“There once was a Naval O.C.
Who was rather afraid of the sea…
He was interrupted by a shout: “John,” and he immediately dropped his lackadaisical air, and hurried to Lawton’s side, to gaze down with him at the map of the west coast. Lawton’s pipe stem was already following the sinuous curves of the coast road. It came to rest tapping upon the name “Rasmir”.
“I think we could do this in twenty minutes. We may not be too late yet, in spite of the bloody Navy.”
He gave a quiet order which Carstairs transmitted instantly down the long line of vehicles, and with almost magical speed they pulled out from the orange grove and started racing along the road towards Rasmir.
Lawton’s gloom and depression were in contrast to the light-hearted irreverence of his second-in-command:
“Why so pensive, mon général,” Carstairs asked: “why so downcast? This time the Navy is so plainly at fault… The army has not smirched its escutcheon on this job.”
“I’m tired,” said Lawton in a dry, weary voice. “I thought this was going to be quite a different sort of job. I did not think that I’d see regular troops-of-the-line used like policemen, simply because the Government is too mean to pay enough coppers. Moreover, it’s going to get worse, you’ll see, much worse.”
Carstairs produced some toffees from his pocket. “Have a gob-stopper,” he said. Lawton refused his kindly offer, but the driver of the jeep, as a junior N.C.O., was in no position to disobey orders when Carstairs forced one into his mouth as he drove.
“Thank you, Sir,” he said indistinctly.
“Don’t mention it,” said Carstairs. “And don’t let me hear you use the word ‘underprivileged’ again. The gob-stopper is a symbol of brotherhood.”
“Yes, Sir,” said the driver seriously. Carstairs pursued the matter further as they drove.
“They may not believe this down in the Sergeants’ Mess,” he said.
“No, Sir.”
“Nevertheless, it is true.”
“Very good, Sir.”
They drove on happily sucking their sweets while, in the back of the jeep, the scowling Lawton brooded on the iniquities of the Navy. They swept down to the dunes where the landing had taken place and the familiar operation was signalled. Troops fanned out and scattered, while Lawton and Carstairs ran and scrambled towards the nearest high point on the dunes, from which they might train their binoculars on the country round about. Carstairs groaned.
“Too late, by God! Too late!” he cried theatrically. “But have a look down there on the beach, Sir!”
Lawton turned his gaze on the tell-tale marks of the illegal landing. Footprints led in all directions, and here and there were piles of personal belongings dropped in the confusion of the moment. An old sweater — bits of cardboard — a woman’s shoe — a toy — a many-coloured scarf — soiled bandages — broken biscuits. But it was not only the beach that presented this picture of frantic disorder. A cluster of Carley floats and boats minus their floatings bobbed aimlessly in the shadows, some knocking against the rocks of a narrow spit.
“Hallo,” said Carstairs suddenly: “What’s that?” as he made off down the hill towards the rocks. “That” turned out to be a vulture which took off with a throaty chuckle as the young officer approached. As he came to the outcrop of rock, Carstairs saw the object of the bird’s attentions — namely, a body which floated face downwards. The tell-tale prayer shawl round the shoulders spread out like white wings. Nearby floated the skull-cap. Carstairs turned and shouted sharply: “Sergeant — Sergeant Francis… before dashing into the water himself to drag the body ashore.
Lawton, by this time, was making a methodical survey of the surrounding terrain with his binoculars. Suddenly, one of the men on the dunes called out to him: “Over there, Sir,” pointing towards the west, and Lawton turned his glasses on an olive grove about a mile and a half away, from which the last immigrant convoy was setting forth. He ground his teeth with impotent fury, realizing how narrowly they had missed intercepting them, and was about to give orders for a detachment to comb the slopes at which he was gazing, when, as if by a miracle, a piece of vital information came his way.
Into the range of his binoculars, strayed a man and a woman whose gestures and stance carried a hint of vague familiarity. He held his breath in order to steady the glasses, for, at this extreme range, his very pulsebeats disturbed the field and gave a hazy dancing vibration to the distant figures. Then, for one long second, he succeeded in attaining the desired stillness of wrist, and the faces of Aaron and Peterson printed themselves on his vision.
“It can’t be,” he muttered to himself. And then, lowering his glasses, he was suddenly sure. “It is, it’s them!”
All of a sudden he was a man transformed: he shouted to Carstairs, who was busy loading the corpse into a three-tonner, and his face was radiant.
“John,” he cried. “They’re heading for Ras Shamir!” Then, taking a whistle from his pocket, he blew two short blasts on it as a signal to the dispersed troopers to reform. By now the sun was warm on their shoulders as the convoy began to race back, retracing its steps in the direction of the kibbutz. The slow plume of dust ahead of them on the road only confirmed in Lawton’s mind the suspicion that Ras Shamir would be hiding some, if not all, of the guilty immigrants. He obtained full confirmation of this when they reached the head of the pass and halted for a minute to allow him to get down and to have a further look with his binoculars. Ras Shamir was seething with activity like an ants’ nest. Lorries were swerving into the perimeter and disgorging groups of figures which began to run and stumble in different directions.
Lawton’s face grew tense and grim as he watched.
“Oh, dear,” said the second-in-command, who was also interpreting the same scene through his glasses. “It looks as if we’ll have to unstitch Ras Shamir once again.”
The two men groaned in unison as they climbed back into the command jeep, and Carstairs pursued his melancholy reflections as they swept down the hill.
“It may interest you to know, Sir, that when I joined the army to fight Hitler, I felt sure that I’d be loved and wanted by the Jews forever after. All this has been a horrible shock to my nervous system.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Lawton furiously and his junior subsided into chastened silence, and contented himself by slowly selecting another sweet from the apparently endless supply in his pocket.
As they neared the kibbutz, taking the long straight road across the valley, they came upon the human roadblock which had been set up a hundred yards or so from the entry to the settlement to delay them until the immigrants were adequately dispersed and hidden by the inhabitants. Sixty or seventy elderly men, women of all ages and older children in rows five deep had taken up their position across the road, linking their folded arms in the fashion of police trying to contain a crowd. Their faces were bitter and determined. They did not flinch as the convoy moved down upon them, and as the jeep drew to a halt, almost touching the thighs of a bearded farmer, Lawton jumped out with Carstairs and scanned them with a coolly professional eye, looking for someone who might be spokesman for the kibbutzniks and with whom he might parley. As the troops debussed and formed up in ditches on either side of the road, ready to advance, there was a dead silence, ominous and heavy. As Lawton walked up and down the row of dramatic faces, it seemed as if he were inspecting a guard of honour. They regarded him curiously as he walked, apparently in deep thought, and the initial tension of their anger, since it had not been put to the test of battle, began to slacken, to become tinged with curiosity. The oppressive heavy silence continued, seeming immense and pregnant. Nobody moved, nobody stirred.