by Meyer Levin
“Herschel, are you finished? Now come on.”
The eyes looked into Gidon’s, earnestly, shamefully. “I tell you I want to. I can’t make my body do it. I’m a shitty Jewish coward and that’s all.”
“This happens to goyim too. We’ve already seen it.”
That was true. Had they not themselves seen Englishmen driven at pistol-point to jump out of the landing-boats onto the beach? “Come on, Herschel, you’ve already been through it. Come with me.”
Herschel made another effort, even a half-step, but then froze rigid, with a feeble smile, as though to say “You see, I tried.”
Just then Josef came back to find out what had happened to them. At a glance he understood. “Herschel,” he began with a voice of reason and even of compassion.
“I—I’m ashamed. I try. I can’t,” Herschel repeated with a wild look to Gidon as his witness.
In one movement their leader was off his horse and had collared him. “Zhid! Scum of the ghetto!” And he booted Herschel forward, the blast of his curses as powerful as his heel. Stumbling, recovering his balance, uttering a strange bleat as though some childhood devil were coming out of him, Herschel yanked at his mule and they moved on.
Remounting, Trumpeldor glanced at Gidon but said nothing. His face was still fixed in fury.
They had reached the front-line dugouts of the Australians and were unloading when a new bombardment began. With the others, Gidon and Herschel tumbled into the trench. Trumpeldor sat his horse, unmoving. “Get down! You! Take shelter!” a lieutenant screamed at him.
Josef turned his head. “A man can at least be as brave as his horse,” he replied.
The shells came from the dominating height, the great fortification called Achi Baba, never to be taken. A ferocious young Turkish commander was there, it was said, one called Mustafa Kemal, who led out his men directly into volleys of rifle fire whenever the British troops attempted to assault the approaches to his mountaintop. Behind bulwarks made of their own piled-up dead, Mustafa Kemal’s men would stop each attack.
From the fort itself the gunners could look down on the whole area, on every movement; only the narrowest ravines were comparatively safe.
Even the beach was bad, as bad as anywhere, open to the heavy guns on the heights; since the failure of the first waves of assault, still heavier German cannon had been added, making the mountain fortress impregnable. Weeks passed, with sallies, retreats, entrenchments. On the beaches the encampments were moved up closer under the cliffs, safer from the Turkish artillery. Making themselves shelters like troglodytes in caves and under rock ledges, burrowing deep into the ground, those who had survived the first assaults felt they knew now how best to manage. And the forward units, in a vast arc beneath the mountain, were also dug in; they would creep a bit further, a bit further upward on the wild slopes of the sub-mountains, digging holes and trenches, while from the fortress above them their enemies also crept a bit further, downward, extending the area of their fortifications, digging holes and trenches, stringing barbed wire on the rocky slopes.
On some days the Turks would suddenly come pouring out of their creases in the hillside, with bayonets fixed, and storm down upon those who besieged them, only to fall in heaps to their machine guns, and on other days the Senegalese, the Australians and New Zealanders, the Irish and Welsh—and Gidon learned to know each unit—would in turn hurl themselves upward to dislodge the Turks, and leave their bodies on the slopes, corpses that sometimes rolled heavily, lumpily downward until they caught on some shredded tree-stump, or fell back into their own trenches.
To all the forward positions of the Australians, the Gurkhas, the Londoners, the Jewish muleteers now made their regular rounds. They too had learned the skills of survival, and casualties were not as in the first days. The groves and fields, churned incessantly by shellfire, now bore only blackened remnants of trees, pieces of boots, and sometimes segments of men and beasts, left uncollected, in later years to give a golden harvest from this soil. All was bestenched in a heatening atmosphere of acrid gunpowder and putrid decay, and bottle flies thickened and swarmed from the dead upon the living, man and beast, bloated insects settling at messtime on each morsel of food to follow it into a man’s mouth.
The locked armies had reached a balance. It would take vast new forces on either side, as any soldier could see, to change this balance so that the defender might be overwhelmed, or the besieger driven back into the sea. Yet neither side would quite wait for this overwhelming force to accumulate; as fresh troops arrived, they were thrown, in some commander’s impatience for a victory, directly into an attack, they withered, and then the entrenchments were dug even deeper. From the trenches the men even dug tunnels reaching toward the enemy, crawling forward to explode him from below. Thus an enemy’s outpost line would be first gained, then lost to a counterattack.
On some nights, either the Turk or the attacker would crowd men into a forward trench, and at dawn hundreds of bayonet-points would rise to glitter like new grass, and suddenly the men would crawl out screaming their war cries, the Turks their Allah il Allah, and the Allies a multiple shriek, and the charge would carry itself sometimes even as far as a second or third trench, until machine guns ground it down; and again after the countercharge all would be restored, except that heaps of dead carpeted the few hundred yards between or lay before the lip of a trench, so that the machine guns had to be mounted up somewhat higher in order to get a free range toward the enemy.
Below, on the narrow shore, the carnage was less, though the Zion Mule Corps was halved now by wounds, by dysentery, by malaria. Yet, though exposed when they went on their delivery routes, the men were well settled in their dugouts by now, with capacious underground shelters for their mules, and in some locations connecting trenches wide enough to ride in.
Some of the troops they served were tireless diggers; the Gurkhas loved to dig wide and deep, and in their sector a man could ride atop his mule from one outpost to another without exposing his head above ground. When a lull came in the fighting, the muleteers would even begin singing as they rode their daily rounds, singing “Tipperary,” or teaching the Australians to sing “Yahalili.”
One Australian, using his shaving mirror, had fashioned himself a periscope, so that he did not have to lift his head up to aim his rifle, and now every soldier wanted one. This gave Araleh a thought. Herschel, it turned out, had once worked in an optometrist’s shop, and with him, Araleh set up the manufacture of an improved model, trading twenty of these to the Gurkhas in exchange for the digging of an entire underground shelter, comparatively clean and comfortable.
A cove had been found, supposedly out of reach of the enemy guns, and each day the men went down in small groups to bathe. It was not like bathing in the Kinnereth, but more like the sand beaches of Tel Aviv. And in the evenings, under a remaining olive tree that was somehow protected by the conformation of the mountain, tale-telling and singing would begin. Some distance away, under the “officers’ tree,” the Irishman with a few cronies could be seen playing cards and drinking. Among the muleteers, little groups had naturally formed, the Palestinians together, the Nissims in their own circle, the poor Jews of the mellah by themselves. But at times a whole mixture would happen, usually around an argument over strategy, or about the incredible blunders of the commander who guided the war from his island. Why had the mass of troops been landed here at the fingerpoint, to climb head on into annihilating fire, when any Jew could see that the main force, if landed at a northerly cove, could have circled behind Achi Baba and easily opened the road to Constantinople? —Or what was needed, Herscheleh declared, was what the Greeks had used in their great battle to capture Troy, not far from here on the Asian side of the bay, on those blue-green fields they had themselves seen when approaching Gallipoli. An enormous wooden horse the Greeks had left as a parting salute on the shore, then pretended to give up their siege and sail away homeward. But the horse was filled with soldiers.
One d
ay, instead of the wooden horse, an iron fish was used, but it was the Germans who had taken to heart the ancient tale of these waters, for the iron fish was theirs. The huge British warships still sat arrogantly in the mouth of the Dardanelles, and even the Jewish muleteers heard echoes of the sudden, startling explosions, then watched with the unbelief of the entire Gallipoli expedition as two of their mighty protectors, the newest and greatest of naval structures, sank traceless in the sea of ancient military adventure.
The next day the fleet that had remained, reassuringly watchful, in an impregnable circle behind them, had vanished, and the troops on land were alone.
What was to happen? Were they to remain here without end, clinging to the lip of soil?
Slowly Gidon saw himself being drawn into this soldier’s life until he understood how men could even of their own accord live their entire lives in an army, comrades together—were it not for the rotten flies and the mosquitoes.
Not all men would be suited to such a life, nor would he choose it for himself, yet with a kind of fright of something foredoomed he saw that, at need, he could endure it well enough. Herschel, though he had gained hold of himself and went out regularly without showing his fear, Gidon saw, suffered ever more deeply, instead of becoming inured. Herschel was not suited. And in Araleh he saw growing another kind of trouble. It grew slowly. First it was seen only on mail-days if he had no letter. Because his wife was in Alexandria and he could therefore receive letters from her, even frequently, Araleh had at first seemed the lucky one. Gidon, with the rest of the men from Eretz, was inured to receiving nothing, except that Saraleh occasionally wrote to him too, so that he would get a piece of mail. But the letters for Araleh in each mail delivery, Gidon saw, now only made him increasingly homesick, and if by chance a mail was skipped, he was even sicker. He would become taciturn; generally Araleh was a man who naturally said yes when asked for anything he could lay his hands on for you, but now he began to say no, for no reason. He wouldn’t trouble. Useless to remind him, “But, Araleh, today no one got letters from Alexandria, only the British home mail arrived.” He began to voice suspicions that the bloody anti-Semites in the British command in Alexandria were deliberately holding back mail for the Zion Mule Corps. Just as they had even tried to steal the saddles.
For a whole week he had received no mail, and he now was unapproachable. Araleh was certain something was wrong with Saraleh, or if not, then with their little Dudu. Gidon could not think what to say to this. Once, when he began to say that a week was nothing, that he hadn’t even heard a single word from home and didn’t dare write to them even in roundabout ways, Araleh broke out tersely, “You’re not married. You don’t have a child.”
That was so. But was it so entirely different? Often the terrible longing came over Gidon and he wrote letters in his head, to Mati, to Schmulik, about the comical moments of the war, about the ways of different kinds of men. And even as to Araleh’s terrible longing for Saraleh, Gidon sometimes found himself on the verge of saying that he understood, he understood what it was to long to have her near.
Then a letter did come, three letters together for Araleh, and things were only worse. For one letter said the child was fretful, Saraleh was sure it was the heat, but if it didn’t pass in a few days, she would take Dudu to the doctor. Saraleh had not put the days or the dates on her letters and Araleh could not tell which was written first. Perhaps the sickness letter was first and if she did not mention it in the others it was all nothing, all past. But also another letter said she had not yet received her allotment from the British. Not even the first allotment. She had not wanted to mention it to him, but she did not like to borrow more money from her father’s friend Musara.
Araleh was in a rage. He went directly to the Irishman, who declared he would at once see about the matter, there must be some bloody balls-up at headquarters and there was no excuse for it.
And then came the hardest period. Day after day, once more, a whole week and then into a second week, no mail came for Araleh. And meanwhile others received letters, even packages, from Alexandria. Could it even be revenge for his raising a row over the allotment? Or perhaps the worst had happened. If the child had died, Saraleh couldn’t bring herself to tell him. That was the only thing that would hold back Saraleh from writing to him.
He had to go back to Alexandria and find out. Not another day could he endure it. He was needed there, he felt it, he must go. Araleh put in a request for compassionate leave. In a week he could be back. There was even good reason to send him, mule replacements were needed, supplies.
Trumpeldor himself recommended the leave, with urgency. A whole day, two days, no reply from the island. And still no letter from Saraleh. Then came the reply: refused. Request of Sgt. Aryah Tchenstokover not granted at present. Nothing else. A message from a typewriting machine on an island back there. With numbers and initials and not even a name to curse at, but he knew the name, it came back from that anti-Semite, Col. Whitbury, he was certain. And he spat at their “Not granted.” He would show them, a Jew was not a wog to be kicked aside, to be squashed like a bug and flicked away. He would show them.
Gidon had never seen Araleh like this. A deep pitying misgiving came over him: see what happens if you are married and a soldier. He thought about those men whose lives were in soldiering, like the Irishman, like Josef too. Oh, there was much lively talk about the Irishman, a great one with the ladies; and Josef too, despite his arm or perhaps even because of it, women fell in love with him—Gidon had even wondered about Leah—and here on Gallipoli, Josef received packs of letters from women in love with him, especially two sisters in Alexandria. Yet both of these soldiering men, you could feel, lived their lives alone. It was true that many of the higher officers, Britishers of the upper class, even sons of the British nobility, usually had wives and families and homes back there in their England. But for those it was different. Such high and mighty persons, a man didn’t even have to try to understand. Only through this suffering of Araleh’s, Gidon understood some instinct in his own self that was holding him back from womankind, as though all he saw before him in his life for the present was war and soldiering, and therefore he must not let himself fall into such a situation, such a torment as Araleh’s. Over and over Araleh searched every word of that reply. “At present.”— When else did he need to go to Saraleh!
—But perhaps it did point to a reason, Gidon argued with him. The Mule Corps was depleted at present, not a man could be spared, the Irishman and Trumpeldor were even going back to get more men and mules, and probably that was why, just now—
So depressed was Araleh, he hadn’t even known they were going. Why, perhaps he could ask Josef to see Saraleh for him—
At once, Trumpeldor promised, carefully writing down Saraleh’s address and telling Araleh he would send back a message on the military wireless.
So they departed, the Irishman wearing his finest uniform, the one that had been especially tailored in London. A few days passed. Araleh haunted the regimental message center—nothing. Now he was certain of the worst, Trumpeldor had not wanted the terrible news to come to him in a wireless. Guiltily, Gidon found himself staying away from the bunker they shared, he could no longer bear to listen over and over to Araleh’s imaginings as he tried to read what was meant by the void of silence. It was impossible that Josef had failed to carry out his promise; he was a man who never failed to do what he said he would do. Only two things could have happened, either Josef sent the message and it was held up, perhaps by that anti-Semitic devil, Col. Whitbury or—
Gidon even began to fear that Araleh was going out of his mind. Already Gidon had seen this happening in Dr. Ashkenazi, who had volunteered in Alexandria. As it came out that Gidon was half a veterinary, he had soon begun to help patch up wounded animals, and then, in a flood of casualties after a sudden Turkish attack, Dr. Ashkenazi had seized on Gidon when he came for medical supplies. A bombardment was under way; the doctor, as everyone knew, had been unabl
e to master his trembling during shellfire—some people simply never got used to it. How much he had aged in these few weeks! Suddenly Gidon found the doctor begging him to help, the doctor couldn’t go on—the flies, they crawled into the wounds while he was operating—he had demanded sanitation supplies and they had not come—he was being undermined—and all at once he seized Gidon’s arm and began sobbing. The next day when Gidon returned from his rounds, Herschel bore the news that the doctor had collapsed, sobbing and stabbing at flies; he was being sent home to Egypt.
It was this moment that Araleh seized upon. In a single instant, everything was thought of and worked out. Gidon alone need know. Gidon must somehow arrange to carry him on the sick roster. In the confusion of the present situation, with the two commanders away and the doctor leaving, it could be managed. In a week Araleh would be back. Only the time to reach Alexandria, to run home, and he’d return on the next ship. The hospital ship carrying Dr. Ashkenazi was sailing direct for Alexandria, and Araleh would put on a Red Cross armband and accompany the doctor. He had already mastered the company clerk’s typewriter, he knew what forms to use, and during the mess hour, for a few cigarettes, the clerk’s dugout was his.
How could Gidon prevent him? If Gidon refused to take even a small part in the scheme, Araleh would try it anyway. To report his friend’s intention, even if to save him, was a thing a man could not do. And what if Araleh should be proved right in his worries? Though Gidon realized this was a kind of infection of fears, by now he at moments caught himself seeing, not little Dudu’s sick face but Saraleh’s in the pallor of death, her eyes calling to him piteously.
Together he and Araleh helped Dr. Ashkenazi onto the hospital ship where the commanding doctor with professional cheerfulness took him in charge. Then, just at what moment Gidon hadn’t even noticed, Araleh had slipped away, mingling somewhere with the masses of sick and wounded.
