....but not by much.
 
 
 
From Night Run to Palestine in George MacDonald Fraser’s the General Danced at Dawn (1970):
 
 
. . Most of all I remember it on the Cairo–Jerusalem run in 1946 or ’47, when the Stern Gang and the Irgun were at large, and the windows were sometimes boarded because the glass had been shot out, and lines were being blown up, and the illegal immigrant ships were coming in through the blockade, and a new nation was being uncomfortably born in a welter of hatred and confusion and total misunderstanding on all sides. Ben Hecht was having a holiday in his heart every time a British soldier died, and British soldiers were having a holiday in theirs at the prospect of getting away from a country they detested, in which some kind of illusion was shattered for them because the names of Bible stories had turned out to be places where machine-pistols rattled and grenades came in through windows. In the U.N. there was much talk and seeking of viable solutions and exploration of channels, and in the Palestine clubs young subalterns danced with their guns pushed round out of the way but still handy.
 
 
 
Comment:
   
Another lesson on punctuation Mr. Fraser, thank you. And one that can remind us of where terrorism was born.
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
   
 
 
And an appropriate quote (from a fictional rendition of real soldiers):
     
Private Cole   Why us?
     
Colour-Sergeant Bourne   Because we’re ’ere, lad. And Nobody else.