They sat for a while, listening to the soft echo of the children’s breathing in the cavernous room. Then Judith took paper and pencil and seated herself in a corner. “Going to write a love-letter?” whispered Rose with a smile. Judith smiled back and nodded. “In a sort of way,” she said and, as the long equation formed under the point of her pencil, she reflected that it was perhaps the only sort of love-letter her father might understand. Had Pete written love-letters to him? She bent her head over the long chains of symbols and figures and found they brought her calm; the great abstractions of weight, velocity, field, magnitude were full of poetic echoes. She worked on them slowly, touch by touch, like a painter working at a picture...
•
Within a few days’ time she had begun to have an entirely new feeling and meaning: absorbed in her kibbutz duties, she felt for the first time her self-confidence and self-assurance coming back, together with her physical health. Her skin infection disappeared, her hair had begun to grow again and bring back not only the fine shape of her head but also meaning and expression to her dark, thoughtful face. Not all the work was easy and, if she had had to confess to a partiality, it would certainly have been to her teaching duties with the younger children. Her subjects, by common consent, were arithmetic, geometry and algebra, and she enjoyed exploring these mysteries with them in the cool evening hours. The little school-room with its bright maps and amateur frescoes was a pleasant place to sit and work, and the blackboard was big enough not only for diagrams but for an occasional cartoon with which she helped rouse interest in the subject — an interest growing out of the delightful care-free laughter of her charges.
“How many ducks make five? Hands up.”
A forest of hands would rise, among them many a grubby one.
“You, Esther — come and draw them.”
Painfully, the five ducks would come to life on the board, accompanied by many an argument as to how many beaks, tails and feet a self-possessed duck should own.
“Now, if five ducks have two each, how many...
•
Other duties were just as absorbing, though far less easy to master. In the enormous underground cellars which they had inherited from some order of Crusaders long since disbanded, there was a small-arms range, presided over by the gloomy Anna. Here there were moments of exasperation as well as panic.
“Now listen to me, Roth, for the tenth time, if you hold her too loosely she’ll kick much worse. Hold her hard. AND OPEN YOUR EYES FOR GODSAKE. It’s no use just spraying the universe! On the sandbags. Go on. Open up.”
Inside the high vaulted cellar, the crackle and swish of the Sten sounded as loud as a hurricane at full velocity; yet from the outside there was little to distinguish it from the other sounds of the kibbutz, like the screaming of the circular saw and the throbbing of the pumps which fed both human beings and their animals and crops.
“Judith, you are not trying.”
“I am trying!” cried Judith, almost in tears with exasperation. “You are not very helpful, Anna...
“I’m doing my best for you. Now try again. And train the bloody thing. Remember, the balance is altering as the magazine is expended. Train it and look.”
“It’s worse than a fireman’s hose at full pressure.”
“In a week you’ll be O.K.”
“Thank you, Anna. That is the first kind word today.”
But Anna was right, and soon Judith found herself actually enjoying arms drill, with its challenge to the sure eye and steady hand.
•
One day Rose Fox, the psychologist, said to her:
“The Agency has told us to mount an operation. There is to be a large-scale landing — illegal — in ten days’ time. They’re asking for volunteers from several of these camps. I was wondering whether you would put your name down. I have. It will mean perhaps two nights on the beaches south of Haifa, and perhaps the danger of being shot at by the British. The boat is coming in from Salonika. At least — we hope it is. There will be a lot of children aboard. How do you feel?”
“I should like to be of use,” said Judith slowly. “Yes, put my name down.”
“Very well,” said Rose, “I’ll send it up to Aaron with my own. He is organizing it with the Central Committee.”
Because she had arrived so recently, and presumably lacked experience, the committee were doubtful, but agreed to put her candidature to the vote. Sholem scratched his hairy ear and said in a growling voice:
“Well, Aaron, though you are the operational commander, it is, after all, the Committee that decides.”
Surprisingly, Aaron stood up and set his jaw.
“The Committee will give me the opportunity of choosing my own troops from among the volunteers or else accept my resignation.”
Peterson looked sardonically across the table, cocking her eyebrows.
“A declaration!” she muttered, and on her pad drew a heart with an arrow through it.
Aaron stood like a cornered bull with lowered crest.
“Well, shall I go or do I stay?” he said gruffly.
Sholem’s face broke into a sudden grin. He rose, pulled in his drooping boy-scout belt around his sloppy waist and, putting his arm around Aaron, coaxingly said:
“Aber, habibi, mein kleiner Aaronchick, let us not quarrel. You will get your Miss Roth...
It was Pete who later recounted the scene to Judith, who listened in incredulous silence. But as she went down the staircase and across to the children, she had a sudden new feeling of belonging and of pride. Astonishingly, she found herself humming a tune as she walked.
That evening she found herself among fifty or sixty others assembled in the gaunt refectory. She sat in the back, dressed as well as her humble wardrobe allowed, her hair neatly brushed back behind her pretty ears. She listened intently to Aaron giving a precise and detailed account of the operation he planned. He assigned roles to each group and he charged several individuals with precise responsibilities. It came to Judith’s turn and he said in a terse, dry, parade-ground voice:
“You will be with me, Roth.” She nodded solemnly.
“Yes, yes.”
But under the cold, unflinching gaze of his eyes, she felt herself flush.
•
In the interim she worked hard, and learned a great deal about the life of the kibbutz. And for her, too, the rewards of leisure were sweet, as always to those who do hard physical labour.
She had discovered a shady spot up-river, where she could bathe naked. Here she spent some of her scant free time, feeling the sweet river water wash away not only the sweat and callouses, but something more important — the interior stresses and anxieties which were the legacy of her experiences. She had always adored swimming, and indeed swam like an otter, lightly and effortlessly. One day she saw, reflected in the swift-flowing but still green waters, the reflection of a mounted man riding along the bank towards her private nook. He rode lightly and easily on a white Arab and, as he turned his head, she saw that it was Aaron. She took refuge at once in the deepest part of the reeds, in order to let him pass. But he rode up to the tree apparently by design and, noting her clothes hanging from a willow twig, reined up and let his horse lower its head to drink, while he looked about him keenly.
“Miss Roth,” he called in a hoarse voice, and she shrank back among the reeds. “Miss Roth!” After a moment she called back:
“What do you want?”
He smiled with relief.
“Oh, it is you. Good. I have a message for you. Liebling has sent the books for you. I also have a note for you from him which he asked me to deliver.”
Judith bit her lip.
“Thank you,” she said. “Could you please leave it with my things? I’m naked.”
He looked surprised.
“Good Lord, I didn’t understand. Sorry to embarrass you. I’ll walk along the bank until you have dressed. I want a signature for the books.”
Judith sighed. “Very well,” she said. H
e dismounted and walked away along the bank, only to be riveted by her wail as she called out: “Oh! Your horse is eating my clothes.”
The animal showed every disposition to do so, and he started to run back towards the tree — too late. The clothes had fallen into the swift-running river and gradually fanned out. “Damn!” she cried. Ineffectually he tried to reach them and then to poke them up with a stick. Further concealment was impossible if she were not to be forced to walk naked back to the kibbutz. In a couple of strokes she was in midstream and had retrieved them. She was furious.
“Wherever you turn up there is trouble!” she cried. “Why don’t you go away?”
He was abashed and turned his back, saying, “I am dreadfully sorry.”
“So you should be.” She was struggling into her knickers in the water. “One can’t even swim here without interruption.”
He bit his lip but said nothing. He had grasped the bridle of his horse, which was showing some disposition to rear and kick. She crawled out of the water and donned her other bedraggled clothes in a silent fury.
“Now,” she said, “What do you want me to do?”
“The note asks you to sign for the books and instruments. They belong to the University.”
“Very well.”
He turned to tender her a slip of paper and a card. Their eyes met, and irresistibly laughter sparked up in his, which she had difficulty not to echo.
“I really am dreadfully sorry,” he said, but he was shaking with laughter now; for a moment she managed to remain icily cool and then she, too, could not resist.
“You look so funny and so beautiful,” he said, roaring with laughter.
9
Operation “Welcome”
It was an autumn night of no moon when they arrived in different groups at the point of rendezvous on the coast. It was a lonely and desolate place, an area of shallow sand-dunes which supported little life beyond thorn scrub and tamarisk. The first premonitory lightening of the eastern sky had begun, though it would yet be two or three hours before sunrise. The sea was running relatively high, and the waves burst on the shallow sand to form great pools of phosphorescent bubbles which reflected back the stars. There was a wind blowing which chilled them as they crouched among the dunes.
Aaron cursed his inability to smoke. He himself had given the order, for they were only a few hundred yards away from the main road, and from time to time they could hear the rumble and whine as a British convoy passed on patrol. There was some anxiety as the ship was rather late, and Aaron expressed the fear that perhaps the British naval blockade had managed to intercept it. He stared at the phosphorescent hands of his watch and said grimly:
“I can’t afford to give them more than another hour. It will be broad daylight soon.” But, even as he spoke, Judith pointed out to sea, licking her salty lips, and said:
“What’s that?” They stared, tense and expectant, while a frail light was born and gradually blossomed into a beam. Then it sparked four times and four times again, and the parties expelled their breaths in a hiss of relief.
“That’s them,” cried Sholem, so loud that Aaron had to call out in a terse whisper:
“Silence down there!”
A large patch of low-lying cloud on the horizon had prevented them from seeing the silhouette of the approaching ship, but now they caught sight of her as she turned beam on, and Aaron gave orders for the operation to start, answering signal for signal with his hand torch. For the next hour a frantic though purposeful activity reigned. Boats dotted the phosphorescent water and the lee of the ship. Voices called hoarsely in a number of languages and the reception party at the water’s edge worked feverishly but methodically, like postal sorters on the day before Christmas. Bundles of clothes, medical equipment, false identity papers and packets of food had already been dragged into various positions on the dunes among the bushes, and people were directed to the point where they could be either treated for wounds, given first aid, or hot drinks after falling into the sea. Many individuals swam ashore and, later on, Judith heard that several had been drowned, though in the heat of operations she noticed nothing which suggested this.
The only untoward and gruesome side of the business which filled her with a wild exhilaration — because at last she was not afraid — was the sight of Sholem giving artificial respiration to a woman on the beach. She heard the rumble of lorries taking off with the first of the refugees and Aaron, who was everything and everywhere at once, seemed delighted with the progress of the disembarkation.
“With any luck, we’ll have them all away before light,” he said. “Judith, where are you?” he added. “Could you come with me quickly.” He thrust a torch into her hand and led her down to where, among the dunes, there lay an emaciated young man, groaning.
“Give us some light,” he said tersely. And in the puddle of yellow glow she saw him deftly slip up the trousers of the man to reveal a long, jagged splinter of wood buried in the thigh.
Aaron grunted and said: “Consider yourself lucky, if you’d had it through the belly...
The wounded man groaned and said: “I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”
“I’m sorry,” said Aaron. “I think that should come out. Do you mind?”
“Good God, no,” said the man wanly, “I’m just furious to be such a burden at a time like this.”
Aaron opened a first-aid kit and covered the contused area with yellow acroflavin, before taking a pair of surgical scissors and snipping the shallow groove of the splinter as one might open an envelope. Then, between finger and thumb, he jerked out the splinter and gazed at the blood that followed it, with a kind of detached curiosity. After a final disinfection of the wound, he set to work and bandaged it up while the young man said sleepily:
“That feels better already. I think perhaps it’s the morphia that’s beginning to work.”
“You’ll be alright,” said Aaron laconically and, taking the torch from Judith, he turned it upon a nearby group of figures, calling softly: “Stretcher bearers.”
To her surprise, Judith found herself standing with her hand in his. She did not stir nor did he make any gesture. They stood like this, pointing the torch on the sick man, until they saw him loaded onto the stretcher and carried away. Then Aaron abruptly dropped her hand and marched off towards the shore.
Now Judith had the chance for the first time of witnessing the different reactions of these arrivals. Some had thrown themselves on the ground, others were laughing and crying, others kissing the wet sand. Most of the refugees were wearing on their backs all the clothes they possessed, which gave them an unnatural walk like blown up balloons as they bobbed around towards the dunes, behind which they were being divided into groups, some of which were immediately pushed onto awaiting lorries and sent to different kibbutzim; others were led on foot to the nearest settlements. One girl she helped along the shore to the waiting doctor was yellow-haired and blue-eyed. Her delicate features were drawn and pale, her voice muted as she answered Judith’s brief encouragements, in German monosyllables. Her name was Grete Schiller, she said, and Judith thought fleetingly how completely Aryan she looked — they were to become friends in an undemanding, non-intimate way, but neither of them suspected it at the time. There was too much to think about and to act upon... and so little time.
Aaron and his men were still going back and forth with the last immigrants, when suddenly, ominously, the buzzing of the helicopter and pencils of white light pierced the darkness and began to move laboriously like the feet of a daddy-long-legs along the beach. Almost at the same moment there came the boom of the ship’s siren which made Aaron exclaim: “Oh, no, I hope that’s the last of them. The ship’s pulling out.”
The relentless glare approached them and they instinctively threw themselves face down on the dunes. Judith found herself lying almost face to face with Aaron in this theatrical white light. “Don’t move,” he whispered but, as the light plunged them back into the darkness, she saw that he w
as smiling at her.
The helicopter now veered off out to sea, whence the hoot came, and left the prostrate group in darkness once more. Taken by surprise again, they used this opportunity of jumping to their feet and making for the waiting lorries, but not before turning towards the sea and seeing that the helicopter had picked up the stern of the ship.
Four miles to the east, the convoy of jeeps and lorries had been drawn up off the road among the olive trees, where the commanders and their troops were refreshing themselves with what the British Army knows as the “brew-up”. The sun had already begun to etch into the mountains and leak into the plains behind them.
Major Lawton, the O.C. of the patrol, fingered the unshaven stubble of his jaw and debated whether to shave there and then or wait until his return to Jerusalem. The hot sweet tea was delicious in the chill of the early morning. Presently, however, he heard the sound of static from the command car and he saw the Signal Sergeant stiffen up, adjust his earphones and start “talking”. Lawton turned to his companion, the youthful, elegant John Carstairs, who was sitting on the ground, smoking a cigar, and said:
“John, something is coming through. Probably from the shore patrol.”
Instantly Carstairs was all action and crossed to the jeep, returning almost immediately with a signal pad. Lawton knitted his brows and studied the message. Then he banged his knee with the pad in exasperation, and handed it back to Carstairs, who chuckled as he read the message — “Well, what do you know?” — and proceeded to read in the mincing tones which naval officers of the old school allegedly affect:
“Large-scale illegal landing taking place on coast at two miles south of Rasmir, Hayson.”
“How typical of the Navy,” he said. “First they refuse to co-ordinate or let us know the movements... oh, I’m damned!” and he burst out into a laugh.