CHAPTER 14 - Avshalom in Egypt, Operation Locust and Avshalom's Arrest

Absa in Port Said, Egypt

And so it was that on August 29th in the early hours of the morning, Avshalom said good bye to Aron and left for the harbour, looking very sure of himself. It was the last departure of the American ship, the ‘Des Moines’.

As Absa wrote later: “After a series of small frauds, falsification of a Russian passport, a slight disguise, etc. in other words with not much skill but a lot of chutzpah, I could verify the proverb that ‘Fortune favours the brave’.”

**** 

Absa in Disguise with the the American ship, ‘Des Moines, 1915

Avshalom at Customs in Jaffa Port, walking with a heavy gait, he wears a false moustache, dark sunglasses and an extravagantly battered hat, carrying a small suitcase and bottle of vodka under his arm. The American Warship, ‘Des Moines’ is anchored on the quay as before. The Same Turkish Customs Man as dealt with Alex and Rifka, stares, checks the passport, looks again at Avshalom and the bottle he is carrying.        

    “Russian?” he says wearily.

Avshalom mumbles in a mixture of Russian and French, waving his bottle: “Trés Bien. Nostarovia. Stolishnaya Vodka! Da!”

The Custom’s Man waves him on with a look that says, how ridiculous the Russians are!

When the ship left harbour and its flag was taken down, Absa, ever the self-deprecating clown, described his feelings: “I think the beautiful stars of the flag were never saluted with so light and grateful a heart, and with such artistic antics, for I got rid of all the accessories with which I had provided myself - a baroque hat,  outrageous eye-glasses, and a momentary seriousness of mien.”

On board the ‘Des Moines’ he throws his hat, sunglasses - and moustache - into the sea, under the disbelieving eyes of an American missionary who has just completed her good work in benighted Palestine in the name of Jesus Christ.

    “Well I never!” says this officer of God, clutching the railings.

Avshalom proceeds to finish off his vodka, the empty bottle following his discarded disguise, into the deep, blue sea.

**** 

Port Said - Suez Canal

On 30 August 1915, he arrived in Port Said in Egypt and luckily, unlike Alex, who went unknown to Cairo, Absa had a contact to greet him.

As you can see in the diary that accompanied our narrator through all his many and varied travels:

‘I had the address of a friend of mine, Charles Boutagy - Charlie - a Greek-Orthodox Lebanese who so happened to have a job at British Naval Intelligence in Port Said. And Charlie took me straight to Lt. Woolley, who would prove to be one of our greatest supporters.’

‘Lt. Woolley’, as Aron would later write, ‘is that rarity among the English. He has intuition. He can sense things.’

What Aron actually meant was that most of the Brits he met were dyed-in-the-wool antisemites, their sentiments imbibed though years of Sunday School studies where Hebrews were portrayed as Christ killers and miscreants, added to by an innate dislike, of what they considered to be, noisy, avaricious money-lenders, cheats and rich bankers, with whom for them, Jews were associated.

****

Port Said Harbour

But more on the charming Charles Boutagy, member of a prominent Christian family in Haifa. Absa, as it happened, was a friend of Charles's father, Theophile Boutagy. Boutagy, senior, was well-known in Palestinian society. As well as a prominent businessman, he served as translator - ‘dragoman’ for the American consulate and had studied at the American University in Beirut. 

Boutagy & Sons Advertisment for His Master’s Voice

Boutagy and Sons was famous for the sale of His Master’s Voice gramophones, which spread its  music - with its famous logo of a dog peering into the horn of a phonograph - across Palestine and Transjordan, in addition to importing and servicing radios, which contributed significantly to the flows of information of all kinds. Based on this relationship, Charles served as an intermediary between Avshalom and Leonard Woolley.

Charlie & his Christian Lebanese Boutagy Family

Charlie’s affinity for the British was evident, he had joined the congregation of the Anglican Evangelical Episcopal Church in Haifa and he was adamant that he would not join the Ottoman military. Instead he had left Haifa and Palestine and gone to Egypt, where he joined thousands of other Syrians and Palestinians who had fled Ottoman military service. He spoke Arabic, English, and French fluently  and having proven his ability to provide useful intelligence to the British, Charles ‘asked General Clayton as to what job he could offer me. He said that the best he could do was to nominate me as a second class interpreter at the Citadel of Cairo at a wage of English pounds 15 per month.’ Not a huge sum but Charlie had other means due to his father’s businesses all over the Levant, and he jumped at the chance.

In his memoirs Charlie described the close relationship between him and British intelligence in Egypt, describing too, his involvement in the web that linked individuals from Palestine and Syria, enlisting them in the work of collecting information and transmitting it to British intelligence. In this capacity, Charlie was put to work gathering information to serve the landing operations at the shores of Atlit, south of Haifa. His relationship with the Nili spies was both intimate and personal. He got on well with Aron, less so with Alex, but Avshalom was a genuine friend, they had dined together at his father’s table many times and they shared many interests.

T.E. Lawrence & Leonard Woolley, 1912

Charlie, was too, an acquaintance of Second Lieutenant - as he was then -  T. E. Lawrence from the Military Intelligence office and describes meeting him ‘whilst we were having dinner at my Uncle's house’ and that Lawrence had insisted ‘I should report to him at his office on 9th December. He introduced me to Major S F Newcombe who was in charge and to Captain Lloyd - the son of the then British Prime Minister, Lawrence was number three. We sat around a table and they informed me that their ambition was to form a network of spies to get as much information as possible about the enemy's movements. They asked me if I would go back to live there and send them what information they wanted by hiding my reports under a rock at the beach near Atlit from which spot their ships could pick it up at night. I told them that for me to return to Haifa was out of the question. First of all I had  been warned through my father that the Germans had blacklisted me because I sang ‘God Save the King’. Secondly, that I was of military age and, if caught, would be sent to do my military service, a thing I did not under any circumstances, wish to do.’

According to Charles’ memoirs, Lawrence even taught him how to place dynamite to blow up bridges and how to climb a telegraph pole, cut off the line and refix it so that the Turks would not know where it had been cut - thus preventing information getting through and thwarting and infuriating the Turks. 

There is an unusual omission in Charlie's memoir. Despite the very clear references to meetings and joint activities with Nili, he never mentions the Aronsons by name, neither Aron nor Alex. This might be explained by the fact that many in Haifa, including his family, considered him a traitor and informer for his work for the British. 

The Boutagy Brothers at the Windsor Hotel, Haifa

It should be mentioned that Charlie survived the war and went on to own the very smart Windsor Hotel in Haifa. The prestigious family Boutagy, however, was severely impacted after the 1948 war and most left the country stateless, for Lebanon and Australia.

**** 

Lieutenant Charles Leonard Woolley, Port Said

British Naval Intelligence, Port Said. Absa, climbs the stairs jauntily with his colleague and friend Charlie Boutagy. He is ushered into the office of archaeologist, Lieutenant Leonard Woolley - a sympathetic looking man, who seems to know something of Zionism, puffs on his pipe and appears to be struck by Avshalom’s ‘infectious passion and shining eyes’.

    “Ah, Lieutenant Aron’s man, Charlie’s friend. How can we help you?”


Absa is ready with his reply: “It’s we, who would like to help you, Lieutenant - In your operations against the Turks.”

Lieutenant Woolley raises his bushy eyebrows and refills his pipe.

Avshalom continues with a well prepared response: “We can offer you armed rebellion or intelligence, or both.”

Woolley’s eyebrows rise even higher: “Don’t speak to me of rebellion,” he says, “but yes, we can use your people at Atlit for intelligence.”

A cordial relationship between the two men developed and left Avshalom in no doubt as to what was required of him: numbers and descriptions of arms, military personnel, crops, food prices and Turkish military plans.

And so it was that in the spring of 1915, Avshalom wrote joyfully to Aron’s sponsor Henrietta Szold in New York, who was responsible for the station in Atlit, detailing his activities and the prospect of co operation with the Allies.  

‘The die is cast. Our fate becomes more and more linked  to the Allied cause!’

Avshalom’s enthusiasm for the British became even more extravagant: ‘If there is a nation whose attitude towards us is even finer than that of America, which is above all praise, it is that of the English nation. For if America offered its bread and gold to those who need it, England let this bread and gold into an enemy country; sent it, almost. And with what delicacy, what discretion..’ 

Leonard Woolley, did not merely agree to the idea of forming a spy network, he also organised for Absa to receive very practical lessons in signaling and coding methods in order to communicate with the ship that would come each month to pick up intelligence. As well as asking Avshalom to provide information about the Turkish army and also the matter of two British pilots whose aircraft had crashed in the Negev Desert. A matter, sadly,  never resolved...

However, little of this was relayed to his superiors, an omission that would cause a lot of fuss in the future. 

Avshalom said goodbye to his friends, Charlie and Lt. Woolley. He was now stationed in Alexandria, where in October of that year he again wrote a long report - two hundred typewritten pages - to Henrietta Szold in New York. 

Absa's Report Written from Alexandria to Henrietta Szold

A rambling, passionate mélange of poetry, politics, schemes and rumours, written in beautifully crafted French and confirming the actions to which he was now devoting his life. Included in this report is what may be the first written testimony from the Land of Israel about the Armenian genocide. Under the heading ‘Disturbing Facts and Rumours,’ our brave buccaneer and balladeer, wrote: ‘The Armenians are being murdered en masse... Their men in labour battalions are being shot en masse. They are starved and tortured.’

He wrote too of the persecution of the Jewish community back home and the violence of the Ottoman Officers in his own, very recent, arrest and imprisonment: ‘The Officer sent to the location believed, therefore, that his patriotic duty obliged him to suspect everyone, examine everything,  and behave like a real tyrant, enacting laws and prohibitions typical of Turkish foolishness...  My God, when I think of how much we have been enraged, angered, and fumed, because of these vile tyrants, who only recently received their Officer ranks, I conclude that these petty matters depressed our spirits much more than the great dangers we face when your will drives you to stand in the breach... Due to these daily troubles, our lives became unbearable, hard to bear.’

The report was smuggled out of Egypt in the silk-lining of some luggage belonging to a Jewish refugee who had been expelled from Jaffa by the Turks. Avshalom also found out from family of this particular refugee, who had come to see their relative off, that Alex and Rifka were still stuck in Gibraltar waiting for a ship to take them to the still, neutral USA. 

He also discovered that his cousin and fellow Yishuvnik, Raphael Aboulafia, had been wounded in Gallipoli and was convalescing in Alexandria. 

Raphael as a Boy & Young Man

Cousin Raphael was that rarity, dark, handsome, a calm, solid presence, as patriotic as Avshalom and only three years younger. Their mothers were cousins, both from Russia, and his father was an Aboulafia - an ancient and renowned family of Sephardi Jews who had lived for a long time in the East and were known for their scholarship and business nous. Rabbis and politicians, among them, their home was in Gallipoli, and Raphael had been called up for the Turkish cavalry when the war began. 

He definitely wasn’t going to fight for the Turks, so seeing that Jews were being expelled from Jaffa, he joined that throng of refugees and became a regimental sergeant for the short-lived Zion Mule Corps under none other than Joseph Trumpeldor. 

Raphael in the Zion Mule Corps

Which was how Raphael got injured when a shell exploded while he was having breakfast. 

Zion Mule Corps Gallipoli

A wartime diary of 1916 ‘With the Zionists in Gallipoli’ by Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, records the following: ‘During the course of our stay here we gradually excavated and enlarged our dwelling and burrowed down into the ground, making a cellar into which we could retire in case the shelling became too hot, but, as a matter of fact, though the bombardment at times was hot enough to satisfy the most desperate fire-eater, we used our bomb proof entirely as a pantry, for which we found it most useful. No sooner had we settled down to life in our new bivouac than the Turks began to annoy us by dropping shells into it and disturbing our peace of mind and body. On the morning following our arrival, while we were having breakfast under the spreading branches of our olive tree, a shrapnel burst, sending its bullets unpleasantly near. I remarked jocularly to the others that if the next shell came any closer we should have to move. Scarcely had I spoken when one went bang just over us, and a bullet whizzed between our heads and smashed through the arm of my Orderly, Sergeant Abulafia, who at that moment was standing by my side taking some orders. It is a marvel how it missed hitting a hundred and forty member of our little mess, for we were all sitting very close together round an upturned box which we were using as a breakfast table. The same shell wounded two other men, besides killing and wounding half a dozen mules. We decided that the place was too hot for us, so, after helping our Medical Officer to dress the wounded, we finished our breakfast on the other side of a bank which ran along by our olive tree. I must mention here that Sergeant Abulafia refused to have his wound dressed until the others who were more seriously injured had first received attention.’

Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson in Gallipoli

Such was the bravery and compassion of our friend and soon to be, secret agent, Raphael.

So Avshalom went to visit him with a box of Turkish delight for good measure. Cousin Rafi was seated in a comfortable wicker chair, arm still in plaster, but otherwise in good spirits. They talked into the night. Two young men with a war breaking out around them eating an entire box of that sickly sweet, rose water and pistachio Turkish sweetmeat. Avshalom offered to take Rafi’s letters for his family back with him when he left again.     

    “I can tell you,” he said, “that in another ten to fifteen days, mail will be coming and going between us. I shall be returning in six to eight weeks.  You know my address of course! c/o Lt. C. L. Woolley, Esquire, Headquarters, Port Said.”

That Jewish hero, Trumpeldor, would, if you know your history, be killed while defending the settlement of Tel Hai some five years later. His last words, apocryphal or not were: “It’s nothing, it is good to die for our country”.

****

Captain Weldon, British Naval Intelligence, Operations Room, Port Said

Meanwhile, Absa is still alive and well and thrilled with his new role at British Naval Intelligence, Operations Room in Port Said. A room full of morse code and telegraph equipment. The lessons in contacting the ship - the HMS Monegam, which the spies called by the Hebrew name ‘Menachem’, that would come each month to pick up intelligence are in definite progress. Lieutenant Woolley introduces Avshalom to bluff Yorkshireman, Captain Weldon, who talks in heavy dialect. They discuss the coded signals for making contact.

Captain Weldon in his thick Yorkshire accent is at pains to explain procedures: “So that’s noo moon - two poofs of smoke for yay, and noo poofs for noo.”

Avshalom looks bemused. He can’t make head or tail of Captain Weldon’s thick Yorkshire accent. In any case the word ‘Yorkshire’ only conjures up the derogatory, Yiddish ‘Yokishe’ - which refers with some scorn, to the utter foreignness of the Gentile nations.

    “Poofs?! You mean ‘kaki’?!’”

He uses the Hebrew child’s slang for defecation. Then he realises his mistake, roars with laughter and nods: “We’ll be waiting for you! Poofs or no poofs, we’ll be there!”

Early in November of the same year, a small French warship, the Arbalète, which was making contact with spies in Tyre in Lebanon - although writer Shmuel Katz, records that it was a British ship - the St.Anne - that took Avshalom with them in order to drop him off back in Palestine.

  **** 

The Arbalète

The Monegam, and other ships, whether the Arbalète or the St. Anne, however, faced high waves and the risk of running aground on the tumbled blocks of the Atlit Crusader ruin. Often, the Monegam had to turn back and try again. Avshalom would convey that the ship would drop anchor at nine o'clock at night until two in the morning. The smoke signals were meant to coordinate between the ship and the Nili agents ashore at the Station. The Monegam would often pass by Zikhron Ya'akov going north, where it could be seen from the Aronson family house, atop its hill, and preparations could then be made for the landing operation. When the ship returned from the north to Atlit, and the waves were calm, it would anchor about two and a half miles offshore and the crew would send out a small boat to reach the shore. Such, at least, was the plan.

****

The Coast at Atlit with Small Boat rowed by Abdullah and his Sons

The coast at Atlit. Late at night, no moon and it is very dark. The shadow of the old Crusader Castle looms over the sea. The splish-splash of oars, as a grinning Avshalom, an oil cloth sack over his shoulder, is rowed ashore, in a small boat, by Abdullah, the Arab boatman and his two sons. 

Dawn. The Research Station. Goliath, the big watch dog, sees Absa arrive with his parcels, and refrains from barking, so over-joyed, he is, to see Absa, home again.

Avshalom leaps up the stairs of the Station, two at a time. Aron asleep at his desk, as Absa enters.     

    “What? Who?”,  Aron is jolted from sleep. He has waited for anxious weeks and has almost given up hope.

But Absa is jubilant: “We’ve done it! In ten days the ship will be back! But first see what I’ve got for you and the others!”

Avshalom pours out his sack - Scottish whisky for Aron, for the people at the station, sweets, packets of tea, sugar and coffee, cigarettes and a beautiful, blue silk scarf.
 
Aron picks up the scarf and looks quizzically at Avshalom: “Sara’s favourite colour?”

    “Yes. I’ve written to tell her to come home at once no matter what you - or her damned husband says.”

****

He writes too, to Lieutenant Woolley describing his return, but the letter remains undelivered. As it turned out Absa would never hear from Woolley again. 

In his absence, Aron has amassed much information on Turkish army units, their methods of communication and a number of profiles of important players, in particular, that of the infamous Djemal Pasha, whose power is growing by the day.

Absa is also busy, travelling around, Palestine, sometimes alone, sometimes with Aron or one of the others, as instructed by Woolley, to gather information and compile reports detailing the state of the Ottoman army in various parts of the country, the condition of the roads, and the various rumours he has heard. His reports contain accurate intelligence, which he knows will turn out to be crucial for the British. That is, when Lieutenant Woolley’s ship comes.

He writes: ‘We must help the English and the French to win the war, otherwise if the Germans win, God forbid, our country will become a German colony as part of Germany’s ‘Drang nach Oste’n’ plan. Germany is looking for new lands. The Land of Israel is one of its targets, the Germans have already started to populate it, masquerading as the Knights Templar.’

**** 

Arab Fields & Orchards, Palestine c1915

Meanwhile, hunger and locusts stalk the land.

Locust Plague in the Villages

Man with Dead Locusts

Aron and Absa in the truck drive over a rutted and dusty track.

Aron at the wheel, stops the truck at a Bedouin village where men sit in the doorway of a house painted with a green frame around the door and a circle of green handprints. 

Bedouin Village

Mothers & Children, Bedouin Village, Palestine

Women in black robes and veils peer out from their doorways, staring at the arrivals. A group of mothers with hungry children, crowd around the truck begging for something to eat. Aron and Avshalom get out and give them sweets. The village head comes forward, walking with difficulty on a stick, to greet them. 

Village Head, Bedouin Village

He shakes his head and points to the sky, then to the empty fields. Aron nods and attempts to reassure him in fluent Arabic that food will soon come and the locusts will be beaten.  Aron hands him some bags of flour for the village.

Aron and Avshalom in the truck as Aron revs off.

Avshalom: “Poor wretches! Why should they believe us?”

Aron: “Because we are Locust Men. Or should I say, Spies in the guise of Locust Men. All permitted and paid for by the Pasha!”

    “I wonder what our friend Aziz will say to that?” Absa muses.          

**** 

Turkish Government office at Haifa. A furious Captain Aziz, with the Military Officer from before. Aron with Absa, faces them with a decree signed by the Pasha.

Aron: “Each district must report to me on the number of men, horses and vehicles available for fighting the locusts! Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, Rafah, Gaza and Be’er Sheva.”

 Captain Aziz: “Yes Mr. Satan, I mean, beg pardon - Effendi Aronson. At once!!”    
    
He yells at the Military Officer: “You! Hurry up. This is Operation Locust! These are the Pasha’s orders! Bring the files.”

Which the Military Officer obediently does, receiving a surreptitious five lira Ottoman bank note, for his efforts.

****

View of Jerusalem from the Hills

Avshalom and Aron drive home into the quickly darkening night, with a flagon of the Officer’s illicit home made beer and the pile of files on the seat.

    “ ‘Effendi Aronson?’ ” Absa chortles, at the obsequious honourific used by the villainous, Aziz.

    “From Jerusalem to Damascus, they’re sending us news!” says a happy Aron.
    
    “But where is Sara? Why isn’t she with us, to share this?” Avshalom asks.

    “Yes, it’s very sad not to have our Sarati with us. But now we’ve got work to do...”

Aron refuses to be sentimental. He knows too, of her unhappiness and that it was his doing that sent Sara to Constantinople.

****

Aron, Avshalom & Toba at the Station

Aron’s office, Research Station, Atlit. A montage of the busy workers preparing their information: Aron dictating, Toba typing coded messages, Avshalom fitting them into oilcloth packets. Aron annotating notes, Goliath, sleeping underneath the table.

Toba hands the coded notes to Aron. Aron peruses them, nods and hands them to Avshalom puts them into a leather pouch.

    “Now, all we need is your contact,” says Aron.

Avshalom takes the pouch: “Lieutenant Woolley? He’ll be there.”

He mimics a mock Yorkshire accent: “ Dooon’t you worry! Noo moon. He’ll coome.”

****

The Research Station cellar. Avshalom, carrying the leather pouch, climbs down a steep, rusted, metal ladder, through a trap-door into the cellar.

Absa in the Atlit Cellar

He lights a lantern, takes the pouch which he puts in a tin box and buries beneath a rock in the floor ready for the arranged date of the next time the ship comes.

The first communication comes quickly. On 22 November, Avshalom sends an intelligence report written in French from Atlit to Leonard Woolley, including a section titled ‘For Armenia - Pro Armenia’. The report included details of the massacres of Armenians, descriptions of deportation caravans to forced labour camps, and accounts of the trade in young Armenian women. Avshalom writes in his diary: ‘I have already ground my teeth to the point of exhaustion; who will be next? As I walked upon the sacred, holy land on the way up to Jerusalem, I asked myself if we are truly living in this time, in 1915 - or in the days of Titus or Nebuchadnezzar? ... I also asked myself if I am only permitted to weep ‘for the shattered daughter of my people,’ or if Jeremiah shed tears of blood for the Armenians as well?!’               

****   

Aron at Hartitia

Aron traverses the north, describing a forest of thistles - he details the variety - at Haritia, which ‘on the face of it is a haven of rural peace’, but is in fact a disguised trench. Further along, he admires a newly constructed bridge, chatting to the bridge builder who explains to him the detailed weight of artillery that the new bridge will carry.

The intelligence grows with every day that passes and they await the promised ship with growing anticipation.

****   

British naval ship, HMS Monegam

A dark night with crescent moon. The small British naval ship, the Monegam, just off the coast, the long, low vessel with twin masts and prominent smokestack, in the guise of a passenger cruiser. Though who exactly would be taking a pleasure cruise at this dangerous time is not clear. As we know, the HMS Monegam, will be used by Nili to smuggle aide into starving Palestine and, as indicated, to relay information to the British.

On the shore, Avshalom carrying an oil cloth wrapped satchel and Leo, using a lantern to flash a code to the ship.

Four short flashes of light. Nothing. A flat black sea.

Some hours later, at dawn, Avshalom, smoking a cigarette and Leo, are still waiting on the shore.

In the distance the boat crosses, but does not stop.

    “So that’s two poofs of smoke for yay and noo poofs for noo? Hmmph!” mutters a disgruntled Leo.

    “We’re risking our lives, and the bloody ship doesn’t stop!? What’s happened to your famous contact?”

The British ship that was supposed to arrive at the beginning of December had indeed arrived, but Captain Woolley was not on board and signals to it failed for some reason.

Unbeknown to Aron, impatient Avshalom has already made up his mind. In his report to Woolley on 6 December 1915, he writes: ‘Mr. Lieutenant, I have decided. I am taking the desert route, to try to reach you despite everything. I do not know if I am allowed to do this or not. On the other hand, the issue of permission has never occupied me much. However, if we assume that the Syrians - the ship’s crew - betrayed us - and that seems the most likely - then what might happen... You might think you made a mistake about me... I will not let people think that the first Hebrew youth from the Land of Israel who served you, was a scoundrel and a traitor.’

****    

Aron’s office, Research Station, Atlit. Aron and Avshalom - a discouraged meeting. The bulging satchel on the desk. Aron sitting at the desk, tapping his fingers impatiently, Absa staring moodily out of the window. Even Goliath looks disconsolate, his big, brown eyes drooping.

    “No contact for a month?!” Aron hits the desk with both fists. “Are you sure you got the instructions right?”

Avshalom is stung: “Of course I’m bloody sure! Damn you! And damn both the English and the Turks!”

Loud squealing as if an animal is being slaughtered. Goliath jumps up growling. 

Arab Boy 1915

Leo shoves a terrified, yelling, local kid through the door.

Aron is irritated: “Yes?”

The boy fearing a beating, protests his innocence, in noisy, guttural Arabic, all the time held fast in Leo’s strong grasp.

    “He says the British have changed their system. The ship’s crew, the Beirut people, were told to inform us but the kid only just managed to get here.”

Avshalom: “So we haven’t recognised the new code?”

Leo still gripping the youngster by the ear: “Exactly. Should I beat him?”

Aron is vexed by this set back, but feels sorry for the boy.     
    
    “Give him some food and let him go. We’ll have to find a way to re-establish the contact - ”

  ****

The Tower Room, Research Station, Atlit. Night. Avshalom, smoking one of his roll-ups, and Aron on the small balcony looking out at the empty sea.

Absa puts out his cigarette and regards Aron: “I’ll go. Through the desert, this time.”

Aron flies off the handle: “Now I know you’re truly mad. It’s death to go that way with the Turks massing everywhere you look!”

Avshalom is undeterred. He picks up a khaki cap emblazoned ‘Locust Brigade’ and places it on his head: “Until I get past the Turks I’ll be a Locust Official and when I get to the Bedouin, I’ll be a Bedouin.”

He rolls another cigarette.

Aron gives up. He knows his friend, both his flaws and his reckless stubbornness: “If you are convinced.”

    “Whatever is written, my friend, is already written - ” says Avshalom, a man for whom fate is fixed whether by God, or the stars or his own conviction, it is impossible to say.

    “Just tell Sara to wait for me,” he caps the conversation by stubbing out his just lit, roll-up.

**** 

Turkish Prison Be'er sheva

So Absa heads south and is predictably captured in the no-man’s land between Ottoman and British forces. Before being caught, he manages to destroy the documents he is carrying and remove the Turkish Officer’s insignia he is - illegally - wearing. 

He is arrested, accused of spying and imprisoned in the horrible confines of Be’er Sheva jail. During numerous interrogations, he claims to be there to study the movement of the locusts - searching for locust eggs - which happens to be a not very likely claim, locusts whether breeding or not, would not find much sustenance in the desert - His claim that he has set out on this task with the backing of his boss, the famous Aron Aronson, who is officially appointed by the authorities to combat those pesky creatures, falls on deaf ears.

Yosef - ‘Joe’ Lishansky

The news of his arrest reaches the Station by one, Yosef - ‘Joe’ Lishansky - the new boy on the block - whose speciality it is, to pick up casual gossip from Turkish officials, with whom he enjoys cordial relations. Joe passes the news on to Absa’s cousin, Naaman Belkind, who passes it on to Aron. Who then arranges a bribe - furnished by Absa’s anxious family - which Aron plans to pass on to a willing official, as soon as he can, who he hopes will arrange for Absa to be sent to a more conducive prison in Jerusalem.  

In the meantime Aron seals his  lips and tells no one else about the calamity. 

Naaman Belkind at Rishon Le Zion Winery

Naaman has a number of assistants in the wine trade and through them, he gains knowledge of  German staff officers and engineers who ‘discussed the digging of trenches and preparing posts for gun batteries.’ And that ‘Eleven mountain guns had arrived.’ Naaman sends reports that the mountain guns were sent south, to the Gaza Front and that General von Kressenstein complained that Turkish officers were deserting and that disease was decimating their troops. Naaman writes: ‘It must be assumed that no more than thirty thousand Turkish soldiers are fit for battle.’ A number that fits with Aron’s assessment and contradicts the British, who imagined their number to be much higher.

German U-Boat c 1915

There are also reports sent via Reuven Schwartz, who has visited Beirut and heard from a friend of his, a Mrs. Emmy Haas, that submarines are being sent into the seas off Atlit. To make matters worse, the German Commader of the U-Boat actually visited Atlit village with a Turkish Patrol! It is not sure whether this was a chance visit - the Commander sipped coffee with the Leader of the Patrol for over an hour and soon left - or whether there was any intelligence on the work going on at Atlit.

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Absa's arrest and imprisonment is only one of the problems those at the Station face. The break down in communication with the British is another huge concern as is the hostility of fellow Yishuvniks who have heard rumours of espionage among their own...

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