Leon Uris (29 page)

“Yes sir.”

“Oh, uh ... Moore. Many thanks, old man, for the whisky you sent up to the club.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Ari gathered up the papers from the CO’s desk. The CO sighed. “Jews come and Jews go,” he said.

“Yes sir,” Ari said. “They come ... and they go.”

The breakfast table was set in front of the window in Mark’s room. He and Kitty nibbled at their food. Mark’s ash tray brimmed over. “What time is it now?” Kitty asked for the fifteenth time.

“Almost nine-thirty.”

“What would be happening?”

“If they’re running on schedule they’re loading the children aboard the trucks right now. Look,” Mark said, pointing out to sea. The salvage trawler
Aphrodite/ Exodus
turned and moved slowly toward the harbor entrance.

“Good Lord,” Kitty said, “is that the
Exodus
?”

“That’s her.”

“My God, Mark. It looks like it’s ready to fall apart.”

“It is.”

“But how on earth are they going to get three hundred children on her?”

Mark lit another cigarette. He wanted to pace the room but he did not wish to show Kitty how frightened he was.

Nine-thirty.

Nine-forty.

The
Exodus
passed between the lighthouse and the castle, through the narrow opening of the two arms of the sea wall, and into the Kyrenia harbor.

Nine-fifty.

“Mark, please sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

“We should be getting a call from Mandria soon. Any minute now ... any minute.”

Ten o’clock.

Five past ten.

Six past ten.

Seven past ten.

“Dammit! Where is that coffee I ordered? Kitty, phone from your room, will you. Tell them to get that coffee up here.”

A quarter past ten. The fresh pot of coffee arrived.

Seventeen past ten. Mark’s jitters abated. He knew that if he did not hear from Mandria in the next ten minutes something had gone wrong.

Ten-twenty. The phone rang!

Mark and Kitty looked at each other for an instant. Mark wiped the sweat from the palm of his hand, sucked in his breath, and lifted the receiver.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Parker?”

“Speaking.”

“Just a moment, sir. We have a call for you from Famagusta.”

“Hello ... hello ... hello.”

“Parker?”

“Speaking.”

“Mandria here.”

“Yes?”

“They have just passed through.”

Mark replaced the receiver slowly. “He got them out of Caraolos, all right. They’re moving down the road to Larnaca now. In about fifteen minutes they’ll fork off and make a dash north. They’ve got about fifty miles, mostly flat country with only one mountain pass if they don’t have to use alternate roads. They should be here a little after noon ... if everything goes all right.”

“I’m almost hoping that something will go wrong,” Kitty said.

“Come on. No use waiting here.”

He took his field glasses and walked with Kitty downstairs to the reception desk and asked for a cable blank.

KENNETH BRADBURY

CHIEF, AMERICAN NEWS SYNDICATE

London

HAVING A BALL. REQUEST TWO WEEK EXTENSION OF MY VACATION. ADVISE.

MARK

“Send this through, urgent. How long will it take?”

The receptionist read it over. “It will be in London in a few hours.”

They walked from the Dome toward the quay.

“What was that about?” Kitty asked.

“My story should be on the wires from London tonight.”

They stood on the quay for several moments and watched the rickety salvage tug tie up at dockside. Mark led Kitty away. They crossed the harbor and climbed to the ramparts of the Virgin Castle. From here they could see both the harbor and far down the coastal road where the convoy was due to pass.

At eleven-fifteen Mark focused his field glasses on the coast road. He slowly scanned the road that hugged the shore and wove in and out of the hills. The mountain pass was too far off to see. He froze! He had sighted a tiny trail of dust and a line of trucks which appeared as small as ants. He nudged Kitty and handed her the glasses. She held them on the trucks as they wove in and out the snake-like turns and inched toward Kyrenia.

“They are about half an hour away.”

They came down from the rampart, crossed the harbor once again, and stood at the end of the quay, which was only five walking minutes from the Dome Hotel. As the convoy passed the hospital at the edge of town Mark took Kitty’s hand and started back to the hotel.

In a phone booth at the Dome, Mark put in an urgent call to British Intelligence in Famagusta.

“I wish to speak to Major Alistair,” Mark said, disguising his voice by putting a handkerchief over the mouthpiece and speaking with a British accent.

“Who is calling, please, and what do you wish to speak to Major Alistair about?”

“Look, old boy,” Mark said, “three hundred Jews have escaped from Caraolos. Now just don’t ask any damned fool questions and give me Alistair.”

The phone on Major Alistair’s desk rang.

“Alistair here,” he said in his whispery voice.

“This is a friend,” Mark said. “I am advising you that several hundred Jews have broken out of Caraolos and are boarding a ship in the Kyrenia harbor at this very moment.”

Alistair clicked the receiver several times. “Hello ... hello ... who is this? I say ... hello.” He closed his own phone and opened it again. “Alistair here. I have a report of an escape of Jews. They are supposed to be boarding a ship at Kyrenia. Sound an alert, blue. Have the Kyrenia area commander investigate at once. If the report is true you’d better advise naval units to move for that area.”

Alistair put down the receiver and rushed down the hall toward Sutherland’s office.

The convoy rolled to a stop on the quay. Ari Ben Canaan got out of the lead jeep and its driver drove it off. One by one the lorries rolled up to the
Exodus
. The youngsters responded automatically as a result of Zev’s training. They moved quickly and quietly from the truck to the ship. On board, Joab, David, and Hank Schlosberg, the captain, moved them into their places in the hold and on deck. The operation was effected calmly and wordlessly.

Along the quay a few curious onlookers stood and gaped. A few British soldiers shrugged and scratched their heads. As quickly as each truck was unloaded it was driven off toward the mountains around St. Hilarion to be abandoned. As of that moment the 23rd Transportation Company had fulfilled its purpose and was going out of existence. Joab left a note in his truck thanking the British for the use of their lorry.

Ari boarded the
Exodus
and went up to the wheelhouse. One by one the lorries discharged the children. It took only twenty minutes to load the boat. Zev, David, Joab, and Hank Schlosberg reported that the boarding had been completed. Ari gave the order to Hank and he cast off and started the engines.

“Get to the children,” Ari said, “and tell them exactly what we are doing and what will be expected of them. Any child who feels he cannot go through with it will advise me in the wheelhouse and he will be returned to Caraolos. Explain to them that their lives are in danger if they stay. There is to be no pressure from you or the children to induce others to remain who wish to go.”

As the Palmachniks went down to brief the children the
Exodus
backed into mid-harbor and dropped anchor.

In an instant the entire Kyrenia area was alive with the shriek of sirens! Ari turned a pair of field glasses on the hills and coastal road and saw dozens of British lorries and jeeps converging on Kyrenia. He laughed out loud as he saw the trucks of the late 23rd Transportation Company rushing up the hills to be abandoned. They were rushing away from Kyrenia and passed the convoy of British soldiers coming in the opposite direction.

Ari looked below him. The children on deck were calm.

The British poured into the harbor area! Lorry after lorry of soldiers erupted onto the quay. Several officers were pointing at the
Exodus
and shouting orders. Soldiers began racing along both arms of the sea wall and setting up machine guns and mortars at the narrow harbor opening so that if the
Exodus
were to try it could not get out to sea.

More lorries poured into the area. The quay was roped off and curious spectators pushed back. Ari watched the British strength grow by the moment. Inside of an hour the harbor was swarming with five hundred fully armed soldiers. A pair of torpedo boats stationed themselves outside the harbor. On the horizon Ari could see a trio of destroyers rushing to the scene. The sirens shrieked on! The peaceful little town was turning into an armed camp! Then tanks rumbled onto the quay and artillery replaced the machine guns and mortars guarding the harbor entrance.

Another blaze of sirens brought a car bearing Brigadier Sutherland, Caldwell, and Alistair onto the quay. Major Cooke, the area commander of Kyrenia, reported to Sutherland.

“That’s the ship out there, sir. It’s loaded with Jews all right. It can’t possibly get away.”

Sutherland studied the harbor. “You’ve got enough here to fight a Panzer division,” he said; “they must be insane on that boat. Get a public-address system hooked up right away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you asked me, we’d blow them out of the water,” Caldwell said.

“I didn’t ask you,” Sutherland snapped. “Cooke ... get this area cordoned off. Organize a boarding party. Tear gas, small arms, in case they won’t come back by themselves. Freddie, hop over to the Dome and inform headquarters I want a news blackout.”

Alistair had remained quiet and was studying the tugboat.

“What do you make of it, Alistair?”

“I don’t like it, sir,” he said. “They aren’t pulling a daylight escape like this unless they have something else in mind.”

“Come now, Alistair. You’re always looking for sinister plots.”

Mark Parker pushed his way past the guards and approached the two officers.

“What’s all the noise about?” Mark asked Alistair.

The instant Alistair saw Mark he knew his suspicion was correct. “Really, Parker,” Alistair said, “do be a good sport and tell us. You know, old man, you ought to brush up on your British accent the next time you telephone me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Major.”

Brigadier Sutherland was beginning to catch on. He looked from the tug to Parker and to Alistair and he knew that the Mossad Aliyah Bet had caught him unprepared. He flushed. Major Cooke, the Kyrenia area commander, reported. “We’ll have boarding parties formed in ten minutes, sir. Two hundred men and we’ll commandeer some trawlers here to take them out.” Sutherland did not even hear him.

“Where is the loud-speaker, damn it all!”

Ten minutes later Sutherland grabbed a microphone. A silence fell over the harbor. The boarding parties stood by to go out into the middle of the harbor after the
Exodus
.

“Hello, out there! This is Brigadier Bruce Sutherland, the commander of Cyprus, speaking,” his voice shot out in a series of echoes. “Can you hear me out there?”

In the wheelhouse of the
Exodus
, Ari Ben Canaan opened his public-address system. “Hello, Sutherland,” he said, “this is Captain Caleb Moore of the 23rd Transportation Company, His Majesty’s Jewish Forces on Cyprus. You can find your lorries up at St. Hilarion.”

Sutherland turned pale. Alistair’s mouth dropped open.

“Hello, out there!” Sutherland’s voice snapped angrily. “We are going to give you ten minutes to return to dockside. If you do not we are going to send out a heavily armed boarding party and bring you back.”

“Hello, Sutherland! This is the
Exodus
speaking. We have three hundred and two children aboard this boat. Our engine rooms are loaded with dynamite. If one of your troops sets foot on this boat or if one round is fired from any of your guns we are going to blow ourselves up!”

At that instant Mark Parker’s story was being cabled from London to every corner of the world.

Sutherland, Alistair, and the five hundred British soldiers on the quay stood speechless as a flag was run up on the mast of the
Exodus
. It was a British Union Jack and in its center was painted a huge Nazi swastika.

The battle of the
Exodus
was on!

EXCLUSIVE! DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH: MODEL 1946

BY AMERICAN NEWS SYNDICATE CORRESPONDENT

MARK PARKER

KYRENIA, CYPRUS: (ANS)

I am writing this story from Kyrenia. It is a tiny, jewel-like harbor on the northern coast of the British Crown Colony of Cyprus.

Cyprus has been rich in the pageantry of history. The island is filled with reminders of its vaunted past, from the ruins of Salamis to the cathedrals of Famagusta and Nicosia to the many castles of Crusader glory.

But none of this colorful history can match for sheer naked drama the scene that is being played at this very moment in this quiet, unknown resort town. For some months Cyprus has been a detention center for Jewish refugees who have tried to run the British blockade into Palestine.

Today, three hundred children between the ages of ten and seventeen escaped the British camp at Caraolos in an as-yet-undetermined manner, and fled across the island to Kyrenia where a converted salvage tug of about two hundred tons awaited them for a dash to Palestine.

Almost all the escapees were graduates of German concentration and extermination camps. The salvage tug, fittingly renamed the Exodus, was discovered by British Intelligence before it could get out of the harbor.

With its three hundred refugees the ship is sitting at anchor in the center of the harbor, which measures a mere three hundred yards in diameter, and has defied all British efforts to have the children debark and return to Caraolos.

A spokesman for the Exodus has announced that the hold of the boat is filled with dynamite. The children have joined in a suicide pact and they will blow up the boat if the British attempt to board her.