Exodus - Leon Uris [274]
When Ari received the news that Fort Esther had been turned over to the Arabs he rushed to Safed immediately to the Taggart fort on Mount Canaan.
He went directly into the office of the British area commander, Major Hawks, a heavy-set man with dark features. Hawks was haggard from lack of sleep when the angry Ben Canaan entered.
“You Judas!” Ari snarled.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Hawks said in a half whine. “You’ve got to believe me.”
“No, I can’t believe it. Not from you.”
Hawks held his head in his hands. “Last night at ten o’clock I got a call from headquarters in Jerusalem. They ordered me to pull my men out of Fort Esther immediately.”
“You could have warned me!”
“I couldn’t,” Hawks mumbled. “I couldn’t. I’m still a soldier, Ben Canaan. I ... I didn’t sleep all night. This morning I called Jerusalem and begged them to let me go back to Fort Esther and take it back.”
Ari glared at the man in contempt.
“Whatever you think of me is probably right.”
Ari continued to stare.
“All right, have it your way ... there was no excuse.”
“It’s your life, Hawks. I guess you’re not the first soldier who swallowed his conscience.”
“What’s the use of talking? What’s done is done.”
“This may make you a good soldier, Hawks, but I feel sorry for you. You’re the one who has to live with the siege of Gan Dafna on his conscience, provided you’ve still got one.”
Hawks turned pale.
“You’re not going to leave those children on the mountain ... you’ve got to take them away!”
“You should have thought about that. Without Fort Esther we’ve got to hold Gan Dafna or lose the whole Huleh Valley.”
“Look, Ari ... I’ll convoy the children to safety.”
“They have no place to go.”
Ari watched Hawks beat his fists on the table and mumble under his breath. He had turned Gan Dafna into a suicide position. There was no use of berating him further. The man was obviously sick over what he had been forced to do.
On his way over, Ari’s brain had been busy on a scheme, risky at best, but a long gamble that might save the key position of Gan Dafna. He leaned over Hawks’s desk. “I’m going to give you a chance to undo part of the damage.”
“What can I do now, Ben Canaan?”
“As area commander it is completely within your rights to come up to Gan Dafna and advise us to evacuate.”
“Yes, but ...”
“Then do it. Go up to Gan Dafna tomorrow and take fifty trucks up with you. Put armor in front and behind you. If anyone asks you what you are doing, tell them you intend to evacuate the children.”
“I don’t understand. Are you going to evacuate?”
“No. But you leave the rest to me. You just come up with the convoy.”
Hawks did not press to know what Ari had in mind. He followed the instructions and took a fifty-lorry convoy to Gan Dafna, escorted by half tracks and armored cars. The half-mile-long procession moved from the Taggart fort through six Arab villages on the way to the Huleh. It drove up the mountain road, through Abu Yesha, in plain sight of the irregulars in Fort Esther. The convoy arrived around noon at Gan Dafna. Major Hawks went through the motions of advising Dr. Lieberman to quit the place; the latter, on Ari’s advice, officially refused. After lunch, the convoy left Gan Dafna and returned to its base in Safed.
In the meanwhile Ari “confided” to some of his Arab friends at Abu Yesha that Major Hawks had left tons of arms—from machine guns to mortars—at the village.
“After all,” Ari said in greatest confidence, “Hawks has been a known friend of the Jews and he was privately doing something to compensate for the Arab occupation of Fort Esther.”
The story was planted. Within hours the rumor had spread throughout the area that Gan Dafna was impregnable. The children were armed to the teeth. This story was lent weight by the fact that there was no evacuation of the children: the Arabs knew the Jews would get the children out if there were great danger.
Ari made a visit to Abu Yesha,