Exodus - Leon Uris [164]
One day toward evening P. P. Malcolm abandoned his car when it blew two tires at once and hiked along the road toward Yad El. As he entered the defense perimeter half a dozen guards headed in on him. He smiled and waved at them. “Good work, chaps,” he called. “Now be dear lads and take me to Barak Ben Canaan.”
Malcolm paced up and down Barak’s living room. His appearance was even more slovenly than usual. For a solid hour he lectured Barak Ben Canaan about the glory and beauty of Zionism and the destiny of the Hebrew nation.
“I like Jewish soldiers,” Malcolm said. “The Hebrew warrior is the finest, for he fights and lives close to ideals. This land is real to him. He lives with great glories all around him. Your chaps in the Haganah probably constitute the most highly educated and intellectual as well as idealistic body of men under arms in the entire world.
“Take the British soldier,” Malcolm continued. “He is a stubborn fighter and that is good. He responds to discipline and that is good. But it ends right there. He is a stupid man. He drinks too much. He would sleep with a pig and often does. Ben Canaan, that is what I have come to see you about. I am going to take your Haganah and make a first-class fighting organization out of it. You’ve got the best raw material I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Barak’s jaw dropped!
Malcolm looked out the window. He could see the water sprinklers whirling in the fields and in the distance he could see Abu Yesha nestled in the hills below the Taggart fort, Fort Esther.
“See that fort up there—Esther, you call it—stupidity, I call it. All the Arabs have to do is walk around it. The British will never learn.” Malcolm began humming Psalm 98 and singing the words softly in Hebrew. “I have the Psalms memorized up to a hundred and twenty-six. It comforts me.”
“Major Malcolm. Just what is the nature of this visit?” Barak said.
“Everyone knows that Barak Ben Canaan is fair and nonpartisan. Frankly, most Jews like to talk too much. In my Jewish army they won’t have ten words to say. I’ll do all the talking.”
“You have made me quite aware that you like to do all the talking,” Barak said.
“Humph,” Malcolm grunted, and continued to look at the lush fields of Yad El through the window. Suddenly he swung around and his eyes were ablaze with the same intensity Barak had often seen in his brother, Akiva.
“Fight!” Malcolm cried. “That is what we must do ... fight! The Jewish nation is destiny, Ben Canaan, destiny.”
“You and I are in certain agreement about the destiny of the homeland ... I don’t need refreshing.”
“Yes you do ... all of you do ... so long as you stay buttoned up in your settlements. We must go there and start punishing those infidels. If an Arab comes out of his coffeehouse and takes a pot shot at a kibbutz from a thousand yards distant he thinks he is a brave man. The time has come to test these bloody heathens. Hebrews, that’s what I want ... Hebrew soldiers. You arrange an appointment with Avidan for me at once. Englishmen are too stupid to understand my methods.”
As suddenly as this strange man had appeared at Yad El, he left. P. P. Malcolm limped through the gates singing a Biblical Psalm at the top of his voice and left Barak Ben Canaan scratching his beard and shaking his head.
Barak later phoned Avidan and they spoke in Yiddish in case the line was being tapped.
“Who is this man?” Barak asked. “He walked in like the Messiah and began preaching Zionism at me.”
“We have reports on him,” Avidan said. “Frankly, he is so odd we don’t know what to make of him.”
“Can he be trusted?”
“We don’t know.”
Major P. P. Malcolm now spent all his free hours among the Jews. He candidly observed that British officers were idiots and bores. In a matter of months he was known by the entire Yishuv. Although he moved in the highest circles most of the leaders treated him like a harmless eccentric. “Our mad Englishman,” he was called