It was ten minutes before Jordana came fully around. She sat up in a daze. Kitty made her put her head down. When she had regained her senses Jordana shook her head with disbelief.
“What happened?” Kitty asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing like that has ever happened to me. I was listening to you and all of a sudden I couldn’t hear you or see you. It turned dark and a cold chill passed through me.”
“Go on …” 544
“I … I heard David shriek … it was horrible.”
“Now you listen to me, young lady. You’ve been so tensed up you’re ready to explode. I want you to take a few days’ rest. Go down to Yad El with your mother …”
Jordana sprang to her feet. “No!” she said.
“Sit downl” Kitty barked.
“It’s nonsense. I am behaving shamefully.”
“You are acting quite normally. You wouldn’t get yourself into such a state if you would let off a little steam and a few tears occasionally and not try to hold it all inside you.”
“David would be so disgusted with me if he knew I was carrying on so.”
“Oh, stop it, Jordana. Damn your sabra pride. I’m giving you a sedative and I want you to go right to bed.”
“No!” Jordana said and ran from the room.
Kitty gave a sigh of resignation. What did you do with a girl who felt that any show of emotion would be construed as a weakness. Years of tension and struggle had built a thick skin on the sabras. Their pride was fierce beyond comprehension.
Three days after the incident Kitty came into her cottage one evening after sending Karen over to Dov’s. Jordana was working on reports. Kitty sat down before the desk. Jordana looked up and smiled, then turned grave as she saw the expression on Kitty’s face. Kitty took the pen from her hand.
Neither of them spoke for several moments.
“David is dead,” Jordaaa said.
“Yes.”
“How did it happen?” Jordana said in an emotionless monotone.
“Ari phoned a few minutes ago. The details are not clear. It seems that he organized a band of some Palmach, some Maccabees, some Haganah. It was not authorized … apparently David had been looking at the walls of the Old City and it was more than he could stand. They made an attack to try to win back the Old City. They conquered Mount Zion…”
“Go on,” Jordana said.
“They didn’t have a chance. It was a suicide mission.”
Jordana did not move or even blink her eyes.
“What can I do? What can I say?” Kitty said.
The girl stood up and held her chin high. “Don’t worry about me,” she said in a clear voice.
If Jordana Ben Canaan had tears for her David, no one ever saw them. She disappeared with her grief into the ruins of Abu Yesha. She sat neither moving nor eating nor drinking for four days and four nights. She returned to Gan
545
Dafna. As Ari had done with his sweetheart, Jordana never mentioned David’s name again.
One night, a month from the time David Ben Ami found the way to Jerusalem, the “Burma Road,” the bypass of Lat-run, was completed. A convoy rushed through”and the siege of Jerusalem was over for all time.
Until that moment no one had known for certain if Israel would live. In the magic instant when the workers from Jerusalem shook hands with the workers from Tel Aviv, the Jews had won their War of Liberation.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: There were many months of the bitterest and most bloody fighting ahead, but the opening of the “Burma Road” gave the Jews a spiritual lift at a time it was sorely needed.
After the Jews had stopped-the first invasion of the Arab armies, the Security Council of the United Nations was able to effect a temporary truce. Both sides welcomed it. The Arabs obviously had to shake up their commands and reorganize. They had lost face in the eyes of the world by failure to overrun the country. The Israelis wanted the time to get in more weapons and increase their operational strength.
The Provisional Government did not have complete control of the situation, for the cooperation of the Palmach, the ultra-Orthodox, and the Maccabees was still a matter of degrees. The Palmach, to their credit, gave up their elite corps and joined the army of Israel en masse, when faced with expulsion from the fighting fronts for failure to take orders from the central command. The Maccabees likewise made up special Maccabee battalions in the Israeli Army, but insisted on their own officers. But nothing could change the unyielding attitude of the fanatics who continued to wait for the Messiah in an absolute literal interpretation of the Bible.
Just as unification of these elements appeared a reality, a tragic event occurred to alienate the Maccabees forever. Maccabee sympathizers in America had purchased a large amount of needed arms and a cargo plane which was named the Akiva. Along with the arms, they had several hundred volunteers ready to join the special Maccabee battalions. Under truce conditions, neither side was supposed to rearm nor reinforce any position. Both Arabs and Jews ignored this UN dictate. Both sides secretly moved arms and men around in their build-ups of strength.
The existence of the Akiva became known by Israeli people in Europe. The Provisional Government demanded that the
Akiva and its arms be turned over to it. Israel was one nation now, fighting a single war, they argued, and, after all, the Maccabee battalions were part of the army of Israel. The Maccabees objected. They wanted to keep their identification and they argued that the arms were specifically purchased for use of their members.
The government brought up the question of violation of the truce. If the Provisional Government handled the entry of the Akiva the chances of getting the arms in secretly were a hundred per cent better than if the Maccabees tried on their own. The Maccabees countered by claiming that they did not have to recognize the truce order for they were independent of a central command. So the bitter squabble raged, with the Provisional Government asserting that there could be but one central authority and the Maccabees claiming otherwise.
The Akiva took off from Europe with its first load of arms and volunteers. The government, which sorely needed both the arms and the men, was forced to order the Maccabees to make the plane return without landing. The Maccabees were enraged at this order.
As the Akiva reached Palestine, in defiance of the edict, the airdrome was filled with government officials, Maccabees, and United Nations observers. The government radioed the plane a final warning to return to Europe. The Akiva refused. The Provisional Government ordered fighter planes up and the Akiva was shot down.
Fighting erupted between army and Maccabee troops. In anger the Maccabees withdrew their battalions from the army. Both sides hurled names and charges and countercharges until all justice in the “Akiva incident” was buried under a welter of insults and accusations. The bitterness created in Maccabee ranks was permanent.
The incident did prove to be a final clearing of the air. During the years of the British mandate the Maccabees had been a factor in making the British quit by their constant goading. Once the British were gone, terror tactics lost their usefulness and the Maccabees appeared unable to accept the discipline that a field army required. Thus their value as a fighting force was seriously qualified. Their one great victory had been at Jaffa, a city of crushed morale. In other places they had failed. Their massacre at the village of Neve Sadij remained as the one great black mark against the Jews. The Maccabees were activists with great individual courage but by their very nature they rebelled against authority. After the Akiva incident they remained as an angry, defiant, political group whose basic tenet was that force conquered all problems.