The Haj - Leon Uris [39]
‘Well,’ Gideon said, ‘this is what we all came here for, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed, the moment of Zion is at hand.’
‘I’m not sure what plan that head of yours is concocting, Wingate, but Haj Ibrahim is a proud man. He would rather lose everything than accept our help.’
‘That, in one sentence, my friend, is the story of the Arab nation,’ Wingate answered. ‘Well, I won’t give Haj Ibrahim any options.’
Wingate, garbed in the blue work clothing of a kibbutz member, climbed to the top of Tabah’s knoll through the fields from the rear side to avoid the village proper.
‘You there,’ he called to a daydreamer sitting near the prophet’s tomb, ‘get yourself down to the village instantly and fetch Haj Ibrahim.’
The peasant was startled to hear the sudden stream of perfect Arabic.
‘Get along, do as I tell you,’ Wingate prodded authoritatively.
Fifteen minutes later Haj Ibrahim appeared and stopped behind the stranger who scanned the hills through binoculars. ‘Do you know who I am?’ Wingate asked, neither turning nor lowering his field glasses.
‘The crazy British officer.’
‘Precisely. But you’ll note that I’m not in uniform. What I have to tell you is from one friend to another.’
‘Perhaps I allow a friendship longer to develop than you.’
‘No time for quaint sayings. You’re going to get clobbered tonight and there won’t be anyone home at Latrun to bail you out.’ Wingate lowered the glasses, turned, smiled, and walked past Ibrahim to another viewpoint. ‘By God, the chaps who put this village on this spot knew what they were doing. No real way to get close, except up this knoll from the rear. Even so, you can’t defend it. Kaukji has too many men. They’ll come on their bellies, using the tall grass as cover until they’re fifty yards from where we stand. They’ll start shouting obscenities and your men will be converted into quivering masses of immobile flesh.’
‘We will make an accounting.’
‘To Allah, perhaps. I suspect you’re in the market for some good advice.’
‘If you mean asking the Jews to help, I won’t have it.’
‘Wouldn’t think of suggesting it, Haj Ibrahim.’ Wingate’s deep brown eyes continued to be transfixed down the slope. ‘The wind will be coming from the sea,’ he said. ‘It will be blowing downhill. The grass is dry. It will ignite to appear like ... like Joshua making the sun stand still. Things will get rather hot underfoot for Kaukji’s men.’
‘Burn the fields?’
‘Of course burn the fields, man; of course burn them.’
‘That is the most stupid tactic I’ve ever heard of,’ Haj Ibrahim said.
‘Oh? I thought you’d rather fancy it.’
‘It’s stupid.’
‘But Haj Ibrahim, that is what your great general, Saladin, did to the Crusaders at the Horns of Hittim. Maneuvered them against a bluff, caught them downwind in their armor, and burned the fields. Those who were not roasted alive or who choked to death tried to break out and get to the Sea of Galilee, for they were also parched, but Saladin stood between them and the sea.’ He turned away. ‘Of course, it takes imagination to be a Saladin.’ With that, Orde Wingate retraced his steps down the knoll and out of sight.
When darkness ended the fitful day, Kaukji’s troops spilled out of Fakim and headed down the Bab el Wad on a trail that had once served as the Roman road to Jerusalem. Earlier in the day he had dispatched the diversionary unit to a small village deeper in the wilds, which would lure the British from Latrun. At the same moment in Ramle and Lydda the mobs in the mosques were being whipped up.
Orde Wingate moved his Special Night Squad out of Shemesh Kibbutz, sending them crisscrossing through fields and over hills in a crazy-quilt pattern. If they were detected, no one would be able to ascertain their direction. They assembled at the mouth of the Bab el Wad, found cover, and froze. In an hour the advance scout of the party reported back to Wingate that Kaukji’s men were coming down toward them.
‘Good, they are right on schedule,’ Wingate said. ‘Don’t breathe, don’t budge. Try to get a count of them.’
The Jews were scattered