Israel (96 page)

“The bond between the three of us is very strong, Yol,” Herschel observed.

Yol suddenly embraced him. “Please, don't go to fight with him. I couldn't bear to know that I've been the cause of both the father and the son dying.”

“Yol,” Rosie interjected, “go with Benny for a walk, yes? I want to talk with my son.”

When Benny and Yol had gone, she said, “He's a good man, Yol, but what he said about his eyes is true. He can't see so well anymore. The other day they took away his gun. He gets excited and everything is a blur to him.” She paused, shrugging. “He almost shot one of our own boys, so now the two of us sit and load the magazines for the ones who can still shoot. I told him not to be ashamed. Most of the old people have chosen to evacuate along with the children.”

“But you won't leave, and he'll never leave your side, right, Mama?” Herschel smiled.

“He's been a good friend, a good companion. Better than a cranky old lady like me deserves.” She patted her son's cheek. “But now that you've brought that handsome young Benny here, well, Yol had better look out I don't two-time him.”

Herschel laughed. “I'd better warn Benny. Mama, you understand that I have to meet Jibarn. I mean, maybe he won't even show himself, but if he does—”

“Quiet. He'll be there and you'll go to confront him no matter what I say, so I won't say a thing but this. Do not make the same mistake your father made. Yol has told me how Jibarn charmed your father. He played on the fact that they were both orphans, and Haim—” She paused, turning her head until she had regained her composure.
“Haim trusted people. Your father was a very brave, very strong man, but he was too good, too innocent. In this world that's dangerous for anybody, but for a Jew . . .” She shook her head.

“I'll be careful.” Herschel hesitated. “You used to go to his grave; do you still?”

Rosie looked shocked that he had asked. “Every day. It's only this damned war that is keeping me away. Tomorrow when you go, tell him what's been keeping me.”

“Come, Mama. I'll walk you back to the cottage.”

Rosie smiled. “And I'll close my eyes so I don't see the guns or the barbed wire, and there will be just the smell of the cornflowers carried by the warm breeze . . . Yes, son. Just like we used to walk.”

Herschel returned from his mother's cottage past tents filled with groaning wounded to find Moshe Dayan, Benny Talkin and the brigade commander standing in front of the dining hall, watching quietly as the sun went down.

“I think we'd better set up our Bet Yerach defenses tonight,” Herschel said. All around him in the twilight were shadowy forms taking their posts for the night.

“I agree,” Dayan said. “You'll take one of the bazookas and some Molotovs and every man in your party shall be issued a Sten gun and three magazines.”

Herschel frowned. “That's less than a hundred rounds each.”

“I'm sorry,” the brigade commander said sincerely. “We have bullets, but there's a shortage of magazines.”

“Then give me loose cartridges,” Herschel said. “We can always load in quiet moments.”

“When do we leave?” Benny interjected.

Herschel regarded him. “I'm sorry, but you can't come.”

“What? Come on.” Benny laughed nervously. “We're buddies, right?”

“Of course we are. Please understand, Benny. This is
a commando operation and you have no experience in such things.” The look on Benny's face made him smile. “For all that I would still take you, but you can't speak Hebrew, and the volunteers are all Haganah men. Most of them don't speak English. Quick, quiet communication will be essential. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Don't worry.” The brigade commander clasped Benny's shoulder. “You will find plenty of action here.” He smiled. “Wise guy.”

At dark Herschel and his thirty volunteers prepared their weapons and packed food and plenty of water. There would be no shade for them on Bet Yerach. Next to the Syrians the sun would be their worst enemy.

As they prepared to slip out of the compound, Yol called Herschel to one side. “This is something you ought to have,” the old man whispered, handing over an object wrapped in cloth.

Herschel unwound it. The seven-inch blade caught the starlight as he held it up to the night. “Thank you, Yol, but I have a knife.” The words died in his throat. His eyes locked with Yol's. “Is this—?”

Yol nodded. “It is the blade that killed your father.”

Herschel blinked back bitter tears. “I shall see to it that this knife is returned to its rightful owner, Yol.”

“He'll want to afford you the chance.” Yol embraced him a final time. “Take care, boy. Take care.”

The handful of Messerschmitts were hastily reassembled in the ramshackle hangars of a makeshift airstrip outside Tel Aviv. The airfield had once been an orange grove. The smell of the place reminded Danny of the time those goofs from the produce wholesalers had sent a delivery to the Cherry Street market with the fifty-pound sacks of potatoes piled on top of the cartons of Sunkist.

Spitfires equipped with bomb racks were making runs against Tel Aviv every day, and wandering enemy planes would often strafe the airfield where the Messerschmitts were being made ready. The sirens would sound and all work on the planes would cease as everyone ran for the trenches. More than once Danny watched with his heart in his mouth as the bombs came close to but never touched the hangar housing the precious Messerschmitts.

Reassembling the planes proved to be tougher than taking them apart. Landing gear would fail to function on one plane; unsynchronized machine guns splintered the propeller of another. The frustrated, exhausted mechanics
ran about in circles, and when the sirens blew everyone ran for the trenches.

The combined Arab air forces were devastating the country, keeping the vulnerable Piper Cubs and other cargo planes from supplying the settlements and evacuating the wounded. The Messerschmitts had to get airborne before the bombs destroyed them on the ground.

The Syrian attack on Degania commenced with mortar fire shortly before dawn about thirty hours after Benny Talkin arrived at the settlement with Herschel and Dayan. Benny had been assigned a spot on the front line in support of a machine gun. He'd been issued a Lee-Enfield rifle, several clips of ammo and a Molotov cocktail. As the incoming rounds from the Syrian mortars streaked lightning across the paling sky and landed thunder within the confines of the kibbutz, Benny tightly gripped his rifle and hunkered down behind the sandbag barricade that also sheltered the two-man gun crew.

This can't last forever, Benny told himself. The shelling will have to end, and when it does, I'll be brave. I will be a hero very soon.

Between the thud of the mortars and the deafening explosions of the shells came the distant crackle of small-arms fire. “What's that?” he demanded, not at all liking the panic he heard in his voice.

“That would be the men on Bet Yerach, ambushing the advancing Syrians,” the loader replied.

“Maybe they'll get them all,” Benny said.

“Maybe.” The loader shrugged. “And maybe God will send the Angel of Death to wipe them out like last time, but I wouldn't count on it.”

“That was the Egyptians anyway,” the gunner muttered as he peered over the water-cooled barrel of his weapon.

“Picky, picky,” the loader complained. “An Arab is an Arab, right, Yank?”

Benny didn't answer; his attention was seized by the approaching rumble of engines and the creak and clank of tractor treads biting into the earth.

“Here they come,” shouted the gunner as his loader clicked a belt into the breech.

Benny peeked over the sandbags. The Syrian tanks were rolling toward them flanked by infantry. “Good Lord, they're just marching over those fields like nothing can stop them.”

From a few yards away on Benny's left came a whoosh as their lone bazooka fired. One of the Syrian tanks vanished in a blossom of orange fire amidst much cheering from Degania's line.

Then all hell broke loose. The Vickers gun began snarling and ejecting a shower of spent cartridge cases. One of them hit Benny and he screamed, thinking he'd been shot. Then he got hold of himself and aimed his rifle at a group of advancing Syrian troops. He squeezed off an entire clip of five rounds and not a man of the enemy went down. He might as well have been firing blanks.

The Vickers barrel veered toward his targets and spat flame; the Syrians fell. The bazooka fired again. Another tank blew up, but there were plenty more, and they were rolling closer to the fences all the time despite the Molotovs. The tanks' cannon began to bark. Their machine guns chewed away at the sandbag barricade. The Syrian infantry, which had been taking a drubbing from Degania's small-arms fire, took up defensive positions in the barley field, relying on their tanks to shatter the Jews' defenses.

Benny loaded another clip into his rifle and began to fire. After two shots his weapon jammed. He stared at it helplessly. Nobody had shown him what to do when it jammed. He looked to the Vickers crew for assistance, and
as he did, the loader sprawled backward with the top of his head missing.

“Take over,” the gunner shouted. “Smooth out those belts.”

“Not how it's supposed to be,” Benny mumbled, staring dazedly at the dead loader.

“Please, the belts,” the gunner was begging.

This was crazy. Your gun wasn't supposed to jam, and what about the paralyzing fear that made him want to crawl into a hole somewhere safe and quiet? No, this was definitely all wrong, Benny thought.

The gunner screamed at him and the Vickers' point-blank rounds sprang off the armor plating of the tank just now crashing through the fence a few yards in front of their position.

Benny's eyes fell on the Molotov cocktail. Light the wick, make sure it catches and then throw it before it explodes in your hands.

He struck a match and held it to the torn cotton rag. When he had it flaming he grabbed hold of the top layer of sandbags and hoisted himself up over the barricade.

The tank was sixty feet away. Its turret began to swing in his direction, but slowly—too slowly. He would make it before they could shoot at him if he didn't louse up the throw.

You've done it a thousand times as a kid, he told himself. Any kid worth his salt could do it.

He lobbed the bottle and watched it arc, trailing greasy black smoke, to shatter against the turret and engulf the tank in a shower of burning gasoline. The hatches flew open and the three crewmen came scrambling out, one of them screaming, his arm and hair on fire. All three were knocked down by small-arms fire.

Benny was running like hell back to the relative safety of the sandbags when some dirty bastard planted
something that felt like a sledgehammer between his shoulder blades, knocking him flat on his belly.

This is crazy, he thought as he lay with his face in the dust. All around him the noise of the battle seemed to recede. This is not how it is supposed to be at all.

Jibarn Ahmed set down his knapsack, gazing at Haim Kolesnikoff's grave. It seemed impossible that it had been close to thirty years since he avenged his grandfather's death. The surrounding countryside of this, his ancestors' land, still seemed the same—except, of course, for Degania, cursed Degania. The Jews had spoiled the stern grandeur of Allah's creation; the land had been painted with the Jews' settlements until it looked like a whore. How Jibarn wished his wife and son in Syria could see the land of his fathers as Allah had intended.

Soon they would, when the Jews had been swept away, when the cursed sons of death had been picked off like ticks from a sheep's belly and crushed under the righteous weight of the Arab holy war against them.

Jibarn retrieved his knapsack and moved back into the protection of the boulders. Herschel would be coming soon, he suspected, and it wouldn't do to let the Jew surprise him.

Soon, Jibarn thought, soon the son will be dead, like the father. Soon Degania will be dead if the Syrians showed mettle.

As he listened to the noise of the battle for Degania, he knew he had strong reasons to worry about the quality of the Syrian troops. What was needed to dislodge the tough kibbutz workers was a highly trained, highly motivated army like the British-led Arab League, the elite force just now clashing with the Jews in Jerusalem. Syrian soldiers were mostly ignorant fellahin rudely rousted from their villages, given uniforms and weapons and told to march. These soldiers did not have the training to overcome
a well-planned defense. Fortunately, the Jews had little artillery, but unfortunately, the Syrian tanks had little petrol and few shells for their cannon.

Well, that battle was in Allah's hands. His own war with Haim Kolesnikoff's heir was what personally concerned him.

It had been difficult to persuade Syrian President Shukri al-Kuwatly to let him serve as Colonel Wahab's scout in the area. The president was in a foul mood, afraid his peasant troops would humiliate him, and still angry at Jibarn for failing to get the Jews' gun designs from the American.

But he was here. Jibarn smiled to himself. Soon Herschel Kol would die. It was disquieting, but he had mixed emotions about killing his adversary. He felt hesitant about it. It seemed to him almost like killing a brother.

Herschel's soul was tempered by his father's death, Jibarn thought, and Haim Kolesnikoff's passing has formed my character as well. The father's ghost haunts his son and haunts me. Is Haim, then, any less my father? Have I not lived with his memory as intimately as any son?

He grew angry with himself for doubting at a crucial moment. It was like this after smoking hashish, as if there was poison in his blood stealing away his masculinity, making him weak, making him waver. Perhaps the blood feud was the poison in him. Perhaps it had possessed him, taken control of his soul, let in a demon that killed unrighteously, not in Allah's name but because it craved death and destruction.