The high commissioner and Bradshaw themselves went to the Acre prison to see Akiva and Dov and tell them the good news. The latter were brought into the warden’s office where the two officials bluntly-explained the proposal.
“We are reasonable people,” the commissioner said. “We have arranged these petitions for you to sign. Officially they are petitions for mercy. However, off the record it is merely a formality … a loophole, if you will.”
“Now you sign these petitions,” Bradshaw said, “and we will give you a fair compromise. We’ll take you two out of the country. You’ll serve a short term in one of the colonies in Africa and in a few years it will have all blown over.”
“I don’t quite understand you,” Akiva said. “What are we serving a sentence in Africa for? We have committed no crime. We are merely fighting for our natural and historical rights. Since when has it been a crime for a soldier to fight for his country? We are prisoners of war. You have no right to pass any sentence on us. We are an occupied country.”
The high commissioner broke into a sweat. The old man was going to be stubborn. He had heard Maccabee fanatics recite that theme before. “See here, Akiva. This is beyond arguing politics. It is your life. Either you sign these petitions for mercy or we will carry through the sentences.”
Akiva looked at the two men, whose anxiety was fully apparent. He was quite aware that the British were trying to gain an advantage or undo a mistake.
“You there, boy,” Bradshaw said to Dov. “You don’t want to hang on the gallows, do you? You sign and Akiva will sign afterwards.”
Bradshaw shoved the petition across the desk and took out his pen. Dov looked at the document a moment.
He spit on it.
Akiva looked at the two frustrated, half-frightened Englishmen. “Thine own mouth condemneth thee,” he snapped.
The rebuff by Akiva and Little Giora of the mercy petitions was carried in headlines as a dramatic protest against the British. Tens of thousands in the Yishuv who had formerly had little regard for the Maccabees were inspired by the action. Overnight the old man and the boy became the symbol of Jewish resistance.
Instead of damaging the Maccabees, the British were well on their way toward creating a pair of martyrs. They had no choice now but to set the hanging date, ten days away.
Every day the tension grew in Palestine. The raids of the Maccabees and the Haganah had stopped, but the country knew it was sitting on a short-fused powder keg.
The all-Arab city of Acre stood at the northern end of an arced bay with Haifa on the southern end. Acre jail was a monstrosity built on Crusader ruins. It ran along a sea wall that stretched from the prison at the northern outskirt of the town to the opposite end of the city. Ahmad el Jazzar-the Butcher-had turned it into an Ottoman fortress and it had stood against Napoleon. It was a conglomeration of parapets, dungeons, tunnels, towers, dried-up moats, courtyards, and thick walls. The British converted it into one of the most dreaded prisons in the Empire’s penal system.
Dov and Akiva were placed in tiny cells in the north wing. The walls, ceiling, and floors were made of stone. The cells’ dimensions were six feet by eight feet. The outside wall was sixteen feet thick. There was no light and no toilet. A stink of mustiness was present continuously. Each door was a solid sheet of iron with a tiny peephole for viewing, covered from the outside. The only other opening in the cells was a slit two inches wide and twelve inches high cut through from the outside wall, that allowed in a thin ray of light. Through it Dov could see the tops of some trees and the rim of Napoleon’s Hill, which marked the farthest advance point in the drive to conquer India.
Akiva fared badly. The ceilings and walls dripped, and the clammy damp penetrated his ancient inflamed joints and put him in agonizing pain.
Two or three times each day British officials came to plead for some sort of compromise to prevent the hanging. Dov merely ignored them. Akiva sent them out with quotations from the Bible ringing in their ears.
Six days remained before the hanging. Akiva and Dov were moved to the death cells adjoining the hanging room. These were conventional barred cells in another wing of the prison: four concrete walls, a deep hole under the floor, and a trap door under a steel-beamed rigging to hold the rope. A sandbag of the weight of a man was used in testing; the guards pulled
the lever to release the trap door and let the sandbag fall with a crunching thud.
Dov and Akiva were dressed in scarlet pants and shirts, the traditional English hanging dress.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: It was one o’clock in the morning. Bruce Sutherland dozed in his library with his head bowed over a book. He sat up quickly, awakened by a sharp knocking. His servant ushered Karen Clement into the room.
Sutherland rubbed his eyes. “What the devil are you doing here this time of night?”
Karen stood before him, trembling.
“Does Kitty know you are here?”
Karen shook her head.
Sutherland led her to a chair. Karen was white and tense. “Have you eaten, Karen?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
“Bring her a sandwich and some milk,” Sutherland ordered his servant. “Now see here, young lady, what is all this about?”
“I want to see Dov Landau. You are the only one I know who can help me.”
Sutherland snorted and paced the room with his hands clasped behind him. “Even if I can help you this can only hurt you more. You and Kitty will be leaving Palestine in a few weeks. Why don’t you try to forget him, child?”
“Please,” she pleaded. “I know all the reasons why. I have thought of nothing else since he was captured. I must see him once more. Please help me, General Sutherland, please.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he said. “First, let me call Kitty and tell her you are here. She is probably half out of her mind. You had no business traveling through Arab country as you did.”
The next morning Sutherland called Jerusalem. The high commissioner was quick in granting the request. The British were still trying to get Dov and Akiva to change their minds and were willing to grab at any straws. There was a possibility that Karen’s visit could break the armor of Dov’s defiance. It was arranged quickly. Kitty left Gan Dafna and was picked up in Safed by Sutherland, whence the three drove to Nahariya on the coast. There from the police station an escort took them directly into Acre jail, where they were taken to the warden’s office.
Karen had been in a daze all the way to Acre. Now, in the prison, it seemed even more unreal to her.
The warden came in.
“All right, young lady.”
“I’d better go with you,” Kitty said.
“I want to see him alone,” Karen said firmly.
A pair of armed guards waited for Karen outside the warden’s office. They led her through a series of iron doors and into a huge stone courtyard surrounded by barred windows. Karen could see the eyes of the prisoners leering at her. Some catcalls echoed in the hollow yard. She looked straight ahead. They walked up narrow steps into the death wing. They passed through a barbed-wire machine gun emplacement, then came to another door where two soldiers stood with fixed bayonets on their rifles.
She was ushered into a tiny cell. The door was closed behind her and a soldier stood near. He opened a slot in the wall measuring a few inches wide and a few inches high.
“You’ll talk to him through that slot there, girlie,” the guard said.