A matter of life and death, gentlemen. Any attempt to smuggle information concerning this survivor past the censors, out of the state, will lead to prosecution and harshest penalties of the law. Questions..."
The bureau chief of the Columbia Broadcasting Systems drawled, "Have we gotten involved in another bus ride cover-up?"
The military spokesman had anticipated the question.
Four years before, four Arabs from the Gaza Strip had hijacked a crowded bus in southern Israel, and threatened to kill the passengers if 25 Palestinians were not released from Israeli gaols. The bus had been stopped, and stormed. Two Arabs had died in the military intervention, two others had been seen being led away into the darkness at the side of the road by the Shin Bet. In a field, out of sight, these two were bludgeoned to death. Senior officials of Shin Bet were subsequently granted immunity from prosecution, and resigned.
"The move is temporary. There will be no cover-up because the survivor is alive. Within a month he will be charged with murder and will appear in open court.
Questions..."
The senior Tel Aviv-based reporter of the Reuters news agency asked, "Will we ever be told what it is that is a matter of life and death?"
"Who can tell?"
The briefing was concluded.
Within fifteen minutes the IBC had broadcast the news that according to the military spokesman it had now been ascertained that two Arabs, thought to be the bombing team, had died in the explosion.
Because of the deformity of his features it was difficult for the other officers in the room to ascertain the feelings of Major Said Hazan.
The major had pulled his chair away from his desk.
He was bent over his radio set, listening intently, as he had been for every one of the news broadcasts from Israel that morning.
He switched off the radio. He resumed the course of the meeting. He knew the scale of the casualties. He knew the fate of the two recruits. He knew that the trail of evidence to the Yarmouq camp on the outskirts of Damascus was cut.
More martyrs for the folklore of the Palestine revolution, more casualties for the enemy that was Israel.
The station officer rang Major Zvi Dan immediately after the news broadcast.
"I just want, again, to express my gratitude. If they had known there was a survivor..."
" . . . They would have moved the camp, the contact would have been lost. We have given you the chance, we hope you can use it."
11
They had slept in a hostel for soldiers in transit.
No explanations from Crane, and Holt was less bothered at the silences with each day he spent in the man's company. He was into the rhythm of tagging along, speaking when he was spoken to, following Crane's lead.
They had had fruit and cheese for breakfast. He thought his beard was beginning to come, slowly enough, but starting to appear something more than just a laziness away from the razor. When he had stood in front of the mirror, when he had taken his turn at the wash basin, when he had looked at himself, then he had wondered how Jane would have liked his beard . . . only a short thought, a thought that was cut before being answered because Crane had been behind him and told him to put away his toothpaste, told him to get used to life without a toothbrush. No explanation, just an instruction.
It beat him, why they could not stay in a hotel when they had all the expense money available to pay for a suite at the Hilton, why they had to sleep in a hostel at eight shekels a night.
He had reflected. His mind had cast back to the Crimea journey, to the field of the Light Brigade on which he would have walked with Ben Armitage.
"Ours not to reason why."
That was life with Noah Crane.
"Ours but to do and die."
Pray God that was not life with Noah Crane.
When he had finished his breakfast Crane stood and walked away from the table. He wouldn't wait for Holt to finish what he was eating. Holt stuffed two apples into his trouser pockets, grabbed a slice of cheese and followed him out. At a table in the hallway Crane put down his bank notes, and waited for his four shekels of change. No tip.
They walked. Crane said that Holt was missing his morning exercises, so they wouldn't take a bus. Holt was used now to Crane's stride, his cracking pace. They started from old Jewish Jerusalem, with the walls of the old city behind them and the golden semi orb of the Dome of the Rock. If he ever returned to London . . .
of course he would . . . When he returned to London no-one would believe he had been in Jerusalem and never visited the old city, never walked the route of the Cross. And he was fitter. He could tell that, he was beginning to match Crane stride for stride. Away along wide streets, under gently leaved trees, over steep hills, and into new Jewish Jerusalem, through suburbs of villas constructed of clinically cut sand rock.
They were on the fringe of the city, they climbed the last hill.
They were overtaken by the tourist coaches as they approached the memorial.
"Yad Vashem, Holt," Crane said. "It's where we remember the six million of our people that the Hun slaughtered."
"History makes man complacent, doesn't get people forward. Take the Irish . . . "
"Don't give me university crap. Isaiah, 56, 5. 'Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.' We do remember what happened to our people. If we ever forget them then that will be the day that the same can happen to us."
"I don't believe history tells us . . . "
"Holt, six million of our people went to the gas chambers and the furnaces. They didn't fight, they lay down.
Because we remember what happened, today we will always fight, we will never lie down. I don't want a debate, I'm just telling you."
They went into the low ceilinged bunker that was the heart of the memorial. They stood at the rail, they looked down on the stone floor in which were carved out the names of the 21 largest concentration camps.
Further from the rail were fading wreaths, and near to the back wall of rough cut lava rocks there burned a flame. Holt was the tourist, he gazed around him, as if he stared at the Kremlin cupolas, or the arches of the Coliseum, or the Arc de Triomphe, or the Statue of Liberty. He turned back to see if Crane was ready to move on. He saw the gleam of a tear rolling on Noah Crane's cheek. He could not help himself, he stared blatantly. He read the names . . . Treblinka, Auschwitz, Dachau, Belsen, Lwow-Janowska, Chetmno . . . He stood behind Crane so that he should no longer intrude into the privacy of his vigil.
Abruptly Crane swung away, marched out into the sunlight. They walked quickly.
Crane leading, Holt following.
They walked through a garden parkland that was laid out in memory of Theodor Herzl, the originator of the concept of a Jewish state. They went past the young sprouting trees and bank beds of flowers, and down avenues of bright shrub bushes. When they had crossed the parkland, when they looked down the hillside, Holt saw the terraced rows of graves with their slab stone markers. He stood on the high ground, he left the neat chip stone paths to Noah Crane. It was a personal pilgrimage. For a long time he watched the slow lingering progress of Crane amongst the graves.
Holt brushed the flies from his forehead. He was being given a lesson, that he was aware of. He thought that Crane did nothing by chance.
At the far end of the graveyard, Noah Crane looked up, shouted to Holt, "They're all here, Holt, the high and mighty and the unknowns. Men from the Stern Gang, from the Liberation War of '48, Sinai, Six Days, Yom Kippur, Netanyahu who led the raid to Entebbe, Lebanon, all the men who've given their lives for our state. We value each one of them, whether he's a hero like Netanyahu, whether he's a spotty faced truck driver who went over a mine in Lebanon. Whatever happens to me in the Beqa'a they'll get me back here, that's the best thing I know."
"That's mawkish, Crane."
"Don't laugh at me. This isn't a country that
's going soft. You know, Holt, in the President of Syria's office there is one painting, one only. The painting is of the Battle of Hattin. You ever heard of that battle, you with all your history? 'Course you haven't . . . At the Battle of Hattin the great Saladin whipped the arse off the Crusaders. The President of Syria aims to repeat the dose. He aims to put us to the sword, and the rest of us into the sea. Got it?"
"Got it, Mr Crane."
"It's not my intention to end up here, Holt."
"Glad to hear it, Mr Crane."
"So you just remember each damned little thing that I tell you, each last damned little thing. You do just as I say, without question, no hesitation,"
Crane's voice boomed on the hillside. "That way I might just avoid the need of them cutting a hole for me
''Let's hope we can save them the trouble, Mr Crane."
Later, towards the end of the morning, with their kit, they were dropped off at the start point chosen by Noah Crane.
They were going walking in Samaria, north from Ramalleh towards Nablus, in the Occupied Territories.
Via a scrambled telephone link, Percy Martins reported progress to the Director General.
From Tork's office in the Tel Aviv embassy he spoke directly to the nineteenth floor at Century. By protocol he should have talked to Fenner. He hoped, fervently, that Fenner would hear he had bypassed him.
"Crane's taken the youngster for a few days into the Occupied Territories to get him thinking the right way, used to the equipment, used to the movement."
"And then they go?"
"They're going to be picked up near Nablus, they'll be taken to Kiryat Shmona, rest up for a few hours, then off."
"What state is the eye witness?"
"Holt's in a good state. He'll do well."
"How are they coming out?"
"They're going to have to walk out."
"Haven't you bent a few backs?"
"God knows, I've tried, but they're going to have to walk out."
"Anything new?"
"We have a fix on a training camp that is being run by Abu Hamid. We know exactly where to go for him."
"The Prime Minister wants it for Sylvester Armitage's memory. I want it for Jane Canning's memory.
I'm relying on you, Martins."
Martins, hired hand, third man on the Desk, first time running his own show, said defiantly, "You can depend on us, sir."
Crane was on watch, Holt drowsed.
For Holt, the night march with the laden backpack was the most exhausting experience of his life.
"They're going, Prime Minister, within a week."
"To bring me his head?"
"Regrettably not on a salver, but his head for all that." The Director General smiled.
"He's terribly lucky."
"Who is, Prime Minister?"
"This young man we've sent out there."
"The eye witness."
"Exactly, terribly lucky when so few people of his age have the chance afforded them of real adventure."
"Let us hope he appreciates his good fortune, Prime Minister."
"I have to tell you, I would be less than honest if I did not. I am already savouring the moment when I can recount this small epic to our friends in the States . . . "
"Forgive me, but they have a long road to walk."
"If I do not have the head of this Palestinian wretch, then most certainly I will have another head. It's your plan and your advice I'm taking."
The Director General smiled comfortably across the Downing Street sitting room.
"It was a very fine calculation then, Prime Minister, and in a number of particulars it is finer still."
The Prime Minister was gathering papers. The meeting was over. "His head or yours. Goodnight."
The second night out, and they had not been walking more than an hour and a half, and it was the third time that Holt had fallen, pulled over onto the rocks by the weight of his pack the moment he had lost his balance.
He heard the stones rumbling away on the hillside.
He could have cried in his frustration. He could hear the venom of Crane's swearing from in front.
Abu Hamid watched them coming.
He stood at the flap of his tent and studied the slow progress towards the camp of the girl who led the donkey, and behind it the crawling jeep. He could hear the soft cough of the jeep's engine as it idled. At that distance, even, more than half a mile, he knew that it was Fawzi's jeep.
She wore the floppy trousers of the Shi'as, and the short cotton skirt, and the full loose blouse, and the scarf tied tight over her head and then wrapped across her mouth to mask her face. She dressed in the clothes of a village girl of the Beqa'a. The jeep was a dozen paces behind her, but she made no effort to quicken her pace, or to move aside.
Abu Hamid sucked at a hardly ripe peach, swirling his tongue over the coarse surface of the stone. He knew that in the Beqa'a, under the eye of the Syrian army, under the control of the Syrian Intelligence agencies, nothing would happen by chance. He knew that it would not be by chance that a girl walked a donkey along the track that led only to the tent camp, and that the girl was followed by Fawzi's jeep. She was young, he was sure of that, he could see the smooth regular flow of her slim hips, the trousers and skirt could not hide the slender outline of the young body.
Abu Hamid took the peach stone from his mouth, threw it high into the coiled wire of the perimeter fence.
He called for the recruits to come forward, to break from their meal, to get off their haunches, make a formation. He lined them up, three untidy rows.
He turned to face the entrance to the camp.
Now the jeep accelerated and swung past the girl.
The donkey shied, and the girl held her course and seemed unaware of the jeep. She was lost for a moment in the dust thrown up by the jeep's wheels, and when she appeared again she still walked forward, light step, leading the donkey. Abu Hamid saw that the donkey had a pair of old leather pannier bags slung down on its flanks.
With a swaggering step Fawzi walked towards Abu Hamid. His hands rose to grip Abu Hamid's shoulders, he kissed him on both cheeks. Abu Hamid smelled the lotion that crept to his nostrils. Fawzi clapped his hands for attention, played the big man. For Abu Hamid it shamed the Palestinian revolution that Fawzi and his clumsy conceit should have control of the recruits, of himself. He watched the girl and the donkey approach the camp entrance. Fawzi had his back to the girl and the donkey, as if their time had not yet come. Fawzi addressed the recruits.
"Fighters of the Palestine revolution, I have news for you of an epic attack by the Popular Front deep into enemy territory. A commando force of the Popular Front has travelled to the heart of the Zionist state, and in so doing has disproved the claim of the Zionists that their borders are secured. The target was the principal bus terminus in Tel Aviv. The attack was timed for last Sunday morning, at the moment when the maximum number of enemy soldiers would be boarding transport to return to their units. The Zionists, of course, have attempted to minimise the effectiveness of our commando strike by releasing ridiculously false figures of the casualties inflicted. Their lies will not deflect the truth. Forty-eight of their soldiers were killed, more than a hundred were wounded. The heroism of the commando knew no limitations. They carried out, our men, an attack of greater pain to the enemy than the successful assault by hand grenade at the Dung Gate in Jerusalem against a military parade. Fighters, I said to you that the heroism of the commando knew no limitations. I grovel in admiration at such heroism. The plan of the attack allowed for the commando to place a bomb on the Tel Aviv to Jerusalem bus. The bomb was fitted with a timing device that would permit the commando to leave the bus en route with the bomb left under a seat. That was not good enough, fighters, for this heroic commando. They feared that after they had left the bus that there would be a small chance of the discovery of the bomb that would negate the attack.
Such heroism, fighters . . . The commando was governed by total commitment to
the cause of the Palestine revolution ... They set the timer early. They stayed with the bomb until it exploded. By their selfless action they determined that there was no possibility of the bomb being discovered and rendered harmless. For the success of the revolution they gave their own lives.
Fighters, the strike force of the commando came from this camp. They were your brothers in arms. Fighters, Mohammed and Ibrahim were of your blood. They shared your hardships, they shared your food, they shared your tents. They were given the chance to wage total war against the enemy, against your enemy, they did not fail the cause of the Palestine revolution."
Abu Hamid stood numbed. The man who was an incessant pain in the arse was now a hero. The thief was now a martyr.
The girl with the donkey walked slowly through the entrance gap in the wire.
The recruits gazed awestruck at Fawzi. They had clung to each word he had spoken. As if each man yearned for himself the admiration now settled on Ibrahim and Mohammed.
The girl now stood beside Fawzi. She held loosely in her hand a length of rope that was fastened to the bridle.
The donkey was old and patient.
Fawzi looked to the girl with pleasure.
"Without great courage, without great bravery, the Palestine revolution will not be won. But we have the courage, we have the bravery, and so the victory of the revolution is inevitable. Look at her, fighters, look at her and rejoice in the courage and bravery of the revolution. She is sixteen years old, she is in the full flower of youth. She has no ambition other than to give her life, her breath, her spirit, to the revolution."
Abu Hamid stared at the girl. He could not tell whether she heard Fawzi. Her face was blank, her eyes were dead. He had seen men who habitually smoked the poppy, or dragged on cigarettes made from the marijuana crop, and their eyes, too, were dead, their faces were without expression. He could not say whether her love was for the revolution or whether it was for the poppy and the hashish fibre.
"This girl is going alone to the security zone. Without the support of comrades, with the help only of a fervent faith in the ultimate success of the revolution, she is going into the security zone with her donkey. The donkey is her friend. The donkey has been with her since she was a child at her mother's breast. In the bags carried by the donkey will be one hundred kilos of industrial dynamite. Do you understand me, fighters?
At Close Quarters Page 18