THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1955.
They thought I was a TERRORIST
SATURDAY SHORT STORY
because I'm British! Dginn Rummy
A
SEFTON DELMER cables from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia
BAREFOOTED ||| 2013 | BERE511|16|63||| SENELESEZDZJD İKTIEDOT JELLY - 'houseboy in crimson
our
and Fold sarong padded in with after-dinner coffee coffee grown, picked roasted, and browed high up in mountains of West Java,
the
It was the most deliciously. " aromatic I have ever tasted anywhere. I,was just saying so to my Dutch hosts the planta- ·· tion manager and his wife when plop ploppetty plop plop and I was cut off in mid- sentence. Rifle fire coming, as far as I could tell, out of the jungle undergrowth mountainside opposite us.
לןכן
seem
the
The telephone rang. My host dashed off. I tried to resume. my praise of the coffee. But my very hostess did not interested. Her face was sud- denly drawn and grey with apprehension. "It's a raid", my host confirmed when he Im turned from the telephone.
A REPRISAL? Off into the jungle
SEVE
EVERAL more "calls" from other points on the estate all reported sniping. Said my host:-
week's
1
THE
TRAVELS
OF
DELMER
IN THE LAST seven weeks Delmer's luggagë labels have changed rapidly, Ho flew from London to Manila... went on to Tokyo and back to Bangkok: 13,500 miles. FROM
Bangkok to Knala Lumpur, down to Singapore And on to Jakarta, in Indo-
nesia. Another 2.850. BY THE TIME he arrives back
in London he will have flown' thousands of miles more than the distance round the world.
+212612199133221135211LTRIM(52222221-
Moluccas, and parts of Sumatra, the terrorists proclaim them- selves faithful Moslerns. and enemies of the infidel "Djakarta Government
As we made our way home, I thought of the long talk had only the day before with the smooth spoken, goatee bearded man who is the Indo nesian Republic's Prime Minis-
By GEORGE REDSHAW
was
N the thick, tobacco- This variety show was only a tainted atmosphere of postponement of the inevitable when they must once again face the theatre, Jack the north-easter which Pilgrim felt happier whipping up the steely water than he had been all outside. evening.
"Better than that prom." he whispered to his wife, "You can keep your ozone, Give me a good warm fog."
Here in Indonesia." Dr Ali Soestramidju said, "we don't back. look on Communists or Com-we?"
munism as a danger.
"I wish I was at home,” was the "lormenting thought which popped up in Jack's mind as regularly as the bill-board be- tween the acts.
But the show was good, and now and again, Alice Pilgrim "Shut up," she hissed a dim bunchy shape in the "We're here, aren't darkness, turned the whites of 'direction, and breyes in his gave a little giggle she had re- here," he tained from ginhood.
shuddered
and
The Communists help and
"Ay... We're They admitted, my Government. cognise us as progressives. "Here in Indonesia the real certain for
Comics
ostensibly.
"The Great Lombardo," read the finale, while the orchestra
an
THE CHINA MAIL BRINGS YOU a new regULAR
FEATURE FOR YOUR WEEK-END ENTERTAINMENT
"That's that there button again,” said Jack Pilgrim,
pointing.
"You don't know what you're asking my man.
"Don't I then exploded Jack. "I make a fair offer for that button and dang the rest,"
'But I couldn't.”
"A pound,” said Jack. "Is that fair enough"".
"Done,"
said" the Great Lombardo, and the button was duly cut off his coat, and placed in Jack's palm...
He stared at it curiously. It looked ordinary enough. Then, using his cua, te polished it.
"A glass of beer,” he shouted, "Coming, sir," said the baz- man, and placed the request on the table.
triumph,
Jack cackled with and rising to unsteady feet went out. The gust of laughter the
met
and goose fleshed chorus girls mind, and the magic dimmed a which followed him
gust of wind which seized him stepped out of suit-caSES. little.
at the door.
It was the first evening of played weird Eastern music. from interests
their holiday, and the thought Then, in a world of wishful who, foreign
of the virgin-cold bed back at thinking. to
ordinary kettle want
The sult-cases sot up. tiny reasons of their own.
poured out a variety of drinks, shivers of association in Jack's economy.their lodgings froze his spine. disrupt the country's They are using the terrorist bands
instruments 28
to that end, They support the terrorists bandits to come up and Hobnob with money and with nema with them?"
What he did do was to order one of the villagers who had come down with us from the factory to get in his car for questioning. And it was clear the man would be questioned about us. Then he drove off.
W25
Now, this is sheem eonsense, Foreign firms who have in- vested vast sums h Indonesia, far from having an interest in the disruption of the country, are vitally interested that it should regain its prosperity and former productivity,
a
A CONSPIRACY ? They truly believe it
UT make no mistake. Even
merely shooting
line to provide an alibi for
his own Administration's in- efficiency--and it is my belief he
is sincere --this alleged! foreign conspiracy against Indo- nesia
widely accepted. Particularly by idealistic young nationalists like the police lieutenant.
ANNE SCOTT-JAMES
looks into the secrets of some of the best-dressed
men to find how much they owe to their wives.
IS YOUR Is husband a credit to you?
- Yes, it, was an odd feeling for me as I drove back with my host to feel that here in Indo- nesia the medal was reversed.
Here I. as a Briton and repre- sentative of a capitalist sys
closely suspected of "Terrorists are shooting into
potential helper. a
of the the compound where our staff terrorists. I began to get the live. Probably a reprisal for idea of what it must be like to their having given information be a Chinese rubber tapper in after I called in the police Malaya who, by accident, finds following last
rald.
himself near the scene of a "What 'you say to our
taking
terrorist attack, the Land-Rover and driving
For get this straight. down to have a look at what's
These terrorists, who have happening?"
been robbing the manager's
And nothing could suit the pillaging his workers. It gave me
RY not to grumble if quite an eerie estate and
A man will come in alone and waistcoat with in their feeling.
not Communists. They are Communists better 'I'll confess. to be, are
have a scruffy buy a pair of cashmere slippers. woolly vital
cardigans And driving down these estate roads. anti Comunists.
What struggle to capture these
them as
husband. I've discover. But if his wife is with him he Elther they were lined on both means that Europeans, as pro- islands, and use
will buy lambswool are strategic threat to Australia anded that it's probably your under her beady eye.
(cheaper) anti-Communists, sides with rows and rows of Sn. fessed
automatically
of the rest of the Southern Pacific. tea bushes or they were tunnel autom
suspected
Somehow the second cup of fault. Under the crumpled ling through the thick jungle of sympathy terrorists.
my hostess had jacket and the faded poplin acacia trees and tangled under- Like the other terrorist bands coffee which
return did not shirt there beats the heart: growth. All of it ideal ambush which, in defiance of the Indo- ready on our terrain.
Government, hold sway taste as good as the first, But of a Beau Brummel over vast areas of Western and that, was not the fault of the Central Java, of Celebes, the cofee.
From the roof of the tea fac- tory two powerful searchlights were sweeping the country all around. Inside the building
The country in the NEWSmap
INDONESIA
MILES 1000-
itself we found a number of terrified employees. They dashed! out from their houses when shooting started and ran to the factory for safety and shelter.
FEAR, THEN.......... ...a word calms them.
nesian
for
THE VOYAGE OF
CAPTAIN JUAN
BOUILLA
We sailed, we prayed, we hoped
Crified late Berbice River March 20
“Kind captain' gives them fresh supplies March 13
Loft
Frù. 28
CARLEY
GETOWN
Left Sprin Jan. 28
Atlantic Ocean
E drove on down the road.to the compound. This is the housing estate where plantation workers live with their families in excellent company-built cot-
Georgetown. After explaining that he also tags and where the childrenTTERE in his own words didn't have many supplies, the
H
T
You
I have talked to 20 men this week about their clothes. One said he dressed to cover himself. One said he thought a few clean. warm things were all a re- spectable man required.
They say.
a suit-"those "he says,
"are no substitute."
He stressed that robe is a small one, he buys, is good.
his ward- but what
Until he saw the button! Just din ordinary shiny button on the conjuror's frock-coat, but it had powerful qualities.
#
:
*
-
It seemed now most import-
"Oh, dging of the button, ant to sit down, and he sought hear me?" the man was saying, a seat on the prominide, where, surface his legs stretched out in front of him and his cap over his eyes, he could surrender to the stupor which was Overtaking him.
and he rubbed its vigorously. "Send me of beer."
a glass
And there on the table which a second before had been bare was a foaming tankardi.
"What shall. I ask for now the conjuror demanded of the audience. Then, pretending to distinguish from the multiple yelling "A beautiful
girl?
Rub. rub, rub! A brassy faced harem beauty sat cross legged in place of the beer!
Alice Adgeted uneasily, and whispered "to her husband but his profie was agape with mystification, and he hardly beard her.
Dginn of the button," the magician was now yelling, "I wish to disappear."
·
And like a shooting star, he vanished from the stage, to re- appear later from the orchestra
LL. the well-dressed men
MRS PETER WEST (former pit Jack noticed that he was talked to have wives
still wearing the button. who ly Davina Portman) thinka It is take a pride and interest wonderful to have a well-
"I could do with that there," their husbands clothes. They dressed husband.
he told Alice as he helped her often go shopping with their husbands-but to encourage, not to restrain.
in
She likes to look round, a with her coat, room and think: "Ah, mine's much better than anyone else's."
"I could do with some sleep." MRS BOYD ROCKFORT
she replied. "I've dropped dead Sbe often goes with him to tired all at once."- tremendously elegant herself in his tailor's, helps choose the the best English country trade cloth and check the stings. of
Eighteen men said they would adore to have whole cupboards ful of lovely clothes. They were prevented merely by lack funds, lack of wifely sympathy. or by a craven fear of looking zidiculous.
What it takes
tion) says her husband looks well dressed "because he takes such care."
after
The sea made distant echoes sucking at the sand and: the lights blinked merrily in the high wind, but he was oblivious of them.
I wish I was at home." be muttered as he feebly rubbed the button. "I wish I was home."
at
11 Then it seemed that he dreamed. Voices he knew, rough homey voices lurched at him out of the blackness
"Jack Pilgrim" they called
from a long distance, "Jack Pilgrim here."
·
he
"Yes. I'm Jack Pilgrim," tried to tell them, but his jaw was clamped tightly, and the words could not escape..
"He'll be left behind," other voice boomed in his ear, and the echo went spining across the bay He'll be lett behind. He'll be left behind."
"Heave-ho. Help Tae
then" and Jack found himself trans- ported, swaying luxuriously in thin air, to land gently rocking, lullaby surface. which plunged him still further into the abysa of sleep,
ona
Hé awoke as a shaft of sun- light pierced him like an arrow. Darkness and delirium had disppeared but there was on ache in his back. He was Do longer lying flat. He was sit- ting. On the doorstep. At
"Well, you go on back to bed I'll just have, a tot of rum to Her husband, like Captain warm up, and then I'm coming." Boyd-Rochfort, insists that "everything must be specklessly "He has no valet and nobody clean. He, too, hates eccen- the eagerness
Alice was too tired to notice home! here has time to look
in her husband's him" she says. "His clothes get
He voice. She yawned. pressed whenever somebody has
"You'll find the place all a spare half-hour. But he puts
right?"- every suit, on a hanger and exery
«<>Course. takes
WANTING to help these fruste shoe on a tree the minute.
he
oft it rated Good Dressers, I have talked to West End tailors, to.
· “And he always looks SD men's shops, to a sprinkling of Britain's Best-dressed Men and clean, and his hair is brushed (more important) to their perfectly. He has very few wives, asking
sking what it takes 10 clothes, but they are meticu- make a man well dressed. lously kept and beautifully put
on."
The news is very good. YOU DO NOT need a huge wardrobe. Captain Boy Rocafort, the Queen's trainer
likes dark suits and white shirts, tricities like tight trousers, often wears a bow tie.
30
the
►
As his eyes grew accustomed Mrs William Douglas-Home
to the daylight, he saw the note (wile.
You go. I'm not Alice had pirmed playwright)
on the doom also goes with her husband tired yet. Must be the sea air," yesterday. From the garden, when he shops.
he grinned, as he watched her came the comforting full of his waddling back...
pigeons. He was at home, alb right.
"We mind very much about each other's clothes," she says. 'In the public-house
Tourid "I think his well-turned-out the corner from the theatre, "Great suffering tomcats!” ha look is a compliment to me, and Jack absorbed the tor of rum in cried. "How did I get here?" it puts me on my mettle."
the Then he remembered the but- fery gulps, and savoured His
warmth of it. in his bones. He bon. It was still there, spark- ordered another. Then, to make. ling in his hand.
reached every sure that it corner of his frozen body, 'an-- other and another.
taste? "Wonderful in
12
a
Captain Boyd-Rochfort's taste in clothes is strictly orthodox. town," she says usually who is considered one of the eccentric clothes about equally," bow tie.
hate. sloppy cinthits.. and dark suit, a white shirt and
"But terrible in the and men in Britain best-dressed
COUNTY" therefore in the world has had he said; only three new suits in 15 years. looking ridiculous, because the YOU NEED NOT be afraid of
best men's clothes today have nothing eccentric about them.
polo-necked sweaters American captain gave us some
For
water.
have a large modern school and set down in the bread, one bag of flour, and a built 25 years ago by the Dutch way he told it, is Captain small amount of cornmeal. farm owning the estate.
Juan Ramier Bouilla's story Firing had now ceased. But of his remarkable voyage man had one
six dreadful days each we found the villagers crouched from Spain with 40 refugees flour or cornmeal in one glass of spoonful of fearfully on the tcrraces of their houses.
In a small sailing boat. My host the manager talked with them in their own Sundan- The San Antonio de Pourres ese dialect. It was amazing to is the vessel's name and it car-
passengers watch the
5,000 the reassuring effect the ried.
miles had across the South Atlantic fren manager's mere presence
Sundanese. Cadiz to Georgetown, British,
accord Guiana. authori
Particularly so
on
there simple
ing
im to the
Gose,
ties I
talked to in Djakarta, the
workers hathe and fear him
and his like as "anachronistic-
FIRST, A SHIP Captain.
Bouilla's
story
remnants-of-capitalist-colonial begins...
Arst
out
He hates loud colours, fancy waistcoats, horsey checks, bright and affectations like pork-pie hats, "
He' never wears a buttonhole. I
travels jacket, although be widely (he is just back from Texas in time for the opening of the flat-racing season),
The rules
"Hey, Joe," he yelled to the milkman. "I'm at home again. What do you make of that?
Joe grinned but said nothing. He knew Jack Pilgrim's tem-
As the rosy glow_crept into per and he was not the one to his veins, his smile became tell him that his neighbours, an to the same resort,
He never wears a white dinner rules for the well-dressed | fixed, and his mind articulate a day him on the pro-
Quiet tweeds
woman...
ruan, in fact, are much the with wonderful fancles. He had
as for the well-dressed felt he could talk to the Queen. menade, and thinking he was In their party, had carried him He changed to whisky of the to the bus, and brought him DON'T BUY A LOT OF suggestion of a tall, dark man home. CLOTHES.
with whom he seemed to have NEVER BUY ECCENTRIC D finity. The stranger's CLOTHES.,
to the surface on our journey Several times trouble came
The Edwardian style, for #nd ther
instance, has been killed by the subsided. The
Teddy Boys and good tailors teil trouble came when some of the
me that customers who ordered men wanted to return to Spain.
suits with cuffs four years ago Others disagreed. Then I had
have sent them, back to have to get some of my friends the removed. The same abgard to play the role of ship
waistcoats find Dolicemen, just to.
goes for faney Light trousers out. what way going on.
BUT YOU DO need the cr- a pin-striper quietish tweeds for SORIES) With the first sign of trouble
Couragement
and co-operation the country; homburgs or cloth
But there is this différence. of everyone to pay
cape, dark ties, especially claret
A woman can dress well with- seems, men seldom colour. daily. You see
get Too many women like to He always wasn't much to do ex-
wears cavalry out her husband's help, but buy a buat and leave for the cept sail, watch, pray and
bog the family dress allowance twill trousers
with ork old man does need a bit of kind Venezuela hope... country
for themselves and the children. jacket, instead of grey flannels, ness from his wife. where several Spaniards we
The manager of a man's store which he considers sloppy, He He may or may not blocom know work and live happily.
Each time I received news of
tells me that his salesmen dread always weers proper jodhpur under the treatment, trouble
worth a trial' that great woman
the sight of a customer's wife: boots with jodhpurs and After some difficulty a mailing Maria Santana (wite. of a ship was obtained. We secured member of the crew) talked to THE manager and his cottagers visa for Venezuela but friends the individuals. And each time were still chatting when the discouraged us from leaving the treblemakers felt shamed. darkness was suddenly piercedi They thought It impossible Sometimes they wept.
"It's a rum un, isn't it?” was BUY THE BEST YOU CAN aming face the colour of live al Joe sald as he put a pint on
mahegarry, beeted with black Jack's doorstep. AFFORD.
brows, owum into Jack's vision
"It is that," agreed Jack (I nearly added, from force of but dimly. It was the button
He looked at the button. and likes a blue or grey suit habit, WEAR A GOOD DARK which Jarrested his notice. There was only one more thing
Hfor London, or occasionally SUIT
WITH GAY ACCES-Winking wickedly from the to ask for now. He rubbed
man's coat, it prodded him into with all his might. a kind of slow motion.
"I wish for Alice to stay away "That's that there button all week," he muttered. She again,” he said pointing, “I could did. do with that myself."
ist-exploitation which must- Economic conditions in Spain I begged be liquidated-at-the-earliest are not so good, Do Some several times opportunity."
friends and myself decided to hers
THE POLICE Here was distrust
rich
by two searchlights travelling up for 40 persons to cross the Maria was 111 or some time. the road. They belonged to a Atlantic police patrol consisting of two reach Venezuela alive. armoured cars.
The
in such a boat and It was
feared she might die. But we had one doctor and one We left Spain on January 28 dispenser among us. Indonesian police lieu- sard drifted in the ocean for tenant in charge had the same about 30 days before reaching
HATS OFF aggressive, almost neurotic; the Canary
Islands. There we suspicion of the whole world met a good Negro fellow from "They took retire of Maria, around him which I have found British Gulara.
They used all the penicillin wanted
to make
the trip injectiena aboard to save her with us
but feared death. He life.
anti-terrorist fighters.
In Own people in
from
book
tipe and Malaya to the Greeks too thought we couldn't reach When they learned that peni fighting Communist guerillas in our destination alive. cilin discoverer Sir Alexander Epirus.
Our supplies weren't su- Fleming died while we ship I could see he looked at both cent. Shoely after leaving the was in mid-Atlantic, they the manager
me, with the Canary Islands we ran out of of their hats, and deepest distrust. What are rates. But we prayed in the But all cur troubles are over these Europeans doing here?" I Virgin Mary and an American now, We have our vis23 Rod: We could imagine him asking him ship came to help us. The have supplies. We shall be pa Haze they waiting for the l'American: captain was kind. our way to Venezuuria soc
Tais Wife,
it
JOHNNY HAZARD
A PANCING SIRL HAS BEEN SUMMONED TO
HAVE JEMAL COME: ¿PERFORM BEFORE JOHNNY TO TWITCH'S CHAMBERS || AND TWITCH ALERT UWWEDNATELY THERE 45
AN IMPORTANT GLEST
·TO DANCE FOR!
JEMAL WILL BE
THERE IN BUT ONEY
· MOMENT" /.
A SHORT TIME. LATER 144:
JEMAL 19 READY. TO. DANCE FOR HER MASTER,
TWITCH AS T
but it's
(All Rights Reserved. The characters The Great Lombardo grim- ang incidents in this
andy curious. "No" referente" ik the onlookers. aced at
intended to any persons, living be turned a serious face, to Jack..
dead)
By Frank, Robbins
WHILE THE REAL JEMAL UNWILLINGLY - *SITB OUT* THIS, DANCE?:
situation
calls for a
San Miguel
..יו