Leon Uris (48 page)

The Mufti was nearly insane with rage! He changed commanders and assembled another force of a thousand men. They attacked, but as soon as they came into close range they broke and fled.

For the first time Jews commanded a hilltop position and the Arabs were not going to dislodge them!

Although the Arabs would not fight at close quarters and would therefore not be able to run the Haganah out, they did not intend to make life easy for the Jews. Ari’s troops were constantly harassed by Arab rifles. His force was completely isolated from the rest of the Yishuv. The closest settlement was Nahariya. All supplies and even water had to come in through hostile territory by truck, and once there everything had to be carried up the hill by hand.

Despite the hardships, Ha Mishmar held fast. A few crude huts were erected inside the stockade and a road was started to the bottom of the hill. Ari began night patrols along the Taggart wall to catch infiltrators and arms runners. The Mufti’s underground highway into Palestine was being squeezed shut.

Ninety per cent of the Haganah force were from either
kibbutzim
or
moshavim.
Redemption was so much a part of them that they could not stay long in one spot without trying to grow something. They began farming at Ha Mishmar! The place had been opened in the guise of a
kibbutz
, and by God they were going to make it one. Hillside farming was a new venture for them—and it was especially difficult when there was no natural water except the sparse rainfall. None the less they went at the task with the same vigor with which they had redeemed the swamplands of the Jezreel Valley and the eroded Plain of Sharon. They terraced the hillsides and petitioned the Zion Settlement Society for money for farm tools.

The Yishuv Central and the Haganah were so delighted over the success of the dogged youngsters at Ha Mishmar that they decided that from then on some new settlements would be selected for their strategic value in choking off the Arab revolution.

A second group of pioneers set out for another troublesome spot. This time they were Orthodox Jews. They moved deep into the Beth Shean Valley and built a
kibbutz
at the juncture of the Syrian and Trans-Jordan borders. Their
kibbutz
was called Tirat Tsvi, the Castle of the Rabbi Tsvi. It stood in the midst of a dozen hostile Arab towns and villages. Again the Mufti attempted to dislodge them. But this force of religious Jews was not of the same ilk as the old pious Jews of the holy cities. As at Ha Mishmar, the Arabs could not defeat the Jews of Tirat Tsvi.

Ari was sound asleep in his tent.

“Ari ... come quickly.”

He threw off his blanket, grabbed his rifle, and ran after them to the south fields which were being terraced for grapevines. There was a gathering. Everyone turned silent as they saw Ari approach. He pushed through and stared at the ground. It was blood-spattered. Parts of a blue blouse were on the ground. A trail of blood led off to the hills. Ari looked from face to face. No one spoke.

“Dafna,” he whispered.

Two days later her body was dumped near their camp. Her ears, nose, and hands had been amputated. Her eyes had been gouged out. She had been raped over a hundred times.

No one saw Ari Ben Canaan weep or even raise his voice.

After Dafna’s murder he would disappear for hours at a time, returning chalky-faced and shaken. But he never displayed passion or hatred or even great anger. He never mentioned her name to anyone again. Ari accepted this tragedy in the same way that the Yishuv had learned to accept such things—not by being stirred to violence, but only by deepening his determination not to be thrown from the land. Ari Ben Canaan was all soldier. Half a dozen Arab villages near Ha Mishmar cringed and awaited a revenge attack—but it never came.

The Jews hung on at Ha Mishmar and at Tirat Tsvi and half a dozen other strategically placed settlements. The new tactic was hampering the Mufti’s revolt but not stopping it.

Into this hodgepodge came an English major named P. P. Malcolm.

Major P. P. Malcolm had been transferred to British intelligence in Jerusalem at the outbreak of the Mufti’s revolt. He was a loner. P.P. dressed sloppily and scorned military tradition. He thought protocol ridiculous. He was a man who could express his feelings openly and violently if need be, and he was also a man given to deep meditation for days on end, during which he might neither shave nor comb his hair. His periods of detachment came at odd times—even in the middle of the formal parades, which he hated and believed a waste of time. P. P. Malcolm had a tongue like a lash and never failed to startle those around him. He was eccentric and looked upon as an “off horse” by his fellow officers.

Physically P.P. was tall and thin and bony-faced and had a slight limp. He was, all told, everything that a British officer should not be.

When Malcolm arrived in Palestine he was pro-Arab because it was fashionable for the British officers to be pro-Arab. These sympathies did not last long. Within a short period of time P. P. Malcolm had turned into a fanatic Zionist.

Like most Christians who embrace Zionism, his brand was far more intense and rabid than a Jew’s. Malcolm learned Hebrew from a rabbi and spent every spare minute reading the Bible. He was certain it was in God’s scheme for the Jews to rise again as a nation. Malcolm made detailed studies of the Biblical military campaigns and of the tactics of Joshua, David, and especially Gideon, who was his personal idol. And finally—he became obsessed with the notion that his coming to Palestine had been divinely inspired.

He, P. P. Malcolm, had been chosen by God Himself to lead the children of Israel in their noble mission.

Malcolm drove around Palestine in a battered secondhand jalopy and he hiked on his gimpy leg where there were no roads. Malcolm visited every site of every battle of Biblical times to reconstruct the tactical events. Often Jew and Arab alike were stunned to see this strange creature limping along a road singing a Psalm at the top of his voice and oblivious to everything worldly.

It was often asked why the British command tolerated Malcolm. General Charles, the commander of Palestine, recognized quite simply that Malcolm was a genius and one of those rare types of military rebels who pops up every so often. Malcolm laughed at the British handbooks on war, had nothing but disdain for their strategy, and for the most part thought the entire British Army was a waste of money. No one ever seemed to win an argument with him for he never appeared to be wrong and he was convinced of his own infallible judgment.

One day toward evening P. P. Malcolm abandoned his car when it blew two tires at once and hiked along the road toward Yad El. As he entered the defense perimeter half a dozen guards headed in on him. He smiled and waved at them. “Good work, chaps,” he called. “Now be dear lads and take me to Barak Ben Canaan.”

Malcolm paced up and down Barak’s living room. His appearance was even more slovenly than usual. For a solid hour he lectured Barak Ben Canaan about the glory and beauty of Zionism and the destiny of the Hebrew nation.

“I like Jewish soldiers,” Malcolm said. “The Hebrew warrior is the finest, for he fights and lives close to ideals. This land is real to him. He lives with great glories all around him. Your chaps in the Haganah probably constitute the most highly educated and intellectual as well as idealistic body of men under arms in the entire world.

“Take the British soldier,” Malcolm continued. “He is a stubborn fighter and that is good. He responds to discipline and that is good. But it ends right there. He is a stupid man. He drinks too much. He would sleep with a pig and often does. Ben Canaan, that is what I have come to see you about. I am going to take your Haganah and make a first-class fighting organization out of it. You’ve got the best raw material I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Barak’s jaw dropped!

Malcolm looked out the window. He could see the water sprinklers whirling in the fields and in the distance he could see Abu Yesha nestled in the hills below the Taggart fort, Fort Esther.

“See that fort up there—Esther, you call it—stupidity, I call it. All the Arabs have to do is walk around it. The British will never learn.” Malcolm began humming Psalm 98 and singing the words softly in Hebrew. “I have the Psalms memorized up to a hundred and twenty-six. It comforts me.”

“Major Malcolm. Just what is the nature of this visit?” Barak said.

“Everyone knows that Barak Ben Canaan is fair and nonpartisan. Frankly, most Jews like to talk too much. In my Jewish army they won’t have ten words to say. I’ll do all the talking.”

“You have made me quite aware that you like to do all the talking,” Barak said.

“Humph,” Malcolm grunted, and continued to look at the lush fields of Yad El through the window. Suddenly he swung around and his eyes were ablaze with the same intensity Barak had often seen in his brother, Akiva.

“Fight!” Malcolm cried. “That is what we must do ... fight! The Jewish nation is destiny, Ben Canaan, destiny.”

“You and I are in certain agreement about the destiny of the homeland ... I don’t need refreshing.”

“Yes you do ... all of you do ... so long as you stay buttoned up in your settlements. We must go there and start punishing those infidels. If an Arab comes out of his coffeehouse and takes a pot shot at a
kibbutz
from a thousand yards distant he thinks he is a brave man. The time has come to test these bloody heathens. Hebrews, that’s what I want ... Hebrew soldiers. You arrange an appointment with Avidan for me at once. Englishmen are too stupid to understand my methods.”

As suddenly as this strange man had appeared at Yad El, he left. P. P. Malcolm limped through the gates singing a Biblical Psalm at the top of his voice and left Barak Ben Canaan scratching his beard and shaking his head.

Barak later phoned Avidan and they spoke in Yiddish in case the line was being tapped.

“Who is this man?” Barak asked. “He walked in like the Messiah and began preaching Zionism at me.”

“We have reports on him,” Avidan said. “Frankly, he is so odd we don’t know what to make of him.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“We don’t know.”

Major P. P. Malcolm now spent all his free hours among the Jews. He candidly observed that British officers were idiots and bores. In a matter of months he was known by the entire Yishuv. Although he moved in the highest circles most of the leaders treated him like a harmless eccentric. “Our mad Englishman,” he was called with affection.

Soon it became apparent that P. P. Malcolm was not mad. In close discussion Malcolm had the persuasive power to talk the devil out of his horns. Members of the Yishuv came away from his home certain they had been under a magic spell.

After nearly six months of evasions, Malcolm burst into Ben Gurion’s office in the Yishuv Central building in Jerusalem one day, unannounced.

“Ben Gurion,” he snapped. “You are a God-damned fool. You waste all your time talking to your enemies and you haven’t five minutes to spare for a friend.”

With that blunt announcement he turned and walked out.

Malcolm’s next appointment was with General Charles, the military commander. He argued to convince the general to let him work out some of his theories on Arab warfare with the use of Jewish troops. General Charles was pro-Arab as was most of his staff, but the Mufti’s rebellion was beginning to make him look ridiculous. Little by little the British had trained and armed their own Jewish police and had ignored the Haganah arms which supplemented their own forces. The British had failed so badly he decided to let Malcolm go ahead.

Malcolm’s jalopy showed up at Ha Mishmar where guards took him up the hill to Ari. The strapping Haganah commander studied the scrawny Englishman before him with puzzlement.

Malcolm patted his cheek. “You look like a good boy,” he said. “Listen to me, obey my orders, observe what I do, and I’ll make a first-class soldier out of you. Now, show me your camp and fortifications.”

Ari was perplexed. By mutual arrangement the British had stayed out of Ha Mishmar and turned their backs on Ari’s patrols. Yet they had every legal right to enter Ha Mishmar. Major Malcolm completely ignored Ari’s suspicions and obvious attempt to show him only half the layout.

“Where is your tent, son?”

In Ari’s tent, P. P. Malcolm stretched out on the cot and meditated.

“What do you want here?” Ari demanded.

“Give me a map, son,” he said, ignoring Ari’s question. Ari did so. P. P. Malcolm sat up, opened the map, and scratched his scraggly beard. “Where is the key Arab jump-off base?”

Ari pointed to a small village some fifteen kilometers inside Lebanon.

“Tonight we shall destroy it,” Malcolm said calmly.

That night a patrol of eight men and two women crossed over from Ha Mishmar into Lebanon with Malcolm in command. The Jews were astounded at the speed and stamina with which he could push his fragile body through the steep and tortuous hills. He never once stopped for rest or to check directions. Before they left, Major Malcolm had heard someone sneeze and had said he could not go—and that anyone who did not keep up with the pace would be thrashed within an inch of his life. He led them in singing a Psalm and lectured them on the nobility of their mission.

As they neared their objective, Malcolm went up ahead to reconnoiter the village. He returned in half an hour.

“As I suspected, they have no security up. Here is what we shall do.” He drew a hasty map to pinpoint what he believed to be the three or four huts belonging to the smugglers. “I will take three of you chaps into the village and we will open fire from short range and give them a blast or two of grenades to loosen the party up a bit. Everyone will flee in wild disarray. My force will drive them to the edge of the village here where you, Ben Canaan, shall establish an ambush. Be so good as to bring a pair of prisoners, for this area is obviously loaded with arms caches.”

“Your plan is foolish. It will not work,” Ari said.

“Then I suggest you begin walking back to Palestine,” Malcolm retorted.

That was the first and the last time Ari ever questioned the wisdom of P. P. Malcolm. The man’s certainty was gripping.