Gerald Seymour: Kingfisher

'first stage', there would be no 'infra-structure period', no creation of an 'indoctrinated population base'. They took too long, took too many people, and the circumstances in which they found themselves could not be likened to the paddy fields of Asia. The Jews of Russia had spoken of the ills so often they had no need for more words, only for action. And if the action were successful then his movement would develop as a sapling does under the spring light, but first there must be the root, deep in fertile soil. He told them of the revolutionary warfare that would hit back at the oppressors of the Jewish people. 'Like a flea-bite at first,' he had said. 'But a flea that cannot be found, that cannot be hunted out, that comes back and wants more. That turns what is first an irritation to anger. When their anger is aroused then we know that we are hurting them, then we know that we have vengeance. There has been a great wrong here, too great a wrong for us alone to erode. But it is a gesture that is needed. How many walked in submission to the German shower chambers? How many now walk in submission to the camps at Potma and Perm?'

David had been persuasive, but there was no necessity for it. All in the group knew the fighting ground. Isaac said that he had met a youth who had met once with Yuri Vudka who had seven years at Potma to think on his application for leave to emigrate to Israel. David had chipped in, not allowing him to finish – but then he seldom did, and it was not resented -'Vudka from our own Kiev, and seven years to think of his city, and his crime that he had wanted to leave, and had written things down, that he had books from the West and in the Hebrew language.' David had talked of the new Jews of Israel, hardened and fashioned in their own sun by the rigours of their own land and their own freedom. He called them 'sabras', men who had washed away the placidity of the former generation that had marched to the cattle trucks with not an arm upraised.

So how placid, docile, unquestioning were their people? There was enough evidence to make him believe it, enough that he had heard to verify the belief that they were supine, incapable of self- help. But often they had wondered whether there were other groups that met in bare and shadowed rooms, that came to darkened and pathless woods, that sought shelter in the same nameless anonymity and that talked of a struggle, of hope and revenge, however trivial. David had heard on the radio of the bomb detonated on the Moscow Inner Underground, and had told them of protest and disobedience among their people in Novosibirsk – and in the main square at that – and of a man who was executed in the prison at Tbilisi and who had set off six explosive devices. He had heard it on the radio, where the word carried biblical validity. Not all Jews, he had said, and smiled, but at least others of different faith and aspiration who were burrowing at the edifices, chipping and hacking. Others who rejected the required submission as totally as they, and who stood back from the fly-swat resistance of the press conference, and the smuggled letter to the West, and the complaint to the Foreign Power. 'Words, words, stupid and ineffective,'

David had said. 'As valuable as lying in the sand in the path of a steam-roller. It is action that will change them, that will achieve something.' They had wondered how many other tribes shared their jungle and ate the same fruit, but they had no way of knowing. As the group became more daring and more cohesive so too their dread of breaking the precious security was augmented.

There was no consideration given to widening the size of the cell – too dangerous. Heighten the walls, strengthen the locks, repel recruits even should they be found. An island, aloof in a battle sea, that was how they had decided they should remain.

They had followed David through each step as he prepared the ground for the movement that lifted their course from the level of conspiracy to action, accepting every stage of his logic, not disputing his argument. Moses thought of the long weekend days and the mid-week summer evenings they had spent, the four of them, in the hut. How they had talked of what they would do, sometimes all shouting together and laughing and hanging on to each other's shoulders and imagining how a grateful people would bow to their courage, acknowledge the standard-bearers, feel a pride in their bravery. David had decided when they were ready, and none had queried him, only become quiet in the elation of knowing that the moment had arrived. They had talked in whispers that evening, subdued to the droned harassment of the mosquitoes, and clung to each other before the time to go to their homes, and memorized the route to the rendezvous the next evening. It had been wonderful for Moses as they had held each other close, the male smells unable to counter the softer, more gentle trace of the girl's scent. So much strength, so much power, nothing they could not do because they were together. Later had come the chilling loneliness for the boy, when he left the warmth of the group, to walk back on his own on the forest path towards the road. David had said he would be the first to kill, Isaac had argued till Rebecca had found the compromise. None should claim the privilege by right, in the cell they were as one, she had said, and seemed to mock at David. The leader had rejected her, demanded it for himself, the prerogative of the front runner, but Isaac would not yield. Rebecca had spoken again, chided David. Were they not all capable? It was a simple thing, was it not? She had opened the door, disappeared for a minute, not more, and when she returned there were four twigs in her fist, their tips arranged in line, their length hidden in her closed palm. David had drawn first, expressionless, watching and waiting, then Isaac with a smile lightening his features because his was shorter, Moses third, and the winced sigh of disappointment from the other two men when they saw the stubbed length of the one which he had chosen. A protest from Isaac, a taunt from Rebecca that already they would divide themselves – officers and men, commissars and proletariat – a shrug from David. No remark from the boy himself. Again and again in his mind Moses had worked over the plan, digesting the part that he would play, remembering the details.

The first blow they would strike, and Moses Albyov had been chosen; not David who was their leader, not Isaac who fancied and believed in his fitness, but Moses, the last of the recruits to arrive before the cell had been sealed. To curse

Rebecca or to love her for the chance she had wished on him – he had not known the answer as he stumbled from shadows of the wood to the roadside.

But his hand had shaken, and the wool had drifted across his eyes. The mistakes of Moses Albyov. Errors that the others would not have made. And if he now collapsed, if he buckled, then all would pay the penalties for the faults that were his alone.

If there could only be someone to speak to, or just the sound of a human voice, however distant…

No food, and his belly aching with the deprivation and bowels grinding an extract from the last meal. God knows how many hours before.

Pray God let it finish.

Those were the thoughts of Moses Albyov. And they stayed with him till the moment he was roused by the sounds of keys turning in the lock of the door and of the bolt being withdrawn from its socket.

Four men for the escort. Not gentle, yet not brutal. Guiding him uncomfortably down the darkened passageway. His arms were pinioned and the men's fingers dug hard down into his muscles, and the manacles that they had put on his wrists were set tight so that the encompassing steel bit into his flesh. He was classified as 'political terrorist', 'enemy of the people', one who had sought to kill a guardian of the State; and Moses knew that there was no possibility of sympathy.