CHAPTER 1

The ceremony was held, as scheduled, mid-morning, though the security patrol was already hours late. The kibbutz members were too busy doing their necessary chores to keep track of what their Japanese visitors were doing. And to the casual eye it seemed appropriate for Rabbi Spanbock to give them a tour of the facilities built since their last visit – including the Mikvah, a rude hut next to the synagogue containing the immersion pool.

Further delay was unwarranted, the worried Chaim Shapira assured himself. The patrol, which included the brothers of his new daughter-in-law, was being advised by the battle-hardened British Captain Wingate, and would probably return safely in time for the celebration.

In a small changing room the three silent Japanese, backs to each other, took off their clothes and slipped into the gray cotton robes provided for them. The elder Mashima bowed gravely to his wife, then to his son, before going out to the Rabbi Spanbock, a bearded giant waiting by the pool.

"You realize this is the final step?" demanded the Rabbi. "After this there can be no turning back."

"I understand," Mashima replied.

“Then you may enter the pool, symbol of the Jewish faith, and immerse yourself completely," the Rabbi said. Closing his eyes, he began to chant in Hebrew, a sing-song that Mashima thought held vague similarities to certain Asian music.

Without hesitation, Mashima strode into the pool until the water rose over his head. He stayed as long as his breath held, as if to assure himself that his every pore and strand of hair was thoroughly inundated with his new religion, before slowly, and with pride, walking out of the pool.

When it came Nobuta 's turn she did not hesitate either. Looking directly into the Rabbi's demanding eyes, she answered his questions, then entered the pool swiftly as her husband had. A simple woman whose devotion to her family transcended personal wants, Nobuta prayed that this fierce new God they were embracing would protect them from the terrifying future, about which her husband had predicted such dire consequences.

Kenzo, alone in the waiting room, heard the knock summoning him with pounding heart. Though he opened the door immediately, his step was slow, and not solely from the painful circumcision he had endured the night before.

To one descended from Samurai, pain was to be embraced, not shunned. And the decision whether or not to accept this new and somewhat forbidding faith, with its demanding and sometimes vengeful God, had been his alone.

Kenzo’s father had allowed him complete freedom to choose. His early and sometimes skeptical curiosity had gradually changed into a respect for, and then acceptance of what seemed to him profound truths, leading him to give himself over to the tenets of his new faith freely and without coercion.

But could any ceremony completely erase the traditions into which he had been born? Not one to take his obligations, either temporal or spiritual, lightly, Kenzo approached this irrevocably final moment with trepidation.

"You realize," the Rabbi thundered, in a voice that seemed to reverberate inside Kenzo's skull, "that after this there is no turning back?"

"Yes, I realize that," Kenzo replied.

"Then you may – if you so choose," the Rabbi said, looking closely at the convert as if to discern whether any last minute doubts had surfaced in this handsome, if inscrutable, young man's closely-barbered head, "you may walk into the pool, symbol of the Jewish faith."

Kenzo hesitated only a moment, then, taking a deep breath, he strode into the water. When he finally came up, gasping for air, all of his doubts seemed to have been washed away.

Meanwhile, more than an hour and eight kilometers distance from the Kibbutz, the patrol Shapira had worried about was scattered about a tall rock formation rising up from the burning sands of the desert floor. They were hidden from the view of all except the two men in charge.

They made an unlikely pair: the tall, heavy-set, intense young man wearing only sweat-stained shirt, shorts and the heavy work shoes of the kibbutz, and the small, deceptively frail, impeccably turned out older man in the pith helmet and tailored khakis of the British army.

Orde Wingate, who wore a Captain’s pips on his uniform collar, had found a shadowy cleft in which he could comfortably lean, and read with close attention from a leather-bound book.

Aaron Eldar carried a rifle slung ready to hand over one wide shoulder. His two-day beard bleached near golden under the blazing sun, he moved restlessly from spire to crest, occasionally motioning to one or another of the half-dozen men, dressed as he was, to change positions from where they were crouched behind the rocks below. Continuing to shade his searching eyes, he tried to find a vantage point to gain a more unobstructed view of the ravine winding its tortuous way through the formation hundreds of feet below.

From time to time he turned to glare at the Captain. But the other seemed oblivious to his irritation.

"You consider what you're reading more important than this mission?" Aaron burst out finally.

The Captain looked up, his china blue eyes seeming to penetrate to Aaron's soul. "I would say so," he said. "Since it deals with the word of God. It's the bible, you see."

"If the committee had known you were so religious," Aaron said, scornfully, "they may not have been so quick to put you in charge of us!"

"Perhaps not," the Captain agreed.

"I don't see why they would trust any British officer to advise us on how to exact our revenge on these cowardly murderers," Aaron said, the other’s equanimity causing him to release his barely suppressed anger. "Go home and let us fight our own battles!"

"You would have to display more skill than you have so far," the Captain said.

"Just because I'm young doesn't mean I'm inexperienced," Aaron protested. "I personally killed two Arabs when they attacked our kibbutz!"

"And lost how many men?" the Captain inquired.

"They lured us into a trap," Aaron muttered, hiding his distress that men under his command had been lost.

"Precisely," the Captain said. "And this time will be different only if you can show some patience."

"Patience?" Aaron complained. "They wouldn't have gotten away if we had retaliated immediately!"

"They were hoping you would come after them," the Captain said. "You would have suffered even greater losses, losses you cannot afford. Now they feel secure, believing you are intimidated. With your Sabbath approaching, they will expect to find you unprepared, as before. If you hope to best your opponent you must learn to think with his mind. Courage – which is not displayed by making yourself a target – is not enough."

"What makes you think they're going to come back down this way?" Aaron asked, grudgingly respectful.

"Because they don’t know that you've discovered how they come in and out," the Captain said. “Which they would have done had I allowed you to pursue them. They also believe you kibbutzniks are creatures of habit, devoted to finishing your chores before the sun goes down so you can clean up before your prayers, making yourself easy marks for the more wily Arab. Trust me, they'll be careless as punters heading for a cricket match."

Aaron gazed at the other, fascinated, beginning to understand how the kibbutz’s leaders had come to trust this strange Englishman.

"But what if your country decides to go against us?" Aaron couldn't help asking.

"I am doing what I can to see that doesn't happen," the Captain replied. "Why do you think General Evetts and the British Command in Tel Aviv let me organize these patrols?"

"You convinced them of that?" a surprised Aaron asked.

"I did. And now at British headquarters in London they’re considering my plan to take some of the Jewish Agency's most promising young men for advanced training abroad," the Captain said.

"Which young men?" Aaron asked. "What kind of training? Where abroad?"

"All in good time," the Captain replied. He was returning to the contemplation of his bible when they heard a sudden rockfall.

The Captain's gun was drawn and cocked and Aaron's rifle unslung when a shock of curly black hair growing wildly over a wide-eyed, sunburned face rose slowly up from behind a rock.

"Hey, don't shoot – it's me, David," the face said, a grin bunching his cheeks into those of an engaging squirrel.

"What do you think you're doing?" Aaron demanded. "We might have killed you! Think what your mother would say!"

"They’ve buried explosives at key points on our road, just as the Captain said they would," David said, brushing aside his brother's concern. "Our brother has gone to tell Chaim Shapira where, while I followed them into the hills..."

"Murdering bastards!" Aaron muttered.

"...and once I was certain they were returning, and taking the ravine back to take us by surprise I outran them to warn you they were coming," David boasted.

"See that gully below? Get down there and wait till I tell you otherwise," Aaron ordered, still shaky from thinking how close he'd come to pulling the trigger.

"Down there?" David complained. "You're sending me so far from the action I'll be lucky even to see a terrorist, let alone kill one!"

"He'd be more useful at the top of that hill," the Captain quietly interposed, pointing out the site to Aaron. "When the Arabs come into view, his would be the first shot."

"Oh, yes, please!" David cried, looking from the Captain to his brother, who did not respond.

"But will you do exactly as I say?" the Captain asked.

"I will!" David cried.

"You don't know what yet," Aaron reminded him.

"See beyond that tower of rock? Where two paths cross?" the Captain asked. David nodded, excited. "They will have to come single file," the Captain continued. "If they take the path toward you, fire when the first man appears around that rockfall. But if they take the path away from you, you must stay quiet and do nothing. Do you understand? Can you follow my instructions?"

"I can! I will! Oh, bloody good show!" David cried, saluting the Captain in a makeshift version of the British army salute. He gave another, triumphant look at Aaron, then scrambled toward the indicated position.

"You're a clever fellow," Aaron said, when certain David was out of earshot.

"How old’s your brother?" the Captain asked.

"Sixteen," Aaron replied. "I didn't want to involve him, but in our situation even sixteen year olds have to fight. At sixteen our father, Yitzhak, may he rest in peace, had already fought the Russian police while they stood by during a pogrom. By my age, twenty, he'd joined the Jewish Legion, where he won your military cross battling the Turks. By twenty-four he was one of two commanders of the Haganah, then helped found the Kibbutz Bar Gorea!"

"It's because of your father I came to Bar Gorea," the Captain said.

Before the suddenly curious Aaron could ask about that, the Captain was looking at the position of the sun, now low in the afternoon sky. "If they come, it’ll be just before dark," he said, and buttoning his bible securely into his pocket, moved away from Aaron to a better position on the outcropping.

The wait seemed interminable. Aaron lay, like the Captain, prone behind a fall of rock, a cleft giving him a view of the crossing ravines, as well of David's position across the gulf to the right. The Captain seemed comfortably nestled, his khakis blending into the landscape. To the casual glance he might have seemed asleep, while Aaron squirmed impatiently,raising his head frequently to scan the distance for any sign the thwarted Arabs might be coming.

Surprisingly enough – to Aaron, who prided himself on his sharp vision, and wanted desperately to be first to sound the alarm – it was Captain Wingate who spotted them.

They came swiftly, a baker's dozen bearing a variety of arms, including a round standpipe that Wingate recognized as a makeshift mortar, grouped in twos and threes, their normally flowing robes belted with ammunition, hawk-like faces darkened to the shade of night so as not to reflect the setting sun, or, soon, the brightening half moon, already risen.

Wingate raised himself up slightly, caught Aaron's eye, put his finger to his lips, then pointed out the oncoming band. Making not the slightest sound, Wingate rose to his feet, and, making sure to keep the rock formations between himself and even an errant glance up from those below, made his way around the outcropping to his left, where he signaled across the ravine to the nearest man, a bearded kibbutznik named Shlomo, cautioning him, by pantomime, to wait for his signal before firing.

Shlomo, in turn, signaled his nearest companion, who passed it on to the next man, and on to the next and next down the line of eight.

Wingate came back to his original position. Nodding at Aaron, he pointed to where David squatted behind a shattered boulder on the opposite side, chewing his nails, periodically raising his head to peer over the broken rock.

Aaron picked up a stone and whistled it at his brother's hiding place.

David whipped his head round, saw Aaron, turned wide-eyed to see where his brother was pointing.

Immediately, David became terribly excited. His heart started to pound. It became difficult to get enough breath. The rifle, a British Enfield that had belonged to their father, seemed slippery in his grasp. Sucking in deep, shuddering breaths, David wiped sweat from his eyes, then placing the rifle in a cleft of rock, he rubbed the palm of each hand down his dampening shirt front. Then placing his sweaty cheek against the smooth-grained wood stock, he aimed his weapon in the direction Aaron had indicated.

Keeping his sights trained on where one path became two just beyond the tower of rock, David began curling his stiffened trigger finger into and out of his palm to make sure it would keep functioning.

The first man appeared so suddenly David blinked to make sure it wasn't a mirage. Then behind the first appeared another, then another and another. As they crossed the V of his rifle sight, he began to make out individual features. Murderers! he reminded himself. They, or others like them, had killed two men of the Kibbutz.

If they choose the other path, I can -- must -- wait and do nothing, he reminded himself. If they choose this path, I must -- can I? -- shoot the first man who appears.

His teeth ached. His eyes stung with sweat. Not tears? He could not seem to get his thoughts in order.

Aaron watched the first Arab in line hesitate at the crossing, looking both ways. Choose the other path! Aaron silently pleaded. But the man, bearded, like the religious Jews, took the path toward David.

What was David doing? Aaron asked himself, as he watched his brother lift and lower his rifle. If he did not fire the minute the first man came around the outcropping they would be upon him and past, away from where Wingate and Aaron and the kibutzniks waited. “Get ready!” Aaron muttered, willing David to hear him.

David, squinting to clear his vision, waited till the Arab leading the band came around the tower of rock, finally managed to place the V of the rifle sight in the middle of the Arab's chest, just where his ammunition belts crossed. Holding his breath, moving the rifle slightly from side to side to follow the Arab, who had a rocking gait, David closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.

And nothing happened. He had forgotten to take the safety off! Panting, he opened his eyes, becoming frantic as a second man appeared. David jammed the small metal safety piece forward, slitting his thumb. Eyes stinging and blurred with sweat and terror and shame, he dimly saw the second man appear in his V sight. This time, when the rifle kicked back against his shoulder, David knew that the gun had fired, though he heard the shot only in memory, and then heard it again and again as the sound ricocheted down the walls of the ravine.

The leading Arab froze. The second man clutched his stomach and stared in bewilderment at the blood seeping through his fingers. Dropping to his knees, he slowly bent forward till his head touched the dust, as if kneeling in apologetic obeisance to his wrathful Islamic God.

The other Arab shouted, waving the others back. In a moment all was chaos. The Arabs turned as one and ran toward the second path, unslinging their weapons as they went, preparing for the worst -- which immediately came. As Wingate gave the watched for signal, the Jews hidden in the rocks opened fire. Several more Arabs fell, crying out for Allah's mercy as they dropped. The survivors rushed for cover, sprawling behind scrub brush and rocks, firing blindly in both directions.

Above them Aaron and Wingate opened fire. The Captain stood in a classic firing range position, shoulder to the action to present a narrower target, triggering each shot at a different target; Aaron, cold as winter, squeezed off each shot as if he had all the time in the world.

David, meanwhile, could not take his terrified eyes off the kneeling Arab, who continued to moan into the dust. As the cries and shouts of the other Arabs rose in volume, David became aware that the action was now out of his range of vision. Rousing himself, he cocked another round into the rifle's firing chamber, and running out from behind his cover toward the sound of the fighting, took a circuitous route to avoid the fallen man.

Aaron, from his vantage point high above, saw him first. "Get back!" he shouted, almost overwhelmed by rage and fear, standing up as David came rushing down the ravine into the middle of the crossfire. "Get under cover, you little brat!"

Bullets snapped by David's head like infuriated wasps. He crouched, and turned to run back the way he had come – too late. He felt a blow in his left leg, and it crumpled under him, sending him sprawling... and saving his life.

The firing by the kibbutzniks ceased. In the momentary lull, the two Arabs carrying the mortar managed to set it up. They fired two rounds. One hit just below the frenzied Aaron and the cooler Wingate, throwing up a fountain of dirt and rocks, causing both to lose their footing. The other hit on the flat, sending a spray of shrapnel hissing like malevolent hail past where David had been standing just a moment before.

Aaron recovered first. Picking himself up, sick with fear for his brother, raging against those who might have killed him, he began running down the treacherous slope toward the mortar, firing from the hip. The two Arabs struggled frantically to aim their weapon at this madman charging them. Higher up, Wingate, on his feet again, calmly re-loaded, and draping himself across a flattened boulder, provided covering fire to keep the other Arabs under cover.

One of the Arabs dropped the mortar shell and fled. The other rose to meet Aaron, drawing a wicked looking, crescent-shaped knife. Aaron, using the rifle sling as a catapult, whipped his rifle at the man, now screaming obscenities at him in Arabic. The gun stock caught the Arab in the throat, and the man dropped, suddenly silent, his windpipe crushed.

While Wingate called a halt to the chase of the few fleeing Arabs who had survived, Aaron hastened to his brother. David lay white-faced, clutching his leg, aware of his narrow escape.

"You froze!" Aaron raged, paling at the look of his brother's leg, whipping off his belt to use as a tourniquet.

"I still got one," David muttered, barely able to speak. "The others ran."

"You what?" Aaron demanded, when he had finally staunched the flow of blood.

"I killed one," David said, more loudly.

"You almost got yourself killed, you mean!" Aaron exploded.

"He's alive," David said. "Over there," he went on, too weak to point. "Help him."

"I'll help him," Aaron muttered. But when he rolled the Arab over – after making sure the other was incapable of doing him harm – Aaron found himself surprisingly gentle. To no avail. The man was dead.

After tending to their own wounds -- mostly cuts and bruises from those few frantic minutes of the fire fight -- they buried the seven dead Arabs where they had fallen. Afterward, Aaron was impatient to get his brother home. But Wingate delayed long enough to offer a prayer in the name of Allah.

"What kind of Englishman are you?" Aaron demanded, when the Captain had finished. "You read the English Bible, you know how to pray in Arabic, yet you fight with the Jews..."

“As a member of the Plymouth Brethren," the Captain said, "I consider it a singular honor to fight on the side of the Jews!”

“The Plymouth Brethren?” Aaron repeated.

“We believe in the Cause of Zion. Our Puritan forebears were the original Zionists – in 1621 they invited Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel from Holland to join them, believing that if the Jews settled in England, and America, the 'scattering' prophesied by Daniel would be complete."

When the Captain strode off, a chastened Aaron returned to the grave sites. Bowing his head, he muttered an amen, though not loud enough for anyone, save his brother, to hear.