“I thought so.”
“Thought what, dear old skipper?”
“I thought you would muck up my files and litter my room with copies of Vogue and the Ladies’ Home Journal.”
“I only get it for the crosswords old chap. I don’t knit, as you know. At least not yet, I don’t. But I cannot guarantee anything. Another month or two working for this unit may bring about a change of life.”
“Get out,” said Lawton.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“Then ask and leave me.”
“I see you are dining with H.E. tonight.”
“Yes.”
“Can I dine with Grete?”
“If she can bear it.”
“Oh yes, she loves it. Prefers it in fact. Only accepts your invitations for fear of losing her job.”
“Go away.”
“Well,” said Carstairs, “You can tell H.E. from me that I think he is a vexatious old pontiff and ripe for the ducking stool.”
“I will.”
“And that his ADC is a sycophantic slyboots.”
The weighty Oxford Shorter flew across the room but Carstairs, with the celerity of long practice, had vanished and it banged uselessly upon the door panels.
•
The vexatious pontiff, alias His Majesty’s High Commissioner in Palestine, ran true to form; once more Lawton found himself sighing with boredom and irritation as he listened to conversations which so perfectly mirrored the official mind. The conversation was kept superficial and trivial in deference to H.E. who, though a man of “fine presence” as it is called, was fundamentally a vague and limited man, who rapidly wearied of anything which suggested thinking or reflecting. By the time they reached the port and cigar stage of the dinner (the service wives having been shepherded out onto the terrace) H.E. was in fairly good spirits, and disposed to make some concessions in the direction of moderately intelligent conversation. Lawton tried to be responsive.
“Had a good leave?”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“I suppose you picked up a good deal in the way of rumours.”
“Inevitably, Sir.”
H.E. sighed, and stared at the end of his cigar. Then he smiled at the end of the table where his lanky ADC sat and said: “Birds of a feather, eh Roland?”
“What does that imply, Sir?” asked Lawton, quick to be wounded.
“It’s just an office joke. Both you lot here and your opposite numbers in Cairo take a very grave view of things. Very grave indeed.”
Lawton flushed. “Yes, Sir. It is true. I think our view is justifiably so. The situation is... like that; balanced on a hair.”
He reached out his hand with spread fingers and wobbled it like a see-saw. H.E. looked at him indulgently and stroked his moustache.
“My dear boy,” he said — Lawton loathed being called so — “I myself am quite impartial in the matter. I am prepared to believe you. I only ask you, when you speak of arms, to show me some, not to repeat rumours only. Do you follow?”
“Yes,” said Lawton. “And there you have me, Sir. I admit we’ve been singularly unsuccessful in capturing the dumps which we have heard about... But I’m convinced our information is correct — that a big build-up is taking place, and that one fine day in the near future...
He paused and, as if to illustrate his sentence, there came a dull bang in the darkness over there, beyond the garden. They looked at one another and turned to peer out of the window in the direction of Jerusalem. There was a patch of flame which flapped red and then white.
“What the devil... said H.E. The ADC went to the telephone in the corner — the red Government House line — and said:
“Give me the police call desk, please.”
They watched in silence, noting that the flame in the darkness grew and waned, moving from left to right. The phone crackled.
“Police desk? This is Government House. There was a bang... yes I know.” The ADC turned his flustered face to Lawton and said: “It’s your office. It has gone up, Major.”
Lawton turned to H.E. and sketched a gesture in the air which asked permission to retire and, without waiting for an answer, raced for the gardens. He found his car and driver after a brief search and rushed down the hill into the town. Sirens were blaring now and police in lorries were closing in on what at first seemed a shapeless white cloud among the houses — a cloud of cordite and brickdust. Lawton plunged into it, choking and swearing. He came upon a little group of firemen emerging from the doorway. They were carrying, with infinite precautions, the limp body of Carstairs.
“He’s dead, Sir,” said one of them, recognizing him. Lawton shook with suppressed rage at the thought. “He’s the only casualty,” added the fireman.
Outside the radius of the smoke he found Brewster nursing a head-wound as he sat on a pile of rubble waiting for the ambulance. “What was he doing in the office at this time?” asked Lawton incoherently, still full of a sense of outrage.
“A service message came over WT and I phoned him, Sir. I thought it might be urgent. No sooner he came than it went off between our teeth, Sir.” He shivered and his teeth began to chatter.
An ambulance raced towards them with its bell jangling. “But the safes all held out,” said Brewster as an afterthought. “I made the firemen check.”
“Damn the safes,” said Lawton as he walked slowly down the street to his villa.
17
Enter Schiller
For forty-eight hours after the explosion they worked at top speed to extricate and re-site all the equipment which had not suffered damage from the blast. Their offices they moved to the southern wing of the building. Carpenters and masons crowded them out for a while, building bookshelves and filing cabinets and walling-in safes. Yet at last they brought some order out of chaos and were able to resume the average routine of the normal working day. In all this excitement there had been no chance to see anything of Grete, for Lawton had worked until the small hours each night. Finally the work was done, however, and he was on the point of telephoning her when his door burst open and there she stood, newspaper in her hand. She looked strangely pale and moved, as if some experience had dazed her into speechlessness.
“Grete,” he said. “Come in.” Then he caught sight of the expression on her face and rose to his feet anxiously. “What is it?” She handed him the copy of the Jerusalem Post and pointed to an item. It read:
NAZI WAR CRIMINAL ADVISING EGYPTIAN ARMY?
Unconfirmed rumours circulating in Cairo suggest that Nazi General Günther Schiller, who could not be traced at the end of the war, is to be found in Egypt, where he holds the post of adviser to the Egyptian army in tank warfare. Schiller, it will be recalled, was one of the senior tank experts of the German command and at one time acted as Rommel’s Chief of Staff during the desert campaign.
Lawton read slowly through the message and then raised his troubled eyes to the girl.
“What is it all about?” he asked.
“It is my husband,” she said, and gave a cracked laugh which turned suddenly into a sob. She put her hand over her mouth and stared at him.
“I thought he was dead. Can it be him?”
“Your husband?” said Lawton, still struck dumb by the idea. She nodded.
“But how?” he asked.
“The Party found out I was Jewish and ordered him to surrender me to the S.S. He obeyed. It was either that or disgrace. He was a professional soldier, you see.”
“He let you go?”
“He thought Hitler was a god.”
“Wait a minute,” said Lawton. An idea struck him. “I think we have a file on him.” He went to the wall safe and extracted a yellow folder from the “top secret” file. He riffled the pages for a moment, looking for what he wanted, and then gave a grunt.
“Better still,” he said. “We have a picture. Would you recognize it?”
It was not too clear a photograph, but it showed a man in civilian clothes walking b
eside an Egyptian army officer along some street in an Arab town.
Grete gazed dully at this with an air of stupefaction. “Yes, that’s him all right. He could never disguise those duelling marks.” She raised her head and stared at the blank wall before her in a fit of abstraction, while a million ideas collided with one another in her mind. Then she said, with a sudden fire but as if speaking more to herself than to Lawton:
“The only living soul who can tell me if the child is alive or dead.” She turned to Lawton then with blazing eyes:
“I must find a way to see him. Don’t you see, he’s the only one who knows.”
Lawton reflected for a long moment. “You could hardly go there, it would be too dangerous, and besides the Egyptians would never let you in.”
“Couldn’t you get him brought here through the office — extradite him?”
Lawton shook his head slowly. “Egypt is a sovereign territory,” he said. “The most we could do would be to deal diplomatically with them about it. Send them an aide-memoire telling them that he’s wanted in Germany and asking them to return him there. But you know the Egyptians as well as I do, he’s too useful to them. They’ll deny his existence altogether. Then what could we do? You see, from the file it’s obvious that he’s masquerading under the name of Schmidt and has a valid Swiss passport.”
“There must be a way!” she cried. “Please think of something!” Her voice rose hysterically, and he took her arm sympathetically, saying:
“Let me think it over.” He paused. “... If only he were here, it would be easy. I could get a warrant out for him in no time.”
He stopped, drew a deep breath and went on. “What I will do is this, I’ll send a signal to Cairo asking for more information.”
“What good would that do?”
He tried to sound cheerful. “You never know, we might unearth something new about him.”
“But I must see him, don’t you understand?” She burst out: “I must know about the child!”
He lit his pipe, saying nothing, and then, taking the file, he returned it to the safe. She watched him absently with an air of sullen resignation, but the faintest germ of an idea had already formed in her mind. Furtively she watched the fingers as they spun the lock of the combination safe. Five, six to the right, eight, seven to the left... it was not impossibly difficult to memorize. As the combination clanged home and the safe handle clicked into its socket, she turned and rushed from the room back to her own office. Breathlessly she jotted down the safe combination while it was fresh in her mind, and then sat very still for a while, thinking. Then she rose and crossed the room to examine her face in the mirror. She had gone suddenly very pale. “The news has aged you all at once,” she told her reflection. She left her office and walked down the long stairway, briefcase in hand; the door of the registry stood ajar and she put her head through it to ask a question of the duty janitor.
“What time does the post office shut?”
He looked at his watch and said: “Six, dearie. You’ll just make it.”
•
It was eleven o’clock that night when she put on her dark mackintosh and gloves and made her way down the winding streets towards her office again; but this time, instead of going to the front gate with its sentry-box, she took another route. She had a key to the back door; she reached it through an unguarded wicket gate, crossing the grass on noiseless feet. The building was deserted — she had picked her time. The night watchmen made a round of inspection every hour, and the patrol had just passed down the corridors of the annexe, testing all the door handles. She slipped down to the janitor’s office and possessed herself of the tagged keys to Lawton’s room. Quietly she walked into his office and turned on the desk lamp. The safe opened to her skilful fingers and she groped about in it until she came upon the dossier of NAZI WAR CRIMINALS IN HIDING. Then she sat down at the desk and copied out the contents of the file in long-hand. It took her almost an hour. Midnight was striking from the clocks of Jerusalem when she made her way back to her flat down the deserted street. It was too soon to expect David, for the drive from Ras Shamir was a long one; nor was she quite certain whether he would act swiftly on her telegram. He might, for example, be absent. She poured out a drink and sat down to wait a while; suddenly the phone rang.
It was David’s voice. “I was here in Jerusalem,” he said, “and your message was relayed back to me from the centre. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, and he sighed with relief.
“I’ll be round in ten minutes.”
At last he stood before her, staring at her with concern and curiosity.
“David,” she said, “I’ve changed my mind. I have decided to work for you.”
He stared at her. “How pale you are.”
“Am I?” She shrugged her shoulders and lit a cigarette. “And why have you suddenly changed your mind?” he asked doubtfully.
“I see you don’t quite believe me,” she answered. “Here, this will prove my bona fides. It is a secret MI file copy.”
David looked it over hastily, greedily, and laughed incredulously.
“What a coincidence,” he said. “Just the man I had been told to capture.”
“I heard that the Haganah were busy catching war criminals.”
“It’s true. I had been told to pick a mission to get this particular one. But alas it is not going to work.” He shook his head sadly.
“Why not?” she said sharply.
“Identification,” he said. “We are not absolutely certain as yet that he is Schiller. We can’t afford to make a mistake — carry off some innocent Swiss and cause a diplomatic incident. We must be sure.”
“Well, I am sure,” she said. “He is my husband; and I must find a way to get to him. If you won’t help me I must go alone.”
David stared at her with open mouth. “Husband!” Then his face fell. “Do you... are you still... in...
Her harsh laugh surprised him. “He has some information which I must get out of him. Will you go, and will you take me? And when?”
“You must give me time. It’s not my decision, you know. And besides, it will be dangerous. Port Said is seething with spies.”
“I will identify him for you; the rest is up to you. Bring him back here where I can talk to him. Please, David.” She squeezed her hands together so violently that the knuckles went white.
“I’ll ring you first thing in the morning,” he said. That was all. But he still stood looking her over with sorrowful attention.
“It isn’t what you think,” she said. He left without a word.
•
The decision having at last been taken, and the raid planned in detail, Grete took a week’s leave from the office, telling Lawton that she was going to spend a few days on the Dead Sea with a girl friend.
“Well,” he said, “there at least you can come to no harm. I understand you can’t sink even if you try; and poor old Carstairs used to quote a rather sinister epigram about the place which ended:
‘Here the Sodom sunlight blisters
Queen Alexandra’s nursing sisters’.
So watch your step.”
“I promise,” she said.
“Everything may have changed by the time you get back,” he said gravely. “We have an Immediate from the Secretary of State this morning. They are going to take the Jewish case to UNO.”
“Are they?” she cried. “What a relief.”
“Misguidedly in my view,” he said. “We shall lose the vote, and lose Palestine as well.”
“Then what?”
“Happily for me we shall be withdrawn from here; and the Jews will be left to the tender mercies of the Arabs. Grete, I’m going to ask you something when you come back. Something personal.”
18
Exit Isaac Jordan
Once more back in the comparative isolation of Ras Shamir, Judith threw herself into the ordinary work of the kibbutz with a new energy and delight, due partly to the knowledge
of Aaron’s return and partly to her own returning physical health. Of the future she did not wish to think in any detail, so perfect was the notion of a present in this quiet valley. Once she managed to spend the day in Jerusalem, engaged in consultations with the physicists at the Institute: she telephoned to Aaron but he was away in the desert, and she had to be content to return without seeing him. Nor did he ever write. The three months until his return seemed an eternity, but in the end they passed, and once more she saw him riding his little white horse across the valley, and once more they were free to visit his tumbledown shack of a “country house” to pick the wild flowers which had taken possession of the abandoned garden. As if by common consent, they did not speak of the future, did not try and peer into the mists ahead. They were content to inhabit the sunlit present, to enjoy each other without premeditation.
But the country was changing around them, and even here, in this sleepy valley, they could not fully escape the pressures of history. A new and bitter purposefulness had begun to grow up. Even Aaron had become harder, more masterful, more self-possessed. New faces appeared at the kibbutz now — the weary but determined faces of the soldiers back from active service with the Jewish Brigade. Their features were engraved with a new determination — a new purpose. The secret preparations for defence of the kibbutz also altered with the influx of better weapons, sterner training. Aaron had begun to think professionally now of times, dispositions, tactical arrangements. He was still a general without an army, but the force he would dispose of in case of trouble had now become a considerable one, for each of the mountain kibbutzim had set aside a promised task-force to come to the aid of Ras Shamir if it were attacked; and of course the kibbutz in its commanding position was the valley’s key and central prop. Situated where it was, it was terribly vulnerable.
New activities pressed upon him; small groups of young men from the underground came in from time to time to visit him with news. There were long confabulations by lamplight. News was exchanged in conspiratorial tones now. The country was full of British troops whose task it was to smother the smouldering unrest in both Jewish and Arab hearts. “We are slowly passing through the eye of the needle,” Aaron would say. Though it made her sick at heart, she too began to feel the thrill of a new purpose. It was infectious, it was in the air. Was the idea of Israel then a realizable reality? But side by side with this was also a fear for his physical safety. New operations were being planned. Day by day the toll of sabotage mounted.