Chapter 4

Morris Wolf and Dov Shapiro, pushing their material and tools ahead of them in a small wheeled cart, had begun their work as soon as the light was sufficient. Max Brodsky had accompanied them and had stayed with them until the first mine had been planted and the earth above it carefully smoothed over. Then he left them to their dangerous job and went to look up Ben Grossman, to accomplish the second stage of his mission to Ein Tsofar.

He paused at the entrance to the cave that served Ben Grossman as his workshop, letting his eyesight become adjusted to the relative dimness of the cave after the brilliance of the desert morning sun, then entered. Grossman looked up from the table where he had been painstakingly assembling a weapon. He leaned back and frowned at the unexpected sight of Max Brodsky. For several moments the two men stared at each other; then Brodsky pulled up a stool and sat down across from Grossman.

“Hello, Ben.”

“What do you want?”

“Relax,” Brodsky said quietly. “I’m not here to fight; the day I am, you’ll know it. I’m not blaming you and I’m not blaming Deborah. These things happen, people fall in love. And falling in love with Deborah isn’t hard. I know.”

“So what did you come here for?”

“If you’ll listen, you’ll find out.” Brodsky tried to see in the man across from him the thin, pitiful Benjamin Grossman he had practically nursed through Bergen-Belsen, or the broken man he had brought back in his arms from the Bodensee; but that man was gone. In his place was this strong, self-assured man. Maybe that was what Deborah had done for him, Max thought, and wondered if it had been for the best. He put the character analysis aside and got down to business. “You know, of course, the British will be out of Palestine in a few weeks. You’ll be free, then, to come and go as you please.” He looked into the slate-blue eyes steadily. “Do you still dream of getting to Switzerland?”

“That’s my business, don’t you think?”

Max smiled faintly.

“Ben, Ben! You’re still on the defensive when nobody is attacking. I asked for a very specific reason.” He looked around the small cave-shop and then gestured toward the weapon Ben had been working on. “You know a lot about guns, that’s obvious. Where did you learn?”

“Why?”

“Because I asked, that’s why.”

Grossman shrugged. He had had his answer to this question ready for a long time; he was surprised nobody had queried him before on his knowledge of armaments. But having answers ready was the first requisite of the planner. The answer came to his lips so automatically it even sounded like the truth to him.

“My father was in the first war—a private, of course, since even then Jews weren’t made officers easily. He became interested in guns. He became a collector and he passed on his interest to me.” Enough of it was true to make it sound quite authentic. For a brief moment he wondered what Brodsky’s reaction would be if he told the entire truth: that his father had been, indeed, a collector of weapons, one of which he had used upon himself. He also wondered what had brought on that sudden bitter thought, and looked at Max coldly. “Why?”

Max leaned forward, getting down to business.

“Because we need people to buy guns for us, and we want people who know something about what they’re buying. We have people right now in the United States and others in Europe, but we need more. There are gun dealers we would want you to contact.” He studied Ben’s face. “One of the largest dealers in used armaments in the world is in Geneva.”

Ben stared a moment and then began to laugh. “Geneva?”

Max frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“You want to send me to Switzerland? Pay my fare there? All my expenses? After all the times you tried to talk me out of going? You don’t think that’s funny?”

“Times change,” Max said evenly. “Things change. Besides, while we want you to go, we also want you to come back.”

“And you’re sure I will?” There was a taunting tone in Ben’s voice.

Max continued to consider him stonily.

“Deborah will be here.”

“Unless she comes with me.”

“She won’t,” Max said evenly. “She can’t.”

“What do you mean, she can’t?” Ben frowned across the cluttered table. “Who’s to stop her?”

“Ben,” Max said patiently, “Deborah Assavar is a soldier in the Haganah. She is also a nurse. She goes where she is told to go, not where you might want her to go. Deborah will be here—when you come back.”

If it pleased Max Brodsky to believe that, let him believe it. The point was not whether Deborah came with him or not; the point was that he was being sent to Switzerland! The matter of Deborah would be resolved later, or not resolved, but the matter of Switzerland was being resolved for him. That certain God Max Brodsky was always talking about had to have a sense of humor! Switzerland! Freedom! Money to spend where and when he pleased, money to take him as far from this hellish spot as he could go!

“When would you want me to go?”

“As soon after the British leave as possible. We’ll be declaring our new state on the fourteenth of the month, but there won’t be time for countries to recognize us and establish diplomatic arrangements. I’ll see to it you get a proper passport and documents. You’ll be going with a man named Shmuel Ginzberg. He’ll handle the financial arrangements. You’ll be his technical advisor—”

(So I won’t get my hands on your money, eh, Max? But if you should know how little I need it!)

Max was continuing, leaning forward in the damp room of the cave.

“We want you to go to Tel Aviv tonight with a man named Shapiro who knows the way; he brought me here last night. We have a place you can stay in safety in Tel Aviv until the British are gone; they’re easing their security considerably now that they’re about to leave. Shapiro should be ready to leave sometime this afternoon. I’d like the jeep to be through the mine field before dark.”

Grossman frowned. “Mine field?”

“Yes.” Max hesitated as if wondering how much to say, then decided to say it all. “Ben, this kibbutz is going to be attacked by the Arabs very soon. In a day or so at the most, we believe. We want you out of here. We can’t afford to lose your expertise at this point.”

“You want me and Deborah to leave tonight?”

“Not Deborah,” Max said patiently. “She stays.” He saw the look on Ben’s face and shook his head impatiently. “Ben, can’t you get anything through that thick Geman skull of yours? There’s a war on! Deborah is a nurse, she’s a soldier! She stays where she’s needed.”

“And you stay with her, is that it?”

“No, that’s not it,” Max said wearily. He was getting tired of the conversation; there were so many things to do to prepare for the attack, and he was wasting time. “I stay because the best thing I can do at the moment is to stay and try to keep the Arabs from overrunning the place. If I were more valuable buying arms in Switzerland or anywhere else, I’d be going back to Tel Aviv with Shapiro tonight and you’d be staying here whether you liked it or not.” He looked around the cluttered interior of the cave-factory with a slight touch of distaste. “Turn everything you have in progress to someone before you leave—”

“I’m not going.”

“Not going to Switzerland?”

“I’m not going to Tel Aviv tonight,” Grossman said. “I’ll go when it’s time to leave for Switzerland. Not before.”

Max Brodsky shook his head, his jaw beginning to tighten.

“Mr. Grossman, let me tell you something—your heroics really don’t mean much to us. I’ll tell you this one more time, and that’s it. There is a war on. People are getting killed. Settlements are being leveled. You will go where you’re sent when you’re sent.”

“Heroics?” Grossman sneered. “Listen! I’m not a member of your so-called army and I’m certainly not subject to your discipline. If you want me to go to Switzerland for you, fine—but until I go—”

He paused abruptly as the shrill bell mounted at the cave entrance suddenly rang twice. Even before he could come to his feet the bell sounded again, a frantic ringing, and then they could both hear the muffled sound of gunfire. The two men ran outside. People were dashing about, crisscrossing their paths, each running to his assigned post. Rifles were hurriedly being handed out; one man was running toward the community building with an old-fashioned machine gun in his hands while a second ran behind him with a cartridge belt looped over his shoulder, the two of them intent upon setting the gun up on the roof as they had done so often before in practice. Women in charge of the children were herding them as rapidly as possible into the underground shelters and then coming back to claim their weapons and take their places at their assigned posts. Despite the dashing in all directions there was a certain order in the chaos.

Ben grabbed a submachine gun from the hands of a pale young man who looked uncertain as to its use; with the gun nestled familiarly under his arm he ran for the perimeter and the wire. Max, a commandeered rifle in his hand, came close behind. Men from the fields were racing for the wire; the last one in turned and slammed the gate behind him and knelt to bring up his gun. It was Wolf. From the outposts the men were firing steadily down the slope at the wave of fanatical Arabs who trotted toward them up the rocky terrain, yelling incessantly, firing as they came. There were several hundred of them, some in traditional robes, others in discarded or donated British uniforms, all with the kaffiyeh cords set for battle. On the road that edged the sea below the trucks that had brought the Arabs were drawn up beside the water, their officers beside them; next to them were several passenger cars and standing on the road beside them were civilians, men and women, watching through field glasses, come to witness the attack as if it were being staged for their amusement. On the slope between them there were several bodies of men who had been caught in the fields and had not made it back in time; among them was the body of Dov Shapiro, a mine still clutched in his outstretched hand as if he were offering it to the enemy.

Wolf was at the closed gate, kneeling with a rifle he had taken from a dead man beside him, firing it through the mesh. Ben pushed him to one side and swung the gate open to give him freedom of fire. He knelt in the opening, bringing up his submachine gun, sweeping the first echelon of approaching attackers, spraying them evenly with gunfire. He found himself grinning madly, filled with an exuberance he had not felt since the early days on the Polish front, those heady, wonderful days of personal killing before the mechanization of Maidanek. This was battle! The gun chattered comfortably in his hands; how like the Russians the Arabs were, coming into that deadly fire in waves, except that the Arabs were screaming while the Russians had advanced suicidally in resigned silence. The foremost Arabs tried to rush the gate, swinging their rifles now as clubs, only to die before the deadly accuracy of the maniac with the submachine gun at the gate. The second wave of attackers hesitated and then broke in a mad rush down the slope. There was a sudden explosion as one of the land mines went off with a roar and a flash of flame, flinging the body of the unfortunate Arab in the air in doll-like fashion. There was a crow of delight from Wolf, followed by a second as another mine exploded. Ben came to his feet, swept by the passion of battle, and started out the gate after the retreating Arabs, only to be tackled violently and brought down by Brodsky. He felt himself being dragged back behind the wire fence and heard the gate being slammed shut. He turned, furious.

“What are you doing?”

“You idiot! There are mines out there!”

Max was staring down at Ben Grossman with a strange look on his face. In all the time he had known the other man, in all the experiences they had shared, he had had no idea that this mild-looking Jew, Benjamin Grossman, had such fury, such love of battle in him. Ben grinned up at him a bit sheepishly, but the pleasure of killing was still evident on his sweaty face.

“I forgot,” he said.

Men and women were carrying the wounded into the makeshift hospital that had been set up in the most central and therefore the most protected of the caves, but at the moment Ben had no thought of Deborah inside, working on those wounded. He had rolled over and was staring down the slope; the retreating Arabs were back at their trucks, out of rifle fire, leaving their dead scattered about the plain, and were conferring with their officers. Beyond them a trail of dust indicated where the passenger cars had fled; the spectacle had not been as entertaining as they had supposed.

Silence fell. Guns were reloaded, ammunition brought from the storage areas to be closer to the wire; a young boy came around with coffee and the men drank it eagerly, with one eye always on the slope and the Arabs at the foot. An hour passed in this manner, with each side merely waiting; then a cloud of dust appeared on the far horizon where the passenger cars had disappeared. Perez, standing at the gate, raised field glasses.

“Half-tracks …” He squinted into the glasses, hoping against hope that despite Brodsky’s pessimistic statement the British were answering the repeated radio calls that were being sent in a stream from the administration offices at the moment.

“Let me see.” Ben Grossman came to his feet, reaching for the glasses. There was such authority in his voice that Perez handed them over automatically. Ben studied the moving cloud of dust. “Personnel carriers, unarmed. Full of Arabs. It looks as if they’re merely adding numbers. I’d judge an additional hundred men.” He turned to Wolf. “How many mines were you able to plant?”

“Only ten,” Wolf said, and shrugged. “Then we saw them jumping down from the trucks and we didn’t hang around. One of them got Shapiro with a lucky shot.”

“Ten mines,” Grossman said thoughtfully, “and two are already detonated. Not much of a deterrent.”

“No?” Wolf said sarcastically, stung at this debasement of his efforts. “Did you see those two that went off?”

“I mean,” Grossman said patiently, “their officers have seen several hundred men go through that mine field and return. Only two of them killed by the mines. They won’t hesitate to send their men through it again. And eight mines won’t stop them.” He frowned at the ground for several minutes, calculating, and then looked up. “How far from the fence to the end of the mines you laid?”

Wolf, mollified, considered. “Maybe three hundred yards. They could come up to the edge of the mine field and be within easy rifle range of us from there, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Ben turned, singling out a familiar face among the men standing at the wire staring down at the Arabs. It was a young man who worked with him. “Ari, get our mortar.”

Max was surprised. “You have a mortar?”

“We were asked to try and work one up and we have, at least a prototype,” Ben said. “It’s a rather small job, no rifling, of course, and it was made from the only decent tubing I could get, but I’ve also built eight charges for it. It’s a copy of—” He had been about to say it was a copy of the Russian 6o-mm mortar from which the enlarged British Stokes 3-inch mortar had been developed, but he bit back the words in time. He would have trouble explaining his familiarity with a Russian weapon that had been developed when he supposedly had been in a concentration camp. “—a copy of the early American mortars from the First World War,” he ended smoothly. “I think it will work.”

“You think?” Wolf said, startled. “You haven’t tried it out yet?”

“Not yet.”

“And what happens if it doesn’t work?”

“Let’s not think of that.” Grossman looked up at the sun, calculating the hours of daylight remaining, then looked down to the dirt road snaking its way beside the sea. The personnel carriers could be seen now with the naked eye, small bugs bristling with smaller bugs, creeping toward the congregation of trucks and troops at the foot of the long slope. He turned to Perez. “How far away are those trucks? The ones parked at the shore. You must have some idea.”

“One point three miles,” Perez said proudly, pleased to contribute to the discussion. “Almost exactly from the gate, here. We measured it; we were thinking of running a sewage line there once, but we decided not to. We didn’t want to pollute the—”

He was interrupted by a harsh voice from somewhere in the crowd who had been listening.

“You can’t reach any mile and a third with a sixty-millimeter mortar, even with a proper one! I was with the British; they had a couple of Yank sixty-millimeters. We were lucky to reach a mile.”

“I know,” Ben said and turned back to Wolf. “You came in a jeep?”

“We had to,” Wolf said with his usual breeziness. “The bus didn’t stop.”

Max Brodsky, listening, watched as Ben Grossman effectively took charge. Perez, as director of the kibbutz, was normally responsible for the defense of the settlement; Max, as senior Palmach man there at the time, might have asked for and received that responsibility. But Grossman was taking it into his own hands and those listening to him seemed to be prepared to let him do so. Max decided to let the matter ride for the moment and see what happened. Grossman was studying Wolf’s face.

“Wolf, do you know where those other eight mines are?”

“Of course. They’re—”

“Could you drive that jeep through the mine field without hitting one?”

“Of course,” Wolf said, his newly acquired professional pride stung, but he could not help but add sardonically, “that’s if the Arabs don’t mind all the traffic while they’re trying to kill us, of course.”

“Could you do it at night? Without lights?”

“At night without lights?” Wolf stared. “Grossman, you’re crazy!”

“Could you?”

“No. Anyway, what would be the purpose? How many could you get on one jeep? And if you want someone to go down there and surrender, you don’t need to wait for night to do that. Those Arabs would be very happy to massacre us all, white flag or no white flag, in broad daylight.” He tried to explain. “Look, the mines were laid mainly in the road, to prevent their vehicles from reaching the fence. And if you get three feet off the road you can break an axle on the rocks. This isn’t a tank we’re talking about!”

“But if you had light you could do it?”

“With light I could try it. I don’t say I could do it.” Wolf realized he was partially contradicting himself. “I think I could do it, driving carefully. And I mean carefully!”

Grossman looked down at the personnel carriers that were just coming to a halt beside the other trucks.

“I have a feeling the Arabs will wait for dark after their last attack,” he said. “By that time we should be ready.” He looked at Wolf. “I’ll see to it you get light. After that all you have to do is to drive. Carefully.”

Colonel Manfred Fitzhugh, commander of the Hebron garrison of the British Armed Forces in Palestine, looked up in annoyance at the appearance of the sergeant at the door of his office, requiring his attention. The colonel was in the midst of composing a letter to his wife explaining that although the departure of the British from Palestine had been widely announced to take place on the fifteenth of May, he was being routed home by way of Port Said and Cairo, which unfortunately would delay his arrival home by several additional weeks. “A nuisance, my dear, but you know the army—” Fortunately for the colonel his wife did not. And he still had to write the girl in Cairo as well as the one in Said before the mail went out, because the postal services in those bloody countries was simply ghastly.

“Well?” he said, scowling blackly. “What is it?”

“Sir,” said the sergeant, standing at attention very properly and aware the colonel was not pleased about something, “the Arabs are attacking Ein Tsofar, the settlement just south of Masada. They are radioing for help.”

“Who? The Arabs?”

“No, sir. The Jews.”

“Well, be a little more explicit in the future!”

The colonel knew full well who was attacking and who was radioing for help; the ploy had been made simply to gain a bit more time for thought. Colonel Fitzhugh drummed his fingers angrily on his desk, cursing inwardly. Why did those bloody Arabs have to attack two days ahead of schedule? They would probably later claim they did it because they suspected a leak in his security, but the real reason was probably because the damned wogs couldn’t read a calendar! He was supposed to have most of his men off to Jericho on passes to watch a soccer game against the team of the Jericho Garrison when the attack took place, not sitting in barracks, scrubbed and shining and waiting for afternoon tea. What to do! Well, one thing he did not intend to do was to risk the life of one single British soldier just two weeks before they were bloody well scheduled to leave! He glowered at the sergeant.

“Send Captain Wiley in.”

“Sir!”

Captain Wiley was equally irked at the interruption. He had been trying to trim his mustache, which had been cultivated to an impressive if slightly unwieldy four inches either side of his bulbous nose-he hoped that people, especially girls, would mistake him for RAF—and the scissors were dull, the light poor, and the bloody mirror wavy. He sighed mightily at the colonel’s demand for his presence, but put the scissors away and duly made his appearance.

“Sir?”

“The bloody Arabs are attacking Ein Tsofar settlement!”

“Oh, no, sir, that’s the day after tomorrow—”

“Don’t argue! They’re doing it right now! Right this minute! Don’t ask me why. What are we going to say if headquarters asks why we didn’t do something about the bloody affair?”

“I—I don’t know, sir …”

The colonel smote his desk irately. “Just once I’d like a constructive answer from one of my staff! I have to do all the thinking around here! Well, don’t just stand there; get your men on the way there!”

“Sir?”

“Just don’t go too fast,” the colonel said, his tone moderating. “Save petrol, if you know what I mean. Have a couple of flat pneumatics, or give ample rest periods on the way. Actually, you will probably have to bivouac for the night somewhere along the road if you get a slow start, seeing the hour. You might consider that possibility and load up your extended-operation equipment. That should take a few extra hours.”

“I understand, sir,” the captain said, smiling broadly.

“I certainly hope for your sake that you do,” the colonel said sourly, in a tone that instantly wiped the smile from the captain’s face, “because if you get yourself or any of your men actually involved in any fighting, you’ll go home a corporal!”

He scowled at the retreating captain’s back a moment, and then returned to his correspondence. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to see Jews killed, but if anyone had to get killed, better Jews than British soldiers. He had no intention of spending his final days in the bloody country writing letters to relatives explaining why their Alf or their Herbert had been killed just a bloody few days before they left for blighty!

There were campfires along the edge of a placid Dead Sea where an evening meal was being cooked before the second, and intended final, attack was launched against the kibbutz. The trucks of the Arab attackers, together with the personnel carriers that had brought the supplementary force, were drawn up near them, their headlights lighting the shore. Across the sea the rugged mountains could be seen in faint silhouette, and every now and then the flicker of a kerosene lantern from some shepherd’s tent high on the slopes. Sentries were posted at the edge of the area lit by the headlamps and the fires; from a short distance one might have supposed that an evening picnic was in progress. It seemed difficult to realize that the two enemies were within sight of each other, eating supper with one eye on the dark no man’s land between them, planning on doing their best to destroy the other in a few minutes’ time.

At the gate of the kibbutz Ben Grossman had completed his preparations. The mortar had been bolted to the floor of the jeep where the rear seat had been removed. The eight mortar charges had been set in makeshift pockets made by riveting webbing along the rear of the jeep inside the body. Wolf sat at the wheel of the jeep looking apprehensive; bravery in the camps had been one thing for death there had been welcomed; but Morris Wolf loved life in Palestine and hated to throw it away. He suddenly swung around, confronting Grossman.

“If we’re going at all, let’s go, for God’s sake!”

“In a second.” Ben settled on the floor next to the mortar. He checked the charges, nodded, and then looked up. “Set your mileage meter, your odometer, to an even number—”

“You said that before,” Wolf said, irritated. “It’s set.”

“When you’ve gone exactly four tenths of a mile—”

“You said that before, too. When I get exactly four tenths of a mile I stop and stand up and they shoot me.”

“We’ll be beyond any accurate range of rifles.”

“Who said they have to be accurate?”

“If you’re going to be shot, you’ll be shot,” Grossman said coldly. “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready for a week, for God’s sake!”

“Good.” Ben raised his voice; he could not keep the excitement out of it. “Open the gate!” The gate swung back. “Lights!” The floodlights suddenly flared, making day out of night. “Go!”

At the Arab encampment the sudden blaze of light caught everyone by surprise. There was a sudden rush for guns, and then the men hesitated. A single jeep, with what looked like only two men in it, was emerging from the gate. A surrender? The robed troops relaxed but still held their guns tightly, wondering at the strange excursion.

In the jeep, Wolf pressed nervously on the accelerator; the vehicle seemed to leap forward and was suddenly slowed as Wolf quickly braked, slowing down, staring about. The road was clear enough in the strong light of the floodlamps reflected by the mirrors behind them, but in contrast the shadows were sharper, blacker, everything took on a different appearance than during the day. Wolf felt a band of sweat run down his stomach into his crotch and a part of his mind wondered if he had wet himself. God! Was that lump one of the mines they had planted, or was it just a lump? Why had they smoothed the damned things over so well they were impossible to see? What had made him think he could recognize where the blasted mines were laid? But he couldn’t go back now, the danger of that was as great if not greater. He crept along, sweating, trying to make out small landmarks that might help him identify the mine locations.

“How far have we come?”

Jesus Christ! He had forgotten to check the odometer, and they had been driving for what seemed like an hour! He looked down and felt a momentary relief.

“Two tenths of a mile, plus a little …”

He shut his eyes a second and then instantly opened them, cursing himself, and then he knew that in all that brilliant light and with those elongated blackened shadows and under that pressure, he had no idea where the mines were. He tried to assure himself that he would automatically miss the mines, that that would only be fair since they were, after all, his own mines; he tried to assure himself that there were, after all, only eight of them and he must have passed at least four so far. But he knew he was steering the jeep blindly, weaving for no real reason at all—

“How far now?”

Shit! He had forgotten to look again! This wasn’t his bag of tricks; he was a cook, and now that he was probably going to be dead in a few minutes it wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth, which was that he wasn’t even a very good cook, but he promised if he ever came out of this he would learn; he would become the best cook in—

“Wolf! I said how far now?”

Oh, God, he had forgotten again! He looked. “Four tenths,” he said, his voice uneven, “plus a little.”

“Then stop. Stop!”

He jammed on the brakes and sat there trembling. They had missed all the mines. How was it possible? If they weren’t killed, if they managed to find their way back one way or another—and he intended to walk back, at least fifty feet from the road—he would even go to synagogue. Then he smiled wryly. He wouldn’t and he knew it. He glanced back toward the settlement, directly into the glowing lights, surprised they were so close; and in that moment two things happened: the lights were suddenly extinguished, leaving him half-blinded, and there was the soft cough of the mortar as Grossman fired the first round.

There was a brief pause, then Wolf’s vision cleared as the beach seemed to rise in the air, taking his mind from everything except the reason they had come on the insane mission in the first place. The mortar shell had struck one of the beach fires at the extreme edge of the small enclave; embers flew through the air, making a pyrotechnic display that brought Wolf back to his childhood but which did little damage to the Arabs. But the thing worked, Grossman’s idiot mortar really worked! With a grunt Grossman made a small adjustment and dropped a second charge into the open maw of the tube; another cough, another pause, and the encampment on the shore of the sea seemed to explode, scattering bodies. Now Grossman was feeding his remaining six charges into the mortar as fast as the weapon could deliver them. Between the crump, crump, crump of the striking shells they could hear the screams of the wounded men, and in the light of the blazing trucks they could see the wildly agitated shadows of men scattering from the range of the mortar. A personnel carrier started up and was immediately swamped with men trying to climb aboard; a truck limped from the devastation with a shattered wheel, covered with men, only to give up the impossible flight as the men fled to other transports or charged blindly down the dirt road in the dark, seeking escape.

Grossman was out of shells but there was no way for the Arabs to know that. The two men in the jeep watched the grotesque scene, each trembling but for a different reason, Wolf from nerves now that the peril was over, Grossman from the pleasure of victorious battle. Together they watched the few undamaged vehicles gather together the remnants of the attacking force and disappear into the night, fleeing for home. In a few minutes all Wolf could see where the small encampment had stood were the flickering flames from the dying fires where the mangled trucks were burning themselves out, belching black smoke from the acrid rubber, licking at the edge of the sea. All he could hear were the oddly out-of-place sounds of night birds returning to investigate the torment of sound that had sent them scattering; and the ragged beating of his own heart.

The battle for Ein Tsofar was ended.

The troops of the Hebron British garrison were bivouacked some twelve miles south of Dahiriya, their tent stakes only a few hundred yards from the edge of the road, when the remaining trucks and personnel carriers of the attacking Arab force returned toward Hebron. The command car at the head of the line pulled out of formation and drove toward the encampment while the rest of the battered line pulled over and rested. The Egyptian colonel descended wearily from the command car and identified himself to the sentry; minutes later he was joined by Captain Wiley, who had been wakened from a sound sleep and had only removed his mustache guard and pulled on some trousers before confronting the colonel.

“The Jews have heavy artillery,” the Egyptian informed the captain in his faultless but stilted English. “They have heavy guns, mortars, and endless ammunition. The area on all sides of the settlement is thoroughly mined. It is against the mandate to allow the settlements to be armed, as you know. What do the British intend to do about Ein Tsofar?”

“Why,” said the captain, pleased by the ease of the solution, at least as far as he was concerned, “I shall have to return to Hebron at once and explain the situation to my colonel.”

“And what will he do?”

“I imagine he will inform Jerusalem.”

“Who in turn will inform London,” the Egyptian said sardonically, “who in turn will inform their representative in the United Nations, who in turn will eventually inform the General Assembly—and by that time you will have been out of Palestine a long time.” The Egyptian colonel sighed but it was largely acting, as Captain Wiley clearly understood. The Egyptian had not really expected any action on the part of the British; he was merely establishing the credentials for his failure to take the settlement, which Captain Wiley was expected to pass along the chain of command until it reached the ears of the Egyptian’s superiors.

The Egyptian shook hands solemnly, saluted briefly, and waved to his driver to proceed. Behind him he left a happy officer. Captain Wiley looked at his wristwatch. It was four-thirty in the morning. If they broke camp now they could be back in Hebron Fortress in time for a decent breakfast, which would be a vast improvement over the slop the field cooks dished up. He called over the sentry and gave the appropriate orders; five minutes later, when the bugler had had time to soak his head in water to wake up a bit, the bugle went to work and the camp came to life.

A good campaign, Captain Wiley thought, and began to build it up in his mind into a proper desert battle à la Lawrence of Arabia, to intrigue his wife and son when he got home. And the best part of it was, he knew Colonel Fitzhugh would be pleased, and when the colonel was pleased life was generally more tolerable throughout the Hebron garrison.

Eleven members of the Ein Tsofar kibbutz, plus Dov Shapiro, who had only come to help, had fallen in the fight and were buried the following day with due ceremony within the borders of the settlement itself. Sixty-four Arab bodies had been recovered along the slopes and by the shore of the sea, and these were laid to rest in a shallow mass grave at water’s edge where their bodies could easily be recovered during a truce Perez intended to ask the British to arrange before they left Palestine for good. Twelve Jews and five Arabs occupied litters in the makeshift hospital, recuperating from their wounds; the Arabs could be transferred to ambulances during the truce. The mines in and along the road had been properly located and every person at Ein Tsofar now had those locations firmly engraved on his or her memory.

Wolf, remembering the position of each mine perfectly in the daytime, could not imagine how he had managed to drive through the field the night before without blowing both Grossman and himself to bits. The hand of Max Brodsky’s God? Well, if that was the case he just wished Max Brodsky’s God had given some advance notice of His intentions; it would have saved much anxiety. And Wolf had an additional thought: Grossman, the night before, had to notice how nervous he had been, but Grossman had never said a word to the others. A pity he disliked the man, because he had to admit Grossman had done a fine job the night before. An odd person, Grossman.

When an exhausted Deborah and a very tired Ben Grossman dropped into their common bed that night, they held each other without speaking for a long time. By common silent agreement neither mentioned the battle; it was enough that they had both survived and each had done his best for the common survival. There was no need to discuss it. And they still had each other, which was the most important fact of the moment.

Deborah had her head tucked tightly into Ben’s shoulder, her arms about him, pressing him tightly to her. He stroked her head, running his fingers softly over her hair, feeling her breath warm on his bare skin, and then found himself bringing up the one subject he had meant to put off as long as possible.

“There’s something I want to tell you—”

“There’s something I want to tell you, too.” Her voice was muffled by his arm.

He glanced down at her profile, faint in the little light that filtered into the room through the curtain. “What is it?”

“You first.”

He smiled at the little-girl ploy. “All right. Max says they want me to go to Switzerland. To buy arms.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“I saw Max this morning. He came to the hospital to check on the wounded. He said you had agreed to go.”

“Yes.” He pulled enough away from her to try to see her eyes; she turned her head and her eyes glinted in the faint light. “I want you to come with me.”

“You know I can’t, darling. My job is here, or wherever else they send me. I’m not needed in Switzerland—”

“You’re needed there by me.”

She kissed his cheek and lay back again, smiling contentedly.

“You’re not going away forever, darling, just for a trip. You can stand being alone for a while. We’ve been with each other so much I’d think you would welcome a change.” He was staring at her, his face a mask. “Well then,” she said lightly, “rush through your job and get back quickly.” He didn’t answer; she looked at him curiously. “What’s the matter?”

“What would you do if I didn’t come back?”

“You mean, if something happened to you? I don’t know. I’d die, I think.” She shook her head angrily. “That’s morbid! Nothing is going to happen to you!”

“I don’t mean that,” he said slowly, wondering why he was talking about it and wondering why he didn’t stop. But he could not. “I mean, what if I chose not to come back to Palestine? What if I chose to stay in Switzerland, or go somewhere else from there? Would you leave this place and join me wherever it was?”

She removed her arm from about his body and sat up in bed, completely at ease in her nudity before him. Her breasts, outlined in the light from outside, seemed fuller than usual; even in the shadow he could picture her in his mind in every detail, every curve, every beloved feature. Of late she seemed to be gaining weight, but she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He reached for her but she put her hand on his chest, not pushing him away, but merely forestalling him until she could speak.

“Darling,” she said softly, “I know how you’ve hated this place. I know you came to Palestine because you were forced to come, and that you came here to the desert for the same reason. I’m glad you did come; if you hadn’t I would never have known what it is to be in love as much as I am. It’s a wonderful feeling. It’s made me feel like a woman, and never as much as right now.” She paused a moment, searching for the proper words. “But, darling, we can’t abandon reality. We don’t live all by ourselves in a vacuum. My country is at war, Ben; we buried twelve of our people this morning. I can help here; I’m needed here. If this were a normal country, or if these were normal times, I would go anywhere with you. You know that; you must know that. But we’re at war, and we’ll probably be at war for years. Maybe all our lives. It isn’t possible, darling. I’m sorry.”

She reached up and touched his cheek, running her finger down the scar that lined his jaw, then touching his lips with the tip of her finger as if to keep him silent until she was finished.

“I didn’t ask you to marry me because I didn’t want to add to your feeling of being under compulsion, of being forced into something against your will. I know it’s happened to you many times; I didn’t want to make it happen again. I know you felt you were in a prison here at Ein Tsofar, and I wanted you to feel free, at least as far as we were concerned. You’re still free, darling. I have no claims on you. If you want to come back to us, to me, when you’re through with your work in Europe, you will. I’ll still be here. If you don’t, you won’t. I wouldn’t force you if I could; that isn’t what love is about. At least not my love.”

She withdrew her fingers from his lips, indicating she was through. He stared at the ceiling in silence, his hand continuing to softly stroke her hair. The sad thing was that he would not return from Switzerland; he knew that to be the truth. He would miss Deborah; oh, he would miss her! But he could never return to the misery of this barren land he hated. Just a woman, even as fine a woman as Deborah, was not enough for him to throw away the future.

He leaned over to kiss her, and kissing her, slid down in the bed, pulling her to him. They made love with a passionate fierceness that was unusual with them, a violent coupling that seemed to acknowledge the approaching finality of their parting; and then fell apart, gasping, not speaking. Each turned away from the other as if to avoid the pain of discussion, seeking surcease in sleep.

But Benjamin Grossman could not fall asleep. The excitement of the battle for the settlement, the exhilaration of their tempestuous love-making, the fact that in a short while he could actually be quitted of Ein Tsofar and the hated desert, of Palestine altogether, filled his mind with thoughts that raced. Switzerland! He would actually be there soon, walking down civilized streets, taking an aperitif in some civilized hotel lounge in some civilized town among civilized people. He glanced at Deborah’s back, wondering if she were asleep. Maybe when she realized he really was not coming back, maybe then she would join him. Nor would she be sorry. With the money in Zurich they could live where they wanted, how they wanted. France, possibly, or in Portugal. Why hadn’t he considered those places before? Or on a Mediterranean island, one of the Ionian islands, possibly. It would be close to Palestine if Deborah ever wanted to come back for a visit.

He closed his eyes, determined to go to sleep, and then suddenly remembered something. He rolled over, speaking softly, hoping Deborah was still awake.

“You said you had something to tell me, too.”

She spoke without turning back, her voice wide-awake.

“It was nothing important, darling. Go to sleep.”