Capitolo 54
cruiser. Their faces showed tension and the anxiety. Their presence there
seemed too much good person to be true, and all attended the moment when the ship
owes anchor of effort. A sailor of Filipino showed us around, and as him he spoke
Italian, I told him I wanted to be hidden in some place up to the ship it got
in progress. I even still felt that we was not completely the safe. What my fears
me it was justified I shortly discovered, when from our hiding-place I saw
the storekeeper that draws near in a small boat with a Turkish officer. Them
looked at all the refugees on the bridge, but it looked for in vain us.
After a mezz'ora more than tension it inconveniences the motors they started
squirts, the propellers turned, and--we was sure!
[THE ILLUSTRATION: BEIRUT, FROM THE BRIDGE OF A STEAMBOAT IN DEPARTURE]
The day was dying and a beautiful twilight softened the contours of the
Lebanon and the houses in Beirut. The Mediterranean placed quiet and
peaceful around the healthy one and we, American and strong sailors gave a
hearing some trust. As the cruiser unsheathed of the I bring, a great
cries of goodbye it rose from the refugees on axle, a to whine in that it was
mixed the relief of the anguish to be free to going away behind parents and
friends, fear and the hope for the future. A small later the sailors they were
it flanked above in arm to greet the American flag when you/he/she had lowered for the
night. You moved by a powerful instinct of love and it respects, all the
refugees jumped to their feet, the men to open head and the women with
folded up hands, and at that time I understood as I had never understood
in front of the true sacred meaning of a flag. To everything those people being standing
in reverential fear on that piece of cloth that bears the stars and strips America
it was an incarnation of universal love of the liberty and the salvation.
The Syrian and fresh night, our first night on the cruiser had passed in
songs, hymns and conversation. We was all too excited to sleep.
Friends discovered friends and histories of the pain you/they had exchanged, histories of