The lorries were packed with refugees from the illegal ship, Door of Hope, which had tried to run the British blockade from Italy to Palestine. The Door of Hope had been rammed by a British destroyer, towed to Haifa, and the refugees transferred immediately to Cyprus.
The sirens shrieked louder as the convoy swept close to the balcony of Mandria’s home. The lorries passed one by one. The three men could see the jam of tattered, ragged misery. They were beaten people-at the end of the line-dazed, withered, exhausted. The sirens shrieked and the convoy turned at the Land Gate of the old wall and onto the road to Salamis, in the direction of the British detention camps at Caraolos. The convoy faded from sight but the shrieks of the sirens lingered on and on.
David Ben Ami’s hands were tight fists and his teeth were clenched in a face livid with helpless rage. Mandria wept openly. Only Ari Ben Canaan showed no emotion. They walked in from the balcony.
“I know you two have much to talk over,” Mandria said between sobs. “I hope you find your room comfortable, Mr Ben Canaan. We will have your uniform, papers, and a taxi by morning. Good night.”
The instant David and Ari were alone they threw their arms about each other. The big man picked the little man up and set him down as though he were a child. They looked each other over and congratulated each other on looking well and went into another bear hug.
“Jordana!” David said anxiously. “Did you see her before you left? Did she give you a message?”
Ari scratched his jaw teasingly. “Now let me see …”
“Please, Ari… it has been months since I have received a letter…”
Ari sighed and withdrew an envelope which David snatched from his hands. “I put it in a rubber pouch. The only thing I could think of tonight when I was swimming in was that you would break my neck if I got your damned letter wet.”
David was not listening. He squinted in the half light and slowly read the words of a woman who missed and longed for her lover. He folded the letter tenderly and carefully placed it in his breast pocket to be read again and again, for it might be months before she could send another. “How is she?” David asked.
“I don’t see what my sister sees in yon. Jordana? Jordana is Jordana. She is wild and beautiful and she loves you very much.”
“My parents … my brothers … how is our Palmach gang … what…”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. I’ll be here for a while-one question at a time.”
David pulled out the letter and read it again, and the two men were silent. They stared out of the French doors at the ancient wall across the road. “How are things at home?” David whispered.
“Things at home? The same as always. Bombings, shootings. Exactly as it has been every day since we were children. It never changes. Every year we come to a crisis which is sure to wipe us out-then we go on to another crisis worse than the last. Home is home,” Ari said, “only this time there is going to be a war.” He put his arm on the shoulder of his smaller friend. “We are all damned proud of the work you have done in Caraolos with these refugees.”
“I have done as well as can be expected, trying to train soldiers with broomsticks. Palestine is a million miles away to these people. They have no hope left. Ari … I don’t want you antagonizing Mandria any more. He is a wonderful friend.”
“I can’t stand people patronizing us, David.”
“And we can’t do the job here without him and the Greek people.”
“Don’t be fooled by the Mandrias all over the world. They weep crocodile tears and they pay lip service to our millions of slaughtered, but when the final battle comes we will stand alone. Mandria will sell us out like all the others. We will be betrayed and double-crossed as it has always been. We have no friends except our own people, remember that.”
“And you are wrong,” David snapped back.
“David, David, David. I have been with the Mossad and the Palmach for more years than I care to remember. You are young yet. This is your first big assignment. Don’t let emotion cloud your logic.”
“I want emotion to cloud my logic,” David answered. “I burn inside every time I see something like that convoy. Our people locked up in cages like animals.”
“We try all sorts of schemes,” Ari said; “we must keep a clear head. Sometimes we are successful, sometimes we fail. Work with a clear mind, always.”
Even now they could still hear the sound of sirens over the breeze. The young man from Jerusalem lit a cigarette and stood for a moment in thought. “I must never stop believing,” he said solemnly, “that I am carrying on a new chapter of a story started four thousand years ago.” He spun around and looked up at the big man excitedly. “Look, Ari. Take the place you landed tonight. Once the city of Salamis stood there. It was in Salamis that the Bar Kochba revolution began in the first century. He drove the Romans from our country and re-established the Kingdom of Judah. There is a bridge near the detention camps-they call it the Jews’ Bridge. It has been called that for two thousand years. I can’t forget these things. Right in the same place we fought the Roman Empire we now fight the British Empire two thousand years later.”
Ari Ben Canaan stood a head taller than David Ben Ami. He smiled down at the younger man as a father might smile at an overenthusiastic son. “Finish the story. After the Bar Kochba revolution the legions of Rome returned and massacred our people in city after city. In the final battle at Beitar the blood of murdered women and children made a crimson river which flowed for a full mile. Akiva, one of the leaders, was skinned alive-and Bar Kochba was carried off to Rome in chains to die in the lions’ den. Or was it Bar Giora who died in the lions’ den in another revolution? I can get these revolutions mixed up. Oh yes, the Bible and our history are filled with wonderful tales and convenient miracles. But this is real today. We have no Joshua to make the sun stand still or the walls to come tumbling down. The British tanks will not get stuck in the mud like Canaanite chariots, and the sea has not closed in on the British Navy as it did on Pharaoh’s army. The age of miracles is gone, David.”
“It is not gone! Our very existence is a miracle. We outlived the Romans and the Greeks and even Hitler. We have outlived every oppressor and we will outlive the British Empire. That is a miracle, Ari.”
“Well, David-one thing I can say about the Jews. We certainly know how to argue. Let’s get some sleep.”
CHAPTER SEVEN: “Your move, sir,” Fred Caldwell repeated.
“Yes, yes, forgive me.” Brigadier Sutherland studied the chessboard and moved his pawn forward. Caldwell brought out a knight and Sutherland countered with his own. “Dash it!” the brigadier mumbled as his pipe went out. He relit it.
The two men glanced up as they heard the dim but steady shrill screams of sirens. Sutherland looked at the wall clock. That would be the refugees from the illegal ship, Door of Hope.
“Door of Hope, Gates of Zion, Promised Land, Star of David,” Caldwell said with a snicker. “I will say one thing. They do give those blockade runners colorful names.”
Sutherland’s brow furrowed. He tried to study out his next move on the board, but the sirens would not leave his ears. He stared at the ivory chessmen, but he was visualizing the convoy of lorries packed with agonized faces, machine guns, armored cars. “If you don’t mind, Caldwell, I think I’ll turn in.”
“Anything wrong, sir?”
“No. Good night.” The brigadier walked from the room quickly and closed the door of his bedroom and loosened his smoking jacket. The sirens seemed to screech unbearably loudly. He slammed the window shut to drown the noise but still he could hear it.