by Howard Fast
Slowly, it came, a crinkling of her long dark eyes, a bit of moisture there, and then tears—and then long, screaming moans as she fell to the ground and lay there. Her husband picked her up in his arms, weeping even as she did, and Judas turned from them and passed through the people, who made way for him. He walked through them, his head bowed, his hands hanging by his sides.
***
And two things happened: my brother, Eleazar, married, and word came from Jerusalem that Apollonius had gathered together three thousand mercenaries and would march on Ephraim. Not a great army, but trained, disciplined, and merciless professional soldiers—and a host indeed to match with our hundreds. Don’t think that we were not afraid, for a Jew is wrapped in a curiously sensitive skin—and our fears seem to go deeper even than the fears of others, as our shame does too, and as that pride does, for which the nokri hate us. A pall fell over Marah, and what laughter there had been in Ephraim disappeared as hours passed after the word was brought.
Still, we had some respite. Ours is a small land, but each valley is a world unto itself, and just as the mountains are numberless, so are the valleys; and what is an easy mile as the crow flies can be ten or even twenty arduous miles as a man walks, climbs, and crawls. There is a great road that runs from north to south, from the cities of Syria to the cities of Egypt, and there is a road from Jerusalem to the sea, but the rest are paths, winding mountain tracks, sometimes wide enough for a cart and sometimes only wide enough for a single man on foot. The cart roads and paths creep through the valley bottoms, winding here and there; we, who know the land and were bred to it, go across the hills and ridges, but men in armor stick to the valley bottoms and take the long way. Thus it was not a bird’s thirty miles from Jerusalem to Ephraim, but three days’ journey, even for men on forced march—and we made the most of those three days.
As soon as the news came that Apollonius was on the march, Judas called for a concourse of all the people, the men and women, the little children and the rheumy-eyed ancients—the first of the many assemblies that took place during the resistance. He sent out runners, and almost immediately people began to flow into the spoon-shaped, cedar-grown hollow of Marah. That was in early morning, and until late afternoon people moved into the valley, young men and old men, and women with babes at their breasts. The few isolated villages in Ephraim emptied themselves, and the whole populations of near-by Lebonah.
Kaarim and Yoshay trekked over the mountains and down into Marah. From the caves, the people came, from their brushwood huts, their tents and crude shelters; and hour by hour, the valley filled.
Never before had I seen anything like it, a flow of people like slow-running water. Later, we had concourses where a hundred thousand came together, but this day in Marah, fifteen thousand Jews stood with their faces turned up to Judas, who mounted a high rock to address them; and it seemed truly a mighty host of people, women with troubled eyes, silent children and eager-faced young men.
It made a noise, the sound of many, like water, turbulent but far, until Judas spread his arms for silence and the noise fell away, leaving only the breathing of the folk and the wind in the high trees. Late afternoon now, a golden cast of sunlight flowed down into the valley; the sky overhead was white, pink-fringed; two hawks circled, lifted and dropped, and the trees bent to the breeze, as if by so doing they could better cast their fragrance down upon us. The ineffable sweetness of our Judean land laid its spell over the whole throng, eased them, so that mothers, tired with their babes, sat down on the earth and the whole crowd softened, unbent itself, taking sustenance it seemed from the sweet land and the sweet air that had nurtured them. Above them, on the lip of the rock, Judas stood, tall, slim-hipped, auburn-haired, all in white, trousers and jacket, his long hair blowing—child and father, young and old, a strange mixture of the gentle and the fierce, the humble and the arrogant, the tame and the wild…
He said those words that are written, “An army of mercenaries march on Ephraim to destroy us—and we will go against them in our smallness and smite them”—speaking Hebrew, the old tongue in which best things are best said—“hip and thigh, root and branch, for it is the warden of all Judea who leads them. Now we will make our accounting to the King, and when he sends three thousand alive, we will return him three thousand dead, measure for measure.” The people fixed their eyes on him; no one moved, and indeed it seemed that no one breathed. “Our cup is full.”
Judas said, “And truly it runneth over! Why do they come to our land to despoil us? Are we not human that we should watch our children slain and not weep? Let them go away from us and trouble us no more, otherwise we will become a people of awful anger.” But he spoke with no anger now, only a simple and direct kind of regret, and the people whispered, “Amen—so be it.”
“If you have a house that still stands, go to it,” Judas said. “I want only those who have nothing to lose but the chains that bind them. If you have a pot of gold, treasure it and come not with us. If you love your children more than your freedom, go away and no one will mark you with shame, and if you are betrothed, go to your betrothed—for we are betrothed to freedom. But if there is one among, you, just one, who will lay down his life for our cause—and surely, mind you, for what I plan is death and only death—let that man seek me out in my tent afterward. I need only one, only one.” He paused, sweeping them with his eyes. “Now, let the twenties form here in Marah. The others must go into the hills, to the caves and the woods and the thickets, and hide there until we have finished fighting.”
***
I went to our tent, and four men waited there for Judas. Four men who were not afraid of death, which all men should fear, but would welcome it, girding themselves with hatred. There was Lebel, the schoolmaster, who had taught me my first letters, who day after day had marked the seventy-seven pages of the Law with quick, birdlike motions of his thin stick, that omnipotent stick that so surely and quickly sought out and rapped the knuckles of any boy foolish enough to doze or whisper; Lebel, the father of Deborah, who had been thrust through the throat by the sword of Jason, the mercenary; Lebel, who had opened each day’s lesson with a variation of the first adage—“What does the Lord require of a man, but that he should walk humbly and love righteousness?”—Lebel who was meek and gentle as a lamb.
There was Moses ben Aaron, the father of the one woman both Judas and I had loved. There was Adam ben Lazar, the hard and terrible man from the South, whose pride was too much. And there was Ragesh, the whimsical, questing, curious and philosophical Ragesh, to whom death was no less intriguing a problem than life itself.
I greeted them, “Peace.” “And unto thee, peace,” they said. But my mind and my heart were tearing at me, and I could not speak, nor they either, until Judas came.
They were none of them young men, but Judas gave them more virginal youth than he himself had as he kissed each of them, saying to them, with something of awe, “You will go to die because I say it is needful.”
“You are the Maccabee,” Adam ben Lazar shrugged.
“And Ragesh,” Judas said, “you who have neither hatred nor pride, why would you die?”
“All men die,” Ragesh smiled.
“Yet I need only one, and it cannot be you, Ragesh, for Apollonius knows you, and will he believe that the Rabbi Ragesh would betray his people and his God and his country too? I want someone to lead them into hell, and for that they will take the life of the man who betrays them, even if he should succeed. I want someone to go to them and bargain with them for a price. Then he will lead them where they must be led, into the great swamp, over the hill of Gerson, where there is only one way in and there will be no way out. And it cannot be you, Adam ben Lazar, for how will you walk softly and treacherously, with your eyes downcast? Lebel, Lebel, should I destroy you? What I know, you taught me, and shall I repay it thus?”
“I come for favors, not for sacrifice, Judas Maccabe
us,” the schoolmaster said simply.
“And how will you play the part, when Apollonius sees in your eyes all the gentle goodness of your soul? No—a renegade should be complex rather than simple, worldly and without honor, I must have a Greek to send to the Greeks.” He went to Moses ben Aaron, taking both his hands, “God help me and God forgive me.”
“So the years go, and if not now then later,” the vintner said. “What I loved is gone, and you are the Maccabee, Judas. So tell me what you want me to do.”
***
That night, Jonathan and I and four hundred men traveled south, across the hilltops, over the narrow mountain trails, driving on until the first rosy gleam of dawn lit the sky—and then we crawled in among the trees and thickets, and for five hours, we slept the deep and motionless sleep of utter exhaustion. We traveled lightly, armed only with our small horn bows and knives, and each of us carried a loaf of bread and a bag of meal. The instructions Judas gave me were clear and direct; we were to meet the advance guard of Apollonius and make life miserable for them, pick off stragglers, cover them with rocks when they went into the passes, and give them no peace, day or night. Only when Moses ben Aaron appeared were we to allow them to evade us—and then we were to return to Ephraim as quickly as we could travel. Meanwhile, Judas, Eleazar, and John would set the trap in the swamp.
It was late afternoon before we heard the voices of the mercenaries, the hard sound of their armor and the muffled beat of their marching drums. We had already divided our forces, a hundred under me and a hundred under the boy Jonathan—and ten twenties as mobile units. We spread ourselves along the edge of a defile and waited, and soon they came in sight, three abreast, the column stretching like a long snake fully half a mile down the road, the brazen helmets gleaming in the sun, the long polished spears rippling like water, the standards flying, the breastplates shining. Possibly because they knew they would have to bite into the mountains, there were no cavalry in the column except a splendid white horse which Apollonius himself rode. I saw him then for the first time, a huge, dark-browed man, his armor silvered, his mantle snow white, his black hair falling loose to his shoulders. He was no Apelles, but a leader of men, a dark, domineering, savage and bloodthirsty man, terrible in battle and sick with a hunger for blood.
They had learned something of our ways, for they moved slowly and deliberately, magnificent in their harsh, metallic inevitability, archers thrown out before them, and officers of the twenties constantly scanning the hills that towered above them. They saw us as I set my whistle to my lips and blew, and the harping of our bowstrings mixed with shouted orders and bitter curses. They made a turtle’s back of their shields, and in a moment the whole long column had become a plated, crawling snake, a roof of shields covering every man from our sight—except Apollonius who, oblivious to danger, rode his horse back and forth along the line, roaring orders at his men and curses at us up on the ridge. Yet, quick as they were, they were not quick enough, and the rain of our arrows left an occasional mercenary either dead or twisting in pain on the ground. It is not wholly good—even in terms of murder—to be a mercenary, for those who were badly wounded were put to death there on the spot by their own comrades, their throats competently and quickly cut, and those wounded who lingered behind were slain by us. Yet the column did not halt or allow itself to be diverted into suicidal attempts to climb the precipitous slope, but kept on at a steady, disciplined pace to the vantage and security of an open place. Before they reached it, we killed Apollonius’s horse. He became the target for a hundred bowmen, yet he emerged untouched; even though his horse was feathered with arrows, he leaped from the saddle unhurt and kept pace with the column under cover of his shield.
We followed and harassed them as long as the ridge paralleled the road, but when they formed in an open place and detached their light bowmen to attack us, we melted away, and at a loose run, which their armor could never match, we circled up into the hills ahead of them.
When they camped that night, I threw my men around them and we crawled in again and again during the night to rain arrows over their camp. Twice, they formed the phalanx and attacked us, but we melted away, and their formations clattered about, chasing ghosts. Then we camped a mile or so from them, sleeping by turn, but having always five or six twenties to see that the mercenaries got no sleep. In that whole night operation, we lost only four men. Seven others were wounded, but none of them too badly to walk; yet when we searched the mercenaries’ camp after they had left, we found the bodies of eighteen of them.
That same morning, Jonathan crawled close to the Greek camp and saw Moses ben Aaron arrive. He saw him seized and watched him plead for his life. Then he saw him talk long and vehemently with Apollonius, until at last the grim hatred on the face of the Greek relaxed and a hint of a smile twisted his lips. This, Jonathan told us—and almost without stopping, we took our way back to Ephraim.
***
It is hard to tell of a battle, until its end; for at the beginning, it moves slowly, spread out over a deal of ground, and you see only what is directly before you. Yet I have been in at the end of many, as you will see, and that is different. Here I must tell things as they happened—as well as I may—for who else of my glorious brothers will narrate things as they were? Or the men of Modin—where are they?
I must tell how Moses ben Aaron died, even as I told of the death of his daughter Ruth, who was my heart and my flesh too. This I did not see. We came back to Ephraim, having marched in two days and two nights over seventy miles of mountainous country, having fought and retired bearing our wounded with us, but Judas had neither sympathy nor praise, and ordered me to take my men and hide them along the defile that led to the deep and lonely morass of Ephraim. “But we have not slept!”
“Sleep when you’ve taken your position,” Judas said, “and God help the man who reveals himself until the Greek has passed! He’ll die by my own hand!” I opened my mouth to speak, and then swallowed the words. Judas was transformed; I saw that; I saw the awful wildness in him that permitted no crossing, not even by his own flesh and blood. He stood in the valley where the people had dwelt, and now it was empty. He was alone and lord and tyrant of the devastation. “Where have the people gone?”
“They hide until we have won or died.” He took me by the arms, his talonlike grip reminding me more of the Adon than any gesture or look could. “Simon, Simon, there is only one way into Ephraim and one way out—and you will be there! You will not fail me? You hated me, Simon—now promise!”
“I don’t hate you, Judas. How shall I hate my brother?”
“How shall you love him?” Judas said. “Jonathan is with you, and treasure him, treasure him.”
We went to the defile then, Jonathan and I and our four hundred, and we hid in the thickets, behind the rocks or in holes we dug in the ground. There was no food and no fire, and we mixed our meal with water and ate it. We slept where we lay, and at last, the mercenaries appeared, Moses ben Aaron leading them, and they marched through the defile beneath us and into the morass of Ephraim.
Then, when they had passed, we slipped down into the defiles, worked like mad dragging rocks and tree trunks across it, and then manned the barricade. An hour went past before they attacked us.
As it was told to me, they went on through the cleft into the dim, sun-splotched loneliness of Ephraim. Almost a mile they marched into that sad, unhappy desolation before the mud caught them, before they realized that from this reed-strewn wilderness there was no way out but the way they had come. It was there, buried in the mud, that we later discovered the body of Moses ben Aaron, cruelly mutilated. It was after they killed him, that they made two more attempts to cross the swamp before turning back. But when they came back to the hard ground, they found that the defile was blocked—blocked by us, while from all sides Judas and his men rained their arrows upon them.
That was as close to panic as the Greek Apo
llonius came. Twice he led his army into that narrow defile, and twice we fought there behind our barricade. We shot away our arrows and then fought with our spears. We broke our spears, and fought with rocks and sticks and knives and with our bare hands too. From us, from the four hundred under Jonathan and me and Ruben, he took the worst toll, for he drove at us with a close phalanx again and again, until fully half our men were slain or bleeding all over with wounds; yet we managed to hold him, while all the time Judas’s men on the rocks above rained their arrows upon him—the short, needle-sharp, devastating arrows that fill the air like snow, seeking out every nook and crevice in a mercenary’s armor.
It seemed forever that we manned that barricade, but it could not have been too long; yet there, in that defile, Apollonius lost at least half of his men. Half of our four hundred to half of his three thousand. He fell back to the hard, open ground—and we in the pass leaned on our weapons, bleeding and panting, weary unto death and yet drunk with our triumph, almost hysterical with rage and triumph and terror, our dead all around us and the dead of the mercenaries strewn like a carpet along the length of the defile. For the first time, Jew had met Greek, knife to sword, and stopped him and smashed him and beat him back—and for all of our exhaustion we pressed down the defile to the meadow where they stood.
Apollonius had formed his phalanx four square. We were outnumbered, they could have driven through us then; but they had no heart for it, and hardly was the square made when Eleazar and Judas led their men against it, shouting as they poured from the hills. They were fresh, and Apollonius had marched his men all day and dragged them through a mire and led them into two costly attacks. We wore no armor and the mercenaries were burdened down, each of them, with nearly a hundred pounds of plate and weapons. We knew this place as we knew our own faces and they were lost in a strange and frightening wilderness, a place where already the long shadows of evening were beginning to close in, where mountains towered on every side and where all the spirits and demons they feared were evoked.
