Life in the Besieged City
263
I decided to take a stealthy walk toward the fighting front.
A member of the mishmar haam soon stopped me. He was a
pale, bookish-looking, elderly man. With a businesslike motion of his billy he waved me back. Half-trucks loaded with
reinforcements, and vehicles completely enclosed with armor,
dome-shaped at the top, rumbled by. Ambulances marked
with the Mogen David Adorn (Red Shield of David) tore
through the streets, while the Arab cannonading continued its
terrifying staccato. I watched from a doorway, then hurried
up the ruined block of Ben Yehuda street, past the high concrete wall, the Jewish Agency Building, and down King
George avenue, to the Pantiles.
THE PANTILES—HOME AND REFUGE
OUR home was a solid structure, handsome by Palestinian
standards, built of cream-colored stone. Most of the New City
was built of this durable rock, making homes impregnable except to direct bomb hits. Otherwise the New City would
never have survived its terrific bombardment. The Pantiles's
front balconies overlooked the Old City and the Yemin
Moshe defense area. Another balcony looked upon the Public
Information Office and Deir Aboutor, where I assumed Moustafa and the boys were still fighting. Located near the edge
of no-man's land, the Pantiles was as "neutral" as any spot
in Jerusalem could be.
Carter Davidson had wisely anticipated a long siege, but
being a journalist and not a housekeeper, he had only stocked
up mainly with American Spam, Argentine bully beef, salty
English cheese, and canned salmon of unknown pedigree.
Salmon, bully beef, and Spam; Spam, bully beef, and salmon,
became our constant diet after the cheese, little meat, flour,
and eggs gave out. We also had a store of beer. Always being
One who preferred solid to liquid nourishment, the beer did
me no particular good. To the others it was an elixir.