Israel by Fred Lawrence Feldman

Author:Fred Lawrence Feldman [Feldman, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786754441
Publisher: Writers House

Chapter 27

The grenades’ destructive power was contained by the thick walls, but the resultant panic made a shambles of the marketplace. Fleeing bystanders toppled the charcoal cooking brazier in front of a food vendor’s stall; the accident went unnoticed in the confusion. The scattered coals began to smolder in their nests of straw and sawdust and soon tendrils of blinding, acrid smoke were winding through the catacombs.

A pair of bodies lay where the twin explosions had flung them. A wounded man wandered in shock; others managed to stagger outside and lay sprawled in the narrow thoroughfare, moaning and crying. The explosions caved in part of the roof. Frenetic would-be rescuers shouted contradictory orders as they tried to dig out the crumbled masonry and toppled timbers.

The rug merchant across the way was one of those who hurried to lend a hand. He was unharmed except for the ringing in his ears.

The British police soon arrived, but there was little they could do except step gingerly about the rubble. The vaults of the marketplace could not accommodate motor vehicles. The ambulances idled an eighth of a mile away. Those too badly injured to walk would have to be loaded onto stretchers and carried up twisting passages out into the open.

“Who saw what happened?” one of the policemen bawled in Arabic. “Who has information about this mess?” He rocked on his heels, his thumbs hooked into his pistol belt. “Come on,” he shouted, “how do you expect us to catch the bloody Jews if you won’t help us?”

The rug merchant timidly approached the officer. He tugged at the policeman’s khaki sleeve. “He was not a Jew,” the rug merchant murmured after he’d garnered the officer’s attention. “He was an Englishman.”

“What’s that? English, you say?” The policeman chewed on the ends of his mustache as he thought it over. Just the other day his sergeant had lectured them on the possibility that certain British, sympathetic to the Zionists, might throw in with them. That sort of thing was certainly not unheard of. Why, Captain Orde Wingate of British Intelligence had thrown in with that Haganah lot, teaching the Yids things they had no business knowing. It was a short leap from advising the Yids to an active role in their operations.

“Perhaps you’d better tell me about it.” The officer pulled out a leather-bound notebook and a stub of pencil. “Start with a description.” He licked the point and began to write as the merchant spoke.

“Blond hair and blue eyes, handsome, very tall and well built.”

An Arab in suit, tie and fez listened as the merchant stammered his description of the attacker. He was seated on the cobblestones some yards away with his back against an overturned table. Directly in his line of vision was a severed arm in the blood-slick gutter. The hand lay palm up, the fingers curled. The Arab wished someone would take it away or at the very least cover it.

He had no need to eavesdrop on the rug merchant’s description.

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