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budge. After three thousand years of waiting, they could wait one more day.
Foster J. MacWilliams took one look at these strange creatures, listened to the Aguments in the gobbledygook-lingo, uttered a short oath to Stretch Thompson and went into town and got very intoxicated.
He was awakened the next morning and carted to the airport with a horrible throbbing hangover from mixing Greek ouzo, rice wine, and Scotch. He watched the Yemenites carrying their water bottles and their Torah aboard the plane.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Foster commented on the procession.
“Captain MacWilliams,” a voice said behind him. He turned and faced a tall, well-shaped sabra who introduced herself as Hanna. She was in her mid-twenties and wore the traditional blue of a kibbutz and had sandals on her feet. “I will be flying with you and taking care of the passengers.”
At that point the trip started to become interesting to Foster. Hanna was unconcerned that he was looking her over very carefully. “Do you have any particular instructions? I mean this is our first experiment.”
“Hell, no. Just keep them gooks out of the pilot’s cabin. Of course, you are welcome to come in … any time. And call me ‘Tex.’”
Foster was watching the loading. The line of Yemenites seemed endless. “Hey! What’s the score? How many of them do you think that plane will hold?”
“We have a hundred and forty listed.”
“What! You crazy? We won’t get that thing into the air. Now, Hanna, you just run up there and tell whoever is putting those people on to take half of them off.”
“Captain MacWilliams,” the girl pleaded, “they are very light people.”
“So are peanuts light. That don’t mean that I can haul a billion of them.”
“Please. I promise you won’t have any trouble with them.”
“You’re damned right I won’t. We’ll all be dead at the end of the runway.”
“Captain MacWilliams. Our situation is desperate. The British have ordered us to get them out of Aden. They are pouring over the border by the hundreds every day.”
Foster grumbled and studied the weight charts. The Israeli workers nearby held their breath as he calculated. He made the mistake of looking up into Hanna’s eyes. He refigured, cheated a bit, and reckoned with luck the old ship could rev up enough steam to get up in the air. Once up, he’d keep her up … somehow. “Hell, leave them in,” he said, “this is my first and last trip, anyhow.” 566
. The camp director handdd him the final manifest. A hundred and forty-two Yemenites were packed into the craft. Hanna got the food and supplies aboard and he climbed up the ladder.
The stench hit his nostrils!
“We didn’t have time to bathe them all,” Hanna apologized. “We didn’t know when you were coming.”
He poked his head in the main cabin. It was jammed tight with the little people. They sat cross-legged and frightened on the floor. The smell was horrible.
Foster stepped in and closed and locked the door. Whereupon the unventilated hundred-and-twenty-degree heat began to work on the odors. He worked his way forward an inch at a time. By the time he reached the pilot’s cabin he was an interesting shade of green. He threw the window open to get air but instead got a blast of heat. He ran up the engines and as he taxied down the runway he held his head out of the window and vomited. He continued retching as he gunned the plane down the runway and barely lifted at the last inch. He sucked a lemon as he fought for altitude, and finally, with the coming of cooler air, his stomach came under control.
It was choppy and the plane bounced badly as he tried to get height. He “turned the corner” at the Strait of Bab el Mandeb and beelined up the center of the Red Sea with Saudi Arabia on one side and Egypt on the other.
Hanna came in and she, too, was green. “Can’t you make this plane stop bouncing?” she said. “They’re all throwing up in there.”
Foster shut off the heat in the main cabin. “Get in there and open the air vents. I’ll try to get a little higher. The cold air will straighten them out.”
His head throbbed from the hangover. Why did he ever let Stretch Thompson talk him into this?
In another half hour, Hanna returned. “They’re all complaining that they are freezing … so am I.”
“You got your choice-if I turn on the heat they’ll start vomiting again.”
“Let them freeze,” Hanna mumbled, and returned to her passengers.
In a few moments she ran into the cabin shrieking and screaming in Hebrew.
“Speak English!”
Hanna pointed to the main cabin. “Fire … they’ve started a fire to keep warm.”
The plane was on automatic pilot and Foster tore out, throwing bodies to right and left. A small fire was going in the middle of the floor. He stamped it out in a rage and went to Hanna, who sagged limply by the compartment door.
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“Do you know how to talk to these people?”
“Yes… Hebrew …”
Foster shoved the intercom microphone into her hands. “Now you tell them the next one who moves out of his place is going for a swim in the Red Sea!”
The Yemenites had never heard a loudspeaker before. When they heard Hanna’s voice they all began pdinting to the ceiling and, terrified, they cried and cringed.
“What the hell’s the matter with them? What did you tell them?”
“They’ve never heard it before. They think it’s God commanding them.”
“Good. Don’t tell them no different.”
Things went fairly well for the next few hours. There were a few minor incidents, nothing bad enough to endanger the plane. Foster had just begun to relax when he heard another loud commotion from the main cabin. He closed his eyes. “Dear Lord,” he sighed, “I’ll be a good Christian from now on. Just let this day end.”
Hanna returned.
“I’m afraid to ask,” Foster mumbled.
“Tex,” she said, “you are the godfather of a baby boy.”
“What!”
“We’ve just had a birth.”
“No … no … no!”
“It’s all right,” Hanna said. “Giving birth is a very routine matter with them. Mother and son are resting well.”
He closed his eyes and gulped.
Nothing more happened for an hour-suspiciously, Foster thought. The little people got used to the sound of the engines of the “eagle” and began to doze off one by one, tired from their ordeal. Hanna brought a bowl of hot broth to Foster and they began to laugh over the events of the day. Foster asked Hanna a lot of questions about the Yemenites and the war.
“Where are we now?”
Foster, pilot, co-pilot, navigator, and radio operator, looked up at the map. “We’ll be turning the corner pretty soon and go up the Gulf of Akaba. On the way down I was able to see the battle lines in the desert.”
“I hope the war will be over soon.”
“Yeah, war’s rough. Say, how in hell did you ever get roped into a job like this? Whatever they pay you, it’s worth double.”
Hanna smiled. “I don’t get paid for this.”
“Don’t get paid?”
“No. I was sent here. I may go out with these people to build a settlement or I may continue this run.”
“I don’t dig you at all.” 568
“It is rather hard to explain. Sometimes outside people don’t understand how we feel. Money means nothing to us. Getting these people into Israel means everything. Sometime I’ll explain it better.”
Foster shrugged. A lot of strange things were happening. Well, it didn’t matter, he thought. It was worth the ride, but once on a run like this was enough.
After a while he pointed ahead. “That’s Israel,” he said.
Hanna ran to the microphone.
“What the hell you doing!”
“Please let me tell them, Tex. They’ve been waiting for this moment for … thousands of years.”