Exodus - Leon Uris [141]
The sherif of Mecca was indeed a little man in the Arab world. Further, he was the arch enemy of Ibn Saud. When the British approached him he saw the opportunity to seize power over the entire Arab world if Mohammed V and the Ottomans should fall. So the sherif of Mecca went over to the British, at the price of several hundred thousands of pounds sterling. The sherif had a son named Faisal who was a rarity among Arab leaders, a man who had a social conscience and vision. He agreed to assist his father in getting Arab tribes to “rebel” against the Ottomans.
The Yishuv in Palestine did not have to be bribed or coddled or bought. The Jews were solidly behind the British. When the war broke out they placed themselves in great peril as avowed friends of the enemies of the Ottomans.
In a swift move, Jemal Pasha the Turk took command of the Palestine province and clamped a reign of terror on the Jewish community.
Barak Ben Canaan had only six hours’ warning to flee Palestine. Both he and his brother Akiva were on the extermination rolls of the Turkish police. The Zionist Settlement Society had been forced to close its offices and most Jewish activity had stopped.
“How soon, darling?” Sarah asked.
“We must be gone by daybreak. You are only to pack one small handbag. We must leave everything behind.”
Sarah slumped against the wall and rubbed her hand over her belly. She was six months pregnant and could feel the life in her body as she had never felt it in any of the previous pregnancies.... Five miscarriages, she thought....
“I can’t go,” she said. “I can’t go.”
Barak turned and faced her. His eyes narrowed and his red beard seemed to blaze in the candlelight. “Come now, Sarah ... we have not time for that.”
She spun around. “Barak ... oh, Barak”—and she ran into his arms—“I’ll lose this child too ... I can’t, I can’t ... I can’t.”
He sighed deeply. “You must come with me. God knows what will happen if the Turks get you.”
“I will not lose this baby.”
Barak packed his handbag slowly and shut it.
“Get up to Shoshanna right away,” he said. “Ruth will take care of you ... stay away from her blessed cows ...” He kissed his wife’s cheek gently, and she stood on her tiptoes and clung to him.
“Shalom, Sarah. I love you.” He turned and walked out quickly.
Sarah made the perilous journey from Tel Aviv to Shoshanna by donkey cart and there, with Ruth, awaited the birth of her child.
Akiva and Barak fled to Cairo where they met their old friend Joseph Trumpledor, the one-armed fighter. Trumpledor was busy forming a unit of Palestinian Jews to fight in the British Army.
Trumpledor’s unit, the Jewish Mule Corps, joined the Anzacs in a mammoth operation. Barak and Akiva were there as the British landed at Gallipoli and vainly attempted to open the Dardanelles and march on Constantinople from the south. In the retreat and debacle that followed the landing, Akiva was wounded in the chest.
The Jewish Mule Corps was disbanded after the Gallipoli disaster. Akiva and Barak continued on to England where Zev Jabotinsky, an ardent Zionist, was busy forming a larger Jewish fighting unit, the 38th, 39th, and 40th Royal Fusiliers, comprising a brigade known as the Judeans.
Akiva had not fully recovered from his wounds and was sent to the United States to lecture in the cause of the Jewish homeland under the sponsorship of the American Zionists, whose leader was Justice Brandeis of the Supreme Court.
When it was discovered that Barak Ben Canaan was among the Fusiliers he was pulled from the ranks at once. Dr. Weizmann, the world spokesman for Zionism, reckoned that Barak was too important a figure to carry a rifle.
Barak entered