So she now found herself locked into the great barn-like cellars with the smallest of the children — those who were ten years old and upwards had been given tasks to do which had a direct military bearing, acting as powder-monkeys, carrying ammunition, messages from those in the outer perimeter to the central command, and medical supplies.
27. The Ultimatum
Trouble began to spread now like burning oil on water, and every day brought its quota of ugly news and rumour, tidings of riot and burnings within, of menaces and provocations without. Yet still the valley lay in the winter sunlight, deceptively at peace, while the whole country was going through a convulsion around it — death-struggle or birth-pangs — who could say? By now the ugliness of Arab threats, and the fact that their armies were poised on the borders, waiting to pounce, left the kibbutzniks in little doubt that they would not escape the onslaught in this one small and remote sector.
But when Towers did get the order to move down into the plain and invest Ras Shamir, Daud was lying ill with fever and a new haemorrhage; it was plain that he would not be able to play an active part. He lay among the coloured cushions, exhausted, with flushed cheeks, and told Towers: “You will advance anyway, Towers.” Towers grunted and nodded. “I am bitterly sorry not to ride with you,” said Daud, but the old man said: “You will miss nothing. I am sure they will surrender. No shot will be fired. You will see. If I move we shall have the place in our hands in a couple of hours.” He really believed this himself; indeed, to such a degree that he repeated it almost word for word to his staff as they sat by swinging lantern-light, making their final preparations for the morning start. It was to be a thoroughly orthodox operation — a “bus-ride” in Towers’ expressive phrase. They would move down onto the plain and advance with the armoured cars in dart formation, infantry in open order.
So it fell out, exactly as planned, but of course no such operation could be conducted invisibly, and with the very first move of the scouts in the pass, with the first trails of dust rising from the lorry convoys with their infantry, the look-out at Ras Shamir picked them up and reported the fact. Pete watched them keenly for a second and then blew her whistle for general assembly. “I think we have a little time before they get here,” she said soberly. “Send out the markers to mark the minefield.” A dozen children raced out to mark the low pickets and tracery of wire with death-head signs and the forbidding words “DANGER — MINES”. The men and women went slowly, purposefully, down to the magazine to draw their weapons, and then each went to his or her allotted place. Judith was in the second section with a group of yellow-haired Poles and four other girls, among them Anna who was the section leader. A deathly hush had fallen upon the settlement now, broken only by the low talk and murmurs of the defenders as they took up sighting positions.
Slowly, like a brown stain on the greensward of the plain, Towers’ infantry debussed and formed up in battle line. Then the whole mass began its cumbersome movement forward, walking behind the armoured cars. Towers, who scorned armour, walked at the head of his section, grim of face; the existence of a hitherto unnoticed minefield infuriated him as an example of faulty intelligence. Nevertheless, it might be a fake minefield for all one knew. The intention was to advance up to the wire and call for a surrender, but they were already within a few hundred yards when a long rippling glissando of machine-gun fire broke from the perimeter of the settlement and swished among them like a scythe gone mad. There was a moment’s hesitation and Towers called to his section-leaders to reform and continue the advance. “Bless my soul,” he said to himself, almost with an academic pleasure, “at least four heavy machine guns. Who would have thought it?” Another long slither of fire, and he saw some of his middle section fall. He gave the order to halt and lie down, while he himself walked forward to the wire with the bullets flickering about him, cutting the heads off flowers and sending up puffs of soil. He walked slowly and thoughtfully, like a professor approaching a blackboard to make a demonstration of an academic fact. At the sight of this solitary figure advancing, the fire tailed away and ceased. Towers advanced to the wire, producing a white handkerchief from his sleeve, and made a vague and somewhat indefinite gesture towards the Jewish lines. It was the sort of half-modest movement that a public entertainer makes when imploring an audience to desist from further applause in order that he may complete an encore. “He wants to parley,” said Anna grimly. A moment of indecision, and then they saw the minatory figure of Miss Peterson, Sten gun across her shoulder, advancing to meet the officer; it was a well-calculated choice of sector, too, for she was able to advance along the broad path between the fake minefields, thus offering an apparent indication of a safe road through them. But she was in fact walking over the grass and bramble-covered pits they had so laboriously cleared and covered. Towers, waiting for her, grunted and made the deduction he was supposed to make — the wrong one. He was extremely put out to be faced by a woman. He saluted and put on a quacking Camberley accent in order to disguise his confusion. “My orders are to call on you to surrender,” he said. “Nobody will be harmed — you have my word for it.”
“We are not surrendering,” said Pete.
“I shall be compelled to use force,” said Towers in his new blustering tone. “Much against my will.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Yes.”
“Then our answer is NO.”
Pete turned on her heel and started her slow histrionic walk back to the perimeter. Towers called after her: “I will give you — ” he glanced at his watch and named the time — “until then — to discuss the matter. Unless you surrender, I will attack.”
She did not turn. Towers watched her broodingly. An idea had begun to stir in his mind, to germinate. He looked at his watch. “Donner,” he called, “I have an idea. They seem better armed than I thought. If they are going to resist we may have a bit of a dust-up — but it certainly means they expect to be reinforced. Detach three cars and command the eastern cross-roads.” He watched the order conveyed and the great cars start to rumble off through the silence. Where the devil could hypothetical reinforcements come from? A faint biblical tag, something about “lift up thine eyes to the hills”, crossed his mind. The camp lay quiet, ominously quiet — the hands of his watch circled to the appointed hour. No messenger appeared with the hoped-for white flag. “All right,” said Towers, and addressed himself systematically to the task of reducing the settlement.
Meanwhile, Aaron drove at full speed along the dusty roads towards the east, his mind buzzing with anticipation and anxieties. He had chosen a point some two miles away as a hypothetical point of concentration for his army of reinforcements. He knew they would need to form and concentrate if they were to be brought to bear on the enemy in any force. By now they must already be pouring down the dusty tracks among the hills, a motley crowd of farmers, blacksmiths, women… Some would be lorry-borne, some on tractors; some armed with nothing better than pitchforks or blacksmiths’ hammers. But the call had gone out and been answered.
Civilians all, whose most distinctive feature of dress was the gentian blue pants of the field workers, and whose habits and culture spanned half the globe. The hills disgorged them slowly but certainly. Some swung in to marching tunes culled from many armies and many lands — Russian and Hebrew and Polish tunes hammered out in the distant past by armies of the line which had learned that to sing while you marched enlivened monotony. “John Brown’s Body” and “Waltzing Matilda” carried their haunting overtones of Tobruk, Rimini and Caen; even “Lili Marlene” brought her sagging melancholy to swell the chorus.