The Gates of Zion (23 page)

“I’m a fighter pilot!” he heard David exclaim. “Not some kind of pansy chauffeur for an archaeologist, y’know? When do we start training pilots, anyway, Michael?”

“As soon as we get the planes. This is it, David. This and twelve others like it. Eliahu bought twenty of these things for scrap, and we pieced these together.”

David rattled something in the engine. “Good grief,” he said in disgust. “We can’t just fly these tin cans over the Arab Legion and drop rocks on their heads. Somebody might get mad and shoot us down.”

“Be patient.” Michael clanked against the engine with a wrench.

“Patient? Isn’t that somebody in a hospital?” David nudged Michael hard, causing him to raise his head and bang it.

“Watch it, will you?”

“Did you get it,
patient
?”

“You think I’m dumb or something, Meyer?” Michael rubbed his hand on his balding head, leaving a streak of grease.

David pulled out a handkerchief and rubbed the spot. “Yeah, I think you’re dumb. Look what you’re doing. We could be eating crab down at Fisherman’s Wharf in Frisco right now. Instead you’re in Jerusalem tryin’ to hide your bald spot with engine grease from one of the twelve existing planes in the Jewish air force. Right?”

“I didn’t say these were the only existing planes. I said they were the only ones that can fly.”

“Okay. Right. Don’t tell me you’re not dumb, Mike. Dumb Jew.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re here too, you dumb half Jew.”

“Quarter. My grandfather is the one who got me into this, remember?”

Moshe laughed out loud, thinking of the last Abbott and Costello film he had seen at the Arab-owned Rex Theatre the week before it had been blown up by the Irgun Jewish terrorist organization. Then he laughed again at the absurdity of life. “You are right,” he said, as David and Michael spotted him. “We should all go to this Frisco and have crab.”

“There, y’see? He agrees with me, and he doesn’t even like me.”

David glared at Michael, then climbed into the little plane without ceremony. “You coming or not?” he called to Moshe, who stood wondering how to respond to David’s comment.

The truth was that he really didn’t like David much, but that was simply because of his involvement with Ellie. More than likely this zany American was not such a bad fellow. Moshe swallowed his uneasiness and climbed into the cramped passenger seat in the cockpit next to his rival. As the propeller spun to life, Moshe gripped his briefcase with white-knuckled intensity.

“Sorry you don’t have a seat belt, pal,” David said with a wry smile.

“You’d better hang on. This little sardine can gets a little bumpy.”

Moshe placed his case under his feet and clutched the edge of his seat with both hands. Sweat formed on his brow as he noticed how close the end of the runway was to a row of apartment buildings.

“You fly much?” David probed as the Piper began to taxi.

“Hmm.” Moshe nodded. He had flown only once before, and he had not liked the sensation.

“Know how to use a parachute?” David asked as he kicked the engine to a roar.

“No.” Moshe hoped that his terror did not show on his face.

“That’s okay.” The little plane rattled over the field, “These buckets only carry one parachute, anyway―and it’s mine.” David smiled brightly as the plane lifted off, its wheels barely clearing the tops of the apartment buildings.

When Moshe closed his eyes and muttered a prayer of deliverance, he opened them to David’s amused smile.

As the plane began a steady southward climb, Moshe looked down.

Below him he could make out the stone buildings of the Monastery of Saint Simeon that bordered the wealthy suburb of Katamon. Until now, a pleasant mix of middle-class Arabs and Jews had lived there in harmony together. Soon, Moshe knew, Katamon would become a battleground between the Mufti’s hired bullies and the Haganah as each struggled for one more foothold in Jerusalem.

David began a slow turn to the east, and to his left Moshe could make out the tiny forms of British soldiers at Allenby Barracks. Just beyond, a sliver of road climbed the Hill of Evil Counsel, where Judas had received payment for his betrayal of Christ.
How ironic.

Some misinformed Englishman with a desire for a good view chose
to build the office of the British high commissioner atop that very
hill.
In spite of good intentions among those Britishers who had governed Palestine since the collapse of the Turk-Ottoman Empire in 1910, there had been very little besides evil counsel from that hilltop fortress.

Moshe felt pity for the man who now held the office of high commissioner. Sir Allen Cunningham was personally sympathetic toward the cause of a Jewish homeland, but his policies were set by Foreign Secretary Bevin, a man known for his antagonism to the Jews and a desire to see the Partition plan fail before it was even implemented. Nothing would assure that failure quicker than continued armed uprisings by the Arabs. Bevin hoped that Britain would then be asked to step back in, playing a role more to his liking.

What words of evil counsel,
Moshe wondered,
are being passed
from London to Sir Allen today?
He would know soon enough, as would the Old Man and the Jewish Agency. Many Jewish sympathizers within the British Mandatory Government were willing to pass along those top-secret dispatches for no more than a handshake and a thank-you.

The tiny Piper continued to sputter and putt in a slow turn back over the Mount of Olives. Like ants on an anthill, a black-clad caravan wound slowly up the mount toward the Jewish cemetery―yet another scene in the drama being acted out in the streets below.

Sniper fire had claimed the lives of six Jews since Partition night.

Only six more among the six million who had died in the death camps. Only six from among the hundred thousand who lived in the city of Jerusalem.

Yet Moshe knew the grief that was borne up that hillside. He remembered the face of his brother, Eli, and looked away from the funeral procession toward the rugged walls of the Old City and the golden Dome of the Rock. Such a tiny remnant of Jews lived in the shadow of the Mosque of Omar, yet they were a thorn in the flesh of the Muslims who surrounded them. The Mufti’s Holy Strugglers, the Jihad Moquades, had marked the synagogues and Yeshiva schools for destruction first. Somehow they must hold on to those ancient stones.

It will be easier,
Moshe thought,
to hold the modern facilities of the
Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital to the north of the city.

Although pine-covered Mount Scopus, the hill on which they were built, was deep behind Arab lines and surrounded by Muslim neighborhoods, the structures had the advantage of height. It would be difficult for even an army of irregulars to capture as long as the hospital was properly supplied. That would be the Haganah’s main problem.

Moshe gazed down at the road that led through Arab-held Sheikh Jarrah to the university and the hospital. At the base of the long incline was a curve in the road.
The perfect place for an ambush.

He made a mental note of it as they passed over the heart of the Jewish section of the New City, then completed their turn to the northwest toward Tel Aviv.

Below them lay the artery that would carry the lifeblood of Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. This slender ribbon of highway was Jewish Jerusalem’s one link with the sea and the supplies needed to survive the approaching tidal wave of the Mufti’s fury. Moshe knew how easily that lifeline could be cut. Below them the road descended for twenty miles through a narrow gorge called in Arabic
Bab el
Wad
, the Gate of the Valley. Soaring pines and rocks covered the hillsides on either side of the gorge. It was an ideal place to attack any convoys headed for Jerusalem. No doubt the soldiers of Haj Amin knew every outcropping and hiding place where one man could do the work of one hundred.

Finally David spoke, as if reading Moshe’s mind. “Down there’s where you fellas are going to have your problem. There’s not much going to come up that gorge without a fight. I’ve been looking it over this week as I’ve flown this run. Here, let me show you.” He pushed the stick forward and the plane dropped steeply toward the tops of the trees along either side of the road.

Moshe gulped and gripped his seat as he stared straight ahead.

“Well, stick your head out the window, pal. You can’t see anything that way!” David exclaimed.

Obediently Moshe shoved the window open and stuck his head out into the wind. Just below him were treetops.
Without much effort,
I
could gather eggs from the birds’ nests.

“Watch this!” David yelled as they came to a clearing. There, among the rocks, was a group of Arab peasants, with rifles and bandoleers full of bullets slung over their shoulders. Their faces were so distinct that Moshe could make out missing teeth in the gaping mouth of one of the men. As David buzzed their little squad, they whipped their rifles into action and began at Moshe’s head with a menacing pop.

He jerked it back inside as a bullet punctured the wing, and David swept the plane skyward and out of range. “You idiot!” Moshe cried angrily.

David raised his eyebrows in mock concern. “Are y’ hurt, pal?” He grinned.

“We could have been shot down!” Moshe slammed the window shut, noticing a neat round bullet hole through the glass.

“Nah.” David sniffed. “These little cans will take a lot of flak.

Practically indestructible, according to my friend Michael. He says we’re gonna bomb the Arab Legion with ’em.”

“I could have been killed!”

“That would have been a real shame,” David retorted.

“You are a madman.” Moshe combed his fingers through his hair and resumed his survey of the road through Bab el Wad.

“Ah, come on,” David said at last. “Don’t take it so hard. Most of these Arabs are lousy shots. Chances are, if they aim at you, they hit each other.”

“Counting on that, were you?” Moshe glared at David. “Just why did you come to Palestine, Mr. Meyer?”

“Ellie asked me the same thing last night. Sitting right where you’re sitting.” David grinned again.

“And how did you answer her? I am curious.”

“I said I came for her.”

“And what did she say to that?”

“She asked me if I would have joined the Egyptian air force if she had been in Cairo. I told her maybe.”

“I fail to see what it was she ever saw in you.”

“Funny thing, that’s what she said.” David scratched his head. “But you know, she doesn’t think much of you, either. She thinks you’ve copped out on your own people, you know.” David paused long enough for his words to sink in. “Of course, the professor is wise to us both, I think. He’s got you figured for a Haganah man, and I don’t know what he thinks of me.”

“No one quite knows what to make of you, Mr. Meyer.”

“I’m driving this plane, aren’t I? I’ve got my reason for being here.

And until I get my reason safely home, I’m going to do what I can to help this two-bit operation. That’s what counts in my book.”

“We live by different books, apparently.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You’re worried about a lot of people. I care about one.”

“Yourself?”

“Make that two. Me and Ellie. Maybe a few more on the fringe, like Michael. But that’s the lot.”

As they swept down from the gorge, David dropped the plane several hundred feet in elevation. Just below them lay the barbed-wire encircled blockhouse of a British police station and the red-tiled roof of the Trappist monastery of the Seven Agonies of Latrun.

How many agonies will our people face,
Moshe wondered,
before
the prejudice and suffering come to an end?
Every foot of this territory had once belonged to the ancient nation of Israel. Just beyond them was the Valley of Ayalon, where the sun had stood still for Joshua. Then the road twisted through the Valley of Sorek, where Delilah was born and Samson destroyed the crops of the Philistines by turning loose foxes with burning tails. The ruins of Gezer lay beneath a hill just beyond, dowry of the daughter of Pharaoh when she married Solomon. How he loved this land and hoped in the promises!

“We are people of the Book,” Moshe said at last. “Millions have been murdered beneath the apathetic gaze of men looking out for themselves. Saving what is left, making sure it never happens again―that is my concern.”

“Yeah,” David said quietly, “I wish you luck. And for as long as I’m here, I’ll do what I can. But I’ve got a future, and I just spent four years fighting a bloody war. And I’ll tell you, pal―” He frowned, leaning forward to stare intently at a small black form that crept slowly forward, like an ancient beetle along the road.

“What is it?” Moshe asked. “The bus from Tel Aviv?”

“Yeah. Look back about half a mile. There, in all those rocks beside the road.”

Moshe strained to see what David’s sharp eyes had picked up. Far below them, like a swarm of crawling insects, were at least a hundred keffiyeh-clad warriors, waiting for the bus from Tel Aviv.

Just beyond them, hidden from view in the bend of the road, stood a roadblock of stones and timbers. Behind the bus, out of sight behind a hill, an armored vehicle waited to cut off escape. As they watched from their high vantage point, the bus passed an Arab sentry on an outcropping, who then signaled the armored car to pull forward and block the road.

“Hold on!” David cried, pushing the throttle forward. “We’re going down for a better look.”

Moshe braced his feet against the floor and gasped as the ground and the Arab band loomed before them until he could clearly see the patterns of their checkered keffiyehs and the terrified expressions of the men who ran for cover.

“Pull up!” Moshe shouted, certain that they were about to plow nose first into the earth. “Pull up!” he shouted again as the stubble of an Arab’s beard became clear and the shrieks of the men louder than the roar of the engine.

David’s hands remained firmly forward until the ground loomed only feet from their faces. Then with a suddenness that hurtled Moshe backward, he pulled up, thumping the head of a scrambling bandit with the landing gear.