Exodus - Leon Uris [54]
“The children!” she screamed, and spun off the cot. Bill’s hands grabbed her.
“Take it easy. Most of the kids got away. Some of them are here.”
Karen closed her eyes and sighed and lay back on the cot again.
“Where are we?”
“British detention camp ... Atlit. It was a wonderful show. More than half the people got away. The British are so damned mad they rounded everybody up and herded us off here. We got crew, fishermen, refugees ... everybody mixed up in this mess. How do you feel?”
“I feel horrible. What happened?”
“You tried to whip the British Army singlehanded.”
She pushed the blanket off and sat up again and felt the lump on the side of her head. Her dress was still damp. She stood and walked, a bit wobbly, to the tent opening. There were several hundred more tents and a wall of barbed wire. Beyond the barbed wire were British sentries. “I don’t know what came over me,” Karen said. “I’ve never struck anyone in my life. I saw those soldiers standing there ... trying to stop me. Somehow the most important thing that ever happened, happened that moment. I had to put my foot on Palestine. I had to or I’d die ... I don’t know what came over me.” She sat down beside him.
“Want something to eat, kid?”
“I’m not hungry. What are they going to do with us?”
Bill shrugged. “It will be light in a few hours. They’ll start processing us and asking a lot of damned fool questions. You know the answers.”
“Yes ... I keep repeating that this is my country to whatever they ask.”
“Yeah ... anyhow, they’ll keep you here a couple or three months and then they’ll turn you loose. At least you’re in Palestine.”
“What about you?”
“Me? Hell, they’ll throw me out of Palestine same as they did the last time. I’ll get another Mossad ship ... try another run on the blockade.”
Her head began to throb and she lay back but she could not close her eyes. She studied Bill’s grizzled face for many moments.
“Bill ... why are you here?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re an American. It’s different with Jews in America.”
“Everybody is trying to make something noble out of me.” He patted his pockets and pulled out some cigars. They were ruined by the water. “The Aliyah Bet came around and saw me. They said they needed sailors. I’m a sailor ... been one all my life. Worked my way up from cabin boy to first mate. That’s all there is to it. I get paid for this.”
“Bill ...”
“Yeah ...”
“I don’t believe you.”
Bill Fry didn’t seem to be convincing himself either. He stood up. “It’s hard to explain, Karen. I love America. I wouldn’t trade what I’ve got over there for fifty Palestines.”
Karen propped up on an elbow. Bill began pacing the tent and groping to connect his thoughts. “We’re Americans but we’re a different kind of Americans. Maybe we make ourselves different ... maybe other people make me different ... I’m not smart enough to figure those things out. All my life I’ve heard I’m supposed to be a coward because I’m a Jew. Let me tell you, kid. Every time the Palmach blows up a British depot or knocks the hell out of some Arabs he’s winning respect for me. He’s making a liar out of everyone who tells me Jews are yellow. These guys over here are fighting my battle for respect ... understand that?”
“I think so.”
“Well, damned if I understand it.”
He sat beside Karen and examined the lump on her head. “That don’t look too bad. I told those Limey bastards to take you to a hospital.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said.
Later that night the Palmach staged a raid on the Atlit camp and another two hundred of the refugees escaped through a gaping hole blown in the barbed wire. Karen and Bill Fry were not among the escapees.
When the full report of the Star of David episode reached Whitehall the British realized they had to change their immigration policy. To date, the illegal runners had brought in loads of a few hundred. This ship had carried nearly two thousand, and the greater part of them had escaped in the beaching at Caesarea and the subsequent raid on Atlit. The British were faced with the