I liked this big shaggy soldier the minute I saw him. Though his hand played tricks, it was never with my possessions. Basically his character was honest and simple, uncorrupted by the greed and venality about him. Moustafa never professed to be religious: I never saw him kneel in prayer. A one-time captain in the Egyptian army, he had been born into a farming family of small landowners. They had given him a good elementary-school education, and in addition he could read and write English -- rare among Egyptians. But he was a natural-born fighter and detested farm work. When I met him he had just returned from an expedition: his next assignment -- due to come within a few weeks -- was to lead the Green Shirt contingents and Followers of Truth into Palestine and make guerrilla attacks on Jewish outposts.

I had planned to go later to Palestine by myself; but when I heard this news, I made a quick decision. How much better to go with Moustafa and his men! How much better to be an intimate part of the Arab guerrilla movement, than to go as the typical reporter, always the outsider and stranger. I broached the subject to Moustafa. "I will come along as your photographer," I suggested. A few days later, after we found we hit it off well together, he agreed. When he and his men would leave for Palestine, I would go with them.

"I will arrange it with Ahmed Hussein," Moustafa said.

I quizzed him on his views on Zionism.

"We are fighting because Palestine is our land and we want to die there. Even if all the world helps the Jews we know we will win because our God is the strongest. We are not afraid to die. The Jews are cowards because they want to live. The Arab would rather lose ten men than one gun. The Jews are the opposite. They want to save their lives and lose their guns. That is one difference between us. Besides, we have plenty of money," Moustafa went on. "Plenty of ammunition. Plenty of men, We even have a Tiger tank we stole from the British."

"How did you manage that?"

"We paid £500 to English soldiers who were riding in the tank. They stopped and went into the bushes where we paid them money. When they came out the tank was gone. Don't think we are without friends," Moustafa continued. "We have English deserters and Germans fighting with us. They make some of our bombs. We also have Czechs and Yugoslavs spying for us. They go right into Tel Aviv and tell us how things are. They are fine spies."

At Green Shirt headquarters, Moustafa introduced me to a fiery Egyptian who was training the volunteers. His name was Izzed-een Abdul Kader...Moustafa said dolefully, while Izzed-een watched me with his little, suspicious, red-rimmed eyes. "He is willing to kill anybody who is an enemy of Misr el Fattat. He is a very strong patriot."

"Will he kill me if he thinks I'm your enemy?" I asked curiously.

Moustafa spoke to him, then turned to me and translated his reply with a smile: "If he knows you to be a Jew or a spy, he will not only kill you, but he will drink your blood."

With this comforting thought I left Misr el Fattat headquarters for a long night of note-making...There were thousands of these volunteers and adventurers from all the Arab countries, armed and financed by pashas, sheiks, or the Arab League, trained on Egyptian army grounds by regular army officers on leave. Their role was to harass the Jew, cut off his communications, isolate settlements, strip and weaken him for the moment, now only a few weeks off, when the British would leave Palestine and the entire Arab world would declare a bloody, open season on the Jew. Then the regular Arab armies would invade Palestine and settle once and for all the impudent and fantastic Zionist dream of a Jewish state on Arab soil.