252
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
The fighting hadn't yet reached the Pantiles area, although
the Public Information Office building across the street was
already occupied by Haganah youth in rumpled khaki, dungarees, and makeshift remains of British uniforms. Most were
in their late teens, lean, wiry, agile as wildcats. Moustafa and
the boys of Deir Aboutor kept up a dangerous sniper and
machine-gun fire, but the Haganah chose not to waste its ammunition. I decided to see what was happening at the YMCA.
When I reached it, by a circuitous route, it was like a morgue.
Some of those taking refuge there were Moslem Arabs, but
most were Armenians and Christian Arabs—perhaps eighty
persons in all. One forlorn Armenian was a priest from our
monastery, named Reverend Haigaser Donigian. Foolishly he
had waited till the last moment to embark for Haifa, to replace the priest there.
"I can get neither to Haifa, nor back to the Old City. I'm
stranded," he said, dejected.
"It is dangerous, but I think I can lead you most of the
way to the Old City by the back streets," I volunteered. "Let's
hurry!"
Cautiously we ventured out, and peered from behind a
building. Julian's Way, the street on which the "Y" fronted,
was absolutely deserted; with no firing at the moment, it was
a silent no-man's land littered with roadblocks and barbed
wire, obviously in Jewish hands. Across the street was a Shell
gas station. From its direction appeared two French policemen in metal helmets, guards at the French Consulate. They
peered down Julian's Way.
"If they make it," I said to the priest, "we will try it, too."
The French crossed without mishap. Reverend Donigian
and I walked down Julian's Way