Refiner's Fire (8 page)

It was a difficult night. The cabins and hold were silent and dark, but many in them were awake listening to the waves and the engines. Those who slept on deck looked up past the cables and shrouds and watched the smoke trail to stern past an array of mountain-flower stars. It was moist and uncomfortable. Even those who knew each other well did not speak. They just looked at the sky, toward the dark crashing and hissing which was the sea, and at themselves—rolled up in as many blankets as they could get, cold, sunburnt, thin, strong, and uniformly young even though they were of many ages and the young themselves were not youthful. This was something entirely different.

They had their own warship and were determined to fight and die. Curiously, they were in no way frightened, and looked forward with great anticipation to the battle. The unlimited expanse of the sea, the air, the nights, the military order in which Levy worked them (sensible, precise, and rigorous), and the sun rising to illuminate those upward-reaching mountains in Crete, had enabled them to throw over for a time the camps, the wire, the railheads, the minor indignities, the boxcars, the death, and the darkness. They were alive on a ship in the sea and they would arise in strength as if from myth. Death was familiar; they had already crossed over those lines, something the young sailors who would oppose them could not even imagine. A ship of the living dead—breathing, animate, and warm—was going to be quite a surprise for those who were simply manipulators of steel, engineers and analysts who could not delight in dying.

D
AWN BROKE
swift and hot. They were twelve miles from the Palestine coast and in the distance the Carmel Range appeared, a thin purple line dark in shadow. The immigrants imagined with a sense of mystery how on that thin dark line Jews were arising to the normal tasks of farming, factory, and fight. They imagined the cows being milked, the chickens scattering like idiots in the face of golden feed, the soft earth beneath barn doors, the dawn shadows, and the cry of the birds. The distant strip had so much import that they stood on deck mute and still. What moved them was not so much the legend and that they were at last coming home, but rather a simple vision of the sun coming up there on the beginnings of another days work, morning light coming through windows in a warm and beautiful land.

At first light, Levy saw two British destroyers heading for him in perfect symmetry. He calculated their distance and speed, went to the microphone, and called general quarters. From his flying bridge he saw that the response could not have been better. In the time it took him to take off his leather jacket, tuck his shirt into his pants, adjust his pistol belt and ammunition clips, and put his jacket on again, they were completely at the ready. But completely at the ready meant that lines of laundry suddenly were strung across the decks, babies began to receive very long and luxurious open-air baths, and everyone ate with great ceremony and deliberation. They waited as the two destroyers, then in bright sunlight, approached and veered out to the north and south so that they could execute wide turns and come about parallel to the
Lindos Transit
and its course.

This they did, looking fast and beautiful. Avigdor was at the helm; Levy studied his adversaries through the ship's glass. They were twin ships (always a pleasure) of the S-class. Despite their efficiency and impressiveness they were no mystery to him. He knew them well and had been aboard. Completed at the end of the war, they were modern and extravagantly equipped. They had six boilers which collectively could bring up 40,000 shaft-horsepower. This in turn could propel the ship at 30 knots or more. There were four 115 mm. guns and (more to the point) half a dozen 40 mm.'s and numerous mounted machine guns. These ships had a complement of 250 men, and Levy assumed that they were outfitted with ingenious boarding equipment. An appropriate scan revealed about a hundred marines on the decks of each ship; gangways; hoses; and nets ready to swing. The marines were fully regaled in tropical battledress. Pan helmets, pistols, rifles, submachine guns, clubs, shields, boarding pikes, and battering rams cluttered the decks. The soldiers were smoking, talking, drinking from white mugs. They were calm, and must have subdued some tough ships to get that way.

Levy was happy at the sight of two trim new British ships. He tried not to be, but instinctively he felt reassured. How often had American and British ships ridden the ocean together in preparation for a fight. For a second or two he thought of surrendering to the nearby English-speaking, young, war-bred officers like himself. But when he remembered why he was in the Mediterranean, and that he could easily die at the hands of the Royal Navy, its blue beauty disappeared from his eyes and he returned to the boat of Jews.

By the time
Shackleton
and
Stanford
closed, running about 200 feet off both sides of the
Lindos Transit,
the group was nine miles from the coast. Timing was most important. Levy was hoping that they would not attempt to board before the three-mile limit. This would prevent many casualties. But he had heard that the British began their actions on the high seas, according to the premise that illegal blockade runners were outside the law and deserved to be treated in like fashion. The British were lords of that part of the Mediterranean anyway and could do what they wished, and they had had some outstanding failures when, like gentlemen, they had waited for the three-mile limit. Suddenly the dilapidated immigration ships could seem like speedboats and the docile Jews like polecats.

At eight and a half miles, Levy could see
Shackletoris
captain observing him through a mounted telescope. He smiled and gave a little salute. When the reconnaissance was complete, Keslake was the first to speak. His voice was powerfully amplified and it echoed off water and steel in a particularly cold-sounding series of blows: “This is Captain Keslake of H.M.S.
Shackleton.
State your nationality and destination.” Silence followed as precious seconds went by. Keslake again clicked on his microphone. “I would appreciate your statement, and advise you to comply.” Still they did not answer. Keslake glanced at the coast upon which the small group of ships was closing. “One final request from me,” he said, “is all you will get. I ask you for the third and last time to state your nationality and destination.”

Levy replied in a deliberately irritating backwoods drawl: “I'm from Virginia ... I'm going over there ... yonder.” The marines laughed and waited for their captain's reply.

“Very well for you,” said Keslake. “You are a Virginian ship heading yonder. It is illegal to go yonder. Stop your engines and stand by to receive a tow cable.”

“First of all,” answered Levy, changing his tone to one of challenging argumentation to gain time by forcing Keslake to a lengthy response, “I'm from Virginia, but the ship isn't. It is in fact of Italian registry, but it is foremost a Jewish ship. I would like to advise you, Captain, and your crew, that you are approaching Jewish territorial waters, and are subject to arrest at my discretion. Turn your ships around, and go back to Britain.” Then Levy motioned for one of his sailors to run up a string of signal flags. They read:
annuit coeptis.

Keslake smiled, trying to remember his Latin; he couldn't. All eyes were on the signal flags. Keslake turned to the junior officers on the bridge. “Does anyone remember his Latin?”

“Something about beginnings, sir,” said a navigation officer.

“Well, damn them, it looks like we'll have to go aboard. We haven't that much time to waste it on Latin mottoes. Where do they get these captains? Next thing you know, they'll be challenging us to duels and spelling bees. Prepare to board.” The claxon sounded.

Immediately Levy commanded stations ready. Laundry and washtubs were tumbled overboard, babies withdrawn, and the barbwire barricades winched to their protective positions. By this time the coast was only seven miles distant: the Carmel Range rose alluringly. It was Levy's plan to put his defenses in view or in operation not simultaneously, but as they were needed. In that way the British would never know what was next and would be forced to consider their own dispositions and responses at each juncture, allowing the coast to draw ever closer.

The marine major ordered up the wire-cutters. By the time the cutters were distributed and
Shackleton
drew closer, with
Stanford
in reserve, they were six and one half miles from the coast. Levy ordered up his final burst of steam. The destroyers adjusted their speeds. More time was gained. When
Shackleton
was about fifty feet from the
Lindos Transit,
Levy sent his main battle force on deck.

One hundred and fifty men emerged from the gangways and assembled on deck in fifteen groups of ten, looking smarter in their organization than did the British, who were grouped into rough lines. The Jews carried wicker shields almost exactly like those of their opponents. They had web belts from which hung clubs and (to Levy's surprise) knives. They were for the most part broader and more muscular than the marines, but much shorter. They had no firearms. However, four groups comprising forty men were lined up behind what Keslake had thought to be some sort of improvised chairs, which were actually rubber slings. Behind each slinger was a small pile of stones and a powder monkey, who dropped a stone into a breechlike contraption from which it was shot. The fifth group climbed into the two crow's nests and into the breastworks of steel and sandbags on the superstructure. They manned two steam hoses (from the breastworks) and three stations for throwing Molotov cocktails. “Good God,” said the British as the little army took position. Keslake was astonished, and his marines were nervous; suddenly it was no longer a picnic.
Shackleton
sailors manned machine guns, and
Stanford
trained her 115 mm.'s on the
Lindos Transit.
The coast was six miles away.

“Put down your weapons,” said Keslake. “We have vastly superior force, and are going to board.”

“Keslake...” said Levy, waiting for a long time before he finished, “I would like you to know that my name is Paul Levy. I am from Norfolk, Virginia. I spent most of my adult life fighting the Battle of the Atlantic so that convoys of our men and matériel could get to Britain. I saw a lot of my friends die, we picked up a lot of British sailors ... and you are a first-class compassionless motherfucking son of a bitch.”

This angered Keslake, but not his crew. They had not been insulted, only he. And yet, in a spirit of anger, he then ordered them to board. He realized as
Shackleton
thudded against the port side of the
Lindos Transit
and gangways were rolled over and tightened to bolt the ships together that his men were not throwing themselves across as he would have done, but were proceeding delicately. As the British sappers began to cut the wire the Jewish steam men sprayed the fences with live heat, driving the sappers back. It was so effective that a few minutes passed with no progress at all. The steam men were proud of their work and leaned over their metal barricades uncautiously. Levy saw it, and he also saw the machine gunners take aim. He did not know the nationality of the steam men. They probably spoke several different languages anyway, and there was hardly enough time. “Get back,” he screamed over his microphone. But they did not understand. A
Shackleton
machine gunner fired and killed them. One of them fell backward and landed on the deck, injuring a slinger.

The sappers dismantled the wire very quickly, and when the
Lindos Transit
was still five long miles from the Palestine coast, British marines began to board her. As they started coming down gangways and cargo nets the
Lindos Transit veered
to starboard and back again, halting them just long enough for the slingers to take aim and fire. The technique was extremely effective. The slingers had had a week of organized practice during which they fired at dummies hung from racks in the locations of possible boarding ramps and nets, and they had developed excellent aim. The first barrage was one of small pellets, perhaps ten or twenty from each sling. In half a minute more than a thousand coin-sized rocks rained down on the marines. Some were knocked unconscious and lay on the decks; some were driven back; some held; and some kept on coming. But as they were too few they were quickly subdued by the battle groups. The slingers kept on slinging, having switched from shot to rocks and rubble of considerable size. These did not hit very often but forced everyone on
Shackleton
to be extremely careful, a harassment which did not last, for the
Shackleton
gunners sprayed the decks in front of the catapults with heavy fire. As planned, Levy ordered them abandoned, and the operators rushed to the augurs and specially adapted cargo cranes. The plan was to have been the capture of the British ship by auguring into its portholes and runoff vents, dropping the cranes onto the decks like grappling hooks, and looping steel cables over its chocks and then winching them tight. Levy was to have announced to the British that if they did not retreat he would blow holes in his keel plates and scuttle the
Lindos Transit,
capsizing the British warship in the process. The
Lindos Transit
was in sufficiently critical disrepair to sink in about five minutes. In five minutes, not even the British could cut through the several grasping augurs, cables, and crane hooks, and no one could prevent the
Lindos Transit
from going under.

Keslake had not thought that he would still be fighting at only four miles from the coast. That gave him three miles, since at a mile his seventeen-foot draft would almost certainly ground him. At fourteen knots, he had about fifteen minutes to subdue the ship. He still thought he could win, but he had Haifa informed of the situation and he requested that troops be sent to the beach. Whether they would arrive on time and in sufficient number was none of his concern. Were they to be necessary it could only mean that he had failed. So he combined his anxiety and his astuteness, and quickly recognized some sort of threat in the strange machinery on the deck of his quarry. The microphone clicked its hollow echo. “If anyone touches those machines, he will be shot. Captain Levy, inform your men about this in their own language.
Shackleton
gunners, carry out this order in one minutes time.”