The four moved into a basement apartment owned by a fellow Maccabee, located on Bene Berak Road near the Central Bus Station and the old market, where there was great
activity. Maccabee lookouts were posted around the apartment house and an escape route was worked out. It looked ideal-and could have been worse.
For nearly fifteen years Akiva had frustrated CID and British Intelligence. There was a period of amnesty during World War II when Akiva was free, but for the rest of that time he was wanted. He had always evaded them and had escaped many traps that had been set for him. Akiva was the biggest prize in Palestine with the price on his head running to several thousand pounds sterling.
It was coincidence that the CID was observing the activities of another apartment house on Bene Berak Road just three houses away from the new Maccabee headquarters. The suspects were a ring of smugglers who had been storing goods got past customs in the Jaffa port. The alert CID men watching from an observation point in a building across the street spotted the suspicious picket of watchmen regularly near the basement headquarters. With a telescopic lens camera they photographed all the lookouts and identified two as known Maccabees. While stalking smugglers, they had stumbled onto a Maccabee hangout. Their long experience with the Maccabees induced them to raid at once. They organized quickly and moved to effect complete surprise. They still had no idea they were going into Maccabee headquarters itself.
Dov was in one of the three rooms of the basement apartment forging an El Salvador passport. Only Akiva was with him. Nahum and Ben Moshe had gone out to meet Zev Gilboa, the liaison for the Haganah and Palmach. Akiva came into the room.
“Well, well, Little Giora,” Akiva said, “how did you manage to talk Ben Moshe out of taking you along on today’s business?”
“I must finish this passport,” Dov grumbled.
Akiva looked at his watch and then stretched out on a cot behind Dov. “They should be returning shortly.”
“I don’t trust the Haganah,” Dov said.
“We have no choice but to trust them for the time being,” the old man said.
Dov held the passport paper up to the light to study his erasures and see if they could be detected through the water marks and seal. It was a good job. Not even an expert could spot where he had worked over the name and description of the former owner. Dov bent close to the paper and etched in the signature of an El Salvador official, then put the pen down. He got up and paced the tiny room restlessly checking frequently to see if the ink was dry, then resuming his walking back and forth, snapping his fingers.
“Don’t be so impatient, Little Giora. You will find that waiting is the worst part of underground life. Waiting for what, I often wonder?”
“I’ve lived underground before,” Dov said quickly.
“So you have.” Akiva sat up and stretched. “Waiting, waiting, waiting,” Akiva said. “You are very young, Dov. You should learn not to be quite so serious and quite so intense. That was always one of my faults. I was always too intense. Worked day and night for the cause.”
“That sounds strange coming from Akiva,” Dov said.
“An old man begins to see many things. We wait for a chance to wait. If they get us, the best we can expect is exile or life in prison. The hanging and the torture is getting to be standard procedure these days. That’s why I say … don’t be so serious. There are many nice Maccabee girls who would love to meet our Little Giora. Have fun while there is time.”
“I am not interested,” Dov said firmly.
“Ah, hah,” the old man teased, “perhaps you already have a girl you have been holding out on us.”
“I had a girl once,” Dov said, “but no more.”
“I must tell Ben Moshe to find you a new one and you will go out and enjoy yourself.”
“I don’t want one and I’ll stay in headquarters. It is the most important place to be.”
The old man lay back again and he meditated. At length he spoke. “How wrong you are, Little Giora. How very wrong you are. The most important place to be is awakening in the morning and looking out at your fields, working in them -and coming home at night to someone you love and who loves you.”
The old man is getting sentimental again, Dov thought. He tried the paper and found it dry. He fitted the passport photo into place. As Akiva dozed on the cot, Dov began his pacing again. It was worse now that he had sent the letter to Mrs. Fremont. He wanted to go on raids. Another raid and another and another. Sooner or later the British would get him and hang him and it would be all over with. They didn’t know that his bravery came from the fact that he didn’t care. He almost begged to be hit by enemy gunfire. The dream was bad these days and Karen was not there to stand between him and the gas-chamber door. Mrs. Fremont would take her to America now. That would be good. And he would keep on going on raids until they got him, because it was no good to live without Karen.
Outside of the apartment fifty plain-clothed British police intermingled with the crowds near the bus station. They moved quickly, picking up the Maccabee lookouts and whisking them out of the area before they could give a warning. Then they cordoned off the entire block.
Fifteen police armed with shotguns, tear gas, axes, and sledge hammers slipped down to the basement apartment and stationed themselves around the door.
There was a knock.
Akiva’s eyes fluttered open.
“That must be Ben Moshe and Nahum. Let them in, Dov.”
Dov slipped the chain latch into place and opened the door a crack. A sledge hammer crashed into the door, ripping it open.
“British!” Dov screamed.
Akiva and Little Giora captured!
The word was on every lip in Palestine! The legendary Akiva who had eluded the British for more than a decade was now theirs!
“Betrayal!” cried the Maccabees. They placed the blame on the Haganah. Ben Moshe and Nahum Ben Ami had been meeting with Zev Gilboa. Either Gilboa or some other Haganah person had followed them to learn the Maccabee headquarters. How else could it have been found? The two factions were again at odds. The Maccabees voiced accusations. A hundred rumors circulated purporting to reveal how the Haganah had managed its alleged sellout.
The British High Commissioner for Palestine moved for an immediate trial to produce a quick sentence which would further demoralize the Maccabees. He felt that swift justice for Akiva would restore British authority and curtail the Maccabee activities, since the old man had long been the spiritual force behind the terrorists.
The high commissioner arranged a secret trial. The name of the judge was withheld for his own safety. Akiva and Little Giora were sentenced to be hanged within a fortnight of their capture.
They were both incarcerated in the impenetrable Acre jail.
In his eagerness the high commissioner had made a disastrous mistake. Newsmen had been barred from the trial, and in the United States in particular the Maccabees had powerful friends and financial aid. The guilt or innocence of Akiva and Little Giora were lost sight of in the passionate outbursts that followed. Like the Exodus incident, the sentencing of the pair was being turned into a focus for violent protest of the British mandate. Dov’s background of the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz was dug up and published, producing a wave of public sympathy all over Europe. There was indignation over the secrecy of the trial. Pictures of the eighty-year-old Akiva and eighteen-year-old Little Giora, the prophet and the
disciple, captured the imagination of readers. Newsmen demanded to see the pair.
Cecil Bradshaw was in Palestine with UNSCOP. Having seen what could happen in the case of the Exodus he quickly went into a conference with the high commissioner and applied to the Home Office for instructions.’ The incident was creating ill will for the British at a delicate time, when the United Nations Committee was in Palestine. Instead of halting Maccabee activity the affair might trigger a new rash of terror. Bradshaw and the high commissioner decided to move quickly to show the world that British justice was merciful. Using the extreme ages of Dov and Akiva as an excuse they announced that they would allow the sentenced pair to make petitions for mercy and spare their lives. Their action put a halt to the storm of protest.