The Haj - Leon Uris [15]
‘We shall shave the Jews with a hatchet.’
‘Their mothers’ milk is camel’s piss.’
‘No Jewish dunghills in this valley!’
‘Death to the Jews!’
A cheer arose as Salim, the sheik of one of the smaller clans, made his way to the café. Salim had been in the Turkish Army during the Great War. The villages around the Ayalon Valley had been fueled with stories of his fighting prowess for six years. No accounts of his many battles were more graphic than that of a hand-to-hand fight during which he had hacked his way through a wall of British flesh to get to a machine gun nest and grenade it to oblivion. What was generally unknown was that Salim had never risen above the rank of corporal, had never been anything more than an orderly to a Turkish colonel, and had never gotten within fifty miles of a battlefront. A knife scar from a brawl over a belly dancer had been converted into a wound caused by a bullet that had grazed his flesh and was backed up by a medal for valor he had traded for at the Istanbul bazaar.
Everyone felt a sense of security as Salim was invited by Ibrahim to join him at a council of war with the other muktars and sheiks.
Outside the café at the water well children played ‘war’ with sticks as the gathering swelled and the frenzy grew. Bones would be crushed this night. There would be a swamp filled with dead Jews. The loot would be staggering. Save one of the Jewish women for men’s sport. It would be an eternity before another Jew tried to build a settlement in this valley.
Inside the café everyone argued strategy at the same time. Come from behind them through the swamp. No, the swamp was too mucky. Surround them on three sides. No, we’ll start shooting each other. Fists banged on tables and arguments flared and sheiks reached for their knives.
All plans were given to Salim, who merely tried to look thoughtful. At last Ibrahim heaved a deep sigh and explained a simple strategy.
At dark, roadblocks would be set up to stop British reinforcements, which could not arrive until dawn. The roadblocks would also cut off any Jewish retreat. Over a hundred men would attack in a frontal assault in three waves. Ibrahim would lead the first wave. Salim would lead the second. Fighting broke out as to who would lead the third wave. Ibrahim selected a sheik by simply pointing his forefinger.
When they reached the barbed wire, they would cross it by throwing goatskins over it. The Jews would be quickly annihilated and the fighters would melt back to Tabah and hide their weapons. Just before the light of dawn, the old men and the women and children would come in, strip the bodies, and carry off the Jews’ weapons and their equipment. Ibrahim himself would divide the spoils later.
It was declared a magnificent plan. Hands were clasped and the war council went outside the café to organize their men. Farouk called them all to the mosque and after prayer he declared it a jihad, a holy war, to which the assemblage intoned in unison, ‘Death to the Jews.’
Victory was a certainty to everyone ... except Ibrahim. The dozen ex-Shomer, who were now called Haganah men, disturbed him. In all the Arab attacks on all the Jewish settlements in the Galilee, few had succeeded in driving them out. His men, although five times the number of the Jews, had never made a frontal assault in their lives. Most of all he was wary of the Jews’ leader, the Gideon person. The man had defiantly drunk from the village well before them all. He might know the soldiering business too well. The Shomer had a reputation as fighters and most of them had served in the British Army in World War I. Yet a muktar had to do what a muktar had to do.
At eventide, when the air became still and stuffy, Ibrahim and his council went up to the knoll to see what might be seen. They were able to observe a part of the barbed wire enclosure. The Jews had lit smudge pots to drive off the mosquitoes and they were so exhausted they fell asleep on their flatbed trucks. It was a repugnant sight to watch the men and women unashamedly sleeping next