Hannah Bauman

They say that every problem has a solution. What they could add is that given enough money that solution can usually be found.

The British had the ability to put pressure on the French, but on the ground, or to be more precise on the dockside at Marseille, the French government was a long way away. There were people here, people who could let a ship sail without authority if there was enough money to bribe them.

Captain Johansson, Dan Mordowicz, the Haganah commander, and one or two of the others debated the problem but they knew the answer all along, except it wasn’t the right answer because what money the captain had brought from the well-wishers of America had been spent getting the Levantine Trader this far. Marine fuel was expensive and in any case mostly had to be bought on the black market, and then there was food for seven hundred passengers. No, he couldn’t put together anything like the sort of amount it would take.

The bridge went quiet while they absorbed this information. They knew that the British were serious, and they knew they had enough food on board for only a few days. More importantly, the water tanks might not even last out that long, just for drinking and cooking, let alone washing. For once the captain was silent. He just didn’t have an answer.

Hannah took advantage of the silence to remind them that she was still there. She asked Dan to interpret.

‘Can you please tell me how much we would need in order...