THE CHINA MAIL, JUNE 24, 1940
WAR
ON
MY
"You rang, Sir?"
"How did I get on this ship ?”
"This isn't a ship, Sit. This is the Hotel Magnificent.”
#
'H'm. I see. Can's you do anything to stop it rolling 7"
"Rolling, Sir? Oh yeʊ, of course. I'll speak to the manager, Sir. We'll have it stopped ot once.”
"Don't go away. Do you happen to know precisely what I'm doing in the Hotel Magnificent ? My memory isn't too good. Must have had a nasty jar!"
"You had several jars, Sir, if I may say so. You arrived with three other
gentlemen. I succeeded in undressing you, Sir- but you insisted on retain- ing your silk hat. I understood it was a very valuable one, Sir. Belonged to your great-grandfather."
M
"H'm. Yes. I see. Er — have you got anything —er— that is to tay —' "A nice, long, cool, Rose's Lime Juice, Sir. Ice of course. Taken before, it is a valuable neutralising agent, Taken after, an excellent corrective. It is not too much to say, Sit, that in Rose's we have a new therapeutic agent to combat a condition which, alas, is
**
"Deeds fellow — not words ! Begone! Speed Hence returning with your life-restoring draught of Rose's,”
KEEP COOL
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EAT AT
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INEXPENSIVE SATISFYING
Bringing Up Father
AREN'T YOU GOING SIGHT-SEEING WITH ME? YOU KNOW AKRON IS A CITY WORTH SEEING-
I KNOW- MAGGIE BUT LET'S WAIT
TIL TOMORROW- I AM ALL TIRED OUT FROM THAT -AUTO RIDE.FROM
YOUNGSTOWN- YOU GO AHEAD-
NO-DEAR-I'LL STAY IN WITH YOU-THE REST WILL DO US
BOTH GOOD-
DOORSTEP
S. E. Coast, June 7. We call it the Front Line here. It is only the distance of an hour's motor run from the real battlefield.
There is still canned music drifting from the skating rink; there are still girls bathing in the sea."
But as an undertone to the dance tunes there is the rumbling of guns across the water. And the bathers are A.T.S. girls, not holidaymakers.
Everywhere, in fact, the veneer of normal life is peeling away. Here we are reminded constantly that we are in the war zone.
We no longer wear the mask of in- difference still to be found in other parts of the country.
GRUMBLING GIANTS
SHAKE TOWN
As I write this, I am facing the sea in a hotel that ordinarily, at this time of the year, is filled with holiday- makers,
At intervals, giants are grumbling across the sea. Just now the whole building quivered as a series of vio- lent-and
distant-ex- not so very plosions shook the town and set the seagulls screaming.
Until recently, this gunfire and the sound of bombs from Flanders was monotonously regular.
And we have seen war, as well as heard it. We have watched great fires raging on the French-coast. We have watched enemy planes dropping bombs and mines a few miles out to sea,
From
the bathroom window
the
Some roads leading to
seemingly harmless beauty spots are barred all the time. At the junctions, old motor- cars and farm machinery are piled ready for use.
Groups of soldiers rest inside the barbed wire which surrounds some houses.
They look at you suspiciously if you stop. to find the way-and it is difficult to find the way now that all the signposts have disappeared.
To ask for directions, especially at night, is to court suspicion.. Every- where, in fact, strangers are care- fully watched.
Once I received a midnight tele- phone call from high authority. I had been reported for talking to Naval officers.
HE STOPPED~LOOKED AND LISTENED
On another occasion, while I was telephoning from the back parlour of a country inn five miles from the town,
-By REGINALD
FOSTER
Reporter On The South-East Coast-
other night I saw a firework display an Army Security Officer walked in of flaming onions, tracer bullets and and asked to see papers. searchlights.
He wanted to know what I was And, of course, the most stirring telephoning and to whom. He also pre- experience of all was to see the referred to stay and listen. turn of the B.E.F., which I described And as the mist day by day in the "Daily Herald."
War comes in through the swing doors of the hotel. Navy men enter, oddly dressed, oil-stained and wet.
They have come straight from action. They have a bath and a meal, and are off again.
One man came in the night. ship had been lost.
of war
swirls thicker, precautions become stricter. Dozens of people are detained every day, and I have even heard of officers who have been detained until their identity was proved.
It frequently happens that people engaged in innocent conversation at a His hotel bar find themselves questioned been suspicious military who have summoned by equally suspicious civi- lians.
in
A few nights later he came again. His new, ship had been lost.
He has gone back to the sea-back out there where the masts of sunken ships stick out of the water, where strange jetsam floats to be washed up on the beach.
All through the town and the coun- tryside behind the tentacles of war are stretching out.
There
PEACETIME SIGNS
MOCK US
*
***
Now, after, the evacuees, the aliens have been told to go. Favourite res- taurants have been closed overnight, and their proprietors and staffs have been seen going away from the sta- tion.
Sometimes, whispers go round that So-and-so has been called on by the police, that So-and-so has gone away are shops to let, rows of empty houses. You seldom see children and will not be back until after the
war. been now. They have nearly all evacuated. So have many of the wo-
men.
Now and again a mocking sign reminds us of peace. "Daily trips to France," "This way to the boats."
That sort of thing.
barbed wire en- Along the roads, tanglements and sentries have taken Motor- the place of the tea-rooms. buses twist slowly through S-barriers. If you drive at night, a red lamp is waved at you before long and you must stop to produce identity cards- or take your chance of being shot.
OH-SO-LA
ME-OH-
AND SO
ARE
YOU-
OUR LIVES ARE NOW
STREAMLINED
Along the sea front, rows and rows are full of lodgers. of "Seaviews" But tin-hats, gas-masks and military equipment are piled where there were once buckets
golf and spades and clubs.
These lodgers get up and go to bed at strange times.
Squadrons of bombers and fighters roar overhead and pass out to sea. We hear the series of thuds that fol-
(Continued on Page 11)
By George McManus
MAGGIE-COME TO THINK OF IT WE'D BETTER TAKE IN THE SIGHTS.
TODAY- IT MAY RAIN TOMORROW-
?
4:10
Cepr. 1940, King Featurgy Syndiente, Ine, World ligh