Leon Uris (85 page)

The Jews had taken enough weapons to make it likely that Kassi would never try another attack on Gan Dafna. But the Arabs still held Fort Esther and controlled the road through Abu Yesha.

Kitty Fremont entered the bunker. She too was on the brink of exhaustion. “The Arab casualties have all been removed to Abu Yesha except those you wanted for questioning.”

Ari nodded. “How about our wounded?”

“Two of the children don’t look as though they’ll make it. The rest will be all right. Here ... I brought you some brandy,” Kitty said.

“Thanks ... thanks ...”

Ari sipped and remained quiet.

“I brought Zev Gilboa’s things over to you. There isn’t very much here ... a few personal things.”

“A
kibbutznik
doesn’t have very much of his own. Everything, including his life, belongs to something else,” he said, with a trace of irony.

“I liked Zev,” Kitty said. “He was telling me last night how he looked forward to tending his sheep again. Anyhow ... his wife may want these things. She’s having another baby, you know.”

“Zev was a damned fool!” Ari snarled. “He had no business trying to take that fort.”

Ari picked up the handkerchief filled with Zev’s meager articles. “Liora’s a good girl. She’s tough. She’ll come through it.” Ari threw the belongings into the kerosene stove. “I’ll have a hard time replacing him.”

Kitty’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what you were thinking ... you’d have a hard time replacing him?”

Ari stood up and lit a cigarette. “You don’t grow men like Zev on trees.”

“Is there nothing you cherish?”

“Tell me, Kitty. What did your husband’s commander do when he was killed at Guadalcanal? Did he hold a wake for him?”

“I thought this was a little different, Ari. You’ve known Zev since he was a boy. That girl, his wife, is a Yad El girl. She was raised two farms away from yours.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Cry for that poor girl!”

For a second Ari’s face twisted and his lips trembled and then his features sat rigidly. “It is nothing new to see a man die in battle. Get out of here....”

T
HE SIEGE OF SAFED
had begun exactly one day after the partition vote of November 29, 1947. When the British left Safed in the spring of 1948, as expected, they handed the three key spots over to the Arabs: the police station looking right down on the Jewish quarter, the acropolis commanding the entire city, and the Taggart fort on Mount Canaan just outside town.

Safed was shaped like an inverted cone. The Jewish quarter occupied a slice of about one eighth of the cone, so that the Arabs were above, below, and on both sides of them. The Jews had only two hundred half-trained Haganah men. Their refusal of evacuation and their decision to fight to the last man was in the spirit and tradition of the ancient Hebrews. The Cabalists of Safed, the least capable among the Jews of defending themselves, had been a primary target for the Mufti’s riots. They had faced slaughter from Arab mobs before and they had cringed. Now they had made up their minds that they would stand and die. The Jewish quarter, jammed into the narrow twisting lanes, sustained an amazing spirit.

One day after the British left, Ari slipped Joab Yarkoni into the Jewish quarter of Safed with thirty Palmach boys and twenty Palmach girls. A wild celebration marked their arrival. It was the Sabbath and Yarkoni’s troops were exhausted from travel through hostile country and they were hungry. For the first time in centuries, the Cabalists broke the Sabbath by cooking a hot meal for the reinforcements.

Kawukji, wanting to secure Safed as the temporary capital for the Mufti, ordered the irregulars to overrun the Jewish quarter. The Arabs tried a few sorties and were thrown back out; they soon realized that they would take the quarter only by a house-by-house, room-by-room fight. They reconsidered and returned to sniping and siege tactics.

The Jews were commanded by Remez and Joab Yarkoni. Brigadier Sutherland had left his villa on Mount Canaan to become the only guest of Remez’s resort hotel. He was called upon for advice now and then but conceded that the Jews were doing quite well enough without his help.

Remez took on as his first task the clearing of a definite field of fire. The Arab and Jewish quarters were jammed up against each other, making it easy for Arab patrols to slip through and spread his already thin defensive strength. He wanted space between his forces and the Arabs. Yarkoni took a crew into the Arab quarters, seized a dozen borderline houses, and began shooting from them. Then he withdrew. Each time the Arabs came back, Yarkoni would again attack and take the same borderline houses. Finally the Arabs dynamited the houses to keep the Jews from using them. It was exactly what Remez wanted: it created the space between the two sectors to give the Jews better visibility and easier defense.

With this accomplished Remez and Yarkoni devised the second tactic. Yarkoni set out to harass the Arabs around the clock. Each day he sent three or four Palmach patrols into the Arab sector to move through the maze of alleys or over the roof tops. His patrols would suddenly make a sharp hit-and-run attack, each time at a different place. Whenever the Arabs concentrated their men in one strong point, the Jews were informed of it by spies and thus knew exactly where to strike and what spot to avoid. Like a jabbing boxer the daylight patrols kept the Arabs off balance.

But it was the night patrols of the Palmach that drove the Arabs into a frenzy. Yarkoni had lived in Morocco and he knew his enemy. The Arab was a superstitious man, with an unnatural fear of the dark. Yarkoni used the darkness like extra troops. The Palmach night patrols, merely by shooting off firecrackers, kept the Arab population in a panic.

Remez and Yarkoni admitted that their tactics were desperation measures. They were not strong enough to do real damage to the enemy, and the sheer weight of Arab numbers, position, and arms began to grind them down. A lost Palmach or Haganah soldier could not be replaced. Food was almost as difficult to replace. Ammunition was so critical that fines were levied against any Haganah or Palmach soldier who wasted a bullet.

Even as they were being worn down, the Jews held every inch of their quarter, and the amazing spirit never flagged. A single radio receiver was by now their only daily contact with the outside world, yet schools continued on schedule, the small newspaper never skipped an edition, and the pious did not miss a minute of synagogue. Letters got out by the patrols were fixed with hand-drawn stamps and were honored throughout Palestine by the Yishuv.

The siege carried on through the winter and the spring. Finally one day Yarkoni met with Sutherland and Remez to face bitter reality. The Jews had lost fifty of their best fighting men, they were down to their last twelve bags of flour, and they did not have ammunition to last five days. Yarkoni did not even have firecrackers for his patrols. The Arabs had sensed this weakness and were becoming bolder.

“I promised Ari that I wouldn’t bother him with our troubles but I am afraid I must get to Ein Or and talk to him,” Yarkoni decided. The same night he slipped out of Safed and went to Ari’s headquarters.

Joab reported in full on the Safed situation. He concluded, “I hate to bother you, Ari, but in another three days we are going to have to start eating rats.”

Ari grunted. The stand at Safed had been an inspiration to the entire Yishuv. It was more than a strategic position now, it was another invaluable symbol of defiance. “If we could win Safed we could crush Arab morale in the whole Galilee.”

“Ari, every time we have to fire a bullet, we must go into a debate about it.”

“I have an idea,” Ari said. “Come with me.”

Ari set up an emergency night patrol to get at least some supplies of food into Safed and then took Joab to the ordnance shed. In an inner room he showed the Moroccan a strange-looking contraption of cast iron, nuts, and bolts.

“What the hell is it?” Joab asked.

“Joab, you are looking at a
Davidka
.”

“A Davidka?”

“Yes ... a Little David, handcrafted by Jewish genius.”

Joab scratched his jaw. In some respects one might say it did appear to be a weapon—of a sort. Yet ... nothing quite like it existed anywhere else, Joab was sure.

“What is it supposed to do?”

“I am told that it shoots mortar shells.”

“How?”

“Damned if I know. We haven’t experimented yet. I have a report from Jerusalem saying that it has been very effective.”

“For the Jews or Arabs?”

“Joab, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ve been saving this weapon for the proper situation. It’s yours, take it to Safed.”

Joah walked around the odd piece of machinery. “The things we have to resort to to win a war,” he mumbled.

The night patrol carrying emergency rations into Safed also brought along the Davidka and thirty pounds of ammunition. As soon as he arrived, Joab called the Haganah and Palmach leaders together, and through the rest of the night they traded ideas on how the thing was supposed to work. Ten people were present and ten opinions were given.

At last someone thought of sending for Brigadier Sutherland. He was awakened at the hotel and half dragged to headquarters. He stared at the Davidka in disbelief.

“Only a Jew could concoct something like this,” he concluded.

“I hear it was very effective in Jerusalem,” Joab apologized.

Sutherland played with all the levers and handles and switches and sights and in the next hour they evolved a firing procedure which might—or might not—work.

The next morning the Davidka was carried to a clearing and pointed in the general direction of the Arab-held police station and some nearby houses the Arabs used as sniping posts.

The Davidka’s ammunition was no less strange in appearance than the Davidka. It was shaped like a mallet, of which the head was an iron cylinder filled with dynamite equipped with detonators. The thick handle allegedly fit down the mortar tube. On firing, the handle was supposed to be thrust out with such force that it would hurl the whole unbalanced load of dynamite at the target. Sutherland had visions of the thing flying for a few feet and exploding in front of them.

“If that warhead merely falls out of the end of the tube—as I confidently expect,” Sutherland said, “we are likely to lose the entire Jewish population of Safed.”

“Then I suggest we rig up a long line so we can fire it from a safe distance,” Remez said.

“How do we aim it?” Yarkoni asked.

“Aiming this monstrosity isn’t going to do much good. Just point it in the general direction and pray for the best.”

The chief rabbi and many of the Cabalists and their wives gathered around the Davidka and carried on a lengthy debate on whether or not it meant doomsday for all of them. Finally the chief rabbi said special benedictions over the weapon and asked the Messiah kindly to spare them for they had indeed been very good in keeping the laws.

“Well, let’s get it over with,” Remez said pessimistically.

The Cabalists backed to safety. Firing caps were stuffed down the tube and one of the shells was lifted and the long handle placed inside. The cylinder of dynamite balanced over the end of the tube threateningly. A long line was attached to the firing mechanism. Everyone took cover and the earth stood still.

“Let her go,” Yarkoni ordered in a shaky voice.

Remez jerked and a strange thing happened. The Little David fired.

The handle hissed out of the tube and the bucket of dynamite arched and spun, handle over bucket, up the hill. As it hurled through the air, growing smaller and smaller, it made a hideous swishing sound. It crashed into some Arab houses near the police station.

Sutherland’s mouth hung open.

Yarkoni’s mustache went from down to up.

Remez’s eyes popped out.

The old Cabalists stopped praying long enough to look in astonishment.

The shell exploded like a thunderclap, shaking the town to its foundations. It seemed as though half the hillside must have been blown away. After moments of stunned silence there was an eruption of shouting and hugging and kissing and praying and jubilation.

“By jove ...” was all Sutherland could say. “By jove ...!”

The Palmachniks formed a
hora
ring and danced around the Little David.

“Come on, come on. Let’s fire another round!”

In the Arab quarters they could hear the Jews cheering, and the Arabs knew why. The very sound of the flying bomb in itself was enough to frighten one to death, to say nothing of the explosion. No one, Palestinian Arabs or irregulars, had bargained for anything like this; each time the Little David fired, a scene of havoc followed. The Arabs quaked in terror as the Jews revenged some of the hundred years of torment.

Joab Yarkoni got word to Ari that the Davidka had the Arabs in a turmoil. Ari sensed an opportunity and decided on a risky attempt to exploit it. He took a few men from each settlement and was able to scrape together two companies of Haganah. He got them into Safed at night with more ammunition for the Davidka.

Swish ...
whoom!

The bucket of bolts and its hissing bomb was devastating the town. Swish ...
whoom!

The third day after the Davidka had come to Safed the skies opened and it poured rain. Ari Ben Canaan then made the greatest bluff of the war that counted bluffs as part of the arsenal. He had Remez call all the Arab spies together and he gave them a briefing.

“In case you didn’t know, brothers”—Ari addressed them in Arabic—“we have a secret weapon. I am not at liberty to disclose the nature of the weapon but I might say that you all know that it always rains after a nuclear blast. Need one say more?”

Within minutes the spies spread the word that the Little David was a secret weapon. Within an hour, every Arab mouth in Safed had repeated the appalling news:
the Jews have the atom bomb!

Swish ... whoom! The Little David roared and the rain turned to a deluge and the panic was on. Inside of two hours the roads out of Safed were clogged with fleeing Arabs.

Ari Ben Canaan led the Haganah on an attack with three hundred men. The attack was more spontaneous than calculated and Ari’s men were thrown off the acropolis by irregulars and a handful of angry Safed Arabs. He lost heavily, but the Safed population continued to run.