With the Turks in Palestine

CHAPTER X

A RASH AD­VEN­TURE

It was all very well to de­cide to leave the coun­try; to get safe­ly away was a dif­fer­ent mat­ter. There were two ways out. One of these--the land route by Con­stantino­ple--could not be con­sid­ered. The oth­er way was to board one of the Amer­ican cruis­ers which, by or­der of Am­bas­sador Mor­gen­thau, were em­pow­ered to as­sist cit­izens of neu­tral coun­tries to leave the Ot­toman Em­pire. These cruis­ers had al­ready done won­der­ful res­cue work for the Rus­sian Jews in Pales­tine, who, when war was de­clared, were to have been sent to the Mesopotami­an town of Ur­fa--there to suf­fer mas­sacre and out­rage like the Ar­me­ni­ans. This was pre­vent­ed by Mr. Mor­gen­thau's stren­uous rep­re­sen­ta­tions, with the re­sult that these Rus­sian Jews were gath­ered to­geth­er as in a great drag-​net and herd­ed to Jaf­fa, amidst suf­fer­ing un­speak­able. There they were met by the Amer­ican cruis­ers which were to trans­port them to Egypt. Up to the very mo­ment when they set foot on the friend­ly war­ships they were robbed and hor­ri­bly abused by the Jaf­fa boat­men. The eter­nal curse of the Wan­der­ing Jew! Driv­en from Rus­sia, they come to seek shel­ter in Turkey; Turkey then casts them from her un­der pre­text that they are loy­al to Rus­sia. Tru­ly, the Jew lifts his eyes to the moun­tains, ask­ing the an­cient and still unan­swered ques­tion, “Whence shall come my help?”

The Turk­ish Gov­ern­ment lat­er re­pent­ed of its le­nien­cy in al­low­ing these Rus­sian Jews to es­cape, and gave or­ders that on­ly neu­trals should leave the coun­try--and then on­ly un­der cer­tain con­di­tions. I was not a neu­tral; my first pa­pers of Amer­ican cit­izen­ship were val­ue­less to fur­ther my es­cape. I had heard, how­ev­er, that the Unit­ed States cruis­er Ten­nessee was to call at Jaf­fa, and I de­ter­mined to get aboard her by hook or by crook. One evening, as soon as dark­ness had fall­en, I bade a sor­row­ful farewell to my peo­ple, and set off for Jaf­fa, trav­el­ing on­ly by night and tak­ing out-​of-​the-​way paths to avoid the pick­ets, for now that the lo­cust cam­paign was over, my _boy­ouroul­ton_ was use­less. At dawn, two days lat­er, I slipped in­to Jaf­fa by way of the sand-​dunes and went to the house of a friend whom I could trust to help me in ev­ery pos­si­ble way, and begged him to find me a pass­port for a neu­tral. He set off in search and I wait­ed all day at his house, con­sumed with im­pa­tience and anx­iety. At last, to­ward evening, my friend re­turned, but the news he brought was not cheer­ing. He had found a pass­port, in­deed, but his re­port of the rig­ors of the in­spec­tion at the wharf was such as to make it clear that the chances of my get­ting through on a false pass­port were ex­ceed­ing­ly slim, since I was well known in Jaf­fa. If I were caught in such an un­der­tak­ing, it might mean death for me and pun­ish­ment for the friends who had helped me.

Ev­ident­ly this plan was not fea­si­ble. All that night I racked my brain for a so­lu­tion. Fi­nal­ly I de­cid­ed to stake ev­ery­thing on what ap­peared to be my on­ly chance. The Ten­nessee was due on the next day but one, ear­ly in the morn­ing. I gave my friend the name of a boat­man who was un­der obli­ga­tions to me and had sworn to be my friend for life or death. Even un­der the cir­cum­stances I hes­itat­ed to trust a Mo­hammedan, but it seemed the on­ly thing to do; I had no choice left. My friend brought the boat­man, and I put my plan be­fore him, ap­peal­ing to his dar­ing and his sense of hon­or. I want­ed him to take me at mid­night in his fish­ing-​boat from an iso­lat­ed part of the coast and wait for the ap­pear­ance of the Ten­nessee; then, on her ar­rival, amid the scram­ble of boats full of refugees, I was to jump aboard, while he would re­turn with the oth­er boats. The poor fel­low tried to re­mon­strate, point­ing out the dan­gers and what he called--right­ly enough, doubt­less--the fol­ly of the plan. I stuck to it, how­ev­er, mak­ing it clear that his part would be well paid for, and at last he con­sent­ed and we ar­ranged a meet­ing-​place be­hind the sand-​dunes by the shore.

I put a few per­son­al be­long­ings in­to a lit­tle suit-​case and had my friend give it to one of the refugees who was to sail on the Ten­nessee. If I suc­ceed­ed, I was to re­cov­er it when we reached Egypt. The on­ly thing I took with me was the pa­per which de­clared my “in­ten­tion of be­com­ing an Amer­ican cit­izen,” the “first pa­per.” From this doc­ument I was de­ter­mined not to part. I shall not tell how I kept it on me, as the means I used may still be used by oth­ers in con­ceal­ing such pa­pers and a dis­clo­sure of the se­cret might bring dis­as­ter to them. Suf­fice it to say that I had the pa­per with me and that no search would have brought it to light.

Ar­rived next morn­ing at the ap­point­ed place, I gave the sig­nal agreed up­on, the whine of a jack­al, and, af­ter re­peat­ing it again and again, I heard a very low and muf­fled an­swer. My boat­man was there! I had some fear that he might have be­trayed me and that I should present­ly see a sol­dier or po­lice­man leap out of the lit­tle boat, but my fears proved ground­less, the man was faith­ful.

[IL­LUS­TRA­TION: STORMY SEA BREAK­ING OVER ROCKS OFF JAF­FA]

We rowed out qui­et­ly, our boat a lit­tle nut­shell on the toss­ing waves. But I was re­lieved; the el­ements did not fright­en me; on the con­trary, I felt se­cure and re­freshed in the midst of the sea. When morn­ing be­gan to dawn, scores of lit­tle boats came out of the har­bor and cir­cled about wait­ing for the cruis­er. This was our chance. I crouched in the bot­tom of our boat and to all ap­pear­ances my boat­man was en­gaged mere­ly in fish­ing. Af­ter I had lain there over an hour with my heart beat­ing like a drum and with small hopes for the suc­cess of my un­der­tak­ing, I heard at last the whis­tle of the ap­proach­ing cruis­er fol­lowed by a Ba­bel of mad shout­ing and curs­ing among the boat­men. In the con­fu­sion I felt it safe to sit up. No one paid the slight­est at­ten­tion to me. All were en­gaged in a wild race to reach and mount the Ten­nessee's lad­der. I scram­bled up with the rest, and when, on the deck, an of­fi­cer de­mand­ed my pass­port, I put on a bold front and asked him to tell Cap­tain Deck­er that Mr. Aaron­sohn wished to see him.

Ten min­utes lat­er I stood in the cap­tain's cab­in. There I un­fold­ed my sto­ry, and wound up by ask­ing him if, un­der the cir­cum­stances, my “first pa­pers” might not en­ti­tle me to pro­tec­tion. As I spoke I could see the strug­gle that was go­ing on with­in him. When he an­swered it was to ex­plain, with the ut­most kind­ness, that if he took me aboard his ship it would be to for­feit his word of hon­or to the Turk­ish Gov­ern­ment, his pledge to take on­ly cit­izens of neu­tral coun­tries; that he could not con­sid­er me an Amer­ican on the strength of my first pa­pers; and that any such eva­sion might lead to se­ri­ous com­pli­ca­tions for him and for his Gov­ern­ment. Well, there was noth­ing for me to do but to with­draw and go back to Jaf­fa to face tri­al for an at­tempt to es­cape.

When I reached the deck again I found it swarm­ing with refugees, many of whom knew me and came up to con­grat­ulate me on get­ting away. I could on­ly shake my head and with death in my heart de­scend the Ten­nessee's lad­der. It did not mat­ter now what boat I took. Any boat­man was ea­ger enough to take me for a few cents. As I sat in the boat, ev­ery stroke of the oars bring­ing me near­er to the shore and to what I felt was in­evitable cap­tiv­ity, a great bit­ter­ness swelled my heart. I was tired, ut­ter­ly tired of all the dan­gers and tri­als I had been go­ing through for the last months. From de­pres­sion I sank in­to de­spair and out of de­spair came, strange to say, a great seren­ity, the seren­ity of de­spair.

On the quay I ran in­to Has­san Bey, com­man­dant of the po­lice, who was su­per­in­tend­ing the em­barka­tion of refugees. I knew him and he knew me. Half an hour lat­er I was in po­lice head­quar­ters un­der ex­am­ina­tion by Has­san Bey. I was des­per­ate, and an­swered him reck­less­ly. A sea­sick man is in­dif­fer­ent to ship­wreck. This was the sub­stance of our con­ver­sa­tion:--

“How did you get aboard the ship?”

“In a boat with some refugees. A wom­an hid me with her skirts.”

“So you were try­ing to es­cape, were you?”

“If I had been, I shouldn't have come back.”

“Then what did you do on the cruis­er?”

“I went to talk to the cap­tain, who is a friend of mine. My life is in dan­ger. Fewzi Bey is af­ter me, and I want­ed _my friends in Amer­ica_ to know how jus­tice is done in Pales­tine.”

“Who are your friends in Amer­ica?”

“Men who could break you in a minute.”

“Do you know to whom you are speak­ing?”

“Yes, Has­san Bey. I am sick of per­se­cu­tion. I wish you would hang me with your own hands as you hanged the young Chris­tian; my friends would have your life for mine.”

I won­der now how I dared to speak to him in this man­ner. But the bluff car­ried. Has­san Bey looked at me cu­ri­ous­ly for a mo­ment--then smiled and of­fered me a cigarette, as­sur­ing me that he be­lieved me a loy­al cit­izen, and declar­ing he felt deeply hurt that I had not come to him for per­mis­sion to vis­it the cruis­er. We part­ed with a pro­fu­sion of East­ern com­pli­ments, and that evening I start­ed back to Zi­cron-​Ja­cob.

[IL­LUS­TRA­TION: THE AU­THOR'S SIS­TER ON HER HORSE TAYAR]