LEAD: Shiite Amal militiamen taking cover behind a bullet-pocked wall as they battled pro-Iranian fighters yesterday in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Rachel swung around the bullet-pocked wall once more.

He jerked his head in the general direction of the bullet-pocked wall.

All told, his house was hit from three sides, his armored Mercedes was destroyed, and his 11-year-old son's bedroom, complete with Batman rug, was left with bullet-pocked walls.

He said to Martin, "They're both under the sanctuary pews there-" The lights in the loft went on, illuminating the sloping expanse of ripped pews, bullet-pocked walls, burnt lockers, and scarred aisles.

He'd seen much bigger boys crying, men even, as they were stood up against the bullet-pocked wall.

Traveling through the country a few years ago, I found it hard to miss the bullet-pocked walls and the blackened foundations of razed houses.

A bullet-pocked wall here, half a building a hundred y over that way, another wall somewhere else-the rest was ru ble.

Smashed buildings and bullet-pocked walls still mark the old front line.

Unlike the ornate facades of the Hungarian capital's late-19th-century buildings, recently renovated and decked out in gaudy yellows and oranges, powder blues and pinks, the interior yards often remain untouched, their bullet-pocked walls a pentimento of epochs.