“Yes, and some of it I know about. For instance the way you have been condemning my people to death by refusing to grant them sanctuary from Nazi persecution—”
“Be quiet and listen, Mr. Kol,” the colonel said patiently. “I have not come here to debate my country’s immigration policies with you.”
“Why are you here?”
“Get some respect,” the captain warned.
“What if I don’t?” Herschel laughed. “What can you do to me that hasn’t already been done? Now then, Colonel Richards. You’ve said you want my help. How so?”
“Several weeks ago we suffered a bad setback in Iraq,” Richards began. “Our treaty afforded Britain two air bases and the right to transport troops across Iraqi territory. In exchange Iraq was granted independence. At our request the League of Nations terminated our mandate to rule—”
“The Anglo-Iraqi Treaty was ratified over a decade ago,” Herschel said.
“A treaty is a treaty,” the captain exclaimed.
“I’m amused,” Herschel smiled, “at how the British have so little understanding of Arabs when they profess to have such an affinity for them.” He glanced at the captain. “Was that respectful enough for you?”
“Mr. Kol, we are well aware that you are finding this interview as distasteful as we are, so let’s get on with it,” Richards said. “There has been an Iraqi coup d’ etat. We thought we had a strong pro-British government in place, but a bloke named Rashid Ali, backed by some nationalist fanatic types, ousted our people.”
“Rashid says he’ll hold to the 1930 treaty, but we know he’s in Hitler’s pocket,” the captain added. “When the time is right Nazi military assistance will flow into Iraq via the Vichy forces holding Syria. The mufti’s holy war against Britain will—”
“Just what the Prussians promised the Turks in World War One,” Herschel mused. “‘Side with us,’ they coaxed the Ottoman Empire, ‘and we will give you back your former glory.’”
“Yes, I suppose,” Colonel Richards agreed absently. “In any event, Rashid Ali would dearly like us to recognize his government. Accordingly, he’s allowing us to land our troops, but the Germans are at him. Yesterday Rashid informed our ambassador that from now on there would be a quota—only so many British troops in for so many leaving Iraq—something strike you funny, Mr. Kol?”
“It is satisfying to see Britain chafing under a foreign nation’s immigration policies,” Herschel smiled. “What was your government’s reply?”
“That we will decide how many troops will land and Rashid had best keep his nose out of it. That is where things stand. We believe Hitler will soon officially endorse Rashid’s government—that is something we cannot do, of course. Rashid will most likely put his facilities at the Nazis’ disposal, the most important of which at the moment are the oil installations near Baghdad.”
“I still don’t understand what you want me to do.”
Colonel Richards smiled coldly. “Only what you do best, Mr. Kol. That is, blow up those oil installations before the Germans can make use of them. You’re rather keen on blowing up things Arab, aren’t you?”
Herschel stared at the two officers and burst out laughing. “Surely there are British soldiers who far surpass me in grenade-hurling ability.”
“It would be—embarrassing—if Englishmen were caught destroying Iraqi property,” the captain said stiffly. “There’s the treaty, of course.”
“Of course,” Herschel crowed. “None of your Arab allies would undertake such a thing, so who else can you send but Jews?”
“Not just any Jews,” Colonel Richards said. “We’ve already recruited a few of your lrgun associates. We’ve released them from various prisons and detention camps and have grouped the team at our RAF base at Habbaniyah, approximately fifty miles west of Baghdad. The plan is for the team to pose as Arabs. Like you, the rest have received lrgun terrorist training—”
“You mean military training.”
“Commando training then.”
“Colonel, look at me,” Herschel commanded. “I have blond hair and blue eyes. I had limited success pretending to be British, but I would have none at all playing an Arab.”
“Now, now, Mr. Kol. Fair coloring never stopped your father,” the captain put in, tapping one of his folders. “We know all about Haim Kolesnikoff’s exploits on behalf of the Allies during the First World War. If your father could pass as a Bedouin, we see no reason why you—”
“Don’t tell me about my father,” Herschel snapped. “What happens to me if I agree to join your team?”
“Assuming the Iraqis don’t kill you, you will be amnestied.”
“I go free?”
The colonel hedged. “We’ll see about getting your sentence reduced.”
“Amnestied means go free.”
Colonel Richards shrugged. “A lot would depend upon your willingness to perform other missions for the Allies.”
“Consider the altenative,” the captain said. “We say good-bye to you and you remain here for—” he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “For twenty-three years and three months, give or take a few days.”
“Tell me one thing,” Herschel asked. “You have gone to a great deal of trouble to persuade me. Why? Any number of imprisoned lrgun members could do it.”
“Quite right, Mr. Kol.” Richards nodded. “But the so-called commander in chief of your lrgun, David Raziel, specifically requested your participation. Raziel is leading the team, you see—”
“I’ll do it.”
At dawn the next day Herschel was flown under guard to the RAF base on Lake Habbaniyah, which itself was just a few miles from the Euphrates River. From the air the base looked more like an English resort than a military outpost. Herschel saw a polo ground, a swimming pool, cricket and football fields and rows of neat bungalows with red tile roofs and garden plots. There was also a large white villa. Herschel was informed by his guards that it was the residence of Vice Marshal Smart, air officer commanding in Iraq.
Habbaniyah looked like a resort, but one that had fallen on hard times. Due to the confrontation between the British and Rashid Ali’s nationalist-backed government, British dependents had been evacuated from Baghdad, with hundreds taking refuge at the base. Iraqi forces had established positions on a high plateau a scant half-mile south of the base. There were Iraqi armored cars within sight of the air strips.
It was time for Habbaniyah flight school to become a combat-ready unit. Air Vice Marshal Smart had eighty planes, more than the Iraqi air force did, although the planes themselves—ancient Gladiators and worn-out Audax and Oxford trainers—were far from battleworthy.
Besides, there were no experienced pilots to fly them. Almost all the pilots were students, and the instructors were too rare and precious to send into combat.
As Herschel’s transport plane taxied to a halt he spied a pair of rusted World War One field guns and several antiquated armored cars. This was the extent of Habbaniyah’s heavy ground defense. Out on the golf course the greens were trampled and volunteers fumbled their way through hastily improvised rifle drills.
Herschel’s guards escorted him to the white villa, which they called Air House. There, amid fine furniture and exquisite Persian rugs, Herschel was greeted by Major Thomas Lemon, the officer in charge of the raid. Lemon had thinning dark hair and watery blue eyes. He was in his forties and stocky in a soft sort of way. He had a potbelly and wore his revolver high on his right hip in deference to it.
“Glad to have you with us, Kol,” Major Lemon began, then paused to sneeze. He took a balled-up handkerchief from his trousers pocket and dabbed at his weepy eyes. “Blasted oleanders,” He muttered. “Come along then.”
“Where is Raziel?”
“I’m taking you to him,” Lemon managed before the next sneeze. Herschel was seized with anticipation as Lemon and the guards led him from the villa to a waiting car.
David Raziel, with the poet-warrior Abraham Stern, had guided the Irgun after i
ts split from Haganah. Both men were imprisoned in 1939. Raziel had been released from Latrun Detention Camp in exchange for his willingness to cooperate with the British against the Axis powers.
Herschel had never met Raziel. As the car drove past a church and a cinema, dark since Habbaniyah’s siege began, he remembered how Frieda used to talk about Raziel, how jealous Herschel once felt. That was all long ago, or so it seemed to Herschel, despite the way he missed his lost love.
The car pulled up in front of a barracks flanked by two more old armored cars and by a squad of British regulars on guard duty. Herschel noticed bars on the barracks windows and the heavy-duty hasp and padlock on the outside of the door.
“This will be your home for the time being,” Major Lemon said, sniffling. He did not get out of the car.
Herschel’s guards removed his handcuffs and then escorted him to the entrance, where the door guards lightly frisked him.
“Just routine,” the sergeant-major in charge told the insulted guards who had gotten Herschel this far. “You’re my responsibility now, Kol,” the noncom went on. “My name’s Foster. We’ll get along fine. Don’t you worry.”
Foster opened the door for Herschel, who stepped inside and saw three men lounging on canvas cots. One stood up and approached Herschel, his hands outstretched in welcome. He was a swarthy man with thick black hair, wide-set eyes and a broad, fleshy nose.
“I have been looking forward to meeting you,” the man said in Hebrew. “I am David Raziel.” He paused as the door slammed shut and the padlock was fitted into place. Raziel grinned. “Welcome to the kennel, Herschel Kol.”
The mission, it turned out, was delayed in the hopes that some peaceful way could be found out of the deadlock between the British and Iraqi governments. However, compromise became extremely unlikely when Air Officer Smart sent his squadron of trainer aircraft fitted with makeshift bomb racks to attack the Iraqi positions overlooking the base.
The Iraqis responded with antiaircraft and artillery fire. One British plane was shot down and the base itself was pounded. The Iraqi shells fell for a week. Herschel and the others spent their days digging trenches and hauling aircraft as far as possible from artillery range.
They received a daily briefing from Major Lemon on their mission, which was indefinitely postponed. They received no training and would receive none, the major told them. Weapons practice was out of the question. They would be supplied and armed just before departure. Guards with submachine guns watched them all day, and at night they were locked into the kennel.
It was just like prison to Herschel, except that in prison nobody had been trying to kill him. Habbaniyah had undergone periodic air attacks since Hitler recognized Rashid Ali’s government, and now the tired Iraqi Gladiators were being replaced by sleek, lethal Messerschmitts. The planes carried Iraqi insignia, but from the way they were flown it was painfully obvious that experienced Luftwaffe pilots were at the controls. The twin-engine ME-110 fighter bombers came infrequently to Habbaniyah in an almost desultory fashion, but when they did come they chewed the base to pieces.
“This is the proof. To the British we are merely useful animals,” Raziel fumed one night during an air attack.
He, Herschel and the others—a Pole and a pair of dusky-skinned Sephardim chosen by the British because they spoke Iraqi—were huddled inside the kennel. It was torture to be locked inside the flimsy building while all around them bombs exploded and incendiary machine-gun fire set similar structures ablaze.
“We are just like their guard dogs,” Raziel was muttering, “like the Alsatians that patrol the fence. We are kept chained until it is time for us to be turned loose to bite somebody, and then back on come the chains—”
The rest was lost in a nearby explosion. Herschel snuffed out their one candle as the blackout curtains were jarred loose from the window moldings. They sat in the dark, listening to the whine of the planes swooping over the base in the night, and told each other that with any luck this would be their last such attack.
The silver lining was that Command had been jarred into putting their mission back on rails. They would be starting out any day now, according to Major Lemon’s latest briefing.
Since Herschel had the best English of the team, he would accompany Raziel to the villa tomorrow morning for an intelligence report on the oilfield’s defenses. They would also receive their maps.
Raziel guessed they woud depart tomorrow night.
It was a few hours before dawn. The air attack had ended and only Raziel and Herschel remained awake. At Raziel’s request Herschel explained how he came to be an lrgun member. Without meaning to he found himself talking about his father and growing up at Degania, about those heavenly first years living in Jerusalem with his mother and then his brief, intense affair with Frieda Litvinoff.
He spoke intensely and sincerely of all of his passions and his grief over Frieda’s death.
Raziel listened intently. He was deeply interested in Herschel; he was interested in all his men as commander in chief, but the cream of the crop of Palestinian manhood merited special attention.
Raziel said as much. Whatever path had led Herschel Kol to the lrgun was a path Raziel wanted to know about.
Finally Herschel was finished talking. His throat dry, he stared at Raziel.
“What?” the lrgun commander coaxed.
“I don’t know how to ask. I don’t want to appear disrespectful, but—” Herschel shrugged. “We could be dead a couple of days from now.”
“See how things improve?” Raziel chuckled. “A little while ago we might have been dead last night. Come, Herschel, I have no secrets from a fellow fighter. Ask me.”
Herschel nodded and nervously cleared his throat. “When the British came for me at the prison, I was ready to go back to solitary rather than help them. Then they said you were involved, and that settled it for me, and here I am.”
“I am flattered,” Raziel said dryly.
“No you’re not. You don’t respect my decision, and frankly, neither do I. What I want to know is why you’re here. It’s been years since you made your truce with the British, and still they keep you locked up, guarded all the time, like—”
“Like their patrol dogs.”
“Yes. That they cannot trust Jews is obvious, but why do you help them? Merely because the Germans are worse enemies?”
“That they are against the Nazis is a good reason. Chasing the British out of Palestine will not bring about a Jewish homeland if it is the Nazis who do the chasing.” Raziel paused. “But I have a more personal reason for helping the British despite the way they treat me. I simply don’t want to hate.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The lrgun Z’vai Leumi was not formed out of hatred but because of a difference of opinion with the Zionist Socialists.”
“That I understand.”
“Do you understand why Abraham Stern is not here with us?”
Herschel swallowed hard. “You’ve read my mind. In prison I thought to desert the lrgun and join the Stern group.”
Raziel nodded. “Every man must follow his own conscience. I declared a truce, while Stern declared war. I will not judge my old comrade’s actions.” He pondered Herschel for a moment. “Do you remember when you were defending Degania in ’29, how the Arabs attacked impulsively, lacking all strategy; mere mobs?”
Herschel grinned. “They were easy to defeat.”
“They were—and are—like that because they believe the glory of battle is diminished by too much preparation. Concerning oneself with mundane details is an aspect of ordinary life, not of warfare. To the Arabs fighting is like lovemaking: too much prior thought makes both the will and the ability vanish.”
“That is why we will ultimately win.”
“Win the war, but at what cost?”
“Lives will be lost.”
“Lives, yes, but souls as well?”
“I don’t understand.”
Raziel sighed. “I s
ee that you don’t. Be comforted. Stem does not understand either. This is the reason I asked the British to recruit you. There was much publicity surrounding your case. Imagine, the grandson of the renowned Erich Glaser, a terrorist. I was curious about you and wondered what conclusions you had come to concerning the struggle for a homeland.”
“I’d like to know your conclusions.” Herschel began to feel uneasy. He wanted—needed—Raziel’s strength and certainty, just as he had once needed Frieda Litvinoff’s.
“Mine, eh? Very well.” Raziel shrugged. “I’ve come to believe that the very qualities that make the Arabs weak will ultimately allow them to prevail. They do not brood the way Jews do. They somehow remain lighthearted and pure while we grow bitter and spiritually stunted as we apply ourselves to the art of killing as we once might have pursued careers. I think about the combat manuals Stern and I wrote. I have seen former Yeshiva boys memorize every word the way they once might have studied the Talmud—”
“Well, they—we—have to,” Herschel argued. “Guns are what we need these days.”
“Of course you are right.”
“You don’t sound so happy about it.”
“That’s because I’ve seen Jews take delight in killing. We have always excelled as students. Now we shall advance to the head of the class in violence, and we shall see what God will have to say on the matter.”
At nine o’clock that morning Sergeant-major Foster called for them by car. He sat up front beside the driver. In the back seat Herschel and a guard flanked Raziel.
“I imagine you boys are looking forward to being off,” Foster said over his shoulder as the car pulled away from the barracks. As they sped past the villa and through the main gates, Foster told them there had been a change of plans. “The Iraqis have blown the dikes on the Euphrates. The bloody main road to Baghdad is flooded. The briefing is going to be held at the RAF Boat Club. Major Lemon thought that you two ought to get a look at the skiffs available during daylight so as to chose the one you’ll be using come nightfall.”
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