Exodus - Leon Uris [307]
The last eight men were pushed into the last stronghold, the fine stone house of the muktar which stood near the stream across from the mosque. David called for the Davidka. The house was blown to pieces. The last eight men, including Taha, were killed.
It was nearly dark when David Ben Ami walked up the road to Ari. David was battle weary.
“It is all over,” David said.
Ari looked at him glassy-eyed but did not speak.
“There were nearly a hundred of them. All dead. We lost ... fourteen boys, three girls. Another dozen wounded are up at Gan Dafna.”
Ari did not seem to hear him. He started to walk down the hill toward the village.
“What is going to become of their fields?” Ari whispered. “What will become of them ... where will they go ...?”
David grabbed Ari’s shoulder.
“Don’t go down there, Ari.”
Ari looked at the little sea of flat roofs. It was so quiet.
“Is the house by the stream ...”
“No,” David said. “Try to remember it as it was.”
“What will become of them?” Ari said. “They are my friends.”
“We are waiting for the order, Ari.”
Ari looked at David and blinked his eyes and shook his head slowly.
“I must give it then,” David said.
“No,” Ari whispered, “I shall give it.” He looked at the village for the last time. “Destroy Abu Yesha,” Ari said.
Chapter Twelve
DAVID SLEPT IN Jordana’s arms.
She held his head tightly against her breast. She could not sleep. Her eyes were wide, staring into the darkness.
Ari had given her leave from Gan Dafna so the two of them could travel to Tel Aviv together and have a weekend alone. After tomorrow, the Lord only knew how long it would be before she saw him again, if ever. Jordana had known in her heart all along that David would volunteer for such a mission. Since the beginning of the siege he had been eating his heart out for Jerusalem. She saw that distant look of sadness and pain each time she looked into his eyes.
He stirred in his sleep. She kissed his forehead gently and ran her fingers through his hair and he smiled in his sleep and became still once more.
It would not be right for a sabra girl to tell her lover she was ill with worry for him. She must only smile and encourage him and conceal the fear in her heart. She felt weak with apprehension and she pressed him close to her body and wanted to hold him for a night without end.
It had begun the day partition was voted. The next day the Higher Arab Committee called for a general strike which erupted into the savage burning and plunder of the Jewish commercial center of Jerusalem. While the Arab mobs ran wild, British troops stood by.
The siege of the city began almost immediately with Abdul Kadar using Arab villages along the highway to blockade the Jewish convoys from Tel Aviv. While the titanic battles in the corridor raged for the heights, the Kastel and the other villages, the Jews in Jerusalem were frozen, hungry, and thirsty, and under direct cannonading from Kawukji and Kadar. While the Palmach Hillmen fought to keep the road open, the Yishuv organized the convoys which slugged their way along the Bab el Wad until the Judean hills were littered with wreckage.
Inside the city the fighting started with bombings and ambushes and erupted into full-scale war. The Haganah cleared a huge field of fire from King David Hotel to the Old City wall where the irregulars massed and the wreckage was called Bevingrad. The commander of the Haganah in Jerusalem was saddled with problems beyond mere military matters. He was burdened by a huge civilian population that had to be fed and protected in a situation of siege. He was further burdened by the fact that a large part of his population, ultra-Orthodox and fanatical Jews, not only refused to fight, but obstructed the efforts of the Haganah to protect them. In ancient Israel the commander of Jerusalem had been plagued by the same problems. In the siege against the Romans the fall of Jerusalem was hastened by a division of strength by the Zealots,