Джеймс Миченер - The Source

Now it was Teddy Reich who had nothing to say. He took a deep breath, leaned back, then came forward slowly and grasped Bar-El’s hand as it indicated the massive fortress. “About this we shall think later.” He caught the looks of fear and with a sudden leap grabbed Bar-El by the shirt. “We’ll leave it!” he stormed. “Because I tell you that when the Arabs up there hear that we’ve taken the stone house …” His fist crashed onto the table. “The concrete police station …” Another crash. “… and the top of that bowl. Men,” he shouted, “it’s the Arabs up there who will be worried. Not we Jews in Safad.”

He knew that it was essential to convince his handful of men that this quixotic scheme of taking the fight to the Arabs could succeed, so before they could discuss it among themselves he started working with dizzy speed. “You, Zuchanski. You saw the stone house. How many men? You’ll have to take it floor by floor. Lot of fighting … same as Haifa. How many?”

Zuchanski mumbled, “Well … with Gabbai and Peled …”

“They’re yours. How many?”

“Thirty.”

“Pick them out.” Zuchanski hesitated, and Reich snapped, “Pick them. Now!” The detachment for the stone house was chosen.

“You, Bar-El. How many men to capture the Crusader ruins?”

“If I had Gottesmann, we could use forty-five … fifty. It’s spread out, you know. Trenches.”

“Fifty men. You have them.” Then Reich looked at the remainder and said, “The police station … at the head of the stairs. That’s for me. And for Bagdadi. Can you still dynamite a wall?”

“Yes,” replied the placid Iraqi.

Then Teddy Reich saw Vered and stopped the military planning. “Aren’t you Pincus Yevneski’s daughter?”

“Yes,” said Vered shyly.

“Why haven’t you written to your parents?”

“They’d make me come home.”

“Where are you staying?” Vered pointed at Bar-El, handsome and bleary-eyed, and Reich smiled at the dashing man.

“Wait a minute!” Bar-El protested.

“Oh, not sleeping!” Vered blurted out.

The men of the Palmach burst into nervous laughter, hilarious and bawdy. “Not sleeping!” some of them echoed, and they began poking their fingers into Bar-EPs cheeks.

“All right! All right!” he growled.

“Ilana,” Teddy commanded, “you see that Vered stays with you. Understand? Now as to the girls, they’re not to be in the attack positions, but they are to protect the flanks. I suppose you want to be with Gottesmann, Ilana?”

“Of course.”

Reich asked the others, who attached themselves to one unit or another. Finally he came to Vered Yevneski. “Where do you want to fight?” he asked.

“With Mem-Mem,” she said quietly.

Reich closed the meeting by saying that he wanted six young boys—under thirteen—right now. Ilana knew where she could fine some, and in a few minutes the six little boys, two with lovely curls dancing beside their ears, stood before the Palmach commander, who asked, “Which of you six is the bravest of all?” Each of the boys stepped forward. “Good. Now if you had a very difficult job to do, in two teams, who would you want for your partners?” The two boys with curls moved together. The four without curls made their group. “Good,” Reich continued. He reached forward and grabbed the fringes that peeped from beneath the shirt of one of the orthodox boys. “Your name is?”

“Yaacov,” the boy answered.

“Yaacov, I want you to take your friend and go as close to the Arab quarter as you dare. Geldzenberg and Peled here will stay in the shadows and protect you with their guns. And you’re to call out to some make-believe friend … You’re to cry as loudly as you can, ‘The Palmach have brought a great cannon.’ If anyone should happen to ask about the cannon, you make up whatever answer you want. Understand?” The boys nodded, and Reich said, “Good. Now let’s all go in the street and let me hear how loud you can shout.”

The six boys went with Reich into the darkness, and Gottesmann could hear them crying, four in Hebrew, two in Yiddish, “The Palmach have brought a cannon,” and by the time the thin little voices had faded in the direction of the Arab quarter Gottesmann felt sure that the enemy must hear. But then he himself heard Teddy Reich whispering to Ilana, “You think Gottesmann can pull himself together for the attack?”

“I think he’ll make it,” she replied.

The secret weapon which the Palmach had lugged into Safad was the kind of implement that terrifies soldiers, especially those who must operate it. When Bagdadi inspected it, and he knew more about explosives than any of the rest, he came back to tell Ilana and Vered, “It may not frighten the Arabs, but it scares hell out of me.” He took them to the housetop on which the home-welded device was installed: a triangular base about thirty inches wide at one end had supports rising from its point, and from them was slung an adjustable length of steel casing cast somewhere in Germany by one H. Besse. It bore the number 501 and was about five inches across and twenty-eight long, making a rude kind of mortar into which could be dropped a massive shell that looked like an oversize potato masher—big and blunt on the far end, trim and narrow in the handle—which fitted in the barrel of the mortar. “It’s these fins that make the noise,” Bagdadi explained, pointing to the four steel projections jutting out from the business end of the crude weapon. “When the shell flies through the air these whine as if they were alive. Sounds awful but doesn’t do much damage.”

“What’s it called?” Vered asked.

“Davidka,” Bagdadi explained. “Little David. It’s to help in our fight against Goliath.” He pointed toward the concrete police station, which in a few days he would have to assault.

That night the davidka was fired. As Bagdadi had foreseen, the cumbersome shell made a hideous noise as it flew through the air, and it must have frightened the Arabs, but it did no harm, for it failed to land on its nose, so its fuse did not explode. The Jew in charge therefore came up with an expedient that horrified Bagdadi: before the davidka was fired, a length of ordinary fuse was jammed into the nose and lit with a match. Then the firing charge was ignited and the burning potato masher was sent through the air. If it landed on its nose, it went off. If that missed, the burning fuse would explode it. The first two shots worked. What worried Bagdadi was this: “What happens if the firing charge backfires and leaves the potato masher in the barrel—with the fuse burning?” The Palmachnik in charge pointed to a girl. “If that happens, she runs out and jerks away the fuse. We hope she makes it in time.” The girl was about sixteen.

The futility of davidka became apparent when the Arabs wheeled into position some real artillery pieces and began pumping heavy shells into the crowded Jewish quarter. The results were sickening, for when the large English shells exploded they ripped mud-and-stone houses apart and crumbling was excessive. Some Jews were buried alive. Survivors ran into the street, abusing the Palmach and crying, “Until you came with your davidka the Arabs left us alone.”

Rebbe Itzik went through the narrow alleys, pointing out, “It is God’s judgment upon a willful people,” and as the Arab shelling increased, new gloom settled upon the Jewish district, whose residents could not know that soon Teddy Reich intended to rush out and silence the insolent artillery. At this critical moment support reached Reich from an unexpected quarter.

There was in Safad in those final days a Rabbi Gedalia, a sallow-faced, black-bearded man of forty, somewhat stoop-shouldered from much study of the Talmud. He was a withdrawn man and normally one would not expect him to be of much help in these critical hours, but after a searching review of the situation Rabbi Gedalia had reached the conclusion that the Jews had a chance to gain a state in Palestine but only if the holy city of Safad were kept in Jewish hands. He therefore gave the pious Jews of his synagogue directions quite contrary to what Rebbe Itzik was saying: “Go out and help the fighters. Do anything they demand of you, for with God’s help they shall win.”