ONE COULD not yet go up to Jerusalem. The British were even stricter than the Turks. It was Yosi the sculptor who could tell of the capture of the city; coming down with Araleh’s supply train “for a breath of the sea,” Yosi regaled the girls with his irreverent account.
Though he did not pretend to be a military authority, Yosi said, he knew every stone in the ancient walls and fortifications. As the British fought their way up the wady, the Turks mounted the thick walls rebuilt four hundred years ago when they themselves had conquered the city. At this, wailing and woe broke out in Mea Shearim, the bearded ones calling to mind the days of the ancient Roman siege, when for three years Jerusalem starved, and, as related in Josephus, a demented mother devoured her own child.
And what Jew did not know the brutal words uttered in the face of the British advance by Bahad-ad-Din—“Let the bridegroom come, he’ll find no bride.”
And so Yosi had prepared himself a hiding place in a cellar beneath a cellar, had brought water there, and all the food he could lay his hands on, though more than three months of siege he could not have managed.
Then came the weeks of intensive battle for the approaches to Jerusalem. Why was it, Yosi mused in an aside, that the world’s cleverest generals always selected the worst weather for their greatest battles? Napoleon had defied the Russian winter. And here the British high strategist was assaulting Jerusalem in the season of torrential rains.
Nevertheless it was related in the city that the assaulting soldiers clung to the rocks, lay uncovered in the mud, but did not fall back. And then the German commander, Von Falkenhayn himself, took over the defense of Jerusalem. A change of commanders in the midst of battle was, as even a peaceful artist knew, a bad military sign. Or should he say, for the Jews it was a sign of hope? The outcome of the looming battle Yosi knew for certain when a certain German officer, a client of his named Von Papen, came and roused him from his cellar. A fight had been raging back and forth for days on the heights of Nebi Samwil. Now this Von Papen had no time for bargaining and hastily paid, and in gold too, for one last ancient statuette, a genuine one, whose price he had for months been trying to bring down. Thus Yosi knew the siege was all but over.
Next came the day of the high-piled motorcars, carts, even overloaded camels and donkeys. Last sweeps of pillaging. And after that the day of strange quiet. Would there indeed be no crushing bombardment, no hunger? From a military point of view, after all, what was Jerusalem? The German strategist, Von Falkenhayn, had decided to withdraw and rebuild his tattered forces on a more suitable line.
And so, Yosi related, the mayor of Jerusalem, removing his Turkish tarbush, went out with a white flag along Jaffa road, seeking to surrender the city, but found no one very near. At last, in the defile, the mayor espied a British soldier darting from rock to rock. But the modest sergeant declared it was not for him to accept so historic a surrender, and sent the mayor further down the vale. After several such encounters, the wandering mayor reached a colonel who bade him wait while an inquiry was sent back to General Allenby’s headquarters. At last came permission for the colonel to receive the historic surrender. Jerusalem was free.
The official entry did not yet take place, but by late afternoon shop-shutters in the souk rattled upward; in Mea Shearim, Jews were venturing out of their cellars, boys with flying ear-curls darted through the lanes, a few stalls opened—it was the eve of the first night of Chanukah. And that night, Yosi said, was more beautiful even than—than what? all he could think of was a fantastic opera-ballet with candle-tips dancing in the dark, that he had seen in Vienna before coming to Eretz. Where the Hasidim had all managed to get candles, after these years of darkness, who knew? But you walked through the lanes of Mea Shearim and from behind each half-open shutter you saw the first Chanukah candle burning. Even he, atheist that he was, was led to believe that in each house there took place a miracle like the cruse of oil in the Temple. All those tiny points of light, many of them from half-cellars and dungeons where the poorest lived, were, as a Hungarian Hasid had once explained to him, like sparks of the universal soul of God. In some of the half-cellars were the shtiblach, the homey prayer-houses, of the small congregations; they were packed full on this Chanukah night, and as though from within the ground, singing arose. Courtyard gates stood ajar, all around the yards on every floor, candle-lights shone. Yosi had then made his way into the Old City and followed a pair of Jews in their fur hats and long capotes down to the Wailing Wall. Two and three deep along the narrow stone corridor before the Wall, Jews stood, each wrapped in his tallis, swaying; the Wall rose high into darkness, and along its base, little Chanukah lamps had been placed, and the tips of light caught the hollow cheeks of the praying Jews, their ear-curls, their eyes. “Ah,” Yosi said, enjoying the girlish faces with their parted lips, “on such a night I have the soul of a Hasid!”
And two days later, Yosi had witnessed the official ceremony for the liberation of Jerusalem. It was not as though the bridegroom had arrived to find the bride missing, he declared wryly—it was simply as though the Jews were at the wrong wedding.
True, a full-bearded rabbi in a fur-rimmed hat had been procured from the Jewish quarter within the Old City walls, and the rabbi was flanked by long-beards in their gabardines. But what were they, as against the phalanx of white-robed priests, and black-robed priests, and the troops of kadis in white abayas, each with the ribbon-wound turban of a haj, and the bishops, and the Greek and Armenian and Russian popes with broad sashes and bejeweled crosses and silver and gold embroidery, all assembled in the square by the Tower of David—which, he reminded them, was after all a Moslem minaret.
And the Arab notables in western suits, and the English bishop, and the Roman Catholics, and more friars in white cowled gowns, and even a few Jewish notables who had escaped arrest by Bahad-ad-Din, wearing high silk hats.
Then up Jaffa Road came the parade of conquerors, liberators of the Holy City, the generals on their steeds, dismounting before the gate. True, they might have ridden through it, using the gash once opened in the wall for Kaiser Wilhelm on his visit, the time when Theodor Herzl had hurried to Jerusalem for a sign that Wilhelm the Messiah would persuade the Turkish Sultan to open Palestine to the Jews. But no Britisher would be so crass as to enter the holy area astride a horse. Dismounting before the gate, the new proconsuls entered respectfully, on foot.
And there before the Tower of David, as orations were made and tokens of honor exchanged and blessings offered and bells tolled, with a rabbi also reciting a blessing, there Yosi said, he could see a strange comprehension dawning on the faces of the Jewish notables. Why, this was a great Christian event. The Christians had returned as in the days of the Crusades, and driven out the Moslem rulers from the City of David.
—Cynic! Idiot! The girls fell on him angrily.—And the Declaration? And the Jewish army that was on the way from England? And the volunteers here in Eretz who were being officially enregistered now, to clear the divided land of the Turk? How could he be so cynical at a time like this!
“Chaveroth! Chaveroth!” Leah cried out, laughing. “Don’t tear him to pieces! I happen to know that Yosi himself has volunteered!”
All the church bells in England had rung out the victory, Jerusalem! Jerusalem! On the barracks map, the pins had been moved from the Yarkon river-mouth outside Tel Aviv, up beyond Petach Tikvah, then back to Ramleh as the Turks seized it again, then forward again, and up to Jerusalem and down to the Jordan at Jericho.
Along the coastal plain the line bulged forward as far as Kfar Saba, and there it angled across the hills of Samaria, and reached as far as the Jordan, and stopped. So it was not all ended. There was still time. Gidon’s own part of the land was still to be freed, and he could still envision himself, at the head of his London tailors, bursting into Mishkan Yaacov!
His schneiders were not so bad now. Even among them, many kept avowing, “At least they left us half of the job!” In training, the same thing had happened to the conscripts as to the volunteers before them. After a few weeks, their bodies were different; one day the feel of a rifle got into their hands.
Through the worst of the winter the front would not move, Gidon felt sure. General Allenby had learned his lesson in the December rains, crawling his way up to Jerusalem; now he would wait. And before Palestine’s rainy season was over, the 38th Fusiliers might at last be on the move.
So it was. One day the Irishman assembled the entire battalion. From Herscheleh they already knew, but for the good Irishman they shouted their joy as if he brought the news fresh to them, announcing that their movement orders had arrived.
A fever of packing began, while Nathan Pekovsky snorted, “Congratulations! We can still have the privilege of dying in the Holy Land!”
Yet when they entrained to London for the send-off parade, there was Private Nathan Pekovsky polishing his buttons. “I wouldn’t do this for Lenin himself,” he groaned. “Next thing you’ll even have me putting on tfillim.”
With bayonets shining, as Pekovsky said, “like a flock of outsize needles to advertise the trade,” they formed up, the mounted Irishman at their head, his medals covering his entire chest. Jabotinsky, a lieutenant now, led off Gidon’s platoon, tossing back proud little ironic remarks when he could.
Ah, the Irishman cried down to him, “Josef Trumpeldor should be with us!”
“Don’t worry, he’s right now parading his Jewish army through St. Petersburg. He’ll meet us in Tiberias!”
There in the reviewing stand was the Mayor of London himself, for were they not a battalion of the Londoners, and beside him stood a bald beanpole in striped trousers—that was Lord Balfour of the Balfour Declaration—and the most British-looking nabob was Sir Herbert Samuel, and there was the ruddy Lionel Rothschild, the same frightened Jew who had kept them from getting their Star of David insignia, cheering now as though the whole Jewish fighting force was his own idea.
And all along Whitechapel, in the windows, on the roofs, Jewish girls throwing kisses, Jewish wives weeping, children waving blue and white flags, Jewish mothers dashing into the ranks with packets of cookies. Across an entire house-front was a banner of the Jewish Trade Unions, the same fellows that had passed a resolution against the forming of a Jewish unit—“Hail to our Jewish Fighters!”
“Your old comrades must think we’re off to defend St. Petersburg!” Herscheleh remarked to Pekovsky.
The surprise came in their passage across France to the Mediterranean. Wherever the train halted, morning or night, Jews appeared, girls with flowers and cigarettes and coffee. Groups of middle-aged French Jews alongside the tracks sang “Hatikvah,” uncertain of the Hebrew words. At each stop the Irishman would make his speech about his pride in leading the first Jewish army since Bar Kochba!
In one city—Nancy—some Jews even called out the name of Jabotinsky, and he too made a speech—in French. And what now came over Jabotinsky! In the Italian port where they waited to take ship, Taranto, he went off with the English rabbi, their chaplain, and sought out the town synagogue, and there they unearthed an ancient Torah, to carry along, Jabotinsky declared, to protect them from U-boats!
Thus they arrived safely in Alexandria, still in time to rush to the front and free Mishkan Yaacov.
Instead they entrained for Cairo, and again the parade to the Great Synagogue, and the parade before the British High Commissioner, a General Wingate, and again the Jewish community’s hullabaloo, and one-two-three they were in a tent camp outside the city. What for? For training.
How long?
“How long were the Jews slaves in Egypt?” Herscheleh retorted. If Herscheleh had no news, he had jokes.
There had not even been time for Gidon to seek out Araleh and Saraleh in Alexandria. Perhaps they had already gone home to Jaffa? But almost at once, Araleh appeared in the encampment, grinning, filled with news for Gidon, for all the old Zion men from Eretz. Only a week ago Araleh had seen Leah! In Rehovot, in her kvutsa where she trained girls in agriculture, “She’s training up a wife for you,” he laughed to Gidon. “She’s got one all picked out.” No, to Leah herself nothing had happened, though a big Australian wanted to marry her. About the rest of the family he couldn’t say. “The land is sliced down the middle like with a knife.” But probably on the farm things weren’t so bad; throughout the whole war the Galilee had not fared too badly. No, no one could get through to them, the Turks were solidly entrenched on their line. But things could soon be moving; he was here to buy more camels. Oh, Araleh had learned his way around with the British, he was well paid. Saraleh was fine, the children were blooming. Did Gidon and the men know—in Eretz too a battalion was forming, everybody was trying to volunteer, thousands. And what madness, what disputes! Some argued that with half the Yishuv still in the hands of the Turks, then if Jews in the British half joined their army, Djemal Pasha would kill every Jew in Galilee. And there were still hundreds of prisoners in Damascus over the Nili affair. The entire Shomer was destroyed—
Menahem—?
Araleh hadn’t heard. But few had escaped capture. Everything had to be started again from the beginning.
They remained in Egypt, training. In the damp, debilitating heat of the season in Egypt, a disintegrating spirit set in among the men. With half of Palestine already freed, why at least couldn’t they be sent to train there, in Eretz?
From day to day, incidents ate into them. Each occurrence could be explained as a mistake, an oversight, an army entanglement—like the lack even of sufficient rifles. And why could they not be supplied with a Victrola for their recreation tent when the Gurkha battalion alongside had two? For the Jews, even chessboards were unobtainable! Restiveness and resentment grew, each incident became proof of anti-Semitism. It wasn’t General Allenby himself, went the rumors, but his adjutant, and a whole inner circle among the officers.
From the Irishman’s headquarters, Simon Levitas, the typist-clerk, a “real English” volunteer, brought a report. “Our Moses has asked to see Pharaoh.” The Irishman, Simon could tell them, was an old chum of Allenby’s, from service in India.
“And what was Pharaoh’s answer?”
“Not Pharaoh answered. His servant, the Keeper of the Door, answered that the answer would come, as soon as Pharaoh had time to deal with the Jews.”
As for Gidon, he fell back into the inured emptiness he had learned in these years of soldiering. “War is waiting,” he would repeat. Oddly, here in Egypt he had been seized with an eagerness to read. It had come on him after a number of taunts from Nathan Pekovsky, who one evening flung a book at his head, “Here! Maybe something will penetrate.” It was in Russian, by Maxim Gorky, about his own childhood, and to Gidon’s surprise he couldn’t stop reading.
The men had pooled their books, making a tent into a library, and there he sought for things he liked. Political books, theories, were not for him, and Dostoyevsky, that everyone said he should read, he didn’t like—there was too much talk, talk, talk, with philosophic discussions that were meaningless to him. Pushkin—even Tolstoy—these were schoolbooks from other days. But real books about real people’s lives, of these Gidon couldn’t find enough. Pekovsky brought him the memoirs of Kropotkin. And the books of the American, Jack London. And also he liked books about traveling, about different places in the world, America, Africa. And a book about Palestine, too, he devoured; it had been written by an Englishman who had lived among the Druze in a house in Dahliat el Carmel near Haifa, and had wandered everywhere.
Once a week Gidon went with Herschel to a brothel, again a superior one which Herscheleh had discovered. It was French style, with a large open salon where girls of all colors, from Europe, India, Africa, hovered about in their French underwear, and you could look them over and choose. Some even sat quietly on a bench waiting without pestering you.
Gidon never felt at ease, examining girls like that, like in a slave market, Pekovsky said, and the second time, as Gidon glanced over the row, a little black girl put her hand to her breast as if to ask “Me?” so he nodded and she came to him. It went well enough; when he tried a few words in Arabic, she babbled happily. She was Sudanese, she had been here only five weeks, she was fifteen, her father had sold her in marriage to an old, old husband—with her hand she made the sign of a beard down to the floor—so she had run away— But Sudanese did not have long beards, Gidon said, and she laughed and tweaked his nose. The following week, no sooner had he and Herschel entered the place than the same girl ran to Gidon, seizing him by the hand—he was hers! This time when the servant knocked for time’s up, she called a curse through the door, and even at the second knock, she sent the servant away, getting up only at the third, when the madam herself complained through the door. And the girl didn’t even wheedle for extra money. Was it really that she enjoyed it so much with him? Oh, his Halina laughed, she could zigzig with him all the time! And she instructed him to come on Mondays, because then business was slow and he could stay longer.
Gidon would have liked to try some of the other girls, but then Halina would feel offended. Only once he managed, as she was occupied when he arrived, but the next time she pouted and scolded him, he should have waited for her!
Still, even if this might be the way she behaved with all her steady customers, the weekly zigzig made him feel cheerful. Presently she instructed him that he should come late, so as to be the last, and he would then not have to get up out of bed but could stay with her the whole night.
Something in this made Gidon uneasy. Never yet had he fallen asleep with a woman in his arms, and while each time it was an effort to get up and dress and leave, it was as though if he stayed all night he would be endangering, perhaps spoiling, something that he should not risk, as though he would be betraying the as yet unknown girl who might one day be his true wife. Yet he could not stop imagining it, how it would be to fall asleep, and half-wake and feel Halina there, and do it again and fall asleep again. At last he gave in and arrived on a Monday at midnight.
He was spared the betrayal of his future wife. There was a new crop of girls, and Halina was among those who had vanished.
But even though they were enjoying the fleshpots of Egypt, the Jewish soldiers were not content to tarry. With Passover came still another incident. Not many of them were observant, but Passover was a different matter, and Passover in Egypt, while they waited to march into the promised land—their British-promised never-never land, as Herscheleh dubbed it—was an anticipation over which even Nathan Pekovsky could not sneer. Yet, despite increasingly frantic applications from their rabbi, the requisition for matzoth remained unfilled. At the last moment, on the morning of the seder itself, the Irishman with the rabbi roared into Cairo to the Jewish quarter to buy matzoth.
Most impressively, the seder was held, with the entire battalion at the long board tables rising with military precision to their feet to recite, “In each generation each man must look upon himself as though he, in his own person, went out from bondage in Egypt.”
Never before had Gidon understood it.
When the mess sergeant put in the bill for the matzoth, it was returned with a note that these were special rations which the men must pay for themselves. It was the last straw. Small groups of grumblers were to be seen, putting their heads together in secretive discussions. Among the schneiders there was an added bitterness, for now that the Bolsheviki had made peace with the Germans, the revolutionaries in the unit were constantly being twitted—had they chosen to go back to join the Russian army instead of joining the Fusiliers, they would now be clear of the war, instead of having perhaps still to go into battle and get themselves shot to pieces.
One morning the Irishman came bursting out of his headquarters with a face of rage, shouting orders for an immediate full assembly on the parade ground. In tones of brass he read them an order from the High Command. Since several requests for transfer to labor units had been received from his men, the Jewish battalions were to be broken up; the troops would be assigned to various labor auxiliaries.
“So you want to be slaves!” he shouted into the silent, dumbfounded ranks. “You want to remain slaves in Egypt!”
Oh, he knew the source of this order. It came from themselves! From a crew of cringing cowards among them! He did not blame the High Command, where certain officers had all along predicted that Jews would not fight. He was simply ashamed. Ashamed.
His voice had all but broken. “No, I am no Moses. Moses was one of yourselves and a Prince in Egypt. But as I stand here, so Moses stood before your ancestors. Moses knew there were renegades and cowards among them, worshipers of the golden calf, the fleshpots of Egypt, but he knew also that the greatest part of the Hebrews were good men, ready to undergo every hardship and every risk, so as to deserve their freedom in the land God had promised to their forefathers.
“I have commanded Jews. In the Zion Mule Brigade we also had the normal amount of bad stuff that you will find in any army, among any people. The snivelers and the gold-brickers. But what finally came out of that Zion Brigade was a band of men to make an officer proud. Therefore I was proud to come back to lead a Jewish fighting unit. I know that there is none, not one, among my own Zion men, who asked for this transfer. And I know that among the rest of you the far greatest majority will prove equal to the Zion men, and that, if we are given the opportunity in combat, we will earn the insignia of David that has been promised us. And that is the way it should be. We should earn it in battle. And no small group of renegades, connivers, and grumblers should be allowed to take away from you the opportunity for which so many have petitioned and waited, and which has been hailed by your people all over the world and by the whole world as a great step of justice for your oppressed people. No! no clique of communists, cowards, and anti-Semites, even if they are Jews, will succeed in destroying this unit.”
Therefore he commanded all those who had signed petitions for transfer to labor units to step forward from the ranks.
Ten men stepped out, Nathan Pekovsky among them.
“Are you just plain cowards or do you have any kind of reason or semblance of an excuse? Go ahead and speak freely. I authorize you.”
Pekovsky was the spokesman. “Sir,” he said, “we do not consider ourselves cowards. But to get maimed or killed is just as distasteful to us as to anyone else. And to get killed or maimed while fighting for an army that does not want us in its ranks, under a High Command that uses every opportunity to humiliate us and discriminate against us, a command to which you yourself, sir, have protested as to anti-Semitic actions, that is plain stupidity.”
The Irishman answered without rage, gravely. “I admit there is a degree of discrimination and anti-Semitism in the army just as there is in civilian life. And that is why we are here. To fight it. You are mistaken when you say that the army does not want you in its ranks. We are here because His Majesty’s Government wants and has decided to have a Jewish force to participate in freeing Palestine. It is the Government’s declared policy to foster a Jewish National Home in Palestine. The whole world is aroused and inspired by the fulfillment of God’s promise, in this plan. And you men are in the forefront of it all.”
“The whole world may be aroused and inspired by it, but the commanders in this area seem never to have heard of it, or they don’t want to hear of it, or they want to kill that plan!” Pekovsky replied, and this time Gidon felt the entire ranks stirring. Wasn’t it true? “All the way up to the top! They are all anti-Semitic!” Pekovsky challenged.
“Not at the top. You are wrong, and I will stake my army career on it!” the Irishman shouted. “I give you my word as a British officer, the Commander has not got a breath of anti-Semitism in his soul. There may be some dirty conniving in the echelons—all sorts of conniving goes on in every army—and we have got to be men enough to stick it out and root it out! Instead, what do you want to do? You want to confirm their anti-Semitic views. You want to prove for them that Jews are cowardly and shrink from battle. You should not have needed me to remind you that Moses himself had the likes of you to contend with! Now I want every man-Jew of you to withdraw his request, and I will personally go to the C-in-C himself and get this order canceled!
“Let me tell you now, you will have anti-Semitism at every step. Of course there is Jew hatred, here, there, everywhere! Isn’t it to fight this that you joined the Jewish battalions? Will you turn tail at the first whiff? Let me tell you, you will be fighting the Turks in front while the anti-Semites knife you behind. You still want to quit?”
He strode closer, marched along the line, pausing before one and another of the rebels, face to face. Never had Gidon heard the Irishman so passionate, so open with his men. Let him believe himself Moses, let him enjoy the adoration of highborn Jewish ladies of Cairo, let him spend his free hours drinking whiskey with his fellow goyish officers—never mind, he was a man who had got to know the inside of the Jew.
“Who is it exactly that doesn’t want you in the army? If you are not wanted, why has the High Command detailed your own leader, Lieutenant Jabotinsky—thank God he is not here to witness this heartbreaking disgrace—to go ahead to Jerusalem and recruit Jews from Palestine itself for our battalions? Why has Colonel Rothschild”—another one of the “good” Rothschilds—“been detailed as a recruiting officer for this outfit in Palestine? Why is a second battalion, the 40th London Fusiliers, on its way right now to join us?
“Do you think that I myself haven’t been advised by some of my so-called friends in the service to quit the Jews if I don’t want to ruin my career in the army? Do you think we didn’t have to contend with the same rotten undermining sabotage from this same army clique when it at last condescended to enroll Jews even to be mule-drivers? We came out of Gallipoli with colors flying; why, the name of the Zion Mule Corps was uttered with the same respect a man gave to the King’s Mounted. And I promise you when we come out of this campaign, they won’t sneer about my Jewish Tailors—they’ll say Tailors the way they say Anzacs!
“Now I don’t know where anti-Semitism comes from. I can say this to you, I’ve known the C-in-C for years, I’ve campaigned with him, I’ve messed with him, I know him not only as an officer but as a man, and I can swear to you he is a man who deeply loves his Bible and has the greatest respect and admiration for the Hebrews. He has commanded men of all creeds and colors. He has no prejudice. Whatever nastiness we run into because of prejudices, if it reaches his ears, he will straighten it out at once. Oh, we’ll have nastiness. An army has its nasty side. There are a million ways to undermine you. Orders and papers go through dozens of hands. A subaltern, a clerk, can turn the C-in-C’s own intentions upside down. Much of the time, I know and you know, it cannot be traced. Pigeonhole this, misdirect that. You men have got to have the patience of your race.
“Now you can march out of here one day soon as free men fighting for your historic homeland, or you can go back to carry stones for the pyramids.
“What do you say?”
He halted before one of the rebels, a real beak-nosed Jew with a squint, Bobkeh he was called, a no-account, one of those who had joined out of fear of being sent back to Russia. Bobkeh’s eyes darted to Pekovsky, but Pekovsky stood rigid as though to declare the proof would be in an honest choice.
“Look me in the eye!” the Irishman commanded.
It seemed incredible, indecent, that in this single moment the fate of the entire enterprise might depend on a Bobkeh. Then, his head lowered, the same Bobkeh took a step backward as though not even to decide but to disappear into the ranks. The commander strode to the next man. One after another the rebels stepped back. A few even before he reached them. Pekovsky too in his turn. Only the seventh man, eyes averted, and the eighth with some defiance, declared they still wanted to transfer.
When the ranks were dismissed, those two hurried to make their packs. The camp atmosphere had changed; even the other eight rebels stayed aloof from the “traitors”; without a goodbye they disappeared.
Morale became better. Chaim Weizmann himself appeared on a visit; Herscheleh reported that he was on a journey to Arabia, to meet with the Emir Feisal who had risen with the British against the Turks, and to make a treaty over Palestine. With Weizmann came Aaron Aaronson from the Intelligence Section.
In level tones, Aaronson related to the assembled men how the Turks had tortured his sister, and his father in her sight, until Sara destroyed herself.
Gidon believed he had seen her once. When he had gone with Reuven to Aaron Aaronson’s experimental station in Athlit, had she not been there? And on that night when he had swum to the ruins and left a message on the plow handle—perhaps that same bit of paper had come into her hand. For an instant there came over Gidon a shock of long-delayed fright. How lucky it was that he had not included, as he had wanted to do, some word, some sign, for the family at home. They too might have been drawn into it all, his own sister Leah like that poor Sara Aaronson.
And the other one, who had come, here in Egypt, to see Josef Trumpeldor—Avshalom Feinberg the poet, all excited and sure of himself, with his great plans for a landing! He had even taken back gifts for the family.
When Aaron Aaronson finished telling his story, Gidon had an impulse to go up to him and say who he was, and that it was he who had left the message at Athlit. Yet he held back. Something about the famous scientist, something in the way Aaronson spoke, made him hold back. Though Aaronson had spoken before everyone of the whole tragedy, it still seemed to Gidon that if he came up to the man, he would be intruding on a private sorrow. When the scientist spoke it was like a report, almost as though it had not happened to him, and yet if you went up and talked to him it would be different.
The Irishman was speaking now. “These were your forward scouts, behind the enemy lines. It was their mission to face the enemy before you, and how nobly they fulfilled their task! They were Jewish soldiers, men! They were the first of you!”
After being dismissed, the men spoke little of the Aaronsons. Why was it? As though some curse would be awakened by speaking of their fate.