Exodus - Leon Uris [183]
“But the day must come that we commit ourselves, Avidan. We have an army or we don’t.”
Avidan took some sheets of paper from his desk drawer and pushed them over toward Ari. Ari thumbed through them: ORDER OF BATTLE, 6TH AIRBORNE DIVISION.
Ari looked up. “They have three parachute brigades?”
“Keep reading.”
ROYAL ARMORED CORPS WITH KING’S OWN HUSSARS, 53RD WORCESTERSHIRE, 249TH AIRBORNE PARK, DRAGOON GUARDS, ROYAL LANCERS, QUEEN’S ROYAL, EAST SURREY, MIDDLESEX, GORDON HIGHLANDERS, ULSTER RIFLES, HERTFORDSHIRE REGIMENT—the list of British troops in Palestine ran on and on. Ari threw the papers down on Avidan’s desk. “Whom are they fighting, the Russian Army?”
“You see, Ari? Every day I go through it with some young hotheads in the Palmach. Why don’t we raid? Why don’t we come out and fight? Do you think I like it? Ari ... they have twenty per cent of the combat strength of the British Army here. One hundred thousand troops, not counting the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion. Sure, the Maccabees run around shooting up everything, grabbing the limelight, accusing us of hiding.” Avidan slammed his fist on the desk. “By God, I’m trying to put an army together. We haven’t even got ten thousand rifles to fight with and if the Haganah goes, we all go with it.
“You see, Ari ... the Maccabees can keep mobility and hide with a few thousand blowhards. We have got to stall and keep stalling. We can’t have a showdown. We can’t get Haven-Hurst angry, either. One British soldier here for every five Jews.”
Ari picked up the list of British troops again and studied it in silence.
“The British dragnets, cordons, screenings, raids get worse every day. The Arabs are building strength while the British turn their backs.”
Ari nodded. “Where do I go from here?”
“I am not going to give you a command, yet. Go on home, take a few days’ rest then report to Palmach at Ein Or kibbutz. I want you to assess our strength in every settlement in the Galilee. We want to know what we can expect to hold ... what we are going to lose.”
“I’ve never heard you talk like this, Avidan.”
“Things have never been so bad. The Arabs have refused even to sit at the same conference table and talk with us in London.”
Ari walked to the door.
“My love to Barak and Sarah and tell Jordana to behave herself with David Ben Ami home. I am sending him and the other boys to Ein Or.”
“I’ll be in Jerusalem tomorrow,” Ari said. “Do you want anything?”
“Yes, dig me up ten thousand front-line troops and the arms to outfit them.”
“Shalom, Avidan.”
“Shalom, Ari. It is good to have you home.”
Ari grew morose as he drove back to Tel Aviv. Long ago in Cyprus he had told young David Ben Ami that many things are tried in the Haganah and Palmach and Aliyah Bet. Some plans work and some fail. A professional should do his work and not become entangled emotionally. Ari Ben Canaan was a machine. He was an efficient, daring operator. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost.
But once in a while Ari Ben Canaan looked at it all with realism and it nearly crushed him.
Exodus, the Haifa refinery, a raid here, a raid there. Men died to smuggle in fifty rifles. Men were hanged for smuggling in a hundred frantic survivors. He was a little man fighting a giant. He wished, at that moment, he could have David Ben Ami’s faith in divine intervention, but Ari was a realist.
Kitty Fremont waited in the little bar off the lobby for Ari’s return. He had been so decent that she wanted to wait up for him and talk some more and have a nightcap or two. She saw him walk into the lobby and go to the desk for his key.
“Ari!” she called.
His face showed the same deep concentration it had showed that first day she saw him on Cyprus. She waved to him but he did not even seem to see or to hear her. He looked directly at her, then walked upstairs to his room.
Chapter Two
TWO BUSES CARRYING FIFTY of the Exodus children drove past the tel of the ruins of Hazor and into the Huleh Valley.