Black Cross

“He’s mad,” said Major Dickson. “Absolutely barking.”

“I’m quite sane, Major,” Stern said. “And quite serious.”

“And I am quite sure,” General Little said, “that Messrs. Shertok and Weizmann, in all their desperate pleadings, have suggested nothing so drastic as this. You claim to speak for the Jewish people in asking for this madness?”

Stern spoke calmly and clearly. “General, Weizmann and Shertok are political men — distant from the truth of what is happening in Europe. The idea of bombing the camps was first suggested by members of the Jewish Underground in Poland and Germany. I have talked to some who escaped. General, I have looked into the eyes of women who had their infants snatched away by the heels and crushed against walls by SS officers. I have listened to fathers who watched their sons bayoneted as they stood weeping not a meter away—”

“That’s enough,” Little said sharply. “I don’t need a lecture on the horrors of war from you.”

“But these people are not at war, General! They are civilian noncombatants. Innocent women and children.”

General Little gazed down at the papers Stern had brought, then looked up and began speaking in a soft voice. “Lad, I can’t help but admire the courage it takes to make a request like that. But your request simply cannot be considered seriously. Not even from a purely military standpoint. Our bombers don’t have the range to reach these camps. Their fighter escorts can’t fly that far—”

“That’s no longer true, General,” Stern interrupted. “The new American P-51 Mustangs have a range of 850 miles. That puts the camps within striking distance from Italy.”

“You’re surprisingly well informed,” Little rejoined. “But even so, there’s the question of diverting military resources for nonmilitary missions—”

“But those Jews are being used as slave labor for the war industries!”

Little raised his hand. “The sole objective of the Allied air forces is to wipe out the war-making capacity of the Reich. That means oil production, ball-bearing plants, synthetic rubber — not civilian detention camps. If we were to bomb these camps, our raids would give Hitler the perfect opportunity to claim that we killed all the Jews who have died in captivity. And there remains the issue of our acting specifically for Jewish civilians. If we redress the grievances of the Jews by reprisal bombings, every other wronged group will line up for the same service.”

“And don’t forget,” Major Dickson added, “these Jews are legally German citizens. Hitler has said from the beginning that the Jewish question is an internal German problem, and he is technically right.”

General Little frowned at Dickson. “What we cannot ignore is the fact that the Nazis have close to a million Allied prisoners in their hands. Forty thousand British taken at Dunkirk alone. We have relatively few German prisoners. We can’t afford to start playing the reprisal game, especially with prison camps. Hitler could resort to even more unpleasantness than he has already.”

“Unpleasantness?”

“Look here, Stern,” Little went on, “Captain Owen wrote to me about your father being trapped in Germany. That’s a hard thing, I know. We’ve all lost loved ones in this war. But that’s the nature of the game. I lost a brother in France in 1940. Bloody senseless. A British girls’ school could have put up more of a fight than the Frogs did. But in times like these . . .”

Duff Smith nearly groaned aloud. Here was the fatuous, patronizing Englishman at his worst. I lost a relative, so why should you raise a wind about yours? Much less a million of them, eh? So hard to get one’s mind round numbers of that size, what?

“It seems to me,” Little said, examining a page from Stern’s file, “that these numbers are exaggerated. In all honesty, I’ve found that to be a Jewish trait. Don’t blame you at all, really. Best way to get attention in a crowd. Two million Jews murdered? Why, in the bloodiest battle of the Great War only six hundred thousand lives were lost. Let’s be rational, Stern. Let’s face facts. It’s my guess someone’s fiddled these figures. With the best of intentions, perhaps, but fiddled them just the same. Someone with political motives, as you said before.”

Brigadier Smith saw the young man’s shoulders sag as he began to absorb the futility of his mission. “I don’t know why I expected you to believe what is happening,” he said. “Most Jews in Palestine don’t even believe it.”

General Little motioned for a sergeant to escort Stern out.

“But let me say this!” Stern cried as the British soldier took his arm. “My father is somewhere inside Germany at this very moment. Alive or dead, I don’t know. But if he is alive, he would beg you to do exactly as I have asked. General, to refuse to bomb these death camps on the grounds that it would kill innocent prisoners is merely misplaced sentiment. Destroying the gas chambers and crematoria is the only way to slow down Hitler’s extermination program. By killing a few thousand innocents, you could save millions! Isn’t that the most fundamental idea of warfare? Sacrificing the few for the many?”

Duff Smith clenched his hands; Stern’s words had electrified him.

General Little looked hard at the young Zionist. “You’ve made an eloquent case, Mr. Stern. This board will take your comments under advisement. Sergeant Gilchrist?”

Stern stared at the general with alarm. “Could I have one more moment, General?”

Major Dickson groaned in exasperation.

“Be quick,” Little said.

“If you won’t bomb the camps, will you allow me to take a small commando force into Poland and attempt to liberate one concentration camp? I know the British Army is training a few Jews to parachute into Hungary to try to warn the Jews there to resist. General, I’m not asking you to risk a single British life. If I fail, what would you have lost? A dozen Jews. I’m an experienced guerrilla fighter—”

“I’ll bloody bet you are!” Major Dickson bellowed with sudden savagery. “Experienced at murdering British soldiers!”

The red-faced major was on his feet. Stern made no move toward or away from him. Instead, he raised his cuffed hands to the zipper of his jacket and pulled it down. From the left breast of his khaki shirt flashed the glint of silver and blue. It was the George Medal, the second-highest British decoration that could be awarded to a civilian.

“Major Dickson,” said Stern, “this medal was pinned on me by General Bernard Law Montgomery for reconnaissance actions at El Alamein. The second award I received for aiding the British Army at Tobruk. Auchinleck pinned that one on. Both those officers are better men than you, and if you had any brains or heart whatever you might have understood at least part of what I’ve said here today. I’ve stood here as a soldier asking only for the chance to fight. To show Hitler something he has never seen — something he needs to see — a Jew who can fight, who will fight. Myself and twenty Haganah guerrillas, properly equipped, could destroy a concentration camp, I am sure of it.”

“Now we’ve got to it!” Dickson roared. “The bloody Haganah!”

Duff Smith felt like boxing Dickson’s ears for him. Thankfully, General Little waved the major down. “Such a raid is out of the question, Mr. Stern, for more reasons than I can name. Take a bit of advice. The best thing you can do is go back to Palestine and help your own people.”

“My people are dying in Germany,” Stern said.

“Yes . . . well. There are a lot of people dying all over the world just now.”

Duff Smith watched the shackled hands rise up and point accusingly at Little. “General!” Stern said in a voice booming with prophetic power. “One day soon the world is going to ask England a very embarrassing question. Why did you refuse to grant sanctuary to the Jews who were being slaughtered by the millions in Europe? Why did you throw the lucky handful who managed to reach Palestine into British concentration camps? And most of all—”

“Enough!” shouted Little. His cultivated British reserve had finally cracked. “You dare march in here and preach to us? You insubordinate upstart! You’re not a soldier. You’re a bloody terrorist! It takes a lot more than a gun to make a soldier, Stern. Why, if it weren’t for us standing alone against Hitler in 1940, your people would have been wiped out years ago!”

Major Dickson pointed at Stern. “The only reason you were allowed to come to England was to answer our questions about terrorism in Palestine.” Dickson’s eyes glowed with a cruel light. “And I’m happy to say that, as a major of intelligence, your interrogation will fall to me!”

Stern flexed his fists in rage and frustration. Duff Smith saw Captain Owen edging closer in case his friend’s self-restraint snapped. General Little gathered up the papers from Stern’s file and dropped them into a satchel at his