by Herman Wouk
“Yes. Of course, that’s a great secret. The sniper is the story. Now, Dayan’s English is not so good, therefore you’ll go with him to West Point once we line up a plane. It’ll be a while.”
So this was why he had been summoned, Barak thought, and for once the all-knowing Pasternak was wrong. The duck dinner might still be on, and that was a relief.
But next Ben Gurion pushed aside the tea tray, clasped his hands on the desk, and in one of his sudden shifts of mood, his face took on formidable fury. “Now then, Zev, do you know that we face civil war, and that it could break out in hours?”
Barak was used to the Old Man’s melodramatic style, yet even though forewarned, he was shocked. “What’s happening, Prime Minister, and where?” (Score one for Pasternak!)
Holding up a stubby hand, Ben Gurion said, “You’ll soon hear, I’m forming a crisis team. You’ll keep the minutes.”
“Prime Minister, forgive me. You said two weeks, and Nakhama—”
The Old Man snapped, “I know, I know what I said. This is an emergency.”
When Ben Gurion told the half-dozen officers of the crisis team about the LST, they were visibly astonished and concerned. The first to break a heavy silence was the Palmakh chief, Yigal Allon. Almost thirty, he looked younger than Barak, with his thick curly hair growing straight up like a boy’s from a rugged sunburned farmer’s face. “Prime Minister, how long has the government known about this LST?”
“I’ve been negotiating with the Irgun about it for several days. Ever since the great Mr. Begin disclosed the thing to me.” Ben Gurion took a testy tone. Allon was no great favorite of his, for the tough elite Palmakh came mainly from kibbutzim far to the left of his socialist party. “I’ve had to keep it top secret because it’s a gross violation of the truce. I thought we might try a surreptitious unloading, but they’re impossible! Terms always being changed, no way to make a deal—”
Colonel Yadin came in puffing at his pipe, his high bald forehead all wrinkled. “All right. I have the picture from army intelligence officers at the scene.”
His report was dismaying. Anchored in a cove near Netanya, the LST was already discharging great heaps of cargo, and the Irgunists who were manning the Altalena—that was what they had dubbed the landing ship—or who had come to help unload the weapons, were defying all orders by the army or the government. “But I assure you the army has sealed off the waterfront, Prime Minister. We’ve set up roadblocks, and no arms will leave that beach for now, that’s flat.” Ben Gurion nodded grim approval. Colonel Yadin went on. “However, sir, I must add that army units loyal to the Irgun have been deserting their assigned posts and heading for that beach.”
The officers looked at each other, and Palmakh chief Allon spoke up with brisk calm. “This thing has to be defused. What does the Irgun really want, Prime Minister, what are your minimum terms, and how can the gap be closed?”
Ben Gurion grated, “The ship and its cargo must be surrendered to the army, or confiscated by force. Nothing else.”
By contrast to Allon, Colonel Yadin spoke in a voice slow and grave. “And if the Irgun tries to force its way off the beach, Prime Minister?”
“Then I order you to answer fire with fire!” Ben Gurion’s fist came down hard on the desk. “There can be only one armed force in a country, and the government must control that armed force. On those two points I can’t compromise. The Irgun signed an agreement to integrate its units with the army, didn’t it? Those Irgunists leaving their posts are deserters!”
“Prime Minister,” said Barak, “the army troops on the beach may not obey orders to fire on other Jewish boys. The Irgun might well be counting on that.”
“Zev is right,” said the Palmakh chief. “That’s a possibility, a serious one.”
Ben Gurion screwed up his face angrily at Barak, then looked around with slitted eyes. “Are all you gentlemen telling me,” he growled, “that this government has no power to deal with a potential armed uprising? With civil war? That there are no soldiers in the Israel Defense Force who will obey me?”
Colonel Yadin took a leisurely pull at his pipe. “Prime Minister,” he said as he exhaled a gray cloud, “let us send Moshe Dayan to that beach.”
***
Moshe Dayan commanded the light battalion in the new armored brigade based outside Tel Aviv. It was in fact an armor battalion in name only, a raggle-taggle outfit of jeeps and half-tracks sheeted with steel plates, capable at most of hit-and-run raids, since its firepower was limited to mortars and mounted machine guns. Still, armor was a prestige word, and soldiers had vied to volunteer for “Dayan’s commandos.” Moshe Dayan had readily accepted Benny Luria, a boy from his own moshav, and in the hasty informal recruiting of the truce time, Benny had brought along Don Kishote. Benny was already a platoon leader due to his aptitude, or Dayan’s favoritism, or a bit of both.
“Guess what?” he said, returning from an orders group to their low hot tent, where Don Kishote was cleaning his rifle. “Full battle alert, preparing to move out tomorrow.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“Vitkin Village.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a seaside moshav north of Netanya.”
“Seaside? Why the seaside? Are they expecting a surprise landing by the Arabs?”
“That’s all I know.”
“You don’t know much.”
“I know what I’m told. That’s all I or you have to know.”
Next day the battalion went rattling past the moshav and halted at the steep drop to the sea. “Why look, that’s an LST,” said Don Kishote, squinting out at an enormous anchored vessel painted in camouflage colors. “I saw a hundred of those in Naples harbor. What the devil is an LST doing here?”
Their half-track overlooked the entire scene below, where a semicircle of army troops closed off the beach near the Altalena. Within that perimeter scores of nearly naked men were carrying large crates away from the LST on a wobbly pontoon bridge, while others waded ashore with the contraband on their heads. Munitions heaped on the beach were being loaded into trucks, and guarding these were Irgunists who looked no different from the army troops, but were facing them with guns at the ready.
In Benny’s walkie-talkie, recognizable crisp Dayan tones: “Battalion, advance as previously directed.”
“Here we go,” said Benny. The armored machines went winding down the escarpment. People on the beach stopped moving about, arguers fell silent, unloaders ceased their work, and all stood staring at the approaching army vehicles. “Okay, Yossi, now when we reach the beach we take station between the army and the Irgun guys, got it?”
“What are we doing, Benny, protecting our own soldiers?”
“They’re from the local brigade, the Alexandroni. We’re reenforcements.”
“But what have we got against the Irgun, anyway? Those Irgun fighters in the Jewish Quarter were good guys, I’ll tell you that.”
“Oh, it’s all politics. Very complicated.”
An open car was coming along the hard sand at the water’s edge. Benny exclaimed, “Oo-ah, now it’s getting interesting! There’s the mayor of Netanya, and look, see that small fellow in the white shirt and glasses, getting out of the car? That’s Menachem Begin.”
“That little guy? He looks like a teacher, or something.”
“Well, he’s a wild orator and fighter. Begin is the Irgun. Now the fun starts.”
The little bespectacled man in the white shirt trotted out on the pontoon bridge to board the vessel, then after a long while came back ashore for vehement arguing with the mayor and a cluster of army officers. This happened over and over. The hours dragged. On both sides the soldiers fell into relaxed postures. The sun was going down, and Kishote began to get drowsy. “This is all nonsense,” he said. “Talk, talk, talk. We’re not about to fight our own guys, Benny. You know that.”
“Look, you know Dayan. If he orders us to shoot, we shoot.”
Kishote yawned,
yawned, hunkered down, and fell asleep, his head on his knees. Gunfire woke him. He came alert like a cat, grabbed his rifle, and flung himself prone beside Benny Luria, who was flat on the ground, his eye to the gunsight of a tripod machine gun. It was almost dark. “Benny, what’s going on?”
“Can’t you hear? I don’t know who started it or how, but look sharp, it’s serious!”
Dayan’s commandos were firing as they had been drilled, from prone positions or from the armored cars. The gunfire from the beach was sporadic, but bullets were whining and whistling overhead. Walking along a slight rise, Moshe Dayan came on Kishote, standing erect with his rifle, shooting back. “Get down, you!” The black eye patch and the voice were unmistakable in the smoky gloom.
“Sir, I don’t see too well lying down,” Kishote shouted over the gunfire.
Dayan struck his shoulder. “Down, babyface!” He walked on.
Kishote dropped beside Benny Luria, who was reloading his tripod machine gun. “Say,” he bawled, “isn’t this a pretty funny way to run a country?”
“Yeah, sidesplitting,” yelled Benny.
When the engagement petered out and they ventured to sit up, they saw the LST shadowily on the move, and they could hear the heavy rattling of the anchor chain coming up.
***
Still at the Ramat Gan headquarters, Zev Barak got little sleep trying to track and record the crisis. All night long an army corvette pursued the Altalena down the coast with the two captains arguing on shortwave—in English, for both were American naval reserve officers—and Barak did his best to keep notes of their dispute, a jumble of threats and defiance in legalistic nautical jargon. Just before sunrise the Altalena headed into the Tel Aviv waterfront, only to run aground not far out from the Dan, a beach hotel, while reports began piling up of Irgun units streaming toward Tel Aviv.
Early in the morning, at a meeting of the bleary crisis team, Ben Gurion opened by castigating the chief of naval operations, a red-bearded youngster in a turtleneck sweater, for the failure of the corvette to intercept and seize the LST. Rounding on the other officers, he demanded an immediate plan for neutralizing or destroying the ship if it would not surrender.
“Prime Minister,” observed Yigal Allon, in his Palmakh tone of dry menace, “one three-inch howitzer shot will finish that LST now. It’s an eggshell, sitting out there at point-blank range, helpless.”
“An eggshell full of munitions,” Colonel Yadin said. “One shell hit can blow it sky-high and kill everybody aboard.”
Moderating his manner and voice, Ben Gurion said, “Nobody’s discussing that yet. What’s the balance of troops in Tel Aviv?”
“Highly unfavorable,” said Yadin. “It’s an Irgun town, sir, as you know, and our army units need more time to get there.”
“Zev, you’ll have to handle the foreign press.” Ben Gurion turned to Barak. “The whole world will be watching this debacle. The whole wide world! Draw up a government statement—careful, discreet, but forceful. Say the Israeli government won’t tolerate this flagrant breach of the truce. The ship is manned by dissidents and terrorists. It will be seized, the arms will be turned over to the UN, and so on—Now, gentlemen, what are your ideas?”
Barak went to a quiet cubicle and worked hard over the statement. When he brought it to Ben Gurion, the Old Man was in his small inner office, discussing the style of new army uniforms with the chief of supply and two civilians in the clothing business. Sample blouses and trousers were draped on chairs and on his desk. “None of the lapels are right,” he said, peering through his glasses at the garments. “Where is the military dash? Ah, Zev. You have the statement?”
He glanced through Barak’s scrawl, striking out some words and inserting others. “Fine, fine. Take it to the press office, get it distributed, and keep me informed.
“I don’t like the buttons, either. How much more would metal buttons cost?”
***
An early riser, St. John Robley of Reuters noticed from his window in the Dan Hotel the strange sight of an LST entering the harbor, tailed by a corvette. He hastily dressed, snatched his binoculars, and went down to the balcony restaurant facing the sea. There he ordered coffee and watched the LST halt offshore, instead of beaching and dropping the ramp. Through the glasses he could see the crew signalling to Irgun soldiers massed on the shore that the vessel had struck an obstacle and run aground.
Before long Zev Barak appeared, carrying a portfolio. “Ah, good morning, sir.”
“Well, well, good morning, Major. What’s that landing ship doing out there?”
Zev had posted Yael Luria in the lobby, with a sheaf of mimeographed statements for the correspondents; but it was like this keen Englishman to be on watch up here with binoculars. “Actually, sir,” Barak pulled a copy of the release from the portfolio, “this tells the story.”
Robley rapidly scanned the two pages. “Government handout, Major. Soft stuff. Why Altalena? What does that mean?”
“Pen name of Jabotinsky, sir, first leader of Revisionist Zionism, founder and idol of the Irgun.”
“These Irgun chaps are a peppery bunch, what?”
“They’re patriots, sir. It’ll all work out.”
The Dan restaurant crowded up with journalists, curious Israelis, and UN observers sporting blue armbands. On the stranded ship there was frantic action, while along the beach more Irgunists kept arriving, and on the embankment above them army units were building up too.
“Major Barak, you know what?” said St. John Robley, pointing out at the armed standoff. “It’s 70 A.D. again in the Holy Land. You Jews were at each other’s throats, you know, when Titus captured Jerusalem.”
A shout in several languages, “There they come!” A loaded landing craft was casting off from the LST. With its heavy cargo of crates and machine guns, and its crowd of crouching armed men, the boat’s approach was sluggish. Talk died in the restaurant. Tension shot up.
“There’s no doubt you Jews have become soldiers, Barak,” Robley went on, binoculars fixed on the incoming launch, “and that is remarkable. I wonder, though, whether you really can be trusted with guns.”
Barak was only half listening, staring out at the launch. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean guns are for war. They shouldn’t become a louder form of Talmudic dispute.”
“May I borrow your binoculars?” Barak took a long hard look at the oncoming boat. “Thank you, sir.” He handed them back and hurried from the balcony, down the hotel stairs into the locker area leading to the beach, for commanding that launch was an old friend from scouting days, Zulu Levy.
Very dark-complected, Levy had once played a cannibal with a bone in his nose in a school skit, and ever since he had been “Zulu.” Now a hotel manager, Levy was a red-hot Irgunist, close to Menachem Begin; so here was a slim chance, Barak figured, to put out this fire by trying to talk sense to Zulu, and through him to his difficult leader. It meant crossing the no-man’s-land stretch of beach between the guns of the army and the Irgun. No reason for anybody to fire on him, but there was always the trigger-happy fool. As he went slogging out of the hotel over the empty sands, he was thinking ruefully of Mickey Marcus’s fate and shouting through cupped palms, “Zulu! Zulu! It’s me, Barak! Ma nishma?” (“What’s new?”)
Levy looked around at him, smiled and waved to him to approach. “Zev! Are you coming from Ben Gurion?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Then where’s your white flag?” Raucous laughter from the men unloading the boat. His eyes wildly agleam, Levy gave Barak a rough hug. “Glad to see you! Zev, you can tell your boss there are four more shiploads of this iron waiting for us in Marseilles. Four more! The Irgun’s bringing in more and better arms than he’s been able to provide for his whole Yiddisheh-mammeh army!”
“Listen, Zulu, it won’t work. It can’t. If you peaceably surrender, this crazy mess can still be salvaged. Yigal Allon has been put in charge of this waterfront crisis, and he’s moving up
a cannon.”
“Ha, ha!” Zulu’s laugh was uncertain. “A bluff.”
“Zulu, do you know Yigal Allon?”
Levy burst out, “In God’s name, Zev, who raised the money in America for this ship? Who negotiated for those mountains of French arms? That bully Ben Gurion is demanding the impossible, he’s refused all compromises, and now—”
Words in English suddenly thundering across the water: “This is the captain of the Altalena speaking. Menachem Begin will shortly address the people of Tel Aviv and all Israel from the deck of this historic vessel…”
“There we go,” said Zulu, striking Barak lightly on the shoulder. “Listen, and then inform your fathead Prime Minister that he’s been outwitted and licked!”
***
“The cabinet meets in ten minutes.” Ben Gurion was alone in his inner office with Barak. “Give me your impressions. How bad is it down there?”
“Not good, sir. When I left, Begin was on a loudspeaker, urging everyone in Tel Aviv to help unload the arms, and more and more guns were being set up on deck.”
“Have they brought any more stuff ashore?”
“Not since that first boatload, but they were lowering several loaded launches.”
“All this, with UN observers and the press corps looking on!”
“Yes, hotel balconies jammed with UN, photographers, and newsreel cameras—”
Ben Gurion slumped deeper in his chair, resting clenched fists on the desk. “This is a mutiny, politically inspired and led. If it is not put down, it will destroy the state.” He rose. “Wait here, Zev.”
Left alone in the small bleak office, Barak stared over the paper-strewn desk at the wall, and Theodor Herzl, the Viennese father of Zionism, stared back at him—black squared wavy beard, commanding dark eyes, silent perpetual challenge, If you will it, it is no dream. Beside the portrait hung the dream, willed into fact: an inked outline of Israel on a map of Mandate Palestine, all defaced by the graffiti of war and politics; red-and-blue battle diagrams, thick green cease-fire lines of the different fronts. Weary despair forced Barak’s head down on the desk, resting on his crooked arm. Never an optimist about the precarious new Jewish State he lived in and loved, he now felt it quaking under him.
