The Gates of Zion Read Online Free PDF

the stale hold. He adjusted his collar and lowered his head, then staggered forward around coils of rope and fishing nets. When this leaky vessel was not carrying illegal passengers, it doubled as a sardine
    boat. Appropriate, mused Moshe, the way they jam everyone into this tin can .
    Its captain, a surly Rumanian Jew named Ehud Schiff, actually made a legitimate living as a fisherman. For his illegitimate activities, his only reward was the satisfaction that the cargo he delivered to Palestine passed right under the noses of nearly the entire British fleet. Moshe knew that Ehud ran the blockade as much to spite the English as from a sense of patriotism or compassion.
    Grizzled and hairy, smelling like yesterday’s catch, Ehud Schiff was the elite of the blockade runners. He and his wretched little boat had tallied a neat total of twelve hundred refugees in the last four months alone. Considering that the British legally allowed only fifteen hundred Jews into the country each month, his was an impressive accomplishment. And Ehud Schiff was only one of many who risked the loss of their boats and imprisonment if they were caught. Bits and pieces of other small craft often floated in the water near Tel Aviv and Haifa after attempting the same feat.
    Moshe looked toward Ehud at the helm and smiled. Many were the times he could remember coming in after a particularly difficult run, and as they passed the wreckage of a less fortunate vessel, Ehud would murmur to his old ship, “Close your eyes, my darling. Take no notice, my love.” Then he would run his gnarled, weather-cracked hands over the ship’s wheel as if he were caressing the face of his beloved.
    Perhaps the most amusing detail about Ehud and his sardine boat was her name: Ave Maria . To name a Jewish sardine boat “Hail Mary”
    seemed odd, to say the least.
    “I bought the boat in Italy,” Ehud would growl when questioned.
    “Mary was Jewish and she carried a Jewish child. Is this not a proper name for my angel?”
    No one argued. A rabbi or two might have looked askance, but the British navy had never once detained the Ave Maria when her hold was “with child.” And those to whom she gave life in the land of Palestine blessed her barnacle-encrusted hulk.
    Moshe again braced himself in the prow of the ship and gazed toward Tel Aviv. He could see the outlines of battleships resting at anchor. He strained his eyes for details, then lifted the binoculars that dangled around his neck. There, in the reflection of the city lights, he saw something that made his heart catch and then beat a hard counterpoint to his boat’s chugging engine. From between two anchored British ships, the running lights of a third ship were moving out in a direct course toward the Ave Maria .
    One glance told him all. Moshe bounded up the ladder to where Ehud stood at the helm.
    “I spotted her, too,” Ehud said as Moshe sprang to his side. “A gunboat.”
    “Yes.” Moshe could feel the tingle of sweat between his shoulder blades. “She’s moving top speed out of the harbor.”
    “Got someone in her gunsights.”
    “We’re directly on her course. No use trying to make a run for it,”
    Moshe reasoned. “We’ve got five minutes at most before she intercepts us.”
    Ehud stroked the smooth wood of the wheel. “Ah, my darling,” he said sadly to the ship, “you are beautiful, but you are too slow, eh?”
    “So if we can’t outrun them, we’ll have to outtalk them. They won’t board with seas like this.”
    “But they can force us back into the harbor. Or blow us out of the water.”
    Moshe started back down the steps. “Turn around, Ehud,” he instructed. “To sea.”
    Moshe groped his way down the hatch as the Ave Maria swung wildly around. The swinging lantern in the hold illuminated the fear on the faces of the men and women. They needed no explanation. It was plain enough from the vessel’s change of direction and Moshe’s face that something had gone wrong.