“Why haven’t you written to your parents?”
“They’d make me come home.”
“Where are you staying?” Vered pointed at Bar-El, handsome and bleary-eyed, and Reich smiled at the dashing man.
“Wait a minute!” Bar-El protested.
“Oh, not sleeping!” Vered blurted out.
The men of the Palmach burst into nervous laughter, hilarious and bawdy. “Not sleeping!” some of them echoed, and they began poking their fingers into Bar-El’s cheeks.
“All right! All right!” he growled.
“Ilana,” Teddy commanded, “you see that Vered stays with you. Understand? Now as to the girls, they’re not to be in the attack positions, but they are to protect the flanks. I suppose you want to be with Gottesmann, Ilana?”
“Of course.”
Reich asked the others, who attached themselves to one unit or another. Finally he came to Vered Yevneski. “Where do you want to fight?” he asked.
“With MemMem,” she said quietly.
Reich closed the meeting by saying that he wanted six young boys—under thirteen—right now. Ilana knew where she could fine some, and in a few minutes the six little boys, two with lovely curls dancing beside their ears, stood before the Palmach commander, who asked, “Which of you six is the bravest of all?” Each of the boys stepped forward. “Good. Now if you had a very difficult job to do, in two teams, who would you want for your partners?” The two boys with curls moved together. The four without curls made their group. “Good,” Reich continued. He reached forward and grabbed the fringes that peeped from beneath the shirt of one of the orthodox boys. “Your name is?”
“Yaacov,” the boy answered.
“Yaacov, I want you to take your friend and go as close to the Arab quarter as you dare. Geldzenberg and Peled here will stay in the shadows and protect you with their guns. And you’re to call out to some make-believe friend … You’re to cry as loudly as you can, ‘The Palmach have brought a great cannon.’ If anyone should happen to ask about the cannon, you make up whatever answer you want. Understand?” The boys nodded, and Reich said, “Good. Now let’s all go in the street and let me hear how loud you can shout.”
The six boys went with Reich into the darkness, and Gottesmann could hear them crying, four in Hebrew, two in Yiddish, “The Palmach have brought a cannon,” and by the time the thin little voices had faded in the direction of the Arab quarter Gottesmann felt sure that the enemy must hear. But then he himself heard Teddy Reich whispering to Ilana, “You think Gottesmann can pull himself together for the attack?”
“I think he’ll make it,” she replied.
The secret weapon which the Palmach had lugged into Safad was the kind of implement that terrifies soldiers, especially those who must operate it. When Bagdadi inspected it, and he knew more about explosives than any of the rest, he came back to tell Ilana and Vered, “It may not frighten the Arabs, but it scares hell out of me.” He took them to the housetop on which the home-welded device was installed: a triangular base about thirty inches wide at one end had supports rising from its point, and from them was slung an adjustable length of steel casing cast somewhere in Germany by one H. Besse. It bore the number 501 and was about five inches across and twenty-eight long, making a rude kind of mortar into which could be dropped a massive shell that looked like an oversize potato masher—big and blunt on the far end, trim and narrow in the handle—which fitted in the barrel of the mortar. “It’s these fins that make the noise,” Bagdadi explained, pointing to the four steel projections jutting out from the business end of the crude weapon. “When the shell flies through the air these whine as if they were alive. Sounds awful but doesn’t do much damage.”
“What’s it called?” Vered asked.
“Davidka,” Bagdadi explained. “Little David. It’s to help in our fight against Goliath.” He pointed toward the concrete police station, which in a few days he would have to assault.
That night the davidka was fired. As Bagdadi had foreseen, the cumbersome shell made a hideous noise as it flew through the air, and it must have frightened the Arabs, but it did no harm, for it failed to land on its nose, so its fuse did not explode. The Jew in charge therefore came up with an expedient that horrified Bagdadi: before the davidka was fired, a length of ordinary fuse was jammed into the nose and lit with a match. Then the firing charge was ignited and the burning potato masher was sent through the air. If it landed on its nose, it went off. If that missed, the burning fuse would explode it. The first two shots worked. What worried Bagdadi was this: “What happens if the firing charge backfires and leaves the potato masher in the barrel—with the fuse burning?” The Palmachnik in charge pointed to a girl. “If that happens, she runs out and jerks away the fuse. We hope she makes it in time.” The girl was about sixteen.
The futility of davidka became apparent when the Arabs wheeled into position some real artillery pieces and began pumping heavy shells into the crowded Jewish quarter. The results were sickening, for when the large English shells exploded they ripped mud-and-stone houses apart and crumbling was excessive. Some Jews were buried alive. Survivors ran into the street, abusing the Palmach and crying, “Until you came with your davidka the Arabs left us alone.”
Rebbe Itzik went through the narrow alleys, pointing out, “It is God’s judgment upon a willful people,” and as the Arab shelling increased, new gloom settled upon the Jewish district, whose residents could not know that soon Teddy Reich intended to rush out and silence the insolent artillery. At this critical moment support reached Reich from an unexpected quarter.
There was in Safad in those final days a Rabbi Gedalia, a sallow-faced, black-bearded man of forty, somewhat stoop-shouldered from much study of the Talmud. He was a withdrawn man and normally one would not expect him to be of much help in these critical hours, but after a searching review of the situation Rabbi Gedalia had reached the conclusion that the Jews had a chance to gain a state in Palestine but only if the holy city of Safad were kept in Jewish hands. He therefore gave the pious Jews of his synagogue directions quite contrary to what Rebbe Itzik was saying: “Go out and help the fighters. Do anything they demand of you, for with God’s help they shall win.”
He himself moved among the Palmach, counseling Teddy Reich, Bar-El and the others: “You must not think of the odds against you as forty to one. Because most of the Arab soldiers are not fighting for a cause in which they believe. What do the Iraqis and Syrians really care for Safad? They’re good fighters and I’m sure they’re good men. But this holy place is not their home. It is ours.”
As Rabbi Gedalia talked, the tough young fighters gained strength from his quotations from the Torah, which they accepted as history if not as religion: “Moses our Teacher foresaw days when his Jews would have to storm up a hill to capture a town like Safad, and he said, ‘If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt.’ ”
As time for the assault approached, he quoted God’s heartening promise to His people when they faced trials: “ ‘And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight.’ ” As he spoke, this thin, sallow man of forty communicated to all his conviction that the Jews would win.
On the afternoon of May 9, when Arab artillery looked as if it must knock out all Jewish resistance in Safad, Teddy Reich convened his last meeting of the men who were to storm the Arab heights. He spoke confidently, reviewed tactics, and advised everyone to get some sleep. “Till eight o’clock,” he said quietly, after which he lay flat on the floor and slept.
At Ilana’s the old gang met for the last time: Bar-El, Bagdadi, Gottesmann and Vered Yevneski. Ilana slapped together some food and studied her husband apprehensively: “You seem tired, Gottesmann.”
“I am,” the veteran confessed. “I wish it
were ended, the whole war.”
“Gottesmann!” Ilana laughed. “It won’t be over for years. After we take Safad we get right on a truck and move down to Jerusalem and from there we march to Gaza.” Her husband lowered his head.
Bagdadi chuckled when he thought how surprised the Arabs at the police station were going to be: “They must believe those concrete walls will protect them forever. Wait till the dynamite starts!”
“You think you can take it?” Gottesmann asked, looking up.
“Of course,” the Iraqi cried. “Don’t you think you can capture the ruins on top?”
“No,” Gottesmann said.
Bagdadi expressed no surprise at this assessment. Instead, he drew up a chair and placed his fat hands on the table. “To tell the truth, Gottesmann, I don’t have much hope, either. That is, not unless a miracle happens. But I’m sure one will.”
“What kind?” Gottesmann asked sullenly.
“Don’t mind him,” Ilana laughed from the kitchen of the old house. “Before a fight he’s always pessimistic. Remember how he was the day we bombed the lorry. I’ll bet you this, Bagdadi. He’ll capture the ruins before you take the police station.”
The five friends, the kind of young Jews upon whom the fate of Israel depended in those lonely days, ate a meager meal, then sat talking of the hours ahead. Ilana, still perplexed by her dialogue with the rebbe, said, “I wonder what kind of Israel we’re building tonight?” And the MemMem said in his pragmatic way, “Kill enough Arabs now and worry about the state later.” She looked to Gottesmann for help to combat this grievous error, but he was staring at his knuckles.
“The Israel I have in mind,” Bagdadi offered, “is one where the Jews of Iraq and Iran and Egypt would be welcome. To work with the better-educated Jews of Germany and Russia. Believe me, Gottesmann, you may not think so now, but this state really needs the Sephardim. To build bridges with the Arabs when the war’s over.”
Bar-El yawned and said, “We need you, Bagdadi, but we need sleep more,” and the three men found places to catch a little rest before launching their assault up the hill. When they were well asleep Vered asked softly, “Is it nice, Ilana, living with a man?”
The older girl looked down at her tall German husband, twitching nervously in his sleep, and replied, “If you’re lucky enough to catch one like Gottesmann …”
“What is there … I mean especially?”
Again Ilana studied her sleeping fighter. “I can’t say,” she replied.
Vered was silent for some minutes, then asked, “Is going to bed … I mean, is it so important?”
Ilana laughed. “How important do you think it is?” she asked.
Vered blushed and smoothed her hair. “I suppose it’s very important.”
“Ten times that much,” Ilana said quietly. “Maybe fifty times.”
“I’m ashamed I made such a fool of myself the other night … when Teddy Reich came.” Neither girl spoke, then Vered asked shyly, “If you were me, and if MemMem …” She hesitated, and the girls looked down at the sleeping dandy. He was a most attractive young man. Ilana could think of nothing to say, so Vered observed, “The trouble is, after the war’s over I want to go to university.”
“I’m going back,” Ilana assured her.
“Even if you have children?” Vered asked.
“Especially if I have children.” She grew excited and moved her hands as her grandfather had done when explaining to others what Kfar Kerem would one day be. “We mustn’t have the women of Israel a dull lot.”
And when the hour came, and the fighters moved out toward their horrifying targets, from the house next door appeared Rebbe Itzik’s wife in her wig, calling, “Go on, children. God will lead you as He led us out of Egypt,” but the rebbe himself did not hear his wife’s blasphemous words, for he was in the Vodzher synagogue praying with two old men, the last of his congregation to support him in opposing the battle that was about to start.
At eight o’clock all units were in take-off position. The night was dark and Teddy Reich was hoping that a surprise rush might carry the Jews well into the front lines of the Arabs before the latter knew what was happening; but as he was about to give the signal to move out, an ominous thing occurred. A drop of rain fell. Then another. Rain in mid-May was impossible. It rarely happened, but here it came, drop by drop. Frantically the Jews looked at each other, trying to assess this unexpected development, then Rabbi Gedalia whispered to Teddy Reich and Bar-El the tremendous commandment of the Lord to His Jews: “ ‘Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.’ ” Reich whistled and the attack moved forward.
To climb from the Jewish quarter to the police station was difficult even in times of peace—one had to twist and turn up narrow alleys before attaining the upper plateau—but to negotiate this dangerous terrain on a rainy night, with Arabs blazing away at point-blank range, called for true heroism, and Reich’s men displayed it. When necessary they fired with cold resolution, astounding the Arabs by pressing forward until, at nine o’clock, they reached the gray concrete walls of the police station itself. Bagdadi and his team of dynamiters brought their stuff into position against the stout walls, but when they ran back to protect themselves from the blast, nothing happened. The unexpected rain had put out the fuses.
“In again!” Bagdadi shouted, and he led his angry men back to the wall. Two were killed.
Once more the rain put out the fuses, and for the third time Bagdadi called, “Here we go!” His fat, clumsy courage was the inspiration his men needed, and this time Teddy Reich’s team held off the Arab fire, and Bagdadi lost no one. Nor did he manage to ignite the stubborn dynamite. The Iraqi thought of the number of times he had seen dynamite go off almost by itself, and it made him curse.
Reich called his team back and tried to ignite the explosive by rifle fire, but nothing happened. From the Crusader ruins directly above the police station came many rounds of frenzied fire. “How does it sound up there?” Teddy shouted to no one in particular.
“Sounds like Ilana’s winning her bet,” Bagdadi replied.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re going to take the top before we get the station,” Bagdadi growled. He was off for the fourth time to assault the wall, again without result. “Damn the rain!” he cried, as drops ran down his fat face like tears.
At four minutes after ten the team handling the davidka threw potato masher number one into the far end of the Crusader ruins, and the whine and subsequent explosion were horrendous to hear, for to insure firing, the Palmach were using eighteen pounds of black gunpowder where an ordinary gun would have used two. “You can smell the cordite down here,” Bagdadi said in disbelief.
At ten-twenty-five potato masher number two headed for the Kurdish quarter, with equal noise but with little effect, except that when it exploded it seemed to make the May rain turn into a real downpour. Reich called to Bagdadi, “Any use trying to explode our dynamite?”
“Let’s wait,” the Iraqi replied, and through the rainstorm the police station remained in Arab hands.
Then davidka launched shots three, four, five at the Arab souks, at the mayor’s house and at the ammo dump behind the girls’ school, and as the last explosion died away, Bagdadi screamed in unsoldierly fashion, “Teddy! Look!”
Through the gloom, down the side of the Crusader hill, came Isidore Gottesmann and Ilana Hacohen. They were running like children, and Ilana was shouting, “Teddy, we’ve taken the whole hill. It’s ours!”
For a moment Teddy Reich held his hands over his face, muddy rain running down his wrists. Then he kissed Ilana and asked, “The stone house?”
“Great difficulty.”
“Take it,” he said, and as the two ran off to that stubborn house, he said to Bagdadi, “Now we knock out this station.”
The dynamiters, exhilarated by the news from abo
ve, darted once more through Arab bullets, reached once more the face of the concrete stronghold, but try as they might, they accomplished nothing. It was frustrating, bitterly disappointing. From above they could hear the Palmach song of victory, yet if the police station were held by the Arabs all would be lost. The Arabs inside, knowing this, fired back with cruel effect and the Jews were driven off.
At about three that morning Ilana and Gottesmann returned to the plateau.
“The stone house is ours!” they cried, and Teddy shouted, “Everyone here!” and with desperation the reinforced Jews rushed at the powerful concrete installation, again accomplishing nothing.
The rain halted, and Bagdadi promised, “Now we can explode the place,” but again the fuses failed to work and his valiant effort came to naught. Of his original team only he was left. He was crying.
It was now a few minutes after four and Teddy Reich was in despair. If dawn came, lighting the streets, the Arabs in the police station—not to mention those in the dread fortress on the high hill—could pick off the Jews with ease. “Everybody!” Reich begged. “Let’s get this cursed place.”
Isidore Gottesmann felt his nerves going, and Ilana knew that her husband could stand no more. Both wanted to retreat to the Jewish quarter, but neither would do so. “Once more,” she begged her tall German, and he who had led the fight both on top and at the stone house bit his cheeks and accompanied the next charge on the concrete walls. Nothing happened and Teddy led his men back.
It was now dawn and the Jews could expect from the Arab quarters a violent counterattack at any moment, but as Teddy stood disconsolately at the head of the stairs he began to laugh hysterically. Others ran to him, and they laughed too, like idiots, for halfway down the stairs, in the soft gray light of morning, an old Jewish woman with a shawl over her head was coming out of the Arab quarter, lugging a sewing machine.
“They’ve all gone,” she called hoarsely.
“They’ve what?” Teddy screamed.
“They are no more,” she cried, disappearing with her treasure.
The Source: A Novel Page 122
