A man who loves his land, as the Arabs profess, will stand and die for it.
The Arabs tell the world that the State of Israel has expansionist ideas. Exactly how a nation of less than a million people can expand against fifty million is an interesting question.
The Arab people need a century of peace.
The Arab people need leadership, not of desert sheiks who own thousands of slaves, not of hate-filled religious fanatics, not of military cliques, not of men whose entire thinking is in the Dark Ages. The Arab people need leaders who will bring them civil liberties, education, medicine, land reforms, equality.
They need leaders with the courage to face the real problems of ignorance, illiteracy, and disease instead of waving a ranting banner of ultranationalism and promoting the evil idea that the destruction of Israel will be the cure for all their problems.
Unfortunately, whenever an enlightened Arab leader arises he is generally murdered. The Arabs want neither resettlement of the refugees, alleviation of their plight, nor do they want peace.
Israel today stands as the greatest single instrument for bringing the Arab people out of the Dark Ages.
Only when the Arab people get leadership willing to grasp the hand extended in friendship will they begin to solve the problems which have kept them in moral and physical destitution.
BARAK BEN CANAAN
554
BOOK 5
Wiik Winqs as
M voice crieth-in the wilderness, Trepan ye the, waif of the lord, vnnke stmiqht in the desert a. highway for our God.
Ihey that wait up<m the loni shall retuuv their strength.- they shall nu>u*it up< wUhuilntisns eagles. ”
Isaiah.
WILDERNESS OF PA
I(S I NA 1) ”
CHAPTER ONE:
NOME, ALASKA LATE 1948
The entire flying stock of the Arctic Circle Airways consisted of three army-surplus cargo ships purchased on credit by Stretch Thompson.
Stretch had served in Alaska during the war. He had won renown as a young man with a fertile mind and unlimited imagination when it came to devising means of avoiding honest labor. The nights were long in Alaska and they gave Stretch Thompson much thinking time. Most of his thinking time was devoted to exploiting the untapped riches of Alaska and avoiding honest labor. The longer the nights became, the more Stretch stretched-and thought. And one night he hit it
Crabs!
The entire coast was lined with virgin beds of Alaskan king crabs, some sixteen inches in diameter. Why, with a little enterprise he could train the American public to drool for king crabs. In a year he would make them a delicacy equal to Maine lobsters, Maryland terrapin, or cherry-stone clams. He could fly the giant crustaceans-down to the United States packed in ice. Eager dealers would snap them up. He would be rich. He would be known as Stretch Thompson, the King Crab King.
Things did not work out exactly as Stretch had planned. It appeared that the human race was not advanced enough for his king crabs. The cost of a plane, gas, and a pilot seemed, somehow, always to come out to more than what he could get for his crabs. None the less, Stretch was not a man to say die. With deft bookwork and glib tongue he kept the creditors off his back and he did have an airline, such as it was. With bailing wire, spit, and chewing gum he was able to keep the three crafts of Arctic Circle aloft. Just when things looked the darkest, along came a pay load to keep him in business.
Stretch’s one bit of continued good luck was his chief, and sometimes only, pilot, Foster J. MacWilliams, known as “Tex” for the usual obvious reason. Foster J. had flown the Hump during the war and was, as Stretch put it, “The best goddam chief pilot any goddam airline ever had.” Such was Foster J. MacWilliams’ prowess that no one in Nome would bet against his setting down a C-47 on the tail end of an iceberg in the middle of a blizzard-drunk. In fact, on various occasions Stretch tried to raise enough money to make the bet worth while but something always happened … either the blizzard slackened or Foster couldn’t get drunk enough.
557
MacWilliams was a tramp. He liked flying. He didn’t like the fancy stuff of flying over set routes or with a schedule or with first-class craft., Too dull. The risks of flying Arctic Circle suited him fine.
One day MacWilliams came into the shack at the end of the runway which served as office, operations headquarters, and home for Stretch Thompson. ’
“Goddam, Stretch,” he said, “it’s colder than a well digger’s ass out there.”
Stretch had the look on his face of the proverbial canary-filled cat. “Foster,” he said, “how’d you like to go to a warmer climate and get all of your pay in one bundle?”
“You always did have a gruesome sense of humor.”
“I kid you not, Tex. You’ll never guess …”
“What?”
“Guess.”
Foster shrugged. “You sold the airline.”
“That’s right.”
Foster’s mouth dropped open. “Who’d buy this pile of crap?”
“I didn’t ask their life history. I found out their check was good and that was all she wrote.”
“Well, I’ll be a sad bastard. That’s fine, Stretch, because I’m getting tired of this chicken kacky up here, anyhow. How much you figure you owe me?”
“With the bonus I’m giving you, about four grand.”
Foster J. MacWilliams whistled. “That will buy a lot of first-class tail. I can stay drunk and laid from here to South America. That’s my next stop, Stretch. I’m going to latch onto one of them South American outfits. I hear they pay big dough hauling dynamite over the Andes.”
“There’s a hitch …” Stretch said.
“I figgered as much.”
“We got to deliver the three planes to the new owners. I hired two boys to run the number one and two ships over … I can’t find another one.”
“You mean I’m the only one fool enough to fly the number three ship. Well, that’s all right. Where do I deliver it?”
“Israel.”
“Where?”
“Israel.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I was just looking for it on the map, myself, when you came in.”
Stretch Thompson and Foster J. MacWilliams searched high and low on the world map. After a futile half hour Tex shook his head. “Stretch, I think somebody gave you the rub.”
They went into Nome and asked around the bars where 558
Israel might be. One or two people had heard something or the other about it. Stretch was beginning to perspire in the cold when someone suggested they get the librarian up.
“It’s Palestine!” the irate librarian said, “and midnight is no time to pound on my door.”
After another search on the map they finally located it.
Foster shook his head. “Goddam, Stretch,” he said. “It’s smaller than a big iceberg. I’m liable to fly right over it.”
Three weeks later, Foster J. MacWilliams landed the number three plane of Arctic Circle Airways at Lydda airdrome. Stretch Thompson had flown over a week earlier and was there to meet him. Foster was ushered into an office which bore the words: Palestine central airways, s. s. Thompson,
‘ GENERAL MANAGER.
Foster J. MacWilliams smelled a rat.
“How was the trip, old buddy? I’m sure glad to see you.”
“Just fine. Now if you’ll give me my back pay, old buddy, I’ll just shuffle off to Paris. I got my hooks on a real goer and a month before I hitch a ride to Rio D.”
“Sure, sure,” Stretch said. “Got the check right here in the safe.”
Stretch watched Foster MacWilliams’ eyes bug out. “Four thousand, five hundred and no zero zero’s!”
“The extra five bills is to prove that Stretch Thompson ain’t no hog,” Stretch said.
“You’re a big man … always said that.”
“Y1 know, Tex, this here is an interesting place. Just about everybody around here is a Jew. Been here a week and I can’t get used to it.”