Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon Read Online Free Page B

the sheath almost pointed back toward the hilt. Casca was intrigued to see a weapon he had never encountered before. Lufti understood Hebrew, but spoke it in a unique fashion. He spoke no English; nor French, German, or Yiddish; nor any other language that Casca could think to try him in. Casca pointed to the scabbard, indicating that he would like to see the blade. The black man pulled it from his belt with his left hand, negligently dropping the beautiful sheath to the floor as he drew the scimitar with his right hand. The blade was double edged, about three feet long, and curved almost in a half circle, like a large sickle. An extremely awkward looking weapon, Casca thought as he accepted it from Lufti.
    In his hand it felt even clumsier than it appeared and fell awkwardly out of balance no matter in what fencing movement he tried to wield it.
    Atef Lufti shook his head and took it from him. He retreated a number of steps and then executed a number of wide, flat swipes accompanied by some very balletic footwork. In his hands the oddly shaped saber looked graceful and effective.
    " Shotel," he said as he picked up the scabbard and sheathed it. He pointed one long thumb to his chest and said the single word: "Falasha."
    There was something familiar about the word, but nobody was sure what it might mean. Casca had an idea it meant stranger in some Nubian dialect, but didn't volunteer the information. There could be no benefit for anybody in his revealing anything that might lead to an unraveling of the threads of his past.
    From his diary David Levy produced a small map of the world, and the black man pointed to the northeast corner of Africa: Ethiopia.
    "Sephardic!" the New Yorker exclaimed in wonder. "A real Jew! I've never met one before in my life."
    "And what do you think my race might be then?" the outraged Hyman Hagkel shouted. "Friggin' Arab?"
    "No," Levy replied placidly, " Lufti is more Arab than you could ever be. I'd guess your people were Russians."
    "Well," Hagkel said uncomfortably, "I will admit that several generations before they arrived in England my people did come from Russia and Poland, but before that they must have come from here."
    "Oh sure ," Levy laughed "we all share that delusion. That's why we're here."
    "Speak for yourself," said Harry Russell. "Like Case, I'm here for pay."
    "And so are lots more of us," Moynihan added.
    "You might say it's the pay," the New Yorker said with a chuckle, "but I well recall a claim that the lost tribes of Israel wound up in Ireland."
    "Yeah, I've heard the legend," Billy Glennon said, "but if it's true, they didn't wind up in County Down where my people come from."
    "Nor Mayo," said Russell.
    "Not Tipperary neither," said Moynihan. "But I guess we're here to do the job anyway."
    The Orthodox Londoner grinned and spread his hands wide. "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."
    His eyes had the gleam of a fanatic as he looked over the men in the hut and turned to where his valedictory candle still burned.
    "We will express the might."

CHAPTER FOUR
    The Sunday morning dawn parade was a peremptory affair, just sufficient to form the thousands of men up in some sort of order.
    Moynihan stared around at the motley mob. "Here's a parade to give a British RSM a heart attack," he said laughing.
    "Yeah," said Russell, "as undisciplined looking a bunch as you might hope to find."
    No two uniforms were the same. Men wore, it seemed, any sort of headdress that suited them. There were lots of military caps, but many were not Israeli issue and seemed to have been souvenired from other armies that the soldiers had served in. A number of them, such as Atef Lufti, wore Arab style burnouses. And, like Lufti, many of the troops carried their own sword, scimitars, daggers and knives. And carried them in an individual assortment of ways, stuck in belts, hanging from harnesses, behind their backs, in elaborate scabbards, or none at all. Nowhere could Moynihan