English.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She’s spoken for.’

  ‘She’s married?’

  The marshal shook his head. ‘That I do not know. It is something you must ask her. Many men have tried. Many trips I have been on with immigrant DPs before independence. No time has she for any of them. She has a son. Seven. Maybe eight. Her son she cares for. Maybe her husband if she has one. No one else.’

  The following afternoon there was a change in the dreary routine. Begin’s voice abruptly crackled throughout the ship’s public address system to announce that the moment of their glorious assault on Ben Gurion and the enemies of Israel was at hand. His words had an electrifying effect: the lethargic mood that pervaded the ship as a result of the boredom of the long voyage suddenly evaporated. Men started talking animatedly in small groups. The inevitable arguments that broke out were interrupted by the marshals opening the cargo hold hatches. Amid much arm-waving and shouted instructions, the derricks were manned and large timber crates were hoisted out of the hold to be dumped on the deck. Marshals armed with prybars and claw hammers yanked scream nails from the crates. The smaller crates that tumbled out were attacked in the same way. Their contents, Mauser Kar 98K rifles and boxes of ammunition, were distributed in an orderly manner to the eager, shuffling queues of would-be revolutionaries. Seeing the weapons made Emil doubt his wisdom in joining the Atalena. Nevertheless, he tagged on to his platoon’s queue and ended up the doubtful possessor of a grease- encrusted rifle, a hundred rounds of ammunition and a British Army webbing shoulder pouch. He aroused the curiosity of his comrades- in-arms when he carefully knifed the thick, black grease off his rifle’s wrapping paper and scraped it carefully into a tobacco tin. Thirty minutes’ instruction by Paul in the cleaning and preparing of the rifles ended with the men in the platoon taking it in turns to line up at the stern rail and shoot at planks from the crates that the marshals threw into the water. Emil had no trouble sending his piece of timber scudding across the ship’s wake in a series of leaps as all his rounds splintered home.

  ‘Good shooting,’ Paul commented approvingly, clapping him on the back.

  As Emil turned, he saw that Leonora was leaning on the after bridge rail, watching him. He smiled and saluted her but she turned and entered the wheelhouse without acknowledging the gesture.

  The mood of eager anticipation aboard the Atalena quickened an hour before sunset when the coaster’s diesels slowed to an idle. The rolling of the ship became uncomfortable at the reduced speed, especially with more men than usual crowding on to the upper decks, anxious not miss anything. The public address speakers hummed. There was a piercing feed-back whistle and then Begin was speaking. He said that the men and arms of the Atalena would be disembarking after dark by beaching the ship on a lonely beach north of Tel Aviv where they would rendezvous with a 200-strong unit of the Palmach. The first stage of the operation was the recapture of the old city of Jerusalem and the Western Wall of the Temple which the Arab Legion had seized a month earlier during the War of Independence.

  At dusk a beaten-up old Auster aircraft, which looked as if it had been in a war because it had, appeared from the east. It circled the Atalena twice, flaunting its six-pointed Mogen David insignia, before returning eastward.

  ‘Sherut Avir,’ Paul growled respectfully, watching the receding aircraft. ‘Those boys they do a fantastic job. You know what they do? They have nothing, you understand. A few old Rapides. Maybe a seaplane. And they fight the Jordanian Air Force, the Egyptian Air Force - the whole goddamn lot.’

  Emil said nothing; he was more concerned with the failure of the Atalena to alter course when the aircraft had first appeared. Nor had anyone bothered to strike the Irgun flag that was fluttering provocatively from the masthead.

  Only when darkness fell did the Atalena finally alter course a few degrees to the north-east. To Emil’s relief, it did not switch on its navigation lights. Someone shouted something and pointed. The word spread quickly through the ship. Men crowded excitedly on to the upper decks. Some donned their yarmulkes and started praying.

  Always ready to climb on to anything at hand to compensate for his slight stature, Emil shinned nimbly up a lifeboat davit and quickly picked out the twinkling necklace of lights to the south-east.

  ‘Tel Aviv!’ someone cried out. ‘The blackout’s over! It’s Tel Aviv!’

  The words had an electrifying effect; several men from Eastern Europe making their Aliy ah fell to their knees and wept at their first glimpse of the promised land. Emil climbed higher until he was level with the bridge rail where Leonora was standing. She stepped back in surprise when his carefully judged leap resulted in him landing lightly on the rail beside her. He dropped down and gave her an impish salute.

  ‘You have much in common with a monkey,’ she remarked. ‘You’ve been avoiding me.’

  ‘I’ve been busy. You’d better go before the captain sees you.’ Emil gestured at the crowd below. ‘Don’t you feel guilty about them?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because they can enter Israel legally now and be made welcome. Instead they’re sneaking in like thieves in the night and might be killed.’

  ‘Unlike you, Emil Kalen, there are men in the world prepared to fight and die for what they believe in.’

  Emil ignored the insult. He opened his rucksack and gave Leonora a Balaclava helmet. ‘I want you to wear this.’

  Leonora looked at the knitted hood in amusement. ‘Why?’ ‘Because it will hide your hair. Promise me you’ll wear it.’ ‘Okay, Emil Kalen,’ she said, taking the hood. ‘I promise. Now get back to your platoon. We’ll be disembarking very soon.’

  Emil opened his mouth to say something but closed it again when he heard the distant sound of waves breaking on a beach. He treated Leonora to another of his grins and rejoined his fellow passengers who were calming down by this time. Another wave of excitement was provoked by a winking light from the smear of blackness that defined the coast. An Aldis lamp clattered out a reply from the bridge.

  ‘Platoon One to standby!’ a voice called out. The command was repeated in several languages.

  The engine room telegraph clanged. The Atalena's diesels idled to dead slow ahead. A crewman perched on the bow was pitching a sounding line and calling out the steadily decreasing depth. Other men were leaning over the bulwarks - signalling to the wheelhouse the whereabouts of the treacherous groynes that the British had built along the coast to thwart landings by shiploads of illegal immigrants. Suddenly there was a series of rapid flashes from the beach - flashes that Emil recognized immediately. He threw himself prone just as the first rounds of machine-gun fire richocheted off the Atalena's hull. The burst of fire signalled an outbreak of pandemonium. Someone was screaming; there was the sharp crack of a nearby rifle answering the fire from the beach; Begin’s voice was bellowing over the PA system. The Atalena's engines roared into reverse. The sudden deceleration as the ship thrashed hard astern caused men to lose their balance and tumble across the deck into flailing tangles of ar
ms and legs.

  ‘Traitors!’ Begin’s voice yelled at the beach. ‘Everyone back to their stations! If Ben Gurion wants a confrontation with us - we’ll give him one!’

  Once clear of the beach and groynes, the Atalena went hard about and steamed south parallel with the coast.

  ‘Now what’s he planning?’ Emil asked Paul as the ship piled on the knots.

  The big Pole shrugged. ‘Whatever it is,’ he said pointing to the nearing lights of Tel Aviv, ‘we’re going to do it in full view of the town.’

  Begin’s plans became clearer forty-five minutes later when the coaster swung towards the beach and the bright lights of Tel Aviv’s Ritz Hotel.

  Paul muttered an oath. ‘My God. We must pray the Palmach are with us. That hotel is their headquarters.’

  The question of Palmachi allegiance was answered when the Atalena was within one hundred yards of the beach: a team of soldiers appeared under the street lights manoeuvring a field gun into position. It was obvious that any resistance by the Atalena could end only in a bloody massacre. Emil quickly pulled on a Balaclava helmet and smeared the exposed portions of his face with the grease he had saved from the rifles. He grabbed Leonora as she came racing down the bridge companionway. It was a second before she realized who her assailant was.

  ‘Let go of me! ’ she spat, struggling to free herself from his vice-like grip on her wrist.

  ‘You must smear this grease on your face!’

  A shell screamed overhead and exploded in the sea before the boom of the field gun reached the ship. Suddenly the Atalena went aground. Without waiting for the commands of their platoon leaders, men disentangled themselves and jumped over the side into the surf. A parachute flare fired from the road arched gracefully into the sky and burst white light over the scene like a nova. Machine-gun rounds beat a staccato rhythm on the coaster’s bridge. There was the sound of shattering glass and screams of agony as the unseen machine-gunner on the shore found targets with his raking fire. Emil threw Leonora to the deck, tore the rifle from her hands and pinned her down by sitting astride her with his knees digging cruelly into her biceps. She struggled ineffectually to dislodge him and maintained a barrage of abuse as he carefully smeared the foul-smelling grease on to her face. Before she could protest further, he jumped up and yanked her to her feet. He caught a brief glimpse of men struggling against the surfs undertow while trying to return the hail of murderously accurate fire from the beach. Some lifeless bodies were twisting in the white foam, discolouring it with long tendrils of crimson. The Atalena had broached to so that she was lying parallel to the beach. Ignoring Leonora’s furiously pummelling fists, Emil gripped her around the waist, clambered unsteadily on to the bulwark furthest from the carnage and jumped.