Terror in Alexandria

It was an hour or so before midnight when we arrived in Alexandria. We hailed a taxi and Jack told the driver to take us to a hotel. We drove past crowds of yelling men who were shooting rifles into the air. Because we were non-Egyptians, none of the first few hotels we approached wanted to accept us.

Finally we found one that would admit us and we checked in at the front desk. Mary and I shared a room on the second floor, near the top of the staircase. Just as we walked into our suite, there was a huge explosion. The harbor had been bombed; and as it turned out, our hotel was located right on the waterfront.

All lights in the hotel went out, plunging us into total darkness. Having just arrived, I had no idea where to go or how to get there. I couldn’t see a thing. From the adjacent corridor I could hear screaming and crying.

“Mary! Mary!” I called. “Where are you?”

I stared into the darkness, but she was nowhere to be found. With piercing noises all around and not being able to see a thing, I crawled on my hands and knees, feeling my way down the winding staircase to the first floor.

The lights flickered back on as I passed through an empty dining room. The large, vertical windows, overlooking the Mediterranean, were destroyed. Tables were vacant, chairs were knocked over, and plates were left filled with food. I had not eaten since breakfast and grabbed a piece of fried chicken. As I entered the hotel lobby, a grenade exploded outside the front windows. Glass shattered everywhere.

Hotel attendants located Sven and me and pushed us into a dark closet adjacent to the front door and locked us in. Sven was visibly shaken and fell to his knees, head buried in his hands. With the hem of my skirt I wiped the sweat from my face.

I leaned forward and peeked through a tiny gap in the door. A mob of wild men ran in from the street, shouting loudly and brandishing firearms over their heads. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. I was terrified.

“Please, dear Lord, protect us,” I silently prayed as the minutes ticked by.

I imagined beatings and rape. What would become of me? Would I be killed? Trembling, I peered out the crack in the door and looked on in horror.

As soon as the unruly men left the lobby, a staff employee located Mary and Jack in an upstairs hallway. We were asked to check out, even though we had just checked in. We found another taxi and left immediately.

Although it was the beginning of a new day, it was still dark outside when we drove to Mary’s apartment. Her building had no security employees, but she now felt it was safer than the downtown hotels. Along the way we saw countless buildings with smashed windows, cars overturned, and roadside fires.

We snuck into her lodgings, and for the next forty-eight hours the four of us stayed hidden in her two-room apartment. Although we could hear shooting in the distance and smelled burning tires, we kept the curtains drawn at all times; we never looked out.

During the day we moved quietly and whispered constantly. We slept on the floor using throw pillows and towels. No lights were allowed at any time. Mary’s neighbor Mohammed slipped us food and informed us about the latest evacuation plans.

“Time to get ready,” he said.

We were to leave in the middle of the night and reach the wharf region by early morning. A ship from the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet had just arrived. We hurriedly said good-bye to Mohammed, and silently climbed into a taxi for the long ride to Alexandria’s international seaport.

On our way there we had to drive through a military base that fronted the shipyard. As the night began to fade and the day dawned, the driver cleared security and was told to stay on the main road. By doing so, we passed between hundreds of shouting troops that had assembled in a great square.

As we advanced toward the crowd, we saw a man hanging in effigy. The image, dressed in Western clothes, swung on a rope as the soldiers chanted for justice.

The driver steered deliberately and cautiously, maneuvering between the screaming men. They were so close to our taxi I could have touched them.

We scrunched our heads between our knees and covered ourselves with our jackets. I dreaded a real hanging and smelled the sweat of fear in our cab.

I was absolutely terrified of what awaited me. My heart pounded and my head throbbed. I closed my eyes, blocking out the surrounding scene. Again, I prayed.

The taxi moved slowly, fearful of accidentally hitting one of the screaming soldiers. It seemed like hours, but finally we crossed the square. The troops, preoccupied with the hanging, ignored our vehicle.

We now had only a short distance to drive. As we approached the docks, a silver ship was outlined against the early morning sky. Above it, the Stars and Stripes blew in the wind.

“What a beautiful sight,” I exclaimed.

We exited the taxi and entered the terminal. In a few hours, the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet transported all 567 of us across the Mediterranean to Greece. June 10th was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. And it was the end of the infamous Six-Day War.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-27