by Mark Helprin
The following day he was invited to ride with a convoy north into the interior. A young Irish major had asked if he did not want to see some of the country. “It’s very beautiful up there,” he said, “quite like you’ve never seen before. We have fruit growing all over the place, and at this time of year there’s a freshwater pool fed by the underground rivers from the winter rains. The water falls from ledge to ledge until it ends in another pool twice as large. Would you like to take a swim and have some good Arab food?”
Keslake could not resist, and they left the next day in a small group of armored vehicles, trucks, and jeeps. He and the Major shared an open car and traveled the whole way without a word. Keslake was in a beginning-of-summer reverie, when so much satisfaction is to be had from nature’s luxuriant outpourings that the human voice and human needs seem thin, remote, and inconsequential. On the road up they passed under countless tall trees shadowing them as they went. The sky was entirely clear, and in the hills near the fort the sun beat down on blue-green brush in which wild boars crashed and plumed birds hopped from branch to branch.
Upon his arrival, Keslake went up on the roof to an open sleeping porch where he was to stay, and the Irishman joined him, bringing two gins and tonic, which they drank with enormous relief. The Irishman tried to broach the subject of home but Keslake would not hear of it. “This is home,” he said. “That’s the penalty for being English, and I’m not sure that it’s a penalty. I will never, never go back to Birmingham, never as long as I live. It would be a disgrace.” Then there was silence and they fell asleep in their chairs, the hot sun being tempered perfectly by a steady cool breeze. Through half-closed eyes Keslake could see Haifa miles away rising from the bay like a city of white castles and golden domes, which it was. It reminded him of Istanbul which he had seen as a boy when it was Constantinople, In a near dream the faraway white columns of Haifa became subject to a more youthful eye, wild and untutored as it had seen Constantinople from the sea; like a huge inverted roc’s egg split and painted, Hagia Sofia had drowned in its own quiet and waited for the umpteenth sun.
That night there was a feast. Local Bedouins had been commissioned to cook lamb, rice, hommos, and other such things, which were then served on good British plate with napkins, flatware, and glasses. Everyone ate too much and drank too much. In a frenzy of eating, the Irish major said, “You see, we take off a lot this time of year. The springs only last about a week, oh, maybe ten days.”
“How do you know,” replied Keslake, wolfing down sizzling chunks of lamb between swallows of iced wine, “that it’s not poisoned?” He spoke loudly above the din in the courtyard lined with rifles on ready racks. Indian Muslim sentries (who would not drink) paced the walls above. “It would be rather easy for the Arabs to do us all in with a side of lamb, wouldn’t it?”
“Nonsense! They’re our friends. They wouldn’t do it. Besides, I’d hang every last one of them.”
“But you’d be dead.”
“Then it wouldn’t matter a bit, would it?”
“I suppose not. But what if they attacked right now, when everybody’s drunk and stuffed?”
“They wouldn’t attack now!” said the Major. “They never attack when we’re drunk! They never attack at all! And if they did the chaps from up the road would be here in no time. It’s only ten miles. Don’t worry. Eat your poisoned lamb.”
Keslake was always at the ready, or at least he tried to be. When the next day he swam in the clear pools, hardly able to tell them from the clear sky, his pistol lay on the bank, always within sight. If he turned he knew at what angle and distance he would find it. Even so, he would have lost himself in the thunderously cool cascades had not a Sikh summoned him from the most memorable bright water of his life to tell him that he was wanted in Haifa that evening, and a convoy was just leaving. The Sikh had been guarding when the message came over the radio on his jeep. It had come from the fort. They had heard by telephone from the Army Command in Haifa. The Army Command had heard by telephone from the Naval Command, which had heard from Suez, which had heard from Crete that another illegal immigrant ship was making its way to the Palestine coast, as straight as an arrow. Turning his back on the blue and white water, Keslake quickly dressed, holstered his pistol, and set out with dispatch for Haifa port.
11
ONE MORNING the passengers of the Lindos Transit awoke to find themselves in a dreamlike new land. The sea was azure and alert as they had never seen before, the winds warm and fresh. To the south were the mountains of Crete in steadfast order, swept back into a line of peaks which billowed like cloud, so white were they, a blinding white. Many of the passengers had seen the Alps, the Urals, the Appenines, but never had they seen mountains rising from the sea. Preparations had been completed: Levy’s plan allowed several days of rest before the landing. The musicians were silent. Gulls wheeled and turned in smooth waves around the ship. The passengers were transfixed. They felt it possible that the gray mists of their lives, their dark cold histories, could be cured from them, lifted out of them by the sun. They looked at themselves—sunburnt faces, golden and dark hair, eyes green, blue, gray, brown, and black. Perhaps in such a place they could again make themselves whole. They had nothing. They were no one. Their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, lovers, sons, daughters, and friends had been slaughtered like animals, their homes looted and burned. The things they had had on their bodies had been taken, their hair cut, their health stolen. But suddenly this landscape had arisen from the sea. Levy had deliberately turned his ship and taken it close to Crete. His charges fell in love with the abstract air above the mountains. They were resolute. A curtain of strength fell around them. No warship was going to take them to camps on Cyprus. They would die first—willingly.
But matching the artistry of their determination was that of the British. From the depth of the encouraging mountains they peered at the Lindos Transit through a telescope twenty feet long. The great elevation and clear air enabled a strange little detachment of Welshmen to scan a hundred miles of sea. Levy had held his vessel within a few miles of the coast. The Welshmen were able to see the ships name, and the white banner with the blue Star of David flying briskly from the mainmast. All seemed normal. The passengers were still and passive as they always were. The ships were invariably in shambles, and so was the Lindos Transit. Panels were missing, pieces of metalwork hung over the sides, and the windows were a crazy orange. The sergeant in charge of the post casually reported to his headquarters that the ship was in poor condition, overloaded, making only about ten knots. There were, to the surprise of the observers, quite a few sheep on board, standing on deck crowded up near the forecastle. Paul Levy had intended to slaughter them, but a delegation from the passengers had insisted that they be left alive, even were it to mean less food. And so it was that these Italian sheep were destined for Palestine, and they passed the time dreaming of the olive groves and bare meadows where they had been born.
Katrina Perlé slept on a hatch cover, the one on which the band had played in the more carefree days farther from the point of contact with the English. It was not the most comfortable place to sleep: the vibrations of the engines worked their way up hard and steady, and very often when the wind curled or backed, the stack exhaust settled amidships. A suffocating oily smell and taste in the air, familiar to mariners, was unwelcome to the twenty or so sleepers and sprawlers on the hatch cover, for its unpleasantness and for its associations. When Katrina opened her eyes she was shocked to see bodies lying around her, and she would not sleep again until she had seen some movement confirming that they were living men and women, and that therefore she herself was alive. But the sun had been of great help, as had been the views and the air. She was always partial to light and its various manifestations, messages, and tricks, and she could not help but share in the general good will and optimism. Her pregnancy was just beginning its seventh month.
At first she had wished to do away with the child, but then, like the magnificent
rarity of a warship backing up, she reversed herself entirely and saw it as a great gift, comforting, the beginning of something better. She did not care that despite her beauty, which increased every day in the sun and air so that her hair was the color of burnished gold and her face roseate and dark, no one wanted her. It seemed not to matter. Though she believed the child’s father to be dead, she was not alone.
A full day passed, during most of which Avigdor was at the helm—a strange new passion for him, of great utility to Levy. That evening as the sea got a little rough and the clouds broke into driven archipelagos, Levy was making his final plan. They would harry the boilers all night and through the following day when they would some time hit the coast. He knew that the radars on Mt. Carmel and on the destroyers could track him at night, but that in darkness no action could be taken short of blasting them from the water—something which caused him to be sure that they entered territorial waters during daylight. Besides, a night landing would be difficult for his passengers, too many of whom were old and sick. Everyone knew his station and job. The weather was off just enough to set them properly on edge. Levy wore his pistol almost ceremoniously, for he could not imagine how it might help. As the clouds passed, they called to mind all the geography of the wide world as he had always known and loved it. That night the ship made fourteen knots—the swan song of the old boilers.
It was a difficult night. The cabins and hold were silent and dark, but many in them were awake listening to the waves and the engines. Those who slept on deck looked up past the cables and shrouds and watched the smoke trail to stern past an array of mountain-flower stars. It was moist and uncomfortable. Even those who knew each other well did not speak. They just looked at the sky, toward the dark crashing and hissing which was the sea, and at themselves—rolled up in as many blankets as they could get, cold, sunburnt, thin, strong, and uniformly young even though they were of many ages and the young themselves were not youthful. This was something entirely different.
They had their own warship and were determined to fight and die. Curiously, they were in no way frightened, and looked forward with great anticipation to the battle. The unlimited expanse of the sea, the air, the nights, the military order in which Levy worked them (sensible, precise, and rigorous), and the sun rising to illuminate those upward-reaching mountains in Crete, had enabled them to throw over for a time the camps, the wire, the railheads, the minor indignities, the boxcars, the death, and the darkness. They were alive on a ship in the sea and they would arise in strength as if from myth. Death was familiar; they had already crossed over those lines, something the young sailors who would oppose them could not even imagine. A ship of the living dead—breathing, animate, and warm—was going to be quite a surprise for those who were simply manipulators of steel, engineers and analysts who could not delight in dying.
12
DAWN BROKE swift and hot. They were twelve miles from the Palestine coast and in the distance the Carmel Range appeared, a thin purple line dark in shadow. The immigrants imagined with a sense of mystery how on that thin dark line Jews were arising to the normal tasks of farming, factory, and fight. They imagined the cows being milked, the chickens scattering like idiots in the face of golden feed, the soft earth beneath barn doors, the dawn shadows, and the cry of the birds. The distant strip had so much import that they stood on deck mute and still. What moved them was not so much the legend and that they were at last coming home, but rather a simple vision of the sun coming up there on the beginnings of another days work, morning light coming through windows in a warm and beautiful land.
At first light, Levy saw two British destroyers heading for him in perfect symmetry. He calculated their distance and speed, went to the microphone, and called general quarters. From his flying bridge he saw that the response could not have been better. In the time it took him to take off his leather jacket, tuck his shirt into his pants, adjust his pistol belt and ammunition clips, and put his jacket on again, they were completely at the ready. But completely at the ready meant that lines of laundry suddenly were strung across the decks, babies began to receive very long and luxurious open-air baths, and everyone ate with great ceremony and deliberation. They waited as the two destroyers, then in bright sunlight, approached and veered out to the north and south so that they could execute wide turns and come about parallel to the Lindos Transit and its course.
This they did, looking fast and beautiful. Avigdor was at the helm; Levy studied his adversaries through the ship’s glass. They were twin ships (always a pleasure) of the S-class. Despite their efficiency and impressiveness they were no mystery to him. He knew them well and had been aboard. Completed at the end of the war, they were modern and extravagantly equipped. They had six boilers which collectively could bring up 40,000 shaft-horsepower. This in turn could propel the ship at 30 knots or more. There were four 115 mm. guns and (more to the point) half a dozen 40 mm.’s and numerous mounted machine guns. These ships had a complement of 250 men, and Levy assumed that they were outfitted with ingenious boarding equipment. An appropriate scan revealed about a hundred marines on the decks of each ship; gangways; hoses; and nets ready to swing. The marines were fully regaled in tropical battledress. Pan helmets, pistols, rifles, submachine guns, clubs, shields, boarding pikes, and battering rams cluttered the decks. The soldiers were smoking, talking, drinking from white mugs. They were calm, and must have subdued some tough ships to get that way.
Levy was happy at the sight of two trim new British ships. He tried not to be, but instinctively he felt reassured. How often had American and British ships ridden the ocean together in preparation for a fight. For a second or two he thought of surrendering to the nearby English-speaking, young, war-bred officers like himself. But when he remembered why he was in the Mediterranean, and that he could easily die at the hands of the Royal Navy, its blue beauty disappeared from his eyes and he returned to the boat of Jews.
By the time Shackleton and Stanford closed, running about 200 feet off both sides of the Lindos Transit, the group was nine miles from the coast. Timing was most important. Levy was hoping that they would not attempt to board before the three-mile limit. This would prevent many casualties. But he had heard that the British began their actions on the high seas, according to the premise that illegal blockade runners were outside the law and deserved to be treated in like fashion. The British were lords of that part of the Mediterranean anyway and could do what they wished, and they had had some outstanding failures when, like gentlemen, they had waited for the three-mile limit. Suddenly the dilapidated immigration ships could seem like speedboats and the docile Jews like polecats.
At eight and a half miles, Levy could see Shackletoris captain observing him through a mounted telescope. He smiled and gave a little salute. When the reconnaissance was complete, Keslake was the first to speak. His voice was powerfully amplified and it echoed off water and steel in a particularly cold-sounding series of blows: “This is Captain Keslake of H.M.S. Shackleton. State your nationality and destination.” Silence followed as precious seconds went by. Keslake again clicked on his microphone. “I would appreciate your statement, and advise you to comply.” Still they did not answer. Keslake glanced at the coast upon which the small group of ships was closing. “One final request from me,” he said, “is all you will get. I ask you for the third and last time to state your nationality and destination.”
Levy replied in a deliberately irritating backwoods drawl: “I’m from Virginia ... I’m going over there ... yonder.” The marines laughed and waited for their captain’s reply.
“Very well for you,” said Keslake. “You are a Virginian ship heading yonder. It is illegal to go yonder. Stop your engines and stand by to receive a tow cable.”
“First of all,” answered Levy, changing his tone to one of challenging argumentation to gain time by forcing Keslake to a lengthy response, “I’m from Virginia, but the ship isn’t. It is in fact of Italian registry, but it is foremost a Jewish ship. I would like to
advise you, Captain, and your crew, that you are approaching Jewish territorial waters, and are subject to arrest at my discretion. Turn your ships around, and go back to Britain.” Then Levy motioned for one of his sailors to run up a string of signal flags. They read: annuit coeptis.
Keslake smiled, trying to remember his Latin; he couldn’t. All eyes were on the signal flags. Keslake turned to the junior officers on the bridge. “Does anyone remember his Latin?”
“Something about beginnings, sir,” said a navigation officer.
“Well, damn them, it looks like we’ll have to go aboard. We haven’t that much time to waste it on Latin mottoes. Where do they get these captains? Next thing you know, they’ll be challenging us to duels and spelling bees. Prepare to board.” The claxon sounded.
Immediately Levy commanded stations ready. Laundry and washtubs were tumbled overboard, babies withdrawn, and the barbwire barricades winched to their protective positions. By this time the coast was only seven miles distant: the Carmel Range rose alluringly. It was Levy’s plan to put his defenses in view or in operation not simultaneously, but as they were needed. In that way the British would never know what was next and would be forced to consider their own dispositions and responses at each juncture, allowing the coast to draw ever closer.
The marine major ordered up the wire-cutters. By the time the cutters were distributed and Shackleton drew closer, with Stanford in reserve, they were six and one half miles from the coast. Levy ordered up his final burst of steam. The destroyers adjusted their speeds. More time was gained. When Shackleton was about fifty feet from the Lindos Transit, Levy sent his main battle force on deck.