“Fight!” Malcolm cried. “That is what we must do … fight! The Jewish nation is destiny, Ben Canaan, destiny.”
“You and I are in certain agreement about the destiny of the homeland … I don’t need refreshing.”
“Yes you do … all of you do … so long as you stay buttoned up in your settlements. We must go there and start punishing those infidels. If an Arab conies out of his coffeehouse and takes a pot shot at a kibbutz from a thousand yards distant he thinks he is a brave man. The time has come to test these bloody heathens. Hebrews, that’s what I want … Hebrew soldiers. You’ arrange an appointment with Avidan for me at once. Englishmen are too stupid to understand my methods.”
As suddenly as this strange man had appeared at Yad El, he left. P. P. Malcolm limped through the gates singing a Biblical Psalm at the. top of his voice and left Barak Ben Canaan scratching his beard and shaking his head.
Barak later phoned Avidan and they spoke in Yiddish in case the line was being tapped.
“Who is this man?” Barak asked. “He walked in like the Messiah and began preaching Zionism at me.”
‘We have reports on him,” Avidan said. “Frankly, he is so odd we don’t know what to make of him.”
“Can he be trusted?”
“We don’t know.”
Major P. P. Malcolm now spent all his free hours among the Jews. He candidly observed that British officers were idiots and bores. In a matter of months he was known by the entire Yishuv. Although he moved in the highest circles most of the leaders treated him like a harmless eccentric. “Our mad Englishman,” he was called with affection.
Soon it became apparent that P. P. Malcolm was not mad. In close discussion Malcolm had the persuasive power to talk the devil out of his horns. Members of the Yishuv came away from his home certain they had been under a magic spell.
After nearly six months of evasions, Malcolm burst into Ben Gurion’s office in the Yishuv Central building in Jerusalem one day, unannounced.
“Ben Gurion,” he snapped. “You are a God-damned fool.
You waste all your time talking to your enemies and you haven’t five minutes to spare for a friend.”
With that blunt announcement he turned and walked out
Malcolm’s next appointment was with General Charles, the military commander. He argued to convince the general to let him work out some of his theories on Arab warfare with the use of Jewish troops. General Charles was pro-Arab as was most of his staff, but the Mufti’s rebellion was beginning to make him look ridiculous. Little by little the British had trained and armed their own Jewish police and had ignored the Haganah arms which supplemented their own forces. The British had failed so badly he decided to let Malcolm go ahead.
Malcolm’s jalopy showed up at Ha Mishmar where guards took him up the hill to Ari. The strapping Haganah commander studied the scrawny Englishman before him with puzzlement.
Malcolm patted his cheek. “You look like a good boy,” he said. “Listen to me, obey my orders, observe what I do, and I’ll make a first-class soldier out of you. Now, show me your camp and fortifications.”
Ari was perplexed. By mutual arrangement the British had stayed out of Ha Mishmar and turned their backs on Ari’s patrols. Yet they had every legal right to enter Ha Mishmar. Major Malcolm completely ignored Ari’s suspicions and obvious attempt to show him only half the layout.
“Where is your tent, son?”
In Ari’s tent, P. P. Malcolm stretched out on the cot and meditated.
“What do you want here?” Ari demanded.
“Give me a map, son,” he said, ignoring Ari’s question. Ari did so. P. P. Malcolm sat up, opened the map, and scratched his scraggly beard. “Where is the key Arab jump-off base?”
Ari pointed to a small village some fifteen kilometers inside Lebanon.
“Tonight we shall destroy it,” Malcolm said calmly.
That night a patrol of eight men and two women crossed over from Ha Mishmar into Lebanon with Malcolm in command. The Jews were astounded at the speed and stamina with which he could push his fragile body through the steep and tortuous hills. He never once stopped for rest or to check directions. Before they left, Major Malcolm had heard someone sneeze and had said he could not go-and that anyone who did not keep up with the pace would be thrashed
within an inch of his life. He led them in singing a Psalm
and lectured them on the nobility of their mission.
As they neared their objective, Malcolm went up ahead to reconnoiter the village. He returned in half an hour.
“As I suspected, they have no security up. Here is what we shall do.” He drew a hasty map to pinpoint what he believed to be the three or four huts belonging to the smugglers. “I will take three of you chaps into the village and we will open fire from short range and give them a blast or two of grenades to loosen the party up a bit. Everyone will flee in wild disarray. My force will drive them to the edge of the village here where you, Ben Canaan, shall establish an ambush. Be so good as to bring a pair of prisoners, for this area is obviously loaded with arms caches.”
“Your plan is foolish. It will not work,” Ari said.
“Then I suggest you begin walking back to Palestine,” Malcolm retorted.
That was the first and the last time Ari ever questioned the wisdom of P. P. Malcolm. The man’s certainty was gripping.
“Never question my judgment again, young man,” he said.
Malcolm’s plan was executed. The major led a four-man squad right up to the suspected headquarters. Four grenades were lobbed into the huts and followed by rifle fire. According to Malcolm’s prediction, there was a panic. He coolly drove the thugs right at Ari’s ambush. It was all over within ten minutes.
Two prisoners were taken to the major.
“Where are your guns hidden?” he asked the first one in Arabic. The Arab shrugged.
Malcolm slapped the Arab’s face and repeated the question. This time the Arab pleaded his innocence as Allah was his judge. Malcolm calmly took out his pistol and shot the Arab through the head. He turned to the second prisoner. “Where are your guns hidden?” he asked.
The second Arab quickly revealed the location of the arms.
“You sons and daughters of Judea have learned many valuable lessons this night,” Malcolm said. “I will explain them to you in the morning. One thing, never use brutality to get information. Get right to the point.”
The news of Malcolm’s raid had a sobering effect on all of Palestine. For the Yishuv it marked a historic occasion. For the very first time the Jews had come out of their settlements to make an offensive action. Many thought it was long overdue.
The British were in an uproar. Most of them demanded that P. P. Malcolm be removed at once. General Charles was not so sure. British methods of fighting Arabs were sorelv
lacking, and he felt Malcolm had most of the answers.
For the Mufti’s thugs and the Husseinis and the Moslem fanatics it was a day of reckoning. No longer could they rove at will and pick their places for attack without expecting retribution.
Ari went out with P. P. Malcolm on a dozen more raids deep into Lebanon. Each raid was more successful than the last. The marauder gangs, the thugs and the gun runners and Kawukji’s mercenaries, were shaken from their complacency, for their activities were no longer profitable or safe against the swift merciless raids of the Haganah. The Mufti placed a reward of a thousand pounds sterling on P. P. Malcolm’s head.
After Malcolm and his Haganah boys and girls at Ha Mishmar succeeded in quieting down the Taggart line, he moved his headquarters to the kibbutz of Ein Or. Malcolm requested from the Haganah a hundred and fifty top soldiers; he specifically wanted Ari Ben Canaan, whom he greatly favored. At kibbutz Ein Or, Malcolm formed his Raider Unit.
When the hundred and fifty soldiers had assembled from all over the Yishuv, Major Malcolm led them on a long hike to Mount Gilboa at the traditional site of the grave of the great Hebrew judge and warrior, Gideon, who was Malcolm’s idol. At Gideon’s grave he stood before his charges and opened his Bible and read in Hebrew.