"Greater love hath
no man..."
By Don Taylor
THO Was the bravest
WHO
man of the war? Think of the long list of men and women who wore the badge of courage --- sailors, soldiers, airmen, civilians, secret agents....
But the man I am thinking
was none of these.
He spent most of his life in
fighting the British. Hla name
whs Zarak Khan.
Afghan of the
Frontier.
He was an North-Wes:
of
Zarak
"The Story Klian" (Jarrolds, 155.) A. J. Bevan tells how for 20 years Zarak was a brigand, a securge to the British, murderer, thief, and despoiler of women.
Yet, for the British, he gave his life..
Taken prisoner by the Japs. he demandled to be flayed alive instead of being
quickly beheaded, so that a Gurkha force would be in time to rescue the rest of the prisoners
OUTLAW
Zarak, a glant 6ft 4ips, In height, WAS first on outlaw. The British put a price on bis head.
Once he Wis caught and rescued by a colleague whom he afterwards stabbed 11 the back.
Then in one of
his forays be murdered a mullah, a holy man. And even the frontler became too hot to hold him.
DOESN'
LIKE
GAMBLING
AFFLE
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1950.
RH-B
Now. only One Hour Waving time for your Permanent. with the New. Improved
"And tell Bevin that gambling's another thing our two countries disagree about."
London Express Servicg
A FOUR-YEAR-OLD TRAMPLED BY THE WAR DIGS IN WITH THE FIGHTING 27th
Herbert smiles-and tough
KOREA,
UIS is a chapter in the story of a boy called Herbert Bedford.
Ilis real name is certain- ly nothing like that, be- cause he is a Korean bov, and Korean boys are always
called Kim or Lee or Pak.
men feel
nearer home
by LIONEL
He was rechristened by British He gave himself up,
soldiers in Koren who picked tion and fear. Nobody in all this on a crumbling, dirty world has ever been more alone "I
love him up have no cause to your race," he said to a British road north
of Pyongyang after than #gent, "but you have a reputa-his father and mother were nonent. iton for being just.”
lilled.
10
He was tried and sentenced
life transportation for
to
the Andamana.
AN AGENT
Khan
But the Japs were In the Andamans;
Zarak stayed in his cell.
Now
the
50
North West
When they saw him sitting in the dust at the roadsid they wondered why he did not run away from all the noise and terror of war as all the other children had done.
They soon found out, Herbert cannot run anywhere. Elis feet are misformed.
All he could do was sit; a
Herbert was at that
The one consolution was that he was very young.
H's baby mind was not able to under- stand the horrible muaning of the flames that seared the that- ehed roof off his mud-walled home.
His senses could make nothing of the insane clatter of tanks, the end-splitting rear of diving planes, and the rasping stuller
Frontier was in upheaval, full four-year-old bundle of dejee of their machine guns.
of enemy agents and raiding
tribesmen.
Zaruk Way given
pended
SUS-
sentence and became British agent.
He volunteered for Burma.
One day in 1943 he was leading his patrol home, for the British officer had been killed. From the cover of the jungle he watched another British patrol
He kept it secret from his wife
3v BILLY ROSE AJHENEVER
an out-of- towner says, "What
W ambushed by
Japs. He followed and wolched
the torture of the pirsoners. have you got in New York
Zarak sent messengers
summon a Gurkha force.
HE CHARGED
Now
he knew he
to that
must
with
we haven't got in Punxsutawney?" I throw a copy of the Manhattan Classified 'Phone Directory at him. On page 1067, listed
create a diversion to keep the under "Missing Heirs," is a, Japs from moving оп their prisoners.
man named Theodore W. Koth, whose business it is to find money.
OF
So he charged the Japs single-handed, and killed wounded als before he was
verpowered.
They told him he must die.
To
the
captive British officer he sold: "Tell these little yellow dogs that I, Zarak Khan, will never be behended
them that ....tall
Zarak Khan is destined to be Dayed alive."
When
the
I first heard of this gent on a radio programme, and th's mor- ning. In a mood lo muse and
an Indian squaw, but that the deed was fau ly and she wanted the property back, The bog, she explained, is now known дз Manhattan Island.
"Last year," Mr Roth went on, "1 got one that was even
CRANE
things
To Herbert all these were just something he did not like, and when a child doesn't like anything he cries. The tears from his almond eyes were making little streams through face when a
the mud on his
travel he rides on the cookhouse lorry. When they camp he sits outside it.
Not even the oldest of old tweals could have worked out a better situation than that.
Mealtime for Herbert is from dawn to sunset. It is a ritual for all the officers who gather round the cook corporal's fire in the chilly dawn to say Good Morning to Herbert. He may be too busy with a plate of cornflakes or a tasty omelette to answer, but as
his he tits up with
blankets does not like to
round him he be ignored.
No licking
DREAKFAST over,
Herbert
British soldier picked him up. Bills in the time to lunch by
Rolling along.
OLDIERS put him on one of the lorries, intending to hand him over to some sympathetic organisation. Bui sympathetic organisations are not easy to find In North Korea in wartime, and Herbert is s rolling along with the convoy.
?!
as his staff can
eating biscuits and Jain and sweets na fast open the tins.
He appreciates a nice plate of stew for lunch, and then he goes back to the biscuit routine until supper. Language dificulties are overcome by appetite. What Herbert wants he points to.
He eats daintily and very eleanly. It is rarely that he spills any gravy or fruit juice from 1ic has become permanently his plastle spoon, and, now that attached to the headquarters of the soldiers the 27th British Commonwealth that polite people do
have taught him not lick Erigade
very attached. It
plates, his manners are impec- would be incorrect to say that
cable. he has become the mascot of the brigade. He is much more than that. He is their idol.
He is also a symbol. Most of these British soldiers out here. are fathers. They have children
f their own.
their
At night he sleeps on a slik-! centred mattress that the British "found" for him In a Korean village.
The query
Their daily job of fighting and killing in the name of free. T is possible that on these doin prevents their being with chilly nich u there are some own children. So from coldlers in camp who do not them Herbert is getting all the have enough blankets. But not love and care they are not able Herbert. He has a mountain of to expend on their own homes.
blankets, and he gels right under them so that all that can be seen
He'll be spoiled of him is a small hill in the
centre.
Herbert
To
תויהיי
HAVE spent several days and richts with the brigade, and guardians I have seen the way Herbert 'Is
meunder. I stopped in to see him wackier. A girl in Texas wrote treated. Here and now I want to vaguely of putting
at his office in West 42nd Street, "Glad to see you." said Mr Roth. "You don't happen to be ro ated to a Sam Bramson of Paterson, do you?"
has been 011 the werks. Frie In uniform talk
him in an in to say that only a second cousin stood between her and a
Warn these Britons that if they where or when, and they seem orphanage. They don't know. chunk of oil land worth a million do not mend their ways they are dollars.,
going to make Herbert the fat in no hurry to make plans. test and, most spoiled child in
I have bald this is only a all the Orient.
chapter in the boy's story. That is all it can be. The tale of Herbert Bedford has not yet leached an end.
"She was planning to murder her kinsman, but before going to all that trouble she wanted
Herbert is obviously a born "Not that I know of." I said. British cfflecr pleaded, "If they behcad you,
me to check and make sure her strategist, for he has established "Too bad," said Mr Roth. claim to the estato it will be
would be his headquarters with the staff over quickly," the "Bramson left a hundred thou clear and undisputed.
of the officers' mess. When they I. Afghan replied, "And over for sand dollars and I'm trying to course, turned the letter over to
tind a relative I can give it to." the pulice."
you, too."
NO CRY, BUT
The Japs fung the giant to the ground. It took them hour to finish their dreadful money lying around?
an "IS there much unclaimed
business.
"About eight billion dollars," Zarak hung on to life-he said Mr. Roth, "mostly in for- had to buy time.
gotten bank accounts, uncollect
at
In all that time there was no cry from Zarok except the end, be
Kismet."
ed insurance policies oná inher)- tances nobody has claimed."
"Allais, sald,
As the Japs stood watching
"Gurkha, Hot"
"What's the biggest case you over worked on?" I asked,
"The Garrett case in Phila-
of
"Do you have any trouble col- leting your fecs?" I asked.
"As a rule." cald the climbe of family trees, "the heirs I turn up are pretty griteful. There have been cases, of course, where the only thanks I got wań a dirty look."
"As for instance?"
"Well," said Mr Rolh, "there was the time a widow refused to belleve me when I told her I had foented a twelve-thousand-dollar
him dle there came a shout of delphis,” said Mr Roth. "Back bank account left by her hus- in 1990 a lady named Henrietta band. I finally convinced her to Edwina Garrett died and left sign the necessary papere but
than six thousand, she said. I curse the thousand people have claimed it, day I ever met you and I curse The British officer was re-zix of them have been thrown this money, too,
One hundred and eighty property more
worth forty million when I handed her the twelvs
Gurkhas leaped on the killers.dolors. So far
of
Zarak: "He chose it
leased from his bonds. He said into gaol, a couple have commit- thatted suicide, and several lawyera way. ‚he did; it for us.”. have been disbarred for phony-
from
"It turned out she had aways
ing up evidence. IN MEMORY
"One of the applicants, was devoted to his memory despite Ioved her husband and was Together, British
and Adolf Hitler, who argued that the fact that their life together Gurkhas buried the dead the next-of-kin was a German
had been a hand one. He had Klant far
his native citizen and that the money always pleaded poverty when hills.
should be sent to the Father and, she needed a dress or a new pair I'm happy to report, he didn't Over his head they put a get a dimo,"
of stockings,
and
the had be loved him Now that she saw tone.
"You must incot
what he was she was A lot at him for
"Sure twelve thousand dollara
·Mr Both dug into ħla desk and was a lot of moner, but it had
"On It" says Mr Bevan, scwballs in your profession." I understandably bliter.
Aro written worda which eald.
"Zarak" would never havo under-
stood.
-(London Express Service)
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