“But this is for an army, not a clinic,” she said.
Pete chuckled and pressed her arm as they walked down the street to a nearby coffee shop.
“It is, more or less,” she said. Her eyes twinkled; she seemed full of a buoyant self-confidence, an elation which seemed inexplicable to Grete.
“Are you expecting trouble?” she asked.
Peterson nodded. “Of course, you fool; the minute the British go the Arabs will come in in force.”
“But you seem so pleased about it.”
“The relief, my dear; it’s the relief of it all.”
Peterson stirred her coffee and wrinkled up her nose in a smile.
“For so long we have been living in insecurity, dependent on the good will of strangers, on the charity of others… Now, all of a sudden, we exist on paper as a place called Israel. This is a momentous step forward, for we have now become a sort of world commitment. But you know as well as I do that if Israel were to be swallowed up by the Arab states, nobody would lift a finger to save her. At last, my dear, at last we are all alone with our own destiny. It depends on us whether the state can get itself born and fix itself among the other small nations. Can’t you see how relieved we all are that now things are going to come to a head — after so many years of waiting cap in hand outside the doors of the great nations?”
“Are Aaron and David happy?”
“Radiant. For years they have foreseen this moment. The battle may be a stiff one, but it will decide everything; either we die or get thrown into the sea, or else… Israel, a place of our own.”
Pete drank her coffee at a single gulp and got up; she stayed for a moment, looking down into Grete’s face.
“I must go,” she said softly. “The balloon might go up at any minute — though the British are still in the valley. Aaron has gone up to find out what he can. But I must be back this afternoon.”
She paused and smiled into the troubled face of the girl. Then she said softly, “Why don’t you come back?”
Grete stared at her silently.
“Right now!” said Peterson softly. “With me?”
Grete rose without a word, and together they walked towards the door. As Peterson opened it Grete said, “I need half an hour to pack and to give the office the key to my flat. Where shall I find you?”
The decision did not seem to be one she had made herself. It was simply that there seemed nothing else to do. Go she must.
Punctual to the minute, she dragged her suitcase to the little side street where, the task of loading the lorry completed, Peterson sat waiting for her, a cigarette between her lips. She gave Grete a somewhat quizzical look as she came up, for the girl had changed her clothes; gone now was the smartly dressed young lady living in a fashionable quarter of Jerusalem. The blue work-trousers of the land-worker and the head-scarf and coarse shirt marked the appearance of another Grete — more resolute and more capable, or so it seemed. As they dropped down the winding road towards the coastal plain she said:
“Is it true the British are pulling out? The radio only speaks of regrouping.”
Pete gave a harsh bark of laughter.
“Regrouping in order to embark,” she said and added: “What we don’t know is exactly when. David is trying to find out. Our real problems only begin from that moment.”
“Is David…?”
“He is second in command to Aaron, in charge of defence. He is if anything rather over-confident about our chances of survival — I suppose he has to be, to keep morale high. He has been hoping you would come back, you know; but there! It’s none of my business. I think he would like to marry you some day.”
“What chance would we have?” she said slowly, “with this war hanging over us.”
Peterson flicked her cigarette away. “It will not last forever,” she said. “There will be some pretty sharp birth pangs and presto… Israel. Once we have shown our will to survive, the nations of the world will decide to honour the mandate they have given us. After that there will be… I hardly dare utter the word. I’m too superstitious. I’ll spell it. P-e-a-c-e.”
“I’d love to believe you.”
“You must. When that comes you’ll find a different David.”
“Peace!” said Grete, reflecting ironically. Once on the main road, they were swept into a long string of convoys heading for the coast, throwing out a great white plume of dust as they roared along. Lorries crowded with troops of all kinds, sappers, signallers, transport corps, pioneers…
They did not find unencumbered roads again until they climbed the looping road through Nazareth and began to taste once more the fresh hill air. The mountain fortresses — the so-called Mactaggart forts — were still manned by the British troops — and this was some sort of consolation, since they knew the road would be open to Ras Shamir. So they finally came to the last twist in the mountain road and were able to look down across the misty violet sweep of the valley which by now had come to mean so much to Grete. As they neared the encampment they saw what changes were taking place, and that a new kind of purposefulness reigned. Tractors were throwing up banks of earth which looked suspiciously like tactical outworks; the perimeter had been triple-wired, and the whole large circle had been condensed into a makeshift fortress. Every hundred yards or so there was a bunker which suggested a machine gun emplacement. Who could tell whether they were full or empty?
“It looks quite transformed,” said Grete.
“It’s mostly bluff, alas,” said Peterson quietly. “But it might serve. Aaron has gone off to see the British today.”
They entered the perimeter at last, and rolled slowly across the grass among the trees; Grete found herself greeting and being greeted by people she had almost forgotten were her friends. “Shalom, shalom”… the words echoed on the sunny air.
Peterson grinned and said, “I’ll tell the committee. Meanwhile, by a bit of luck your old shack is empty and you can settle in there; and here is someone to carry your bag.”
David’s son stood smiling under a tree; in that short time he had grown taller. To her surprise he came shyly forward and kissed her on the cheek.
“I have been thinking of you,” said Grete. “You’ve grown.”
The boy flushed and said:
“We have spoken much about you here; the children asked always when you were coming back.”
“They did?” cried Grete in genuine surprise.
He nodded and took up her bag; Peterson let in the clutch and moved off in the direction of the clinic. Grete followed the boy to her little hut. It was still there, primitive and shabby.
“There is a letter for you,” said the boy.
This was another surprise. The letter bore an Indian stamp and a sender’s superscription bearing Lawton’s name; so even he had the gift of prophecy! How had he guessed that she would return to Ras Shamir?
David’s son stood looking at her. He said rather solemnly, “My father has asked my permission to love you and I have given it.”
Grete looked at him musingly and then stroked his hair.
“I know you will make us happy,” he said quietly and, patting her wrist with a small protective gesture, he turned and was gone.
Grete sat down on the bed and opened Lawton’s letter, smiling to herself. Then she read aloud a phrase from it. “You know that whatever happens I shall always be here; and if ever you change your mind…
24. A Gift for Ras Shamir
The two men gazed at each other with a kind of grim respect as they exchanged a perfunctory handshake, the tall grizzled colonel and Aaron Stein. Macdonald, the regular, was seated at his primitive desk in the operations room of Fort B — the Mactaggart fort which dominated the pass leading to Ras Shamir and enabled him to keep a tenuous control on the border. Aaron’s eye took in the grey hair, the service medals and the missing thumb which made the operation of lighting a pipe a somewhat lengthy one. He himself puffed at a cigarette.