“It sounds good,” Nahum said. “The Druses can be trusted … better than some Jews I know.”
Ari ignored the insult. “The second unit carrying Dov Landau will go up the coast road to Nahariya and split. I can arrange sanctuary in a half dozen kibbutzim in the area. I suggest that Landau be taken to Mishmar kibbutz on the Lebanese border. I was there at the building of Mishmar; the area is filled with caves. Your brother David was with me at Mishmar in the second world war. We have used it for years as a hiding place for our leaders. Landau will be absolutely safe there.”
Ben Moshe sat like a statue, looking over his plans. Without these hiding places he knew he had no more than a dramatic suicide mission. With Ari’s help, there was a chance. Could he risk cooperation?
“Go on, Ari … set up your escape routes. I do this only because your name is Ben Canaan.”
D-Day minus four.
Four days separated Akiva and Little Giora from a rope. The UNSCOP flew out of Lydda to Geneva. Palestine felt the deathly tense, foreboding calm. The Arab demonstrations stopped. Maccabee raids stopped. The city was an armed camp with British plain-clothes men flooding the area.
D-Day minus three.
A last-ditch appeal from the Prime Minister of Great Britain was turned down by Akiva and Little Giora.
D-Day.
Market day in Acre. At daybreak Arab crowds conversed
on the city from twenty Galilee villages. The market areas were packed with donkeys and carts and produce. The roads were filled with travelers.
Oriental and African Jews, members of the Maccabees dressed as Arabs, drifted into Acre with the influx of the market-day throngs. Each man and woman carried a few sticks of dynamite, caps, wires, detonators, grenades, or small arms under their long dress. The Maccabees dispersed and mingled in the market stalls near the prison and throughout the jammed bazaar.
Eleven o’clock. H-Hour minus two.
Two hundred and fifty Maccabee men and fifty Maccabee women in Arab dress were now dispersed in Acre.
Eleven-fifteen. H-Hour minus one forty-five.
The guard changed inside the Acre jail. Four inside Maccabee collaborators stood by.
Eleven-thirty. H-Hour minus one-thirty.
Outside Acre at Napoleon’s Hill, a second unit of Maccabees assembled. Three truckloads of men dressed as British soldiers drove into Acre and parked along the sea wall near the prison. The “soldiers” quickly broke up into four-man units and walked through the streets as though on security patrol. There were so many other soldiers about that this hundred new people received no attention.
High noon. H-Hour minus one.
Ari Ben Canaan drove into Acre in a staff car dressed as a British major. His driver parked on the sea wall on the west side of the prison. Ari walked out on the big rampart at the north end of the sea wall and leaned against a rusted old Turkish cannon. He lit a cigarette and watched the waves lap against the sea wall below him. The foam swirled around the mossy green rocks worn flat by the waters.
Twelve-five. H-Hour minus fifty-five minutes.
The shops of Acre closed one by one for the two-hour midday break. The sun was getting hot and it blazed down on the Arabs in the coffeehouses, who began to doze as the mournful wails of Radio Cairo blared. The British troops were stifled and groggy in the heat.
Twelve ten. H-Hour minus fifty minutes.
A Moslem caller climbed the long spiral stairs of the minaret beside the Mosque of El Jazzar. The caller cried out in the stillness and the Mohammedans gathered in the courtyard and inside the huge white-domed house of prayer and knelt in the direction of the holy city of Mecca.
Twelve-twelve. H-Hour minus forty-eight minutes.
The Maccabees moved toward their assembly points as the heat beat both Arabs and British soldiers into lethargy.
In groups of twos and threes they moved without apparent
purpose through the narrow dung-filled alleys to the assembly points.
Group one gathered at the Abu Christos-Father of Christ -Cafe. The cafe sat on the bay and the coffee drinkers watched the Arab boys dive from the rocks for a grush. They could see the entire sweep of the bay and Haifa at the far end.
A second large group came together at the mosque. They knelt at the outer fringes of the huge courtyard and joined the Arabs in prayer.
The third unit went to the Khan, a large square that had been used for more than a hundred years as a caravan resting and trading place. They mingled with the camels and the donkeys and the hundreds of market-day Arabs who lay on the ground and rested.
Group four met on the docks by the fishing fleet.
The fifth group assembled at the Land Gate on the sea wall.
At the same time the hundred Maccabees disguised as British soldiers moved for their positions. They had a greater freedom of movement; they went to house tops and blocked alleyways and roads so that they commanded every possible entrance and exit to Acre jail.
Outside of Acre the final unit of Maccabees got into position. These were people with no disguise. They planted land mines and stationed themselves on the highways with machine guns to stop British reinforcements from getting into Acre.
Twelve forty-five. H-Hour minus fifteen minutes.
The soldiers blocking off the jail were in position. The units on the highway outside Acre were in position.
The striking force, the two hundred and fifty disguised as Arabs, moved out of their assembly points in small groups and converged on the attack point.
Ben Moshe and Ben Ami reached the spot first. They watched their people converging. They looked over the roof tops and saw their soldiers in place. They looked at the prison where one of the four “inside” helpers signaled that all was ready.
Ari Ben Canaan walked to the edge of the rampart and flicked his cigarette out and walked quickly toward the attack point. The driver drifted along behind him in the car.
The attack point was the Hamman El-Basha, a hundred-and-twenty-year-old Turkish public bathhouse. The bathhouse, built by El Jazzar, was attached to the south wall of the Acre jail. In the rear of the bathhouse there was a courtyard used for sunning. A single stairway led up to the roof of the bathhouse and right to the prison wall. The Maccabees had discovered that from their various guard posts inside the prison the British could see every possible approach
and detect every possible movement around the jail-except one place: the bathhouse and the south wall, and here was where they would strike.
One o’clock. H-Hour.
The city of Acre was burned into somnolence by the sun.
Ben Moshe, Ben Canaan, and Ben Ami drew deep breaths and gave the signal. The raid of the Acre jail was on.
Ari Ben Canaan led the spearhead of fifty men. They went into the bathhouse and through it quickly to the courtyard in the rear. His group carried sticks of dynamite.
The Arabs sitting in the steaming rooms looked on in utter amazement. Terror seized them and in a second the bathhouse was a confusion of wet scrambling Arabs. A second force moved in and jammed the bathers into one steam-flooded room so they could not escape and give an alarm.
Outside, Ben Moshe received the signal that Ari had reached the courtyard and all the Arabs were trapped. In the courtyard at the rear of the bathhouse Ari’s men raced up the steps, crossed the roof to set their dynamite charge against the south wall of the prison. The explosives and caps and wires came out from under their clothing and the charge was fixed with speed and efficiency. They retreated to the cover of the courtyard and lay flat.
One-fifteen.
An ear-shattering explosion shook Acre. The air was filled with flying rocks. It took a full two minutes for the dust to settle and reveal a huge breach in the jail wall.
With the explosion, the four inside men carried out their assignments. The first threw a grenade on the switchboard, stopping all phone operation. The second grenaded the main switch box, cutting the electricity and, with it, the alarm system. The third man seized the turnkey, and the fourth man rushed to the breach to direct the incoming Maccabees.