218
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
stroy the Jewish villages. They are afraid of anything new.
They say it will cost them too much money. They are waiting
for Allah to help them!"
Deeply embittered, he went on: "If those Arabs had followed orders we'd have cleaned out the Jews long ago. Take
this village outside Gaza [Kibbutz Kfar Darom]. We made a
perfect plan to attack it with three columns: 34 Germans
and eight Yugoslavs in one column, 210 Ikhwan in another;
a hundred Followers of Truth making the third column. We
were to assemble exactly at midnight and march from three
sides. The Germans were on time. Ikhwan came three hours
late. The others—just before sunrise! We couldn't surprise
the Jews. We attacked anyway—lost about forty men. A bullet went through my hip."
When I returned to Moustafa, he had already given up his
strenuous attempts to date one of the nurses. Outside the
hospital he turned to me and blew up. "Must you be a saint
to go out with an Armenian?" he demanded, disgusted.
"Yallah.'"
Faris was waiting for us at the hotel with a truck, and off
we went to the Egyptian military base at El Arish, where we
were directed to a thick-walled, heavily guarded building.
Only one person at a time was allowed entry, and Faris went
in with what he said were receipts for the guns we expected.
He emerged to say that no one knew anything about them.
"Go in yourself, Moustafa, and ask."
Moustafa returned empty-handed, a dejected figure. The
guns had simply disappeared. "If we don't find those guns and
sell them, I have lost everything. I borrowed the money," he
said pathetically.
"Don't worry, Moustafa. Allah will find them."
Faris—whose investment was much larger than Moustafa's
—seemed unconcerned. He chatted amiably all the way back
to Gaza.
Two mornings later Faris announced we could ride part
way to Jerusalem, at least. He had located a sheik's son who