Judith

by Lawrence Durrell

  But if he seemed disposed to take the news humorously, the Commander did not. Lawton walked up and down with a black scowl on his face.

  “This time,” he said grimly to his junior, “I will really send a scorcher to Naval Command. You can start drafting it in your mind.” Carstairs grinned irreverently and said: “Very good, Sir. Would you prefer prose or verse?”

  “Don’t fool, John,” said Lawton sternly.

  “Or perhaps in limerick form,” said the young man thoughtfully.

  But Lawton had already turned on his heel and was striding away towards his jeep. Carstairs followed him at a slower pace, murmuring:

  “There once was a Naval O.C.

  Who was rather afraid of the sea...

  He was interrupted by a shout: “John,” and he immediately dropped his lackadaisical air, and hurried to Lawton’s side, to gaze down with him at the map of the west coast. Lawton’s pipe stem was already following the sinuous curves of the coast road. It came to rest tapping upon the name “Rasmir”.

  “I think we could do this in twenty minutes. We may not be too late yet, in spite of the bloody Navy.”

  He gave a quiet order which Carstairs transmitted instantly down the long line of vehicles, and with almost magical speed they pulled out from the orange grove and started racing along the road towards Rasmir.

  Lawton’s gloom and depression were in contrast to the light-hearted irreverence of his second-in-command:

  “Why so pensive, mon général,” Carstairs asked: “why so downcast? This time the Navy is so plainly at fault... The army has not smirched its escutcheon on this job.”

  “I’m tired,” said Lawton in a dry, weary voice. “I thought this was going to be quite a different sort of job. I did not think that I’d see regular troops-of-the-line used like policemen, simply because the Government is too mean to pay enough coppers. Moreover, it’s going to get worse, you’ll see, much worse.”

  Carstairs produced some toffees from his pocket. “Have a gob-stopper,” he said. Lawton refused his kindly offer, but the driver of the jeep, as a junior N.C.O., was in no position to disobey orders when Carstairs forced one into his mouth as he drove.

  “Thank you, Sir,” he said indistinctly.

  “Don’t mention it,” said Carstairs. “And don’t let me hear you use the word ‘underprivileged’ again. The gob-stopper is a symbol of brotherhood.”

  “Yes, Sir,” said the driver seriously. Carstairs pursued the matter further as they drove.

  “They may not believe this down in the Sergeants’ Mess,” he said.

  “No, Sir.”

  “Nevertheless, it is true.”

  “Very good, Sir.”

  They drove on happily sucking their sweets while, in the back of the jeep, the scowling Lawton brooded on the iniquities of the Navy. They swept down to the dunes where the landing had taken place and the familiar operation was signalled. Troops fanned out and scattered, while Lawton and Carstairs ran and scrambled towards the nearest high point on the dunes, from which they might train their binoculars on the country round about. Carstairs groaned.

  “Too late, by God! Too late!” he cried theatrically. “But have a look down there on the beach, Sir!”

  Lawton turned his gaze on the tell-tale marks of the illegal landing. Footprints led in all directions, and here and there were piles of personal belongings dropped in the confusion of the moment. An old sweater — bits of cardboard — a woman’s shoe — a toy — a many-coloured scarf — soiled bandages — broken biscuits. But it was not only the beach that presented this picture of frantic disorder. A cluster of Carley floats and boats minus their floatings bobbed aimlessly in the shadows, some knocking against the rocks of a narrow spit.

  “Hallo,” said Carstairs suddenly: “What’s that?” as he made off down the hill towards the rocks. “That” turned out to be a vulture which took off with a throaty chuckle as the young officer approached. As he came to the outcrop of rock, Carstairs saw the object of the bird’s attentions — namely, a body which floated face downwards. The tell-tale prayer shawl round the shoulders spread out like white wings. Nearby floated the skull-cap. Carstairs turned and shouted sharply: “Sergeant — Sergeant Francis... before dashing into the water himself to drag the body ashore.

  Lawton, by this time, was making a methodical survey of the surrounding terrain with his binoculars. Suddenly, one of the men on the dunes called out to him: “Over there, Sir,” pointing towards the west, and Lawton turned his glasses on an olive grove about a mile and a half away, from which the last immigrant convoy was setting forth. He ground his teeth with impotent fury, realizing how narrowly they had missed intercepting them, and was about to give orders for a detachment to comb the slopes at which he was gazing, when, as if by a miracle, a piece of vital information came his way.

  Into the range of his binoculars, strayed a man and a woman whose gestures and stance carried a hint of vague familiarity. He held his breath in order to steady the glasses, for, at this extreme range, his very pulsebeats disturbed the field and gave a hazy dancing vibration to the distant figures. Then, for one long second, he succeeded in attaining the desired stillness of wrist, and the faces of Aaron and Peterson printed themselves on his vision.

  “It can’t be,” he muttered to himself. And then, lowering his glasses, he was suddenly sure. “It is, it’s them!”

  All of a sudden he was a man transformed: he shouted to Carstairs, who was busy loading the corpse into a three-tonner, and his face was radiant.

  “John,” he cried. “They’re heading for Ras Shamir!” Then, taking a whistle from his pocket, he blew two short blasts on it as a signal to the dispersed troopers to reform. By now the sun was warm on their shoulders as the convoy began to race back, retracing its steps in the direction of the kibbutz. The slow plume of dust ahead of them on the road only confirmed in Lawton’s mind the suspicion that Ras Shamir would be hiding some, if not all, of the guilty immigrants. He obtained full confirmation of this when they reached the head of the pass and halted for a minute to allow him to get down and to have a further look with his binoculars. Ras Shamir was seething with activity like an ants’ nest. Lorries were swerving into the perimeter and disgorging groups of figures which began to run and stumble in different directions.

  Lawton’s face grew tense and grim as he watched.

  “Oh, dear,” said the second-in-command, who was also interpreting the same scene through his glasses. “It looks as if we’ll have to unstitch Ras Shamir once again.”

  The two men groaned in unison as they climbed back into the command jeep, and Carstairs pursued his melancholy reflections as they swept down the hill.

  “It may interest you to know, Sir, that when I joined the army to fight Hitler, I felt sure that I’d be loved and wanted by the Jews forever after. All this has been a horrible shock to my nervous system.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Lawton furiously and his junior subsided into chastened silence, and contented himself by slowly selecting another sweet from the apparently endless supply in his pocket.

  As they neared the kibbutz, taking the long straight road across the valley, they came upon the human roadblock which had been set up a hundred yards or so from the entry to the settlement to delay them until the immigrants were adequately dispersed and hidden by the inhabitants. Sixty or seventy elderly men, women of all ages and older children in rows five deep had taken up their position across the road, linking their folded arms in the fashion of police trying to contain a crowd. Their faces were bitter and determined. They did not flinch as the convoy moved down upon them, and as the jeep drew to a halt, almost touching the thighs of a bearded farmer, Lawton jumped out with Carstairs and scanned them with a coolly professional eye, looking for someone who might be spokesman for the kibbutzniks and with whom he might parley. As the troops debussed and formed up in ditches on either side of the road, ready to advance, there was a dead silence, ominous and heavy. As Lawton walked up and down the row of
dramatic faces, it seemed as if he were inspecting a guard of honour. They regarded him curiously as he walked, apparently in deep thought, and the initial tension of their anger, since it had not been put to the test of battle, began to slacken, to become tinged with curiosity. The oppressive heavy silence continued, seeming immense and pregnant. Nobody moved, nobody stirred.

  Lawton finished his quiet walk, up and down, and at last came to a familiar face standing in the middle of the front row. He walked up very close to Aaron, and the two men stood staring at each other. The one face set in an expression of grim insolence, the other hard, determined and yet at the same time with a hint of reserve.

  “Stein,” said Lawton at last. “I don’t have to explain to you what we are doing here. It is rather for you to explain what all this means.”

  Aaron remained silent.

  “It would seem from this demonstration that there is something to hide at Ras Shamir, something that you are afraid we will find out. As I saw you not long ago on the seacoast near Haifa, I can presume that it has something to do with illegal immigrants. Am I right?”

  A chorus of gruff “No’s” greeted him. Lawton said:

  “I am sorry not to be able to believe you. You must let us through.”

  Instantly the whole line of faces kindled with resentment and determination. Lawton looked at them for a moment, then turned on his heel and walked back toward the first lorry in his convoy, calling:

  “Sergeant Gregory, forward please.”

  As if to a pre-arranged plan, a stretcher borne by two soldiers came forward. On it they had laid the dead man plucked from the sea an hour before. In almost ritualistic fashion, Lawton and Carstairs formed up, one on either side of the body, and walked towards the roadblock, slowly, pensively almost. They set the stretcher down at Aaron’s feet and Lawton said:

  “You have five minutes to let us through, we don’t wish to use force.”

  The diversion had, however, broken the psychological tension as well as the actual line. Aaron came forward and knelt on one knee to examine the face of the corpse. Others followed suit. And it was now that Lawton was able to give the signal to his troops to advance. There was no resistance. In fact, both parties mingled now as they walked in open order towards the kibbutz perimeter, the British officers leading the way, the stretcher with the dead man on it being carried by his compatriots. Something of this changed atmosphere was visible also inside the perimeter, where the sight of the dead rabbi aroused the concern, pity and sadness of the women and children. Now Lawton took over.

  His troops obeyed orders with a proficiency born of habit. The perimeter of the camp was picketed, and Aaron was told to assemble all the inhabitants in the car park. Meanwhile, the two ponderous and methodical sergeants set up trestle tables and chairs in the open air, at which they dispersed themselves as if for a court martial. Lawton sat in the centre with the two sergeants on his right and Carstairs on his left. But if the inhabitants of the kibbutz showed a sullen indignation, the children showed no fear of them. They raced in and out of the crowd, teasing the troops. Carstairs made a somewhat ineffectual gesture of friendship towards them by offering them a sweet, but the child that reached forward her hand to take it was suddenly snatched away by her father.

  “Just as I thought,” he said to Lawton. “The natives are somewhat hostile.” Sergeant Francis, a grizzled father of six, cocked a disapproving eye in the direction of the children and said:

  “It’s dumb insolence, Sir, that’s what it is.”

  Lawton looked around him with distaste and weariness, fully aware that this interrogation was only a sort of charade, and that unless the troops actually uncovered something of importance, such as arms, there would be no justification in civil law for penalizing the kibbutzniks. Nevertheless it had to be done.

  “Check identities,” he said shortly, and his troops moved the Israelis one by one to the trestle tables with their papers to identify them. Meanwhile, the two officers contented themselves with a cursory glimpse at the cards and a routine question (“Who are you?”) which elicited a routine answer (“Ben Israeli” — son of Israel). This tiresome interrogation held no novelty for them and Carstairs, still sucking sweets, gazed with a sardonic indifference at the date of entry column on the card. He was not above trying a trick or two during the interrogation, at least in cases where obviously he was facing a very recent newcomer. He was not, for example, past asking what the mountain opposite the camp was called, and it was not everyone who could tell that it was Mount Tabor.

  Meanwhile, the less agreeable task of house-to-house searching was going forward, also without result. There were a few anxious moments in the cellar, where the entrance to the secret armoury was almost discovered by a private, anxious to see whether the line of casks against the wall were empty or full. But here the native wit of a lance-corporal saved the day inadvertently.

  “You only have to tap them,” he said, “to know if they are full or empty.” And so, in order to find out, they contented themselves with tapping on the casks and listening to the hollow empty sound they made.

  One by one, the sergeants and their platoons drifted back to the officers with nothing to report, and still the long line of faces in front of the table under the weary eyes of Lawton continued.

  Bill Ogilvie opened the door of a wooden barrack which was half hidden by leaning farm implements. Two privates waited for him outside. He entered the shack and, opening a second door, came upon a small group of about ten people ranging from the very old to the young. The atrocities of the concentration camp had left a marked imprint on all their features, as if all age, sex and individual differences had suddenly been melted into one unique mask — like a silent gathering of ghosts still hovering over a fresh memory of indescribable horrors.

  Sergeant Ogilvie gazed at them in a long silence, then, turning his back and going outside, told the two soldiers that there was no need for a closer inspection, they could go on to the next hut.

  A little boy sneaked up under the table to play with Lawton’s gaiters and pulled at his polished stick.

  Lawton bent down to see the child grinning at him and, without being asked, the boy challengingly shouted the ritual words: “Ben Israeli.”

  At last Aaron, too, stood before him with an expression of insolent triumph on his face. Lawton tapped on the table with his pencil and looked curiously, almost pensively, at him.

  “Stein,” he said. “There are at least eight identity cards which look suspicious. I don’t want to use a ruder word, but I have taken the names of the people involved and I’ll have them checked on.”

  Aaron’s expression showed clearly that he recognized this as a bluff.

  “By all means,” he said. “You are only obeying orders, after all.”

  Lawton added a trifle more grimly: “And if they prove to be faked, they will have to be deported to Cyprus. I’m telling you this because I know you are on the Central Committee. I hope you will repeat it to them.”

  “May I have a list of the names?” said Aaron.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Lawton. “It’s confidential. You may go, Stein.”

  Aaron walked back to the crowd, muttering: “Trying to get us worried.”

  And now it was the turn of Grete. The four pairs of blue eyes regarded her with a certain diffident admiration. Her blonde beauty of face and feature was striking in the surrounding darkness. The coloured kerchief around her head only set off to advantage the slender magnificence of her profile and the luminous beauty of her eyes. Sergeant Francis could have kicked himself for discovering that her identity card was so obviously a fake. Her own picture had been glued over that of some previous owner, and it had worked its way loose. He lifted the corner with his fingernail, where the glue had become unstuck, to reveal a passport picture of a bearded youth. He swallowed audibly and said to Lawton:

  “You had better look at this, Sir.”

  Lawton looked at the girl for a moment, leaving the documen
t on the desk before him.

  “Name?” he asked. And she told him her name in a pleasant low voice. “Grete Schiller.” For some reason, her composure irritated him, and it was with a curl of his lip, almost a sneer, that he said:

  “There’s no need to ask you a routine question. It is obvious you’re Ben Israeli too.”

  Her retort came instantly: “As a matter of fact, I’m not. I’m an illegal immigrant. My paper is forged. And if it’s so obvious why are you wasting my time?”

  This sudden and unexpected deviation from normal routine caused astonishment and dismay; astonishment on the faces of the British interrogators, and dismay on the faces of her compatriots.

  “Has she gone mad?” said Aaron in a loud whisper to Sholem.

  Carstairs stopped sucking his sweet, and repressed a chuckle. He scratched his nose and looked sideways at Lawton, whose discomfiture was obvious.

  The Major ground his teeth and said: “I’m doing my duty, and as for you, young lady, you had better be more careful in what you have to tell me, or else... I could have you deported to Cyprus, you know.”

  “I’m not afraid of this petty bullying,” she said scornfully. “We are all completely in your power. And you talk of duty and how much longer is this idiotic interrogation going to last. You’ve paralyzed the life of the camp, the children haven’t been fed, we are short of running water and all we hear about is your duty. Duty is all very well, but what about conscience?”

  “Conscience?” said Lawton, setting his jaw grimly and out-staring her. “I wonder how many of you would be here if we had no conscience!”

  She stared furiously at him but did not speak. Lawton took up the identity card, glanced at the photograph and handed it back to her. “You may go,” he said coldly and, in the same breath, curtly gave the order to terminate the operation. Then he called over his shoulder to Grete.

  “Miss Schiller,” he said, “I think you look much nicer in the beard,” and, turning on his heel, strode out through the perimeter to the waiting jeep.