Pursuit (29 page)

“We couldn't move it anyway; it's a plug. If we took it out, we'd sink.”

Wolf shook his head disconsolately and attempted a weak smile.

“This is the last cruise
I
take,” he said. “They can advertise all they want.”

Grossman smiled. “Not even for the food?”

Wolf smiled back at him, a small sour smile. He swished his foot around in the water that was beginning to overtake the efforts of the bilge pumps, washing in little waves over the cabin deck.

“Not even for the swimming pool,” he said, and started back to the deck above.

On the bridge of the
Portland
-3, commander of the ship Lieutenant Mullins was having a fit. He was bellowing into his handset; at the other end of the connection Seaman-First John Wilburson was wishing he had gone into the submarine service where the worst thing that could happen was not to come to the surface. How did a vicious blithering maniac like Mullins ever make command when he couldn't understand simple English?

“I said, we have no radar, sir.”

“What do you mean, we have no radar?”

“I mean, someone from that ship shot out our scanner, sir. The radar is not in functioning order, sir.”

“Or you don't know how to work the bloody thing!” Mullins said angrily. “I knew it was a useless bit of bumph when they installed the bloody thing!” He hung up with a curse and turned to Seaman-Second Wolfson at his side, listening desperately to the conversation being picked up by Enderly in the radio shack and piped to the bridge. “Well? Well? What are they saying?”

“I don't know, sir. They—they're not speaking Iraqi any longer …”

“Well, what in bloody hell
are
they speaking?”

“I—I don't know, sir. It sounds eastern European, but I don't know …”

“What kind of a bloody linguist are you, anyway? What are you doing on this ship?”

“I—I was majoring in Mid-East languages at London University when I quit to join the navy, sir.” Wolfson swallowed. “On this ship I'm—I'm the cook's assistant, sir …”

“Good God!” Mullins stared. “Well, go make some coffee, then. Try to bring it back without spilling it if you can.”

He shook his head in disgust as Wolfson made his escape, and returned to staring from the bridge into the night. At the prow the Bofors continued to blast the fog, but Mullins had a cold feeling it was all in vain. The intruding ship was lost. Lost! What a black mark on his record! Could he swear the men to silence, pretend they never ran across the ship at all, give them shore leave more frequently as a bribe? Not very likely; his men were probably not as fond of him as they should be; and besides, there was the smashed spotlight to explain, and, if Wilburson was correct, a smashed radar scanner as well.

He sighed, picked up the handset, and instructed Martingale to cease his bloody useless waste of ammunition; he then instructed Chief Enderly to report the incident and advise all beach patrols and other patrol ships in the area of the presence of the intruder. He then advised the man beside him on the bridge to return to Yafo and the base, and tramped back to his cabin. Maybe when they got back Mustafa would have a girl who enjoyed being beaten—or who did not enjoy being beaten. That might even be better. He was just in the mood.

In Tel Aviv the Mossad was putting into effect an audacious scheme they had long since developed for just such a critical situation as faced the
Ruth
at the moment. The ship, Brodsky had informed them, had been badly damaged; Davi Ben-Levi, a woman, and a boy had been killed by a wildly fired shell from the patrol boat. They had escaped, at least for the time being, but water was rising in the cabin and morale was low. They would do their best to reach Tel Aviv and Orange Beach, but that was the absolute maximum distance their captain calculated they could hope to sail in their precarious condition. Yakov recalled the trucks and then put into effect the alternate plan for saving the people on the
Ruth
.

Each member of the Mossad had long since been assigned ten telephone numbers to call in just such an emergency, and each of these ten also had a list of ten numbers, as did the last ten. Thus, even with the limited telephone facilities of Tel Aviv at the time, there would be no duplication of calls, and a minimum of ringing busy numbers; and within thirty minutes over a thousand members of the Haganah were on their way to Orange Beach by tram, by car, by bus, or walking. They came from as near as Arlozoroff Street to as far away as such suburbs as Bat Yam and Petah Tikvah, from Ramat Gan, from Ramat Hasharon and Bnei Berak, from all corners of the sprawling, growing city.

They came in colorful clothes, as if to celebrate, carrying picnic baskets which, though hastily packed, contained boiled eggs and pickles and fruits and cakes; they came with guitars and violins, with mandolins and balalaikas; they came with sticks and other kindling, with small logs and paper for beach fires. They came equipped for a beach party on a grand scale. And they also came with surfboards and small, tightly packed inflatable boats, and swimming suits to enjoy the water. And some of them also came, under their fruits and cakes and napkins and their bathing suits in their wicker baskets, with guns.

The two British soldiers patrolling along Hayarkon Street, shook their heads, partly in admiration, partly in wonder.

“Crazy people,” said one, watching the fires being kindled all along the beach, watching a group nearest the road start to build sand castles at regular intervals, watching the baskets being unpacked, the musical instruments being tuned. “A picnic at this hour. I wonder what they're celebrating now?”

“These Jew holidays always start at night,” said the other out of his greater knowledge. “Anyway, who cares what they're celebrating? They're having fun. I envy them.”

“At one o'clock in the morning?”

“At any hour,” the second said, and shifted his submachine gun to prevent the strap from biting into his shoulder.

They paused in their patrol to listen to the music rising from the various groups, watched the girls alternate with the boys as they began to dance the hora around several of the many fires. The water of the warm Mediterranean splashed in the distance as young men paddled out strongly on their surfboards, drifting farther and farther out, accompanied by laughing men and women hanging onto the sides of inflatable boats.

“They got it made, them Jews,” the first one said enviously, and the two resumed their march along the edge of the beach area, sweating in their heavy uniforms.

In approximately the center of the beach, well hidden by the group around him, Yakov bent over the huge picnic basket that concealed his battery-operated two-way radio. He appeared to be selecting a sandwich.

“How are you doing?”

“Well, we're still on top of the water, although the boat is getting sluggish,” Brodsky said. He was seated on the deck inside the wheelhouse, staring dully at the blood of Davi Ben-Levi coagulating a few feet from him. Davi's body had been taken outside to join those of the woman and boy on the deck, out of the way of any possible action, covered but not forgotten. “We have to be careful. The fog is lifting.”

“Where are you?”

“You mean you can't see us? I feel as if every eye in Palestine is trained on us, every shore battery waiting to fire—”

“Max! Where are you?”

“Sorry. I guess I'm tired. We can see Yafo ahead. Cellotti thinks we're maybe two miles out.”

“You should be angling in pretty soon. We're not all that far from Yafo, maybe two or three miles at the most. Can't you spot us, yet?”

“We can see the lights of the city, of course—”

“No. I mean our beach fires.”

“No. Wait, let me get a glass.” There was a pause. “A bunch of fires along the beach?”

“That's us.” Yakov winked at the others around the fire. “They see us.” He returned to his microphone. “We're having a picnic. Come join us.”

“If they're coming to join us, tell them to bring their own food,” someone said. “These sandwiches are awful!”

“My husband,” a girl said, and laughed.

Yakov switched off the set, tucked the microphone into the basket beside the set, and covered the equipment with a beach blanket. He turned and stared out to sea, a swarthy man in his late twenties, with a muscular, hairy body in brief swimming trunks.

“Pretty soon, now …”

He made a motion to the musicians around his particular fire; they stopped what they were playing and broke into a loud, wild Gypsy melody; at the other fires the music stopped slowly as the Gypsy tune was noted, then the other groups also took it up. The men at the sand castles along the edge of the beach beside the road dug in a little deeper, putting their hands on the butts of their guns inside, under the napkins. The boats and the surfboards paddled a few feet farther into the sea and then spread out a bit to cover the greatest area.

From the deck of the trawler approaching the beach under the noise of the music, it seemed the fires there had to illuminate them, to expose them to the view of anyone not totally blind, but on the contrary the fires made it difficult for anyone on shore to see beyond their glow. The ship, in fact, was within a few hundred feet of the shore with the swimmers and the inflatable boats approaching it from every side before one of the patrolling soldiers noted it, and even then he wasn't positive at first. He tapped his companion on the shoulder.

“Do you see what I see?”

“What?”

“Is that a ship …?” Suddenly the entire beach party made sense. He fumbled for his whistle. “It's that ship we had a flash about, the one that got away outside Ashdod. What bloody goddamn nerve, bringing it into Tel Aviv right under our noses!”

He blew on his whistle with all his lung power; his companion joined in. A jeep pulled up in seconds; the soldier leaned in, speaking rapidly, pointing. The officer inside the jeep stared incredulously out to sea, unable to believe at first that these people could have been so foolhardy as to attempt landing an illegal ship in the center of the largest coastal city in Palestine; they never had before. But even as he rationalized the lack of reason on the part of the Jews, he knew what he was seeing, and his hand was reaching swiftly for his radio microphone.

People were swarming from the
Ruth
, dropping over the sides into the inflatable boats, being lowered into the water to grab at one of the many surfboards and clinging to them, four or five to a board, as the Mossad sea scouts guided them toward the shore. Those who could swim plowed through the water, heading for the beach, clambering through the surf when they were close enough, some falling to their knees to kiss the sand before being taken in hand and hustled off in the darkness.

The first army truck pulled up when the ship was almost totally abandoned; soldiers piled down, rifles in hand, and ran for the beach, but the bonfires there had by now been extinguished with sand and water, and the beach was a jumble of unidentified bodies moving about in the dark. The soldiers dashed into the crowd, trying to grab anyone they could, only to have their grip torn loose by more and rougher hands. The men at the sand castles had their guns in their hands but they held their fire, hoping the British would have enough sense to do the same. A second truck roared up, spewing soldiers as it slowed down; they joined the mob on the beach, adding to the confusion. Orders were being screamed through bullhorns by officers; countermanding orders were being shouted back by those bathers who spoke English. It was bedlam, and in that bedlam the illegal passengers of the good ship
Ruth
were being led away by the picnickers as hurriedly as possible.

The ship's dinghy had been pressed into service to bring the older and weaker passengers to shore, returning for several trips before removing the final three, the dead bodies of Davi Ben-Levi, the woman, and the boy. Wolf, who had volunteered to maneuver the small boat, added the arms from the gunrack before beginning the final trip to shore; Ben Grossman dropped into the sea beside the dinghy and paddled along with it until they were near the shore. On the beach there was the sudden sound of a single rifle being fired; then a pause as of people startled into momentary silence by the sound. Then an entire fusillade of gunfire broke out. People scattered, screaming, streaming from the beach in all directions. Grossman, wading ashore, reached into the dinghy for a gun and crouched down on the sand, trying to get his bearings, attempting to locate a familiar face or form in the melee, wondering where Brodsky was, or Wolf, who apparently had abandoned the dinghy as soon as it grounded itself, but in the confusion it was impossible to recognize anyone or anything.

Everyone was running in different directions, dashing madly across Hayarkon Street to disappear down Gordon into Yehoash and Ruppin, into Lasalle, Bernstein, or Zlotapolsky. Soldiers tried in vain to stem the fleeing mob, to take hostages at least if not prisoners. Some of the British troops shrugged philosophically and walked back to their trucks, prepared to concede victory to the illegal ship and its rescuers; others knelt down, took deliberate aim, and cold-bloodedly shot at the running people. Two of the soldiers who knelt down each got off one shot, but no more; they were cut down by gunfire from the sand castles at the edge of the beach. The soldiers near them scattered quickly for the shelter of the trucks, or of lampposts, swinging their rifles about to cover the beach with rifle fire. A third truck rolled up; the troops dropped down and hit the beach hard, grabbing everyone they could, knocking in heads, dragging people unmercifully toward the trucks.

Ben Grossman, running now with the others, followed two shapes as they dashed along the water's edge, partially in the sea, partially out; the pair he was following seemed to know their way, but suddenly they seemed to disappear. He paused, panting, and saw they had turned sharply into a small park between the sea and the road and were thudding down one of the paths. He started to follow when he was suddenly tackled from behind.