Read Online Around the World in 50 Years by Albert Podell - Free Book Online
Authors: Albert Podell
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state where foreign goods were scarce and the currency weak, smuggling was immensely profitable.
For 20 minutes we waited our turn. Almost everyone ahead of us had trouble: Half of them had goods confiscated and half had to pay import duties. These were all for minor offenses, like bringing in a can of fruit packed in Morocco or having a new blanket not made in Egypt. What would happen to us if their search uncovered our gun, our bourbon, and our undeclared greenbacks? It was a hot night, and we sweated profusely.
Fortunately for us, it had been a busy night at the customs post. It was late, we were last in line, and the tired guard did not search us thoroughly. I assumed he was just reluctant to go plowing through two loaded cars and trailers, but his conversation convinced me that he presumed Americans were so rich theyâd never smuggle anything. He handed us a set of temporary Egyptian plates and closed the office.
Steve resolved to find a better hiding place for our pistol, quickly change our undeclared dollars, and take a hit for the team by drinking all our bourbon. I shook a bit and breathed deeply; you need a certain kind of nerveless constitution to be a smuggler, and I didnât have it.
Morning dawned clear, bright, and dry, and the sun came up warm against a blue-white and cloudless sky. The Mediterranean winked at us with friendly blue wavelets. Steve and I plunged in, and even Manu shrugged off his morning torpor and followed. The warm, foaming sea embraced us, washing off the dirt and sweat of days, soothing us, carrying us from the land, taking us into another world. From the roof of the cloudless ceiling of sky to the clear depths of the sea bottom, it was a world of beauty and contentment. We were at one and at peace with nature, three bobbing specks in the friendly caress of an eternal sea.
Before moving on, we visited the British WW II cemetery just past Sollum, a large, flat, sandy rectangle filled with several thousand simple headstones, shaded here and there by a tree or a flowering bush, the result of diligent care. Beyond the walls were no trees or flowers, just the dead sands. The gravekeeper clarified that the Anglo-Egyptian War Monuments Commission maintained the cemetery, one of a dozen that dotted the North African desert from Tripoli to Tobruk to the grand entombment at El Alamein. They held the remains of 35,000 Commonwealth soldiers who had died fighting to tie the tail of the Desert Fox when Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had been sweeping across Africa toward Suez, attempting to link up with the Japanese somewhere in India and conquer the world. The turning of the tide would come at El Alamein; the stemming of the tide had been here, at Sollum.
We walked among the neat rows of identical gravestones, all shining white and pure in the afternoon sun. Interred here were drivers and troopers, flight engineers and artillerymen, privates and sergeants, Canadians and South Africans, all brought from distant lands to perish on this uncaring killing ground. We read the inscriptions.
Tell England, Ye who pass this way, I died for her and rest here content.
We will always remember you when the rest of the world forgets
âMUM AND SISTER
If love could have saved, you would never have died.
The desert wind blew mournfully down the hedge of barren hills and across the graves as it swept to meet the sea. The eternal Mediterranean played a funeral sonata on the keyboard of the shore. The sun sank lower over the wasteland. Every soil is a brave manâs country .
Our heads bowed, our eyes filled with tears, we walked in silence toward the gate. I looked at the last tombstones and thought of those who cherished these men but would never see their distant resting place. In alien earth he lies, not for him the last, long slumber under friendly skies.
We left the cemetery and stood gazing with misty eyes at the barren hills, the encroaching sands, the fruitless earth. The sun was on the far
For 20 minutes we waited our turn. Almost everyone ahead of us had trouble: Half of them had goods confiscated and half had to pay import duties. These were all for minor offenses, like bringing in a can of fruit packed in Morocco or having a new blanket not made in Egypt. What would happen to us if their search uncovered our gun, our bourbon, and our undeclared greenbacks? It was a hot night, and we sweated profusely.
Fortunately for us, it had been a busy night at the customs post. It was late, we were last in line, and the tired guard did not search us thoroughly. I assumed he was just reluctant to go plowing through two loaded cars and trailers, but his conversation convinced me that he presumed Americans were so rich theyâd never smuggle anything. He handed us a set of temporary Egyptian plates and closed the office.
Steve resolved to find a better hiding place for our pistol, quickly change our undeclared dollars, and take a hit for the team by drinking all our bourbon. I shook a bit and breathed deeply; you need a certain kind of nerveless constitution to be a smuggler, and I didnât have it.
Morning dawned clear, bright, and dry, and the sun came up warm against a blue-white and cloudless sky. The Mediterranean winked at us with friendly blue wavelets. Steve and I plunged in, and even Manu shrugged off his morning torpor and followed. The warm, foaming sea embraced us, washing off the dirt and sweat of days, soothing us, carrying us from the land, taking us into another world. From the roof of the cloudless ceiling of sky to the clear depths of the sea bottom, it was a world of beauty and contentment. We were at one and at peace with nature, three bobbing specks in the friendly caress of an eternal sea.
Before moving on, we visited the British WW II cemetery just past Sollum, a large, flat, sandy rectangle filled with several thousand simple headstones, shaded here and there by a tree or a flowering bush, the result of diligent care. Beyond the walls were no trees or flowers, just the dead sands. The gravekeeper clarified that the Anglo-Egyptian War Monuments Commission maintained the cemetery, one of a dozen that dotted the North African desert from Tripoli to Tobruk to the grand entombment at El Alamein. They held the remains of 35,000 Commonwealth soldiers who had died fighting to tie the tail of the Desert Fox when Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had been sweeping across Africa toward Suez, attempting to link up with the Japanese somewhere in India and conquer the world. The turning of the tide would come at El Alamein; the stemming of the tide had been here, at Sollum.
We walked among the neat rows of identical gravestones, all shining white and pure in the afternoon sun. Interred here were drivers and troopers, flight engineers and artillerymen, privates and sergeants, Canadians and South Africans, all brought from distant lands to perish on this uncaring killing ground. We read the inscriptions.
Tell England, Ye who pass this way, I died for her and rest here content.
We will always remember you when the rest of the world forgets
âMUM AND SISTER
If love could have saved, you would never have died.
The desert wind blew mournfully down the hedge of barren hills and across the graves as it swept to meet the sea. The eternal Mediterranean played a funeral sonata on the keyboard of the shore. The sun sank lower over the wasteland. Every soil is a brave manâs country .
Our heads bowed, our eyes filled with tears, we walked in silence toward the gate. I looked at the last tombstones and thought of those who cherished these men but would never see their distant resting place. In alien earth he lies, not for him the last, long slumber under friendly skies.
We left the cemetery and stood gazing with misty eyes at the barren hills, the encroaching sands, the fruitless earth. The sun was on the far
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