Behind him in the distance, faint plumes of smoke rose from Ras Shamir — vague inchoate movements altered the lines and contours of the plain. Within an hour or so he should have his force concentrated and on the white road. He sat among the olives, savagely chewing grass and watching them roll in. He tried to keep his mind off Judith playing her part in the defence of the settlement. In his imagination he could hear the long dry chuckle of the automatic weapons, chattering like magpies.
But now the plumes of dust along the hills swayed and swelled as they approached him; he was at last a general with an army.
28. The Kibbutz Embattled
In the annals of that winter and spring of bitter fighting — the birth-pangs of the new state — the siege and defence of Ras Shamir does not bulk very large: many a kibbutz suffered the same hardships and endured the fierce onslaught of regular Arab troops with the same bitter obstinacy of purpose. Today, the only visible reminders of that pitiless struggle are an odd statue or a memorial plaque, or the withered garlands hanging from the turrets of the “home-made tanks” which line the long winding road which leads to Jerusalem. As for Ras Shamir, the single armoured car which managed to breach the perimeter stands today a rusty burned-out wreck on the green grass by the schoolroom. As the action opened, the two leading cars lumbered like elephants into the pits which had been cleared for such an eventuality; but the third, by a swerve, managed to find solid ground and burst through the perimeter with a roar. But here a swarm of youngsters clung to it like limpets and petrol-bombed it. It swung on like a crazy animal in pain, burst through a thicket of saplings and ground to a halt below the tower. Here it was systematically finished off like an iron bull; it gushed yellow smoke and flame and hissed like a great kettle. But it had unluckily revealed by its mad charge across the wire that the minefield was a fake.
The subsequent fighting was fierce, and in many places hand-to-hand. Time existed for them not like a continuous thing, but in a series of vivid impressionistic actions — of alerts and alarms — of deafening gunfire and slaughter. They saw it, the survivors, like so many highly coloured pieces of glass from a smashed kaleidoscope; the shrill powder-monkeys feeding the gunners, the stretcher-bearers moving about purposefully, the water rushing from the pierced towers. The noise and the confusion also had their own shape, their formal proportions. Lines broken were reformed. Little incidents stuck out and were swallowed again in the general pattern. The charge of the six Herculean Poles armed with scythes and hay-forks? Would the relief never arrive…?
So the long hours wore on; drenched in their own sweat, the defenders held on. Relief, when it did come, seemed to come from nowhere. The Arab infantry suddenly sagged at one corner like a curtain bellying out in the wind, faltered and then reformed with a new orientation. Afar off, now, the kibbutzniks caught sight of the little blue dots moving across their field of vision like a sea: the relief from their mountain comrades had arrived.
Aaron had been delayed by an encounter with the three diverted armoured cars at the eastern cross-roads; but his new army was not disposed to be trifled with by mere steel and rubber. It included veterans from many campaigns who knew all that is to be known about the blind side of tanks; they stalked the cars and captured them, turning them back upon their tracks. They formed a welcome and effective addition to the rescuing force, as it swept down the dusty roads. But Aaron was anxious now, for there had been a long delay: already evening was casting its first shadows under the rosy cliffs and escarpments. Nor was there time for any fine tactical manoeuvring. He could do little more than order a general engagement. It was, indeed, hardly an army but a ragged mob of angry and unshaven men which rushed down on Towers’ flank with a shock that echoed like thunder. But Towers himself was dead, as was Donner; in fact, few of the British officers remained to rally and reform Daud’s forces. Under the impact of the Jews, the lines sagged, wavered and began to give ground slowly but surely.
The defenders watched them as if in a dream — a strange incoherent dream of a retreat and a victory; in the hubbub their hoarse cheers, coming from throats so parched, could hardly be heard.
As the shadows of darkness began to fall, they saw the clouds of battle move inexorably towards the pass, towards the border which Aaron had made it his intention to seal fast. Ras Shamir was safe now, but its defenders could hardly form a coherent thought, so dazed were they with fatigue. An enormous emptiness beset them and hunger was all they were capable of registering.
The defence of Ras Shamir was only one of the defensive actions to take place during those tragic and heroic days when the existence of the new Israel hung in the balance. Nor in the official history will it ever figure among so many other glorious stories of the time. But if Ras Shamir was held, it was symbolic of the way in which the whole country, with its scattered and defenceless network of kibbutzim, turned each and all of them into strong points to stem the Arab advance. From Tiberius to Gaza the same story was enacted, though in each case the original nationality of the defenders might vary from British to Indian, from American to Greek. Beside such epoch-making names as Jerusalem, Haifa, Gaza, Beersheba, Ras Shamir will certainly find its small and modest place. The laconic official communiqué issued after the battle read as follows:
At dusk a massive assault was mounted from the perimeter of the kibbutz by Arab forces using cavalry and infantry in the first instance. These assaults were beaten off and very heavy losses were inflicted. The enemy must have got wind of the reinforcements converging upon Ras Shamir from the hills, for a very determined assault involving three I-tanks was thrown against a weak point in the perimeter. Fortunately, it was the only point where a shallow minefield had been laid which accounted for two of the tanks. The remaining one managed to break into the centre of the kibbutz where it set fire to some of the buildings with their tractors and inflicted serious damage and many casualties before it was put out of action, by some of the children. At 10
P.M.
help arrived and the Arab forces were successfully engaged on the water-meadows by the river. They proved to be less well equipped than had been feared and they were completely routed and driven back through the ravine into their own territory by 1.30
A.M.
If Grete did not follow the fighting of that desperate night with her own eyes, entombed as she was below ground in the cellars of the ancient fortress, she nevertheless heard enough of it to deduce the ebb and flow of its fortunes even down there, in the dark ground. They heard, but as if muted, the infernal racket of the mortars and the dull concussion of the shells that landed; they heard the hoarse cheers and shouts of their own fighting men and women in the occasional pauses between actions. It was like the faint sound-track of a disaster — complete with shouts and groans and the bark of weapons, but with nothing visual to illustrate it. Their fragile oil lamps and candles flickered in the gloom. A thin dust was shaken down by the mortar bombs hitting the fort; cockroaches were shaken from their hideouts among the packing cases.
The small children were at first disposed to show fright and whimper at this strange new departure from their daily lives — by now it was long past their usual bedtime; but Grete read to them in her firm melodious voice; read to them until they dropped asleep around her like drowsy insects. And when the last pair of eyes had closed softly, she sat staring unwinkingly into the light of a candle, feeling the dull weight of her premonitions lying heavy within her — the foreknowledge of David’s certain death somewhere out there among the tangled lines of wire and the shallow trenches.