The Second Son

By Joel Z. Wagman

Throughout a distinguished many-faceted career, Joel Z Wagman QC has been an entrepreneur and innovator playing key roles in numerous industries, including:
telecommunications, automotive,
computing, entertainment, real estate,
waste management, hospitality and
investment banking. Mr. Wagman has also served on the board of directors of several private and public companies in both financial and executive capacities. Although, still engaged in corporate finance, he is also an historian , scholar and author of the acclaimed “ Enemies and Allies: Seven Days of Destiny and and The Manuscript: The Life and Times Of James Weymore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664123922

Joel Z. Wagman

This Tenth Anniversary Edition of Mr. Wagman's" Enemies and Allies", comprises his fifth work in ten years , and, is a review and analysis of the past decade, which demonstrates that the more things change : The more they stay the same."

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Copyright © 2020 by Joel Z. Wagman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/22/2020

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note as to The Following Cast of Characters

Cast of Characters and General Information

Author’s Note Respecting Language

Prologue   A Death on Metre Hill 203

THE TEMPEST

Part One   PORT ARTHUR

THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

1

2

3

4

5

6

Part Two   TRUMPELDOR

A JAPANESE PRISONER-OF-WAR CAMP

PORT ARTHUR, MANCHURIA (JANUARY 1905)

1

2

3

4

5

Part Three   THE JOURNEY TO DESTINY HAS MANY PATHS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Part Four   GOING HOME

1

2

3

Part Five   STAR-CROSSED LOVERS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Part Six   A BRIDE IS WAITING

1

2

3

Part Seven   JERUSALEM

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Part Eight   A PSALM OF DAVID

1

2

3

4

5

Part Nine   THE APPROACH OF WAR

1

2

3

4

Part Ten   A HEROE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

1

2

3

Part Eleven

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Part Twelve

1

2

3

4

5

6

Part Thirteen

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Afterword

Acknowledgment as to Sources

A Gallery of Persons Involved

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DEDICATION

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T HIS NOVEL—ITS INCEPTION, inspiration, and completion—would not have been possible without the enduring patience, love, and consideration of my wife and life partner, Georganne. It is because of her—and only her—that my trials, tribulations, and crises through good times and otherwise during the course of over forty years were overcome and vanquished, making possible this effort to create an epic work of literature. Thanks, Georgie.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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I T GIVES ME great pleasure to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the following persons respecting the many challenges encountered during the writing of this book, namely, Georganne Seltzer, Stuart Baltman, Tyler Page, Charles Roggero, Marlon Maggiani and Malcolm Kelly. In doing so, I also pay tribute to the past and present members of the Armed Forces of Canada and the State of Israel. It is these unsung heroes who daily stand vigilant in guarding the democratic way of life that makes possible individual freedom and human rights.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE AS TO THE FOLLOWING

CAST OF CHARACTERS

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T HE SECOND SON should be read with reference to the list of characters and other information, which is provided immediately hereafter. The author recognizes the vital importance of Joseph Trumpeldor in the panorama of Zionist and Israeli history and the continuing saga of the Jewish people. This book has been written as a melding of historic fiction, and fact, with the intention to pay tribute to Trumpeldor by honoring and illuminating his all-too-brief life. In presenting purely fictional aspects of Trumpeldor’s life, no disrespect whatever is intended, whether directly or indirectly. Wherever possible, the author has attempted to be faithful to recognized historic fact concerning both Trumpeldor and all other relevant subject matter contained in this Book.

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CAST OF CHARACTERS AND

GENERAL INFORMATION

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I N THIS CURRENT era, when generally accepted fact – during the course of time, perceptively becomes fiction, and conversely fiction evolves into fact. Because this Novel has blended fictional characters with those who are either factual or fictionalized versions of actual persons, it is necessary to provide the reader with a Dramatis Personae to discern one from the other. Additional information relating to other items and matters as to language, culture, or events of a historic nature mentioned in the narrative are as well provided.

Eretz Yisroel comprise two Hebrew words, which denote in English the Land of Israel.

Yossel Dubrinoff and Yosaif Ben Zion are the same fictional person.

Joseph or Josef Trumpeldor— the Georgian-born Jewish nationalist, Zionist patriot, renowned hero and spiritual father of the Israel Defense Forces—is a fictionalized version of a real person. Trumpeldor not only was the only commissioned officer of the Jewish faith in the Imperial Russian Army, but also was a member of the Czarist Order of St. George.

Malka Dubrinoff (née Seltzer)—the daughter of the Gaon of Pinsk, and Malka Ben Zion, wife of Yosaif Ben Zion (formerly Yossel Dubrinoff)— are the one and the same fictional person.

General Moshe Ben Zion—Malka and Yosaif Ben Zion’s son—is entirely fictional.

Aliyah is a Hebrew word that translates into English as ascent or, as more commonly understood, immigrating to Israel.

Rebbe Moshe Seltzer—Gaon of Pinsk and father of Malka Ben Zion—is fictional.

Shtetl is the Yiddish word for a small town or village, having a substantial number of Jewish residents, which existed in central and eastern Europe—but primarily Russia—before the Holocaust of the Second World War.

Yeshiva is a traditional Jewish educational institution of incisive study focusing substantially upon the Torah, which compose the first five Books of the Old Testament forming the basis of all Jewish belief and practice.

Count Leo Tolstoy— is a fictionalized version of the famous Russian author-philosopher of the novels War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and other ageless works of global literature.

Yishuv is the Hebrew word to generally describe aggregately, the Jewish population of pre-independence Israel.

Ari Dubrinoff—the errant younger brother of Yossel Dubrinoff (subsequently known as Yosaif Ben Zion)—is fictional.

Isaac Dubrinoff—the father of Yossel and Ari Dubrinoff—is fictional.

Arthur Ruppin—the representative of the Jewish Agency in Jaffa and Jerusalem during the late Ottoman period, and World War One—was a real person.

Baroness Caroline Karenina—Senior Lady-in-Waiting to the Czarina Alexandra, niece by marriage of Tolstoy’s eponymous Anna Karenina, and Trumpeldor’s lover—is fictional.

Count Mikhail Vasili Dubrinoff—Prince of White Russia, Count of Kiev, Baron of Odessa and Prymsyl—is fictional.

Sherlock Holmes— is the fictional creation and protagonist of numerous eponymous books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Lt. Col. Mycroft Holmes, MBE—Head of British Intelligence and older brother of Sherlock—is a fictional creation of Arthur Conan Doyle (see above).

Winston Churchill—monumental soldier, statesman, author, journalist, Parliamentarian, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and debatably, the greatest man of the twentieth century—was a real person.

Israel Zangwill — the British-Jewish author, educator, playwright, and founder of Zionist Territorialism—was a real person.

Rosina Levi—Trumpeldor’s Khazar first love—is fictional.

Jane Avril—the shameless Parisian cabaret entertainer—was a real person made famous by the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Vincent Moriarity of New Scotland Yard is fictional.

Abba Eban—Israeli statesman, Foreign Minister, author, and diplomat—was a real person.

David Ben-Gurion—Israeli Patriot, Prime Minister of Israel, and world statesman—was a real person.

Mohammed Aminal Husseini: The Grand Mufti of Palestine (also known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem), was a notorious Nazi collaborator, anti-Jewish provocateur, and a real person.

Sgt. John Thompson of New Scotland Yard was a real person.

Wilhelm Liebermann—the German-Jewish Railway surveyor—is fictitional.

Leon Trotsky—born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, military genius, Marxist revisionist, and Bolshevik revolutionary—is a fictionalized version of a real person.

Alexander Parvus—born Israel Lazarevitch Gelfand, international arms dealer, Bolshevik revolutionary, also known as the Freiherr Ludwig von Hoffmeister of Baden, and an agent in the employ of German Intelligence—is a fictionalized version of a real person.

Boris Lichterovitch, rescuer of Ari Dubrinoff and adoptive father of Shmuel Dubrinoff, is fictitional.

Jacob Schiff—the Chairman of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., philanthropist, financier, humanitarian, and Chairman of the American Jewish Committee—was a real person.

Theodor Herzl—playwright, journalist, statesman, author, founder, and continuing spiritual inspiration of both contemporary Zionism and the State of Israel—was a real person.

Czar Nicholas II—the last Autocrat of Russia—was a real person.

Czarina Alexandra—the last Czarina of Russia—was real person.

Pinchas Rutenberg—inventor, Marxist revolutionary, entrepreneur-capitalist, visionary, soldier, and statesman—was a real person.

Hyman Solomon— is a combined fictionalized version of two real persons who immigrated to Canada.

Srule Rogavitch—a combined fictionalized version of two real persons who immigrated to Canada.

Col. Heidiki Shigitsu of the Imperial Japanese Military Intelligence is fictitional.

The Shinonu Maru was a real ship.

Hiro Mitsu—the Captain of the Shinonu Maru and a secret agent of the Imperial Japanese Naval Intelligence—is fictitional.

Henry Morgenthau Sr.—Businessman, humanitarian, politician, Jewish hero of Israel and Armenia, American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and emissary of the League of Nations—was a real person.

The Three Pashas—Enver, Talaat, and Djemal—were real persons who comprised the triumvirate, which ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1908 to 1918 by means of their puppet, quasi-revolutionary Turkish Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).

Edward Marsh—Churchill’s long-standing loyal personal Secretary, and confidant—was a real person.

Sarah Bernhardt—one of the world’s greatest dramatic actresses—was a real person.

Rabbi Yonkel Seltzer—Malka’s brother and Reb Moshe’s son—is fictional.

General Orde Wingate—the pro-Zionist, unconventional British guerrilla warfare expert and cousin of T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)—was a real person and an unsurpassed hero of World War II in several theaters of operation. He met his demise in an airplane accident over India, late in World War II.

Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky was a real person. Jabotinsky was a co-founder of the Jewish Legion with Joseph Trumpeldor, as well as a journalist, soldier, patriot, and controversial politician during the era of the Palestine Mandate and Israel’s pre–World War II formative years.

Lt. Col. John Patterson was a pro-Zionist Christian and commanding officer during the Great War of both the Zion Mule Corps and the Jewish Legion. He subsequently became a popular adventure and travel writer. Colonel Patterson was a real person who has been described as the Godfather of the Israel Defense Forces. Appropriately, Colonel Patterson’s final resting place is among the military heroes of Israel.

Maurice Wertheim—Ambassador Henry Morgenthau’s son-in-law, was a real person international financier, philanthropist, and the father of the highly regarded popular historian, Barbara Tuchman.

The two Hebrew words Ben Zion literally mean Son of Zion.

The USS North Carolina and the USS Tennessee were pre-Dreadnought Armored Cruisers of the United States Navy. With other American naval units and under the authorization of Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, and the American Secretaries of State and Navy— they performed unexcelled humanitarian services, providing by their generally unrewarded and unknown deeds, the increments of survival to the Holy Land’s Jews during the opening months of the Great War.

Mazel tov is a Hebrew word meaning congratulations and good luck, derived from the Hebrew word Mahzel, meaning good luck.

The German Battlecruiser Goeben and the Light Cruiser Breslau totaled the Imperial German Mediterranean Flotilla during August, 1914. The ships were under the command of Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, who, after skillfully avoiding the best of Churchill’s Royal Navy, eventually reached Constantinople at the outset of the Great War. The two German naval units were reflagged as elements of the Ottoman Navy which, by their surprise attack upon several Russian Black Sea ports, substantially contributed to the Ottomans eventually joining the Central Powers.

Hashem is a Hebrew word, that literally means the Name. Observant Jews hesitate to speak the word God and write the holy name in English— as G-D—employing instead Hashem as a synonym for the word God.

The Dynastic names of the Imperial family at times herein, either Romanoff or Romanov, are used interchangeably to better tanslate from the Cyrallic spelling into English.

Gaon is the honorary title of an eminent religious scholar bestowed by his contemporaries (e.g., Reb Moshe, the Gaon of Pinsk), Malka’s father. Reb Moshe is entirely fictional.

Gamal Abdel Nasser, Dictator of Egypt at the time of the Suez Crisis, was a real person.

Jerusalem’s Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, is the Jewish people’s most religious site. Located in the Old City of Jerusalem, it is the western supporting wall of the Temple Mount, originally built by King Herod Antipas in 20 BCE, at the time of the expansion of the Second Temple.

Allied Powers— identifies the nations of World War One, particularly, Great Britain (its Empire and Dominions), France, Greece, Serbia, Japan, Montenegro, Romania, Russia (until October 1917), and after May 23, 1915, Italy ; allied by Treaty or Declaration of War against theCentral Powers The United States of America joined the Allied Powers on April 6, 1917. The Allies and others, with the exception of the United States, were the founding nations of the League of Nations.

The Central Powers of World War One were the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire, which opposed the Allied Powers

The terms the Great War and World War One, are interchangeably used throughout the Book.

Tichborne—or the Australian-originated Tichborne Claimant—was a real person. He is a semi-fictitious minor footnote to British legal history.

The Balfour Declaration (theLetter) comprised the content of a missive from the British Cabinet dated November 2, 1917, signed by the British Foreign Minister, Arthur Balfour, and delivered to Lord Walter Rothschild. The Letter announced support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, which at the time was a component of the Ottoman Empire, having a small Jewish population. Ironically, the only three members of the Cabinet who dissented regarding the issuance of the Letter —namely: Sir Rufus Isaacs (later Lord Reading), Edwin Montagu, and Herbert Samuel (later Lord Samuel, the first Governor of the Palestine Mandate)—were all of Jewish faith.

The Treaty of San Remo became extant as a result of the San Remo Conference, which was held from April 19 to 26, 1920. Among its various provisions, the Treaty recognized a League of Nations British Mandate over certain former Ottoman territories, which subsequently became Palestine, thereby among other provisions, subsumed the terms and conditions of The Balfour Declaration.

The Dreyfus Affair refers to Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, an assimilated Alsatian Jewish artillery and intelligence officer in the French Army, who heinously was accused of being a secret German espionage agent. After excessive humiliation and suffering five years of imprisonment in a French Guiana Penal Colony, the excruciating injustice meted to him finally was exposed by the eminent French journalist and writer Émile Zola, upon the front page of the socialist newspaper L’Aurore. During the ensuing years, Dreyfus was granted new trials, resulting in his total exoneration. Although the French Government reluctantly apologized, the French Army never did. In due course, Dreyfus resumed his military career and, after serving in the Great War, died a Lieutenant Colonel in July, 1935 as an enduring legend and hero of the French nation and the Jewish people. On January 5, 1895, Theodor Herzl witnessed the public degradation of Dreyfus. He shortly came to realize that if the new politically induced anti-Semitism could so tragically affect the life of a respected Jewish member of the French military, the same—perhaps worse—could also happen to him and his Austro-Hungarian co-religionists. Contemporary Zionism probably was born during Herzl’s Paris 1895 awakening.

The White Paper refers to the 1939 misguided restrictive pro-Arab and anti-Semitic British Mandate Immigration policy instituted by Neville Chamberlain’s appeasment government. Contrary to both common sense and the tide of events, this Policy inexplicably persisted until mid-1948.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE RESPECTING LANGUAGE

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A LTHOUGH ITS MAJOR and minor characters, at times, may speak in addition to English — Hebrew, Russian, Japanese, or Yiddish ; with certain exceptions for purposes of emphasis, plot enhancement, or dramatic effect, this Novel is written primarily in the English language. Where appropriate, the Author has indicated in which language the characters are conversing. In every instance, however, the names of the characters employ customary English usage, placing the family or surname last and the given or birth name first.

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PROLOGUE

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A Death on Metre Hill 203

H E WAS SCREAMING maniacally in a high-pitched, trembling voice. What he was shouting with overwhelming fear in his heart, tears in his eyes, and lamentation in his soul—repetitively, ceaselessly, and hopelessly—were the ancient Hebrew watchwords of his Jewish faith: Shema, Yisroel. Adenai Elohanu! Adenai Echod! Hear, Oh Israel! The Lord our God: the Lord is one. Although, until that moment, breathing in short irregular inhalations, with great effort, he gathered every remaining scintilla of his energy, momentarily calmed himself and deeply inhaled. Then, with visceral instinctive force, he plunged the bayonet attached at the tip of his Russian Berdan rifle into the chest of the Japanese soldier, standing motionless, terrified, and soon to be mortified, less than three feet from him. He squinted in shameful satisfaction as he watched the bayonet’s sharp double-edged blade easily enter the body of his dazed and dying foe. The fanatic, terrified, son of Nippon unwillingly fell heavily to his knees, blood pouring profusely from his nostrils, mouth, and chest. His narrow eyes dilating in disbelief : his face an anguished portrait of pain and horror. In a final gesture of resignation from a life barely begun, the fatally stricken servant of Shinto sharply collapsed face-forward into the shallow puddles of gore, blood, and muck, oozing lavalike down the southern face of the somber and silent Metre Hill 203. That ugly, fortified and notorious Hill, together with its lower sister strongholds of False Hill and Akasakayama, lying east and west of 203, composed the formidable bastion, which protected Port Arthur.

It was late afternoon on the twenty-eighth of November 1904. The once arrogant, proud, and fanatical Japanese Lance Corporal had been slain by Yossel, eldest son of Isaac the tailor, formerly the most exemplary Rabbinic student of Reb Moshe, the Gaon of Pinsk.

THE TEMPEST

Our revels are ended. These our actors

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air

And like the baseless fabric of this vision

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces

The solemn, temples, the great globe itself—

Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep

Act 4: Scene 1

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him

by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Jonathan Swift, English poet, author, and philosopher

(1667–1745)

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PART ONE

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PORT ARTHUR

MANCHURIA: JANUARY TO DECEMBER 1904

THE RUSSO–JAPANESE WAR

THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD

WHAT ROUGH BEAST ITS HOUR COME AROUND AT LAST

SLOUCHES TOWARD BETHLEHEM TO BE BORN?

TURNING AND TURNING IN THE WIDENING GYRE

THE FALCON CANNOT HEAR THE FALCONNER

THINGS FALL APART, THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD

MORE ANARCHY IS LOOSED UPON THE WORLD

THE BLOOD DIMMED TIDE IS LOOSED AND EVERYWHERE

THE CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE IS DROWNED

THE BEST LACK ALL CONVICTION, WHILE THE WORST

ARE FULL OF PASSIONATE INTENSITY.

William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming (1919): First Stanza

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND

ENTIRE OF ITSELF

EACH IS A PIECE OF THE CONTINENT

A PART OF THE MAIN

IF A CLOD BE WASHED AWAY BY THE SEA

EUROPE IS THE LESS

AS WELL AS IF A PROMONTORY WERE

AS WELL AS IF A MANOR OF THINE OWN

OR OF THINE FRIEND’S WERE

EACH MAN’S DEATH DIMINISHES ME

FOR I AM INVOLVED IN MANKIND

THEREFORE, SEND NOT TO KNOW

FOR WHOM, THE BELL TOLLS: IT TOLLS FOR THEE.

John Donne, English poet (1572–1631)

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1

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T WO EVENTS, BOTH calamitous, marked the anniversary of Friday, September 13, 1901. This was the first: It was almost ten years since the fifteen-year-old Ari fled with Dubrinoff’s 1,000 Rubles. Yes, fled. They all saw him shamelessly leave : fled, with Dubrinoff’s treasure—never to be seen or heard from again: or so they thought.

This was the second: It was two years to the very day and month that witnessed a Sergeant and a Corporal of the Imperial Conscript Police arrive at the Dubrinoff Estate unannounced, unexpected, and unwanted, looking for Yossel and seeking answers as to where he could be found. They had little difficulty in discovering his whereabouts. He was well-known to the Jews of Dubrinoff’s Shtetl for not only was he born in the village but, sooner than anyone anticipated, had achieved a modicum of respect for being Reb Moshe’s most conscientious : most brilliant pupil. It was the third day of the Rosh Hashanah in the Common Era year of 1899. And after passing seven months of incisive Talmudic study in the Reb’s Pinsk Yeshiva, Yossel had returned to the Shtetl of his birth to celebrate the Jewish New Year of 5659.

The heavily armed Russians, mounted on matching raven-black stallions, arrived at Isaac the tailor’s door at four that afternoon and imperatively knocked. When — after a brief hiatus, Isaac finally most reluctantly appeared; they demanded to immediately speak with his eldest son, Yossel, concerning undisclosed grave matters of national consequence. It had been two full years since the Conscript Police questioned Yossel. Without doubt or fear of contradiction, those few minutes of intense interrogation should have been more than enough to persuade him that he faced a very bleak future. In paradox, however, that future would unfold far from bleak. In certainty, Yossel’s unforeseen, arcane, role in shaping it, forever transformed the lives of unknown thousands.

What is your age, Jew? asserted the brawny, bearded, Sergeant of Police.

Twenty-seven years, your Worship, answered Yossel.

Are you unmarried? asked the stark, thin, Corporal.

Why, yes. But … but—

No more buts, quickly admonished the Sergeant. That’s all we need to know. You have ten minutes to say your farewells. Then you, Yossel Dubrinoff, are to quietly come with us. For by command of our beloved Czar, until the expiry of ten years hence, you will be a contented, loyal, soldier in Russia’s, ever-victorious army.

Thus, the scholarly Yossel, the pride of his father’s loving eyes, was pressed unwillingly and wretchedly into the Czar’s faithful, always triumphant Corps of Siberian Light Infantry. The very same Yossel who, by every indication of his appearance on the day the police conscripted him, was the unlikeliest of soldiers. He stood five feet seven inches tall, had a slightly extended stomach, and otherwise was of a narrow, slim, unmuscular build. Of late, his face bore a short untrimmed reddish-brown beard, which he wore together with pious long curled sidelocks that fell, round and plump on either side of his protruding ears. If his mother had been asked to name Yossel’s most outstanding feature, she would have said—without hesitation—his eyes. Those alert, ever-curious, penetrating eyes, were of an exceptional shade of azure blue, which inexplicably changed color to a deep green to reflect his innermost moods.

Now some six months subsequent to his spiritually wrenching departure from his hearth, home, and family, Yossel no longer was the naive, mild-mannered, and often distracted Talmudic scholar and soon-to-be Rabbi: but, a callous hardened, mentally numb soldier who, in every probability, would meet a violent death tirelessly serving the bellicose ends and purpose of Czar Nicholas II’s far-east ambitions.

During the past 180 days, he had been crammed into a cold, filthy, and malodorous railway cattle car; slept on dirty hay; fed unfamiliar, disgusting non-kosher food; and had his beard, forelocks, and hair roughly shorn. Those trials, however, paled in comparison to the cruel beatings he suffered but silently endured, which became worse—much worse—when his superiors eventually discovered he was a Zid, the spawn of Satan, an accursed, despicable, Jew.

He underwent thirty-kilometer route marches carrying forty-pound back and side packs plus a ten-pound rifle, ammunition, bayonet, and water canteen, which added a further ten pounds. On many occasions, Yossel fainted from agonizing exhaustion; his absolute fatigue frequently bringing him to the point of utter collapse. Nonetheless, during those endless tortuous weeks, when he was lonely, hungry, and grimy from head to foot with the sweat, dirt, dust, and blood from each day’s rigors, his mind inevitably turned in silent prayer to his God—the same God who loved his father, the same God who loved him, the same God whom he loved, and the same God who protected him.

And, when, in his unfathomable sorrow he must cry, Yossel did so inwardly—isolated, lonely, and alone. As an observant, proud Jew, he would never permit himself to do otherwise. There would be no public display of remorse. He would neither quit, complain nor run. He would not give anyone cause to say that he—Yossel the Jew—was a coward.

In time, he was befriended by a few of his despondent companions, who equally were dejected and miserable. Those uncouth, untutored peasants from the remotest steppes of Siberia and outer East Asia grugingly came to admire his stoic endurance, cool demeanor, expressive smiles, and obvious intelligence. To them, of course, he would always be Yossi the Jew; but in candor, they liked him. The discernible affection of his peers to his observable positive attribute and acute, sensitive mind, soon were perceived by his superiors. As a result, accompanied by much half-hearted, irrelevant, and quite redundant ceremony, he was bestowed with the dubious honor of learning the operational rudiments of Maxim Model 1906, 30 caliber machine guns.

Given the prevailing circumstances, it is reasonable to assume that Yossel, who was acutely aware of his perilous future, would have focused his inner failing energies on his plight. He did nothing of the sort—not for an instant, not even for a fraction of an instant. His thoughts—acrimonious, bitter and envious—instead, were fixed completely on his younger brother, Ari—the long gone, supreme, opportunist. Those invidious, unforgiving, feelings concerning the vanished Ari coursed through Yossel’s narrow tortured mind in an endless flow of invective, which shocked even him. It began with these cold-blooded words.

Curse my selfish, self-centered brother. At the very least, he could have left some of the money for the welfare of his family. Why the haste? Why the rush for him to leave? No one—as yet—knew of our father’s discovery of Dubrinoff’s thousand Rubles. Perhaps, they never would know! It was crystalline clear to him that his brother’ s precipitous flight spoke volumes. Ari, surmised Yossel, never cared a whit for his family, his roots, or for that matter — the Jewish people.

He had improperly taken Dubrinoff’s treasure and ran. Yes! Ran! Ran as quickly as possible from his home, from his family, from his past. He had bolted with the money to only God knows where. In all those ten years, there was never a word from him. Was he alive? No one, with any certainty, could say. All those unrelated thoughts : all those unanswered questions, at that moment, mattered little. For not only was Yossel ignorant of Ari’s current whereabouts: he also hadn’t the slightest notion of his own: nor did he care.

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2

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A LTHOUGH THE CZAR’S fiat conscripting him was unfair, undeserved, and unjust, there was no recourse, no rescue, no escape. The Czar’s order was irreversible, unalterable, and absolute. During the recent past, Yossel had been an erudite scholar. But now, for the present, perhaps forever, he was relegated to nothing more : nothing less, than being Private Dubrinoff of the Imperial East Siberian Rifle Regiment’s Machine Gun Company.

On the cold, damp, early morning of January 20, 1904, Yossel’s regiment arrived in a foreboding, wretched place known as Port Arthur, a strategic northeast Asian fortified seaport forming part of the nominally Chinese territory of Manchuria. Yossel was among more than fifty thousand lonely and desperate Russian troops currently besieged at the southern-most tip of a long, hilly, impenetrable stretch of land known as the Liaodong Peninsula.

Beleaguered in gnawing despair, those unpaid, underfed, lonely, miserable, brave, bold, weak, hungry, volunteer, and conscripted, soldiers were the forlorn, almost forgotten, but still devoted soldiers of the Czar who encompassed Port Arthur’s surrounded, distressed, garrison. That desolate place, that Port Arthur, so despised by Yossel, was a twenty-five-year Russian leasehold, forcibly extracted from the Chinese in 1898 as part of Russia’s questionable Manchurian Railway rights. During the past six years, Port Arthur—the Czar’s long-sought warm-water port—had been heavily fortified both to prevent its capture and serve as the pivotal naval base of Russia’s Pacific Fleet. Due to its near impregnable position, the fortress-port came to strategically dominate Northern China, Manchuria, and their adjacent dependant territories.

Bounded by Korea to its southwest, China to its southeast, and Manchuria to its north, Port Arthur supplied Russia with a supreme commanding position overlooking the shipping lanes at the entrance to the Yellow Sea. However, unlike northern Siberia’s Vladivostok, Port Arthur provided Russia with facile access twelve months a year to the ultra-important, vital, North Pacific. Port Arthur, as well, effectively blocked expansionist Japanese ambition. Consequently, it became the cockpit of an escalating power struggle between the Empires of Russia and Japan. The disposition of that incipient conflict would determine not only the ultimate dominance of the Sea of Japan and the North Pacific, but more importantly, the de facto suzerainty over vast swaths of territory, ostensibly still components of the eroding, corrupt, Chinese Qing Empire.

The reasons for the North Pacific struggle were relatively uncomplicated. Russia and Japan possessed rival Imperial ambitions pertaining to the future control over Manchuria and Korea. Those territories slowly were being carved out of the carcass of what once had been a puissant Chinese Empire. Because of its continuing unresolved internal conflicts, China had been irreversibly disintegrating for over a century. By the advent of the ultimate decade of the nineteenth century, its far eastern provinces were ripe for seizure by the first nation, which acted decisively, callously, and above all, quickly.

To demonstrate its relentless march to the Pacific, Russia recently had completed the Trans-Siberian, the world’s longest railway. The 5,578 miles of single-ribbon track enabled commercial connection between its newly acquired Manchurian territories and the Russian heartland. Consequently, providing, as and when required, expeditious movement of large contingents of troops and provision of munitions, to the hitherto unimportant far east.

No one or nation, anticipated that a renascent Japan, which over the span of several centuries assiduously had avoided both political and commercial involvement with Europeans, would be an energetic challenger for the incalculable spoils of the former Chinese colossus. Providing ample credence for this universal view, was that as recently as mid-1853, Japan had been little more than a medieval-like backwater of little or no international prominence.

However, on July 8 of that seminal year, when Commodore Perry of the United States Navy ordered his four double-deck frigates to lower their anchors in Tokyo Bay, the Shogunate rulers of Japan instituted strong political and military measures to preserve their sovereignty, and unavoidably assume a meaningful role in the destiny of Northeast Asia.

By the onset of the last decade of the nineteenth century, Japan had transformed from a struggling isolationist agricultural society into a modernized quasi-industrial state. The emergence of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan, from its self-imposed centuries of slumber, was the ultimate result of the 1868 restoration of power to the Meiji Imperial dynasty, creating a renascent, and growing sense of Japanese national identity. As a result, in 1895, Japan’s rising sun, with invaluable French and British assistance, vanquished China in a brief, inglorious, war, adding Taiwan and Korea to its blossoming Empire. That brief, ruthless, Sino-Japanese War ushered the foundation of a new era involving unimpeded Japanese military and commercial participation in Northeast Asian affairs. An era, which evidenced the once arcane, island Empire becoming a leading contender for the overall supremacy of the entire North Pacific geo-political region.

Fearing the imminent action of its looming Russian rival, without warning or declaration of war, and while negotiations were pending — during the late evening of February 8, 1904, the Japanese pre-emptively struck the anchored Russian Pacific Fleet, committing what the United States and Western European nations characterized as a reprehensible, uncivilized act of naked aggression. Finally, on February 10, 1904, a full day and a half after the initial attack, a formal Declaration of War was delivered in the Russia capital of St. Petersburg by an unapologetic, haughty Japanese envoy. That surreptitious, grievous assault marked the first time in the annals of modern naval history that a concerted attack was made against a motionless, nonbelligerent, unsuspecting fleet peaceably at anchor in its home port.

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F ROM THE DATE of his arrival in Port Arthur in early January 1904 until his Regiment’s posting the following August at the defensive Metre Hill 203 redoubt, Yossel had seen little action. That was entirely due to his skill with pen-and-ink, combined with his ability to perfectly read and write the Cyrillic alphabet. As a fortunate outcome of Yossel’s self-taught Slavic erudition, he was chosen by the Company Sergeant Major to be one of three regimental clerks at the headquarters of the East Siberian Rifles. His comfortable employment conditions, nonetheless, took an unexpected turn for the worse, when Yossel’s Regiment was ordered to duty, within the reinforced steel, concrete, and timber bunkers tactically positioned slightly below 203’s pinnacle.

He presently uneasily stood behind a model 1901, 30-caliber Maxim machine gun, peering into the satanic darkness of an unpredictable future. His eyes were wet and squinting. Sweat dripped from his every pore. His brow furrowed: His mouth dry. His stomach bloated in pain. His black knee-high boots thickly caked in the sucking mud of Hill 203. This abominable place of compressed fear, death, and worse, would be Yossel’s only home for the perilous, dire, forthcoming weeks.

At 10 o’clock in the forenoon of that best-forgotten September 19, 1904, Yossel and his companions, attending the Maxim at the extreme right quarter of the redoubt’s central bunker, heard the ominous booming of field artillery. At almost the same instant, the high-pitched whistling of plummeting artillery shells added to the earsplitting noise.

Through the thick drifting clouds of low-lying black smoke floating parallel to his stinging eyes, Yossel could ascertain terrifying bursts of yellow, white, and blue, accompanied by parallel overhead explosions. The resulting flying hot metal and putrid stench of cordite emanated from six batteries of state-of-the-art quick-firing Krupp ordinance, recently purchased by Japan from Germany. However, that was not all. From a location five miles distant, there suddenly occurred enormous earth-hurling explosions from 478-pound shells discharged from long-range howitzers. Then, as quickly as they had started, the howitzers ceased fire. A pause of complete silence supervened, causing the entire battlefield to take on an eerie stillness. That discomforting calm nevertheless was short-lived, being interrupted by Russian field artillery. The brief Russian reponse barrage, were discharged from three short-range batteries did little damage. And, lasting but ten minutes, proved totally ineffective. Once again, silence ensued. Once again, the eerie quiet

The pervading, too-brief intervals of calm abruptly was replaced by blasts of blaring trumpets insistently calling upon the massed Japanese Regiments to leave their safe entrenchments and, in a death-defying frontal charge, move up the face of Metre Hill 203. The deafening multiple trumpets, soon were drowned in crescendos of screaming Japanese officers, waving Samurai swords in the direction of the Russian bunkers. Their piercing, high-pitched, voices insistently shouting: "Long live the Emperor. Forward! To our deaths or theirs! … For the Emperor! For our honor! For Nippon! … Charge!"

Yes, there they were! Yossel could plainly see them—bayonets fixed on their long-barreled French-made rifles, clad in dark-blue brass-buttoned uniforms, their shaven heads wearing French-inspired kepis. Yes, there they were! Rank upon rank, line after line, in suicidal human waves—ruthlessly progressing toward the steel-reinforced concrete and timbered bunkers of the unassailable Hill. Moving ever closer, the blue waves soon appeared almost directly in front of Yossel’s bunker. Yes, here they are! Here they are! Rapid Fire! Fire! Shoot! Shoot! every Russian officer hysterically shrieked in the direction of the relentless Japanese, running headlong into a thick Russian maelstrom of inescapable bullets, shells, and grenades. The carnage and intensity of the Japanese attack instigated a deep-seated emotional struggle within Yossel’s agitated mind, thoroughly permeating his troubled soul. Notwithstanding that he always closely heeded the admonition of the Ninth Commandment—Thou Shall Not Kill— here he was, the once brilliant Rabbinic scholar who, as did Moses — stood near the uppermost pinnacle of a high place. However, Yossel’s high place, unlike Mount Sinai, was fraught with danger and death. There was no room on Metre Hill 203 for a divine voice coming from a burning bush; nor was any heard.

Yes, here he was, far removed from Mount Sinai. Far removed from his people, his culture, his family, his religion. Here he was in a Russian defensive redoubt in Northeast Asia, countless miles and timeless years from the Promised Land of Israel Yes, here he was in a steel, concrete and timber bunker in the midst of battle—singular and solitary—on the pinnacle of Meter Hill 203 : a high, forsaken, doomed place. Perhaps, on this, lofty, Manchurian hill, on this unique, high place, Hashem would hear his excruciating plea and grant him surcease in answer to the inexorable question, Should he, Yossel, a man of divinely inspired inner peace and a future Rabbi, Kill or not Kill?

Deep in his head, Yossel heard a familiar inner voice; that voice was his voice. It said that the overarching imperative of God was not only to preserve life but additionally, to create it. Then came another penetrating thought—one less ethereal, one rooted in cold reality. The Japanese understood little of mercy. Moreover, the Japanese were not blessed with the Ninth Commandment. Indeed, if they had a God, that God was not his God. Yossel reminded himself that he remained unmarried. He must therefore, above all else, survive and live—live to seek a wife, live to marry, and live to create life. As an observant servant of the Lord, he was obligated to go forth and multiply.

Then he spoke a single word. Not as a whisper in the usual private sanctity of his mind, but in an extremely loud, assertive voice. He heard himself say, Amen. Whereupon he thanked God for His Love and lavish benevolence. Without further thought, he instinctively understood what perforce, he must do. He would take measures to manifest God’s Will. Above and beyond anything else, it was imperative that he—Yossel, the devoted servant of God— should survive. Through the power of his loving God, somehow, he must transcend these superficial events. He must persevere and live. Yossel accomplished those objectives by the simple expediency of readying for action the Maxim machine gun. In doing so, he was assisted by his two companions: the Ukrainian Tadeusz Sahidic and the White Russian, Ivan Barshefsky.

They quickly cleared the Maxim’s sights and opened several boxes of the belt-fed ammunition. Implementing every caution, they made sure that there was enough water nearby to sufficiently cool the Maxim’s often too-hot barrel. It was an event — judging by what had occurred during the past hour, that ominous fact was a foregone conclusion. The expected Order came loudly from their Sergeant Major in two terse, precise words: Commence firing! Upon hearing the two words of that unmistakable, unequivocal phrase, Yossel carefully aimed the barrel of the Maxim toward the swarming lines of thick-packed blue. He pulled back the sensitive trigger and began the systematic killing of Japanese troops at the rate of five hundred bullets per minute.

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A S THEY FELL mortally wounded or dead, on the sides and to the front of Hill 203, the frenzied Japanese mutated into row upon row of tightly grouped inert bodies, weaving a carpet of dark-blue uniforms splattered with dark red blood. Lying abandoned next to most of them on the partially frozen ground were their weapons, caps, and equipment. They died en masse, neither fearful nor shamed. For to give one’s life in the cause of the divine Emperor in accord with the exacting tenents of the Bushido-Code of military conduct—was an unqualified, honor.

More quickly than it began, the bugles, trumpets, and shouting – first abated, then subsided and, once more, grew hauntingly still. The hysteric attack, costing hundreds of lives, was concluded. The entire front again was motionless and, save for the intermittent cries of human suffering, became strangely and oppressively soundless. Within a quarter hour, even the wrenching sounds of despair—some asking, others demanding, to be shot so they could die honorable deaths—finally dissipated and vanished. The few attackers remaining alive, as if of one mind, disdainfully turned their backs on the Russians, and slowly retreated, almost trancelike to the temporary security of their trench lines.

Yossel slowly looked first to his right and then to his left, smiling and nodding agreeably to Tadeusz and Ivan. Both acknowledged similar knowing smiles. No words passed among them. Words would have been superfluous, anticlimactic, futile. They were, however, greatly relieved to have survived unscathed, the first Japanese frontal attack. There would be no more that day. They sensed their successful defense of the bunker, which, even though fleeting, nevertheless was a victory—a puny, inconsequential victory – but a victory no less.

The bunker’s entire complement of troops, without prompting, joyously, began singing and enthusiastically kissed and hugged one another. Their popular attentive Captain — Mikhail Vassily Gorbachov — unexpectedly appeared. He was red-faced, bleary-eyed, and slightly bleeding from superficial skin lacerations. The good-natured Captain, in a state of quasi-alcoholic stupor combining jubilation and tears, after placing several bottles of vodka and brandy on an unopened ammunition box, shouted,

Good work, lads. Our intrepid Czar is proud of you. And pointing his right index finger at the unopened bottles of vodka, he challenged, So let everyone imbibe a refreshing taste of these. From the throng of fatigued Russians came the cry of Three Cheers for our good and brave Captain Gorbachov! Three Cheers for our little father, the Czar! The cheering—jovial, louder, and even more jarring than the noise of the cannonade earlier that day—was a temporary catharsis, shared by the defenders of the still impenetrable, unconquered stronghold of Metre Hill 203.

Prayers of appreciation raised on high to the Almighty coursed the passages of Yossel’s inflexible, narrow conscience. His exclamations of supreme gratitude to the One God of the Children of Israel, although silent on his lips, rang stridently in his life-force energy. Unnoticed and silent, he cautiously stepped outside the bunker to complete his prayers to the Highest in a semblance of peaceful privacy, and view unimpeded, the post-attack, terrain.

What Yossel saw caused nausea to immediately churn in his stomach. Bile entered his mouth. He coughed and spat several times, then blinked and closed his eyes, aghast at the horrifying sight. Unable to restrain himself any further, he grossly vomited. For what he he saw upon the mud, rocks, and all other ground cover, both on the side of the Hill and to the front of the bunker were the strewn, bloody lifeless remains of mortally stricken Japanese troops. Those pitiful, bodies comprised the remains of four of the finest regiments of the Emperor of Japan’s Imperial Guard—all 3,780 of them—and each one – reeked with the putrid, malodorous, stink of death.

Although there was a considerable risk from Japanese snipers and observers, to maximize his better comprehension of Metre Hill 203, Yossel sought an optimum place to view the surrounding topography. To accomplish that purpose, he would have to accept the risks and climb yet higher. Believing his self-conviction as nothing less than God’s Will, he ascended further upward until the Hill’s verticality ceased. Desperately hoping that the Japanese sharpshooters would not spot him, he summoned the residue of his declining courage and chanced to stand partially erect to permit his optimum scrutiny of the imposing vista broadly spreading beneath his direct line of sight.

Cautiously taking a few more steps to ensure a better footing, Port Arthur — its harbor and defenses, suddenly came unhampered into sight. Instantly, he comprehended the vital importance of Hill 203 its fortifications and tactical nexus to the neighboring hills. Nevertheless, a soul-wrenching question cloaked his revelation with uneasy misgiving: What was God’s purpose in sending him to this tragic Hill? To this forsaken mountain of death and destruction? The definitive answer to that supreme question, in due course, inexorably would be revealed. The unanticipated result of Yossel’s risk-laden journey to 203’s rounded top, was a revitalization of his faith. As the entire panorama of Port Arthur—its verisimilitude and variety—faded into the impenetrable Pacific horizon, every fiber of his soul called out for him to understand that there was a greater good beyond his present comprehension, as to why the Lord had sent him to this foresaken damnable Hill.

From his vantage point at the Hill’s summit, Yossel quickly surmised that Meter Hill 203 was the highest elevation of the Port’s defenses. Furthermore, he realized this ultra strategic Hill overlooking Port Arthur’s wide harbor, and its narrow entrance to the ocean shipping lanes was a gross misnomer. In reality, the Hill consisted of two separate peaks, respectively 203 and 210 meters in height and 149 meters apart. Both peaks and their connecting trench system formed a single massive fortress protected by several expertly engineered redoubts of steel-reinforced concrete bunkers covered with insulating layers of earth. Additional sheltering was enhanced by electrified barbed-wire entanglements and, to assist night vision, massive arc lights, which surrounded the immense and, thus far, impenetrable Russian position.

Yossel took note that at the very top of 203’s lower peak, there was a substantial yet inconspicuous Russian Command Post. Unknown to him was that within the Post, seated behind a makeshift table, reposed his diligent commanding officer, Colonel Tetyakov. Nor was Yossel aware that Tetyakov had five companies of infantry, ten machine-gun detachments, a company of engineers, and a battery of field artillery at his disposal. Had Yossel known, he would have ventured that at the absolute best, Tetyakov’s force was completely inadequate to resist the wretched, incalculable, wrath of the obsessive, fervid, Japanese. In any event, Yossel had seen more than enough to conclude that the prospects for Tetyakov’s thin command, at the very best, were dim … The hour was now approaching late afternoon. Momentarily, it would be dark. Yossel decided to make his way back. Concurrently, considering reasonable explanations to use if anyone inquired why he had been absent from their celebrations and, more importantly, as to where he had gone. If someone chanced to ask those very same penetrating questions, what, indeed, would he say? That he had been out viewing the defenses of Port Arthur? No, not that highly suspicious yet equally honest answer. Never. Never. No, not that answer. Not that brutally frank, incriminating, and damning answer.

That candid response undoubtedly would cause his officers and comrades to think him a spy, or even worse — a despicable Jewish traitor. He would be put in front of a firing squad and—without trial, court martial, or objection from anyone, be summarily executed. It was all too horrible to contemplate.

Then, unpredictably, it happened. In the lowering light of the early dusk, he accidentally overlooked a small sharp rock covered with earth and undergrowth that jutted outward onto his pathway. As chance would have it, Yossel’s boot forcefully collided with the obstacle. Accordingly, his ankle unwillingly became twisted, and his body—all 149 pounds of it—fell swiftly forward. He landed hard on his right shoulder with an audible thud; and, then and there, in the deepest pain and terror, commenced roughly rolling down Metre Hill 203. He finally came to a halt a long minute later and not less than two hundred bruising feet from the place where he had fallen.

He lay on the ground groaning for several deceptively endless minutes, and although his shoulder’s agony was unbearable, no limbs, as best he could determine, were fractured. There was, of course, the tell-tale fact of his lacerated face and hands. Well, he superciliously decided, I’ll explain that away easily enough to those Siberian simpletons. He guardedly approached the side entrance to the bunker, where Igor, a quasi-Mongolian of enormous physical size and small brain, stood watch at the bunker’s door. Yossel already was attempting to remember the passwords. What were they? Thank God, he mumbled as he finally recalled them. They were Jesus and St. George. He moved toward the sentry carefully, stealthily, barely seen and unrecognizable. Then he calmly half-whispered.

Igor, it’s me, Yossi Dubrinoff.

I don’t care what your name is or who you say you may or may not be. Approach me slowly and give the password, or I will shoot you several times, dead.

Alarmed, fearful, and perspiring, Yossel retorted loudly, Jesus and St. George.

Are forever blessed among the mighty. Advance and be recognized, responded Igor, uttering the counter passwords in his basso voice.

Yossel complied. Slowly moving toward Igor, his cuts and bruises, his torn and dirty uniform blouse, and : every part of his completely ruinous condition, now completely exposed and in full sight.

"In the name of our Savior,