Leon Uris (84 page)

Two o’clock. Three o’clock.
By now the waiters, even Jordana Ben Canaan, sat drained and empty, in a dazed silence. At five-fifteen they came out of the bunkers. The morning was icy. A thin, slick frost covered the center green. They all walked out of the main gate to that point where the lookout post hung over the edge of the mountain.

The darkness faded from the land and the lights in the valley went off one by one as a musty gray dawn revealed the floor far below.

The sentry looked through the field glasses for some sign of life down the mountain. There was nothing.

“Look!”

The sentry pointed. All of them stared toward the Yad El
moshav
, where dots and dashes blinked out from a signal light.

“What does it read? What does it mean?”

“It says ... X1416 ... ” For a moment there was confusion. The message was repeated—X1416.

“They are safe!” Jordana Ben Canaan said. “
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.
Exodus: fourteen, sixteen.” She smiled exultantly at Kitty.

F
OUR DAYS AFTER
the younger children of Gan Dafna had been evacuated a series of reports filtered in to Ari. His settlement commanders were forwarding information that Arab pressure was lessening. When he learned from friends in Abu Yesha that Kassi had withdrawn half of the hundred men in the village and ordered them back to Fort Esther, Ari knew that the attack on Gan Dafna would come any day.

Ari took twenty more Palmach troops, the last that could be spared anywhere in the Galilee, and once again made the mountain climb to Gan Dafna to assume personal command.

He had forty Palmach troops in all, around thirty staff and faculty members capable of fighting, and Jordana’s Gadna youngsters, some two hundred in number. His arsenal showed one hundred and fifty antiquated rifles or homemade Sten guns, two machine guns, a few hundred homemade grenades, mines, and fire bombs, and the obsolete Hungarian antitank gun with its five rounds of ammunition.

Intelligence reports indicated that, opposing him, Mohammed Kassi had eight hundred irregulars with unlimited ammunition and artillery support, plus perhaps another several hundred Arabs from Aata and other hostile villages along the Lebanese border.

Ari’s supply of ammunition was critical. He knew that when the attack did come it had to be broken immediately. His one advantage was knowledge of the enemy. Mohammed Kassi, the Iraqi highway robber, had no formal military training. He was recruited by Kawukji on the promise of adventure and loot. Ari did not consider Kassi’s men a particularly brave lot, but they could be whipped into a frenzy; if they ever got the upper hand during battle they would become murderous. Ari planned to use Arab ignorance and lack of imagination as his allies. He banked his defensive plan on the presumption that Kassi would try a direct frontal assault in the straightest and shortest line from Fort Esther. The frontal attack had been the history of Arab irregulars’ tactics since he began fighting them as a boy. He stacked his defenses in one place.

The key spot in Ari’s defense was a ravine that led like a funnel into Gan Dafna. If Ari could get Kassi to come into the ravine he had a chance. Zev Gilboa kept patrols in the rocks and brush right outside Fort Esther to observe the Arab movements. He had confirmed the fact that Kassi was massing men.

Three days after Ari arrived at Gan Dafna, a young runner came into his command post with the news that Kassi’s men, nearly a thousand strong, had left the fort and were starting down the hill. Within two minutes the “black alarm” was sounded and every man, woman, and child at Gan Dafna took his post and stood by.

A deep saddle in the mountains could cover Kassi’s men until they arrived at a knoll directly over Gan Dafna, some six hundred yards from the north side of the village and two hundred yards from the critical ravine which led in like a funnel.

Ari’s men dug in to their prepared positions, became silent, and waited.

Soon heads began popping up on the knoll. Within minutes the point was swarming with irregulars. They stopped their progress and stared down at the ominously quiet village. The Arab officers were suspicious of the silence. Not a shot had been fired by either side.

In the watch and gun tower atop Fort Esther, Mohammed Kassi looked through powerful field glasses and smiled as he saw his horde of men poised atop Gan Dafna. Since the Jews had not fired at them his confidence grew that his men would be able to overrun the place. A cannon fired from the fort as a signal for the attack to begin.

In Gan Dafna they could hear harangues and conversation in Arabic as officers shouted at their men. Still no one moved down from the knoll. The quiet from the village baffled them. More of them began to scream and point down at the village. Their curses and their anger rose in hysterical crescendo.

“They’re trying to work themselves into a heroic lather,” Ari said.

The disciplined forces of the Jews showed neither their faces nor their guns, though each man found it hard to remain controlled under the chilling abuse of the Arabs.

After twenty moments of ranting there was a sudden eruption from the knoll as irregulars poured down with unearthly shrieks, sabers and bayonets flashing a steel silhouette against the sky.

The first phase of Ari’s defense would now receive a test. Each night he had sent patrols out to plant homemade land mines which could be detonated from inside Gan Dafna. The mines formed a corrider and were so placed to compress the Arabs toward the middle of the ravine.

Zev Gilboa, in the forwardmost position, waited until the Arab charge was in full fury. When the horde of men reached the mine field, Zev held up a green flag. Inside Gan Dafna, Ari set off the charges.

Twenty mines, ten on each side, blew up at once. The roar shook the mountainside. The mines exploded on the fringe of the mob, which immediately squeezed together and rushed right down the funnel of the ravine.

On the sides of the ravine Ari had placed his forty Palmach troops, the two machine guns, and all the grenades and fire bombs in the arsenal. As the Arabs passed directly under them the Palmach opened up a cross-fire with the two guns and turned the ravine into a gory turkey shoot. Flames erupted from the fire bombs and turned dozens of the irregulars into human torches, while the Palmach hurled a torrent of grenades among them.

In addition the Palmach set off strings of firecrackers, while from loud-speakers in the trees came a recording of booming explosions. The continued din of the real and artificial arms was deafening and terrifying.

Inside Fort Esther, Mohammed Kassi frantically called for artillery to clean off the sides of the ravine. The excited Arab gunners opened fire and landed half of their shells among their own men. Finally they managed to silence one Palmach machine gun.

The advance Arab force had been cut down like cordwood, but still they poured in. They had been stimulated to such frenzy that their thrust was now that of men insane with fear.

The second machine gun stopped firing when its barrel burned out. The Palmach quit its position on the sides of the ravine and dropped back into Gan Dafna before the unabated onslaught. The Arabs’ rush came to within a hundred yards of the village in disorganized knots of screaming men. David Ben Ami had the cover off the barricaded and sandbagged Hungarian antitank gun. The projectiles had been modified and each of the five rounds now contained two thousand shotgun pellets. If the gun worked properly it would have the effect of a battery of men firing at once.

The leading bunched mass of maddened Arabs rolled to within fifty yards ... forty ... thirty ... twenty ...

The sweat poured down David Ben Ami’s face as he sighted the gun at point-blank range.

Ten yards ...

“Fire one!”

The ancient antitank gun bounced off the ground and spewed pellets into the faces of the chargers. Bloodcurdling shrieks mingled with smoke, and through it, as he swiftly reloaded, David glimpsed piles of men lying dead or wounded within yards of the gun and others staggering back in blind shock.

The second wave came in behind the first.

“Fire two!”

The second wave went down in slaughter.

“Fire three!”

The barrel blew off the gun and she was finished, but she had done her work. In three shots the buckshot cannister sprays had dropped nearly two hundred men. The momentum of the drive was halted.

A last assault was tried. A hundred Arabs again reached the edge of Gan Dafna, to be met by a broadside from Jordana Ben Canaan’s entrenched Gadna youths.

Bewildered and bleeding, the Arab survivors now scrambled back up the death-filled ravine. As they retreated, Zev Gilboa yelled out for the Palmach troops to follow him. The shepherd led his forty fighters after several hundred running Arabs. He chased them back up the knoll and continued to pursue them.

Ari looked through his field glasses.

“The God-damned fool!” Ari yelled, “he’s going to try to take Fort Esther. I told him to stop at the knoll.”

“What’s the matter with Zev?” David grunted between his teeth.

“Come on,” Ari cried. “Let’s see if we can stop him.”

Ari issued hasty orders for Jordana to have the Gadna children pick up the Arab arms in the field and pull back into Gan Dafna.

His plan had paid off. In less than fifteen minutes he had dissipated the strength of his defense, but nearly half Kassi’s troops lay dead or wounded.

When Mohammed Kassi saw his men run back up toward the fort, confusion broke out. Zev Gilboa was twenty-five yards out ahead of the rest of the Palmach when it happened. Arab gunners from Fort Esther began firing toward their own retreating men in order to stop the pursuing Palmach. Some of the Arabs managed to get inside Fort Esther. Those too close to the pursuing Jews were shut out and fired on. Zev had passed the outer accordions of barbed wire only forty yards from the fort.

“Cover!” he screamed at his troops. He threw himself flat and fired his Sten gun at the fort until the Palmach fell back out of range. Seeing that his attack was futile, Zev turned and tried to crawl back down the hill. A barrage of bullets came from the fort and he was hit. He stood up and ran and again he was hit, and this time he fell into the barbed wire and became entangled. He was unable to move.

The Palmach had dug in and were preparing to go up to try to bring Zev out when Ari and David crawled up to them.

“It’s Zev. He’s out there tangled up in the wire.”

Ari looked out from behind a large rock. He was a hundred yards away from Zev across an open field. There were some places he could find cover behind large rocks, but close to Zev he would be fully exposed.

Suddenly the firing from Fort Esther stopped and it became very still.

‘What’s going on?” David asked.

“They’re using Zev for bait. They see he can’t move and they hope we’ll try to get up there and get him.”

“Those bastards. Why don’t they shoot him and get it over with?”

“Can’t you see, David? He’s lost his rifle. They’re going to wait until we leave and try to take him alive. They’re going to take it out on him for all the men they lost today.”

“Oh, my God,” David groaned. He jumped out from cover but Ari grabbed him and threw him back.

“Somebody give me a pair of grenades,” Ari said. “Good. David, take the troops back into Gan Dafna.”

“You’re not going up there by yourself, Ari ...”

“Do what I order, damn you!”

David turned quietly and signaled to start a withdrawal. He looked back to see Ari already scuttling up the hill toward Zev.

The Arabs watched Ari move up. They knew someone would try to get the wounded man. They would wait until he got close enough and try to wound him too; then the Jews would send another man up ... and another.

Ari got up, sprinted, and dived behind a rock. The Arabs did not shoot.

Then he crawled again until he got to cover twenty yards from where Zev was tangled in the wire. Ari guessed that the Arabs would wait until he actually reached Zev and was an unmissable target.

“Get back ...!” Zev called. “Get back!”

Ari peeked around the boulder. He could see Zev clearly. The blood was spurting from his face and stomach. He was completely trapped in the wire. Ari looked up to Fort Esther. He could see the sun glint off the barrels of rifles trained on Zev.

“Get back!” Zev shouted again. “My guts are hanging out. I can’t last ten minutes ... get back!”

Ari slipped the hand grenades from his belt.

“Zev. I’m going to throw you some grenades!” he called in German. Ari locked the pins in so they could not explode. He stood up quickly and threw both grenades to the boy. One landed just beside him.

Zev picked up the grenade and held it close to his torn stomach.

“I’ve got it ... now get back!”

Ari ran down the hill quickly, catching the Arabs off guard; they had been expecting him to come up after Zev. When they opened fire he was out of range and making his way toward Gan Dafna.

Zev Gilboa was alone now and the life was oozing from him. The Arabs waited for a half hour, watching for a trick, expecting a Jew to come up after him. They wanted him alive.

The gates of Fort Esther opened. Some thirty Arabs emerged and trotted down to surround Zev.

Zev twisted the pin out of the grenade, held it next to his head and let the spoon fly off.

Ari heard the blast and stopped. He turned chalky white and his bad leg folded up under him. The insides of him shook; then he continued crawling down to Gan Dafna.

Ari sat in the command-post bunker alone. His face was waxen, and only the trembling of his cheek muscles showed there was life in him. His eyes stared dully from black-ringed sockets.

The Jews had lost twenty-four people: eleven Palmach boys, three Palmach girls, six faculty members, and four children. There were another twenty-two wounded. Mohammed Kassi had lost four hundred and eighteen men killed and a hundred and seventy wounded.