Pursuit (28 page)

He had no more than gotten himself as comfortable as possible atop his lumpy and uncomfortable bunk, than the intercom buzzed at his elbow. He picked up the handset, glowering at it.

“Well?”

“Sir, we have a blip on the radar—”

Mullins had never believed in the radar.

“Probably a malfunction in the bloody thing,” he said sourly. “I'll arrange to have the port engineer take a look at the damn contraption first thing in the morning.”

“Sir—” Seaman-First Wilburson knew his duty and was determined to do it, commanding officer or not. “The radar is working perfectly, sir. There's something in the water about two thousand yards east-southeast of us.”

“There are probably two thousand things in the water two thousand yards east-southeast of us,” Mullins said, pleased with his humor, “including fish and logs and land, as well—”

“No, sir,” Wilburson said stubbornly. “It's a ship, sir, a small ship but a ship. It's moving slowly in the direction of the beach.”

Mullins frowned. It seemed there was to be no rest with the crew of eager beavers he had inherited with his command, especially given all the new-fangled gear that had been hung all over the bloody ship. Still, he supposed there was a faint possibility that the radar was actually working the way they said it was supposed to work when they installed it, although that was hard to believe. He cleared his throat.

“And how far is the shore?”

“They have about two and a half miles to go, sir. They're definitely within Palestinian waters, sir.”

As if that made the slightest difference, Mullins thought, and sighed. “All right,” he said, and pushed the button for the radio room. In the communications center, Chief Enderly touched a switch, opening a line.

“Sir?”

“Radar says there's something in the water about a mile east-southeast of us. Thinks it may be a ship. I know none of ours are around. See if you can pick up any radio communication from them.”

“You want me to try to contact them, sir?”

“Good God, no!” What kind of idiots did he have on the ship? “Try to listen to them.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a short pause; then Mullins barked. “Well?”

“I'm trying, sir. Nothing so far. Just some dance music from Tel Aviv …”

“Forget dance music from Tel Aviv!”

“Yes, sir. I'm running down the frequencies. They may be in silent, sir.”

“Or they may not be,” Mullins said sourly.

“Yes, sir. Sir!”

“Yes?”

“I'm picking something up. It could be from the ship.”

“Well! Cut radar in on this call.”

“Yes, sir.” Buttons were pushed.

“Radar, this is the captain. We have a radio signal, unidentified as yet, which might be coming from that ship of yours. Get me the bearing, will you?”

“Right, sir.”

Mullins tossed the pornographic book onto the narrow shelf that ran alongside the bulkhead beside his bunk. There would be no time to dwell on the houris in Mustafa's book, and he was fairly sure they wouldn't have been worth the effort in any event. He suddenly glared at the instrument in his hand.

“Well? Where is everybody?”

“Radar here, sir. Bearing one-forty-one-fourteen.”

Chief Enderly in radio said, “They're in ‘open,' sir. No code—”

“I know what ‘open' means, Chief.”

“—only they're speaking a language I don't understand.”

“Yiddish.”

“No, sir. I recognize Yiddish.” As well I should, Enderly thought. He had been living, quite happily, with a Romanian Jewess on shore for the past two years. “It's something else, sir.”

“Probably that new language, Hebrew, they're trying to get everyone to use,” Mullins said after thinking it over.

“Maybe, sir, but I don't think so …”

“Well, damn it, don't we have anyone who speaks these bloody wog languages? What about Wolfson? I heard he does.”

“I'll put him on the blower, sir.”

“And advertise to the whole eastern Mediterranean where we are? Send someone to find him and get him up to the radio shack!” God, what morons he had to put up with!

“Yes, sir.”

There was a prolonged silence as Mullins glared murderously at the handset he was holding. With crews like this it was a bloody wonder they ever kept a bloody ship from discharging a million bloody Jews onto the bloody beach every bloody half-hour! A third voice came over the intercom, a diffident voice, just about the time Lieutenant Mullins was about to explode.

“Sir? This is Wolfson. Seaman-Second—”

“Wolfson! Get on the radio! Tell me what those wogs are speaking.”

“Yes, sir.” There was a pause. “Sir? They're speaking Iraqi, sir.”

“Arabs?” Mullins couldn't believe it. “What in hell are Arabs doing out at sea at this hour?”

“I don't think they're Arabs, sir …”

“Who in hell else speaks Iraqi?”

“Jews, sir. One second …”

In the radio shack, Wolfson listened carefully. It never occurred to him for a second that he might be doing the slightest harm to his coreligionists. He was, after all, a British naval personnel, whose forebears had been in England for countless generations, and who was pledged to do his best for King and Country. Palestine was just another foreign land, another outpost of empire, full of infidels, which was to say, non-British.

“Sir, they're saying something about landing. They said something about waiting for trucks to pick them up …”

“Trucks, eh? Waiting to land, eh? What do you know!” Mullins felt exultant. Maybe the bloody radar did have its uses after all. The loss of Mustafa's book and the erotic effect he had anticipated from it was nothing compared to the warm feeling he knew he would experience when this bunch was rounded up and shipped off to a camp somewhere. “Call the men to quarters! Wait! No bloody bugle calls over the P.A., for God's sake! Send someone to roust them out and get them up on deck. And send Wolfson to me on the bridge.”

He put the handset back into its cradle and came out on deck, moving swiftly in the direction of the bridge. The man at the wheel came a bit more erect when his commander entered, but he said nothing, keeping his eyes fixed on the fog ahead. The ship crept forward silently in the thick mist.

On board the
Ruth
, Davi Ben-Levi was at the radio, holding the microphone, waiting. Standing at the wheel, Cellotti held the ship steady as they now inched slowly parallel to the shore. Their position was less than a half mile from the beach, and the trucks to take them inland were inexplicably delayed. On deck the others of the ship's committee waited impatiently, scanning the waters about them for any sign of a hostile patrol boat, trying their best to see through the fog to the shore and the possibility of foot patrols there waiting to capture them. The waiting made them more and more tense each minute that passed. Below decks the apprehension was even more profound; faces crowded the small portholes, jostling for space to stare fearfully into the darkness, seeing nothing, wondering nervously at the delay in abandoning the ship.

There was a crackle as the radio suddenly came to life. Ben-Levi leaned forward eagerly, listening to the low voice speaking to him in Iraqi.

“Davi—sorry we're late. There was a roadblock at Yavneh; we had to go around. We should be there in fifteen, twenty minutes. Wait for us to arrive before disembarking.”

“Don't worry. We—”

Ben-Levi stopped speaking abruptly. A dazzling light had suddenly pierced the fog, enveloping the
Ruth
, glaring into the wheelhouse, blinding him. A voice boomed out of the night, distorted by a handheld speaker, speaking in English.

“You! Whatever ship you are! Stand by to be boarded! This is a British patrol vessel!” There was a brief pause; then a different voice, a younger less-assured voice, was trying to repeat the same message, only this time in halting Iraqi. “You! Whoever ship you were! Stand up to be landed upon! This is a British patrol—” Wolfson struggled with the word for vessel and ended weakly, “—car!”

Those on the
Ruth
could now see the patrol vessel moving slowly out of the bank of fog, a silver ghost, edging closer, maneuvering for position to run alongside the stalled trawler. Movement on the
Ruth
had stopped; the shock of their discovery was too great for immediate reaction. Then Max Brodsky was in the wheelhouse, wrenching the microphone from Davi's hand, looking down at the man at the radio.

“Who were you speaking to?”

“His name is Yakov Mendel. Why?”

“I know him. Thank God it's him!” Brodsky spoke rapidly into the microphone, speaking Polish. “Yakov, this is Max Brodsky. We've been stopped by a patrol boat—”

The other answered in Polish. “Can you outrun them?”

“Not a chance. Wait—!”

Ben Grossman came running into the wheelhouse and snatched a rifle from the gun rack. Grossman had no intention of being interned in a British camp at Cyprus or anywhere else at this stage of the game. He smashed the rifle butt through the new glass in the wheelhouse window, raised the rifle, and fired. At his side Cellotti groaned.

“You missed!”

“I didn't miss,” Grossman said grimly as he pumped the bolt action of the ancient weapon. “That was their radar. Now for the light!” He aimed and fired again; over the crack of the rifle came the explosion as the huge vapor-filled bulb disintegrated. Darkness covered them. Even as he heard a curse from the patrol boat's bullhorn, Cellotti was pressing forward on the accelerator; the diesel responded instantly, roaring, the burble of its exhausts roiling the waters. Brodsky went back to the microphone, grinning triumphantly.

“We shot out their spotlight! We're running!”

“They have radar—”

“Not anymore!”

“Good.” There was a pause. “Why the Polish?”

“Someone on that patrol boat understands Iraqi. Let's hope they don't speak Polish—”

His voice was interrupted by a loud
boom
as the Bofors 40-mm gun on the prow of the
Portland
-3 opened fire in their general direction. On the bridge of the patrol ship, Naval Lieutenant Mullins was fuming; in over two years of duty he had never had to fill out a form asking for as much as having a scratch on his ship repainted, and here some miserable bastard had not only ruined a perfectly good spotlight, but was continuing to shoot in their direction. Well, he would teach those bloody bastards a lesson!

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” he screamed into the handset.

And Jonathon Martingale fired as rapidly as he could, although he had no idea where the ship was he was firing at. If he could have stopped firing for a few seconds he might have been able to get some idea of where his target was by their engine noise, but with the old man with a hair across his arse, he had no intention of being scientific about it. He simply fired blindly.

On the
Ruth
, Ben Grossman had left the wheelhouse; it was too crowded. On deck he was quickly joined by Wolf and the others, all armed with weapons from the gun rack. They knelt at the rail, firing back at the patrol ship, aiming at the flash of the Bofors. They could hear the whistle of the Bofors shells as they passed near the ship to explode harmlessly in the sea. Cellotti swung the wheel hard, heading the ship west, away from the shore. Brodsky crouched in the wheelhouse, speaking into the microphone.

“They're firing at us blind. Maybe we can get away, at that.”

“Good. Head for Tel Aviv. Beach her—”

“Tel Aviv?” It seemed like an insane place to head for; Tel Aviv was the center of British activity in central coastal Palestine; they had to have many troops there. It was also a large city; surely some deserted beach would be better? Haifa, of course, was too far away—but Tel Aviv?

“Tel Aviv!” Yakov said coldly. “Don't argue. Run the ship ashore as near the foot of Ben Gurion Boulevard as possible, onto Orange Beach. Do you know it?”

“I know it,” Brodsky said desperately, “but in the dark—”

“It won't be dark. It's a big city, for God's sake, and it never sleeps!”

“But if there are people—”

“I said, don't argue! We'll be there. Just
you
be there—”

There was a deafening crash as a shell from the Bofors plowed through the wheelhouse. It killed Davi Ben-Levi instantly before crashing through the deck into the crowded hold below. The shrieks rose in anguished intensity; the men on deck stopped their firing and stared at the hole in the deck apprehensively.

“It didn't explode …!”

“They moved back from the hole in the deck fearfully; then Wolf went toward the companion way.

“We have to look,” he said simply and started down. Grossman followed. The shell had killed a woman and a young boy, and had then lodged itself in the hull of the ship without detonating. Pincus was bending over the two dead bodies, flashing a flashlight over the shattered corpses, making sure there was nothing to be done. Water was seeping from the edges of the shell, starting to fill the bilges; the bilge pumps sprang into action automatically. The whimpering and screaming increased as Grossman's flashlight studied the leakage.

“We'll drown!”

Grossman swung around savagely. “Shut up!
Shut up!
You're louder than the engine and that's loud enough. The British won't need their radar; they'll be able to hear us miles away with all your screeching! Shut up!”

The noise slowly abated; people shrank back into their bunks as far as they could from the crushed bodies lying on the deck of the cabin. Pincus covered them with blankets, muttering a prayer as he did so. Grossman swung his flashlight from the wedged shell to Wolf's pale face.

Wolf shrugged. “We can't move it, that's for sure. It might explode.”