DID IT!
ex.
T has been my
perience that if one does or has done a cer- tain amount of broad- casting, in a regular manner ( broadcast every Friday evening on the Children's Hour on current events for. some seven years) one be- comes the recipient of some
the
recipient of
comes
xome
extraordinary con- fidences and is asked for ad- vice on very peculiar prob- lems.
ROO
Some of my cases can never be revealed for the very reason that 1 have taken good care not lo record them in writing, but оле story W+13 given to me with the expres intention that it should be revered, when I thought the You will moment opportune. understand in due course why
this is an opportune moment,
HAPPEN?
THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10,
FACT or FICTION? That is for YOU to decide. All the stories
in this series could be true. Did this tale really happen? To- morrow the answer will be published.
GUILTY
or
not guilty?
by STEPHEN KING-HALL
"When I got out to Hong- kong to Join my ahip, I found that the Rear Admiral had married young girl 20 yours his Junior. She was pretty fast, ex-
como
cept that she from a family she'd
good and
caught the Ad- miral. When I arrived he told
mc to regard Jin house my home
"Naturally
saw
EN good his
dral . of
wifc. She was bored stiff with
Two years later the naval officer came back to Lonilon and went to see the lady who had
refused ia "Furthermore, had he agreed, consistently Unswer any of the dozens of my legitimacy would have been
divorce her, he certainly would the have refused.
Was a
Iriters hir lover ht writ called in question and finally
and the during member that Queen Victoria
course -
Admiral und I fell fur her in
big R
way. One night she asked me to dinner when her husband was supposed to be suiling with the Ficet; my packet was in dry dock. There fog, the Fleet ain't sali, Admiral came back still on the Throne-my home
@ a.m. I at
was still very promising there. It wasn't the Brst time. real father's career would have been ruined, So they, that is my mother and 18my real father, agreed that !
should go
into the Navy and that he would look after me in
the
I was an Independent MP in 1944 when n fellow come to 1e4 tu her. In the ace me in the House and asked of the interview, For
which it became clear to my help. He told me that he was a retired naval offer naval offer that the lady was 1 judged him to be about 80) no less devoted to him than And that he had come. to me she had been in Paris, a nurse
of about because I was ex-naval and brought a child mixed up in the journalistic months into the room. und writing world.
Faithful follower
Was
"That child," said my visitor, the Service. "was me."
whew
"Bul." 1 interrupted, He had been: tiful the devil can
#
you know all follower of my Children's Hour this; you were not joining in talks and alegeri that 1. Bel the conversation at that
agy, mude bim understand The were you?"
inciple of the gold standard. His story in summary form was Chist
Just alive
"In due course I enteral the about Navy, und when I was 22 1 was appointed to ship in a squadron commanded by this then by who had
This
Really in love
"There
11
hell of was the zeene. She told him she hated him; she taunted him with his nge and she said a lot of dread- ful things. Then he threw her out of the room. I was you and thought myself in really in love. told him so and that I I wanted to retire and marry her. He told me I severn! kinds of a young fool, that I didn't know what love was and that nothing on earth was
was
"No," he replied, "but you'll officer, hear how I found out.”
become
a rear adıniral, seemed natural enough, for I would induce him to divoree her In order that I could marry
szy
He continued;
According to him, some time
could remember the mu ever in the Jute IRBO's
4 naval
Fince
was a little boy and "The naval ofleer, that is to how, when my offeer HERE passed through
nother was Paris on his way to catch a P.
my father, wanted
my killed in motor accident and 0. ship at Marseilles for mother to get a divorce, but whilst I was a midshipman,
China Station, the
On the They decided against it for this naval officer (he was a
Her husband, journey he had met a girl who several reasons.
captain then) had broken down wns the young wife of
who very
a inan of great
4 her funeral. rich and well-known man who wealth, knew perfectly well was a thoroughly bad toi,
I had no idea The that the child was not his, but "At that time nuval oflcer and the lady arther than こむむ the family of my real relationship to this dallled for a couple of days in place going to a nephew he mun, while the soi whom I ke- Paris and then he went Enst loathed, he had pretenderl to lieved to be my father was still her believe I was his son, If my just alive. He died soon after
mother had tried to get him to my mother's accident.
and she
went home
Brule of a husband,
10
was
4
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"He ended up by ordering me on board his ship at once as an officer for special duties, We salled at 9 a.m. That afternoon I had a radio message from her saying that she was leaving Hongkong for England and that she would wait for me there.
1
The truth
"That night I asked to 또한한 the Admiral alone and went to his after-cabin. We were off the Pescadores In the Formosar strails. I told him again that I insisted on retiring and would morry her. He begged and pleaded with me and threatened
me,
1955.
"There was a seene... she told him she hated him
and said a lot of dreadful things"
COMMANDER SIR STEPHEN KING- -
HALL 14 d professional amphibian. On retiring from the Novy in 1929, this son and grand- successfully ION of admbate ambarked on several new edramrá ashore. Among them have been broadcasting in the thirties, MP for Ormskirk between 1939 and 1945. writing plays, some with lon Hoy, and founding the Hansard Society, Married, be has three daughters, and at 62 is engrossed in yet Beathar enterprise-forming tiampshire.
In
"Then he kissed me and the next moment hit me square in
NATHANIIL GUBBINS
T
For
HOSE who feared that There La the ordinary Irish that Britain might stew sometimes made when the Infamous chef is alone in tho some day have a Com- house. It is prepared in the munist Government may normal way with chops, pota- but and water, now relax.
toas, onions, again it is forgetting all about years we have read of it that gives it that distinctive the horrors of Communism, Mal Manger touch. accopting them as part of On one ocasion when MM. neigh- the pattern of the horrible was invited home by
bours it was forgotten for an 20th century and telling our entire week-end, M.M. arriving selves it's the sort of thing home just in time to stop people might expect from calling the fire brigade.. foreigners only just omerg-
Then there was the
curry ing from the political dark stew made with the help of u ages.
one
friend.
We have even tried to be just Mal Manger and his friend about it, willing to believe that had been round the town pick-
ideas from much of what we read was anti-ing up
retired Communist
before they began propaganda. Some colonels of us have been comforted by their task, and were both in a the thought that if the worst high state of excitement. should happen British Com-
That was why, when they munism would be a milder form
had
"Dld I or did I rot murder of the disense, like having Ger- could find into the pot-pepper-
instead of scarlet
him?
man. measles
Ievar,
But now the true horror of
poured everything they corna, pickles, chutney, and the
sauce bottles tregs of several -Mai Manger mistook a packet kitchen on the of detergent shelf for curry powder.
What do you say?" I stalled. "Listen,"
he continued, " you'd been on a jury and I had Communism has at lest been been tried, you'd have had to revealed by Ho Chi mình, give an opinion."
President of Communist North The result was quite starting I nodded,
Vietnam, known laughingly by and something never thought of "Very well then,
I want a anybody who hus anything to by M. Jean Sabat for all his Jury's opinion-guilty or not laugh, about in that country as big ideas, culty. Remember, they never Mr Ho. court-martialled me, If they had I'd have known."
When the bearded Mr Ho The Sparrows
arrived in Moscow
it was re- ported that he flung his arms
Krushchev, Bulganin, Malenkov, and Molo
The Middle Watch round Vorashilov,
"But, my dear fellow, it all happened a long time ago...........
"Not. to me, It didn't," he Interjected. "I live with it and I must know the answer."
"But."
tough. got
"How the devil do you expect me to solve your problem?"
"That is why I've come to see "You can you," he replied, write, you
"The wrote
Midic Watch. I want you to write a about all this and put in the last line
a question guilty or not guilty? and make the
tov und kissed them."
Sparrow's wife
the Sparrow's Nest the was eagerly reading a fragment of one of the women's magazines.
In one That, of course is the end of Communism so far as the British claw she held a bit of lipstick
she had found in the garden.
is concerned Our fear of being kissed by foreigners, particularly
As she read Instructions from those with boards, Is greater than our fear of war, greater the magazine she smeared the lipstick over her beak, giving than our fear of extinction.
at each sweep upward
Then she looked In the toy mirror on the wall and smiled.
an
Five smacking kisses on a hot corner. day in Moscow may have saved Britain and the Empire from slavery.
audience vote, then I'll know." Mal Manger At Work
"But, my dear chap, that is a fantastic notion! Listen, I've got to go and vote."
He rose to his feel and I saw
the face with his right hand again that maniacal look in his ALTHOUGH authors
eyes.
My instant reaction was to bit him boek with my left. Tho
"You "My God!" he said.
an oflicer and a moment ble full weight came' on were once
the son and my right arm he went down gentleman and Into the creamy phosphorescent grandson of Admirals, but now wake,
I see you're nothing but a politician. I apologise for take- "I ruched out of the cabin ing up your time. Go and do You
yelling 'Man overboard' and your performing seal act.
saw the sentry stonding in the don't even know what you are cabin. door. A seaboat
from going to vote about."
next moment war
the next astern found two cops; his and mine."
My visitor paused and said: "You've got some bars in this place, haven't you? I rather feel I need a whisky."
took him out on the
There was another fearful row and I knew the sentry on duty outside his cabin must be wondering what on earth was going on. At last I could hold back the truth no longer and
I him that his wife was told going to live a baby, so it was urgent that I should marry her. "Ho crumpled up when he heard this, and
head as his went down on his desit he said: 'My son! My son!'
'Do your best'
-"or
idea course, I had no what he was talking about. Then he said, Sit down, my boy, and listen carefully to what I am going to tell you.
terrace and gave him a drink. Then he continued!
There wis a court of inquiry, They established there had been a violent quarrel between the Admiral and myself, I had
The
alone.
Conscience
rarely
A complain when their work is plagiarised and great com- pasers never rise from the graves when some lovely frog ment of their music is stolen and reproduced as "The Moon and Yew," M. Jean Sabat, French chef, is determined that ereations shall re- his kitchen main his own.
"There," she said to the Spar- row, "I've got it right at last,”
The Sparrow, who had been sleeping off a session at the Tree opened one eye to Tops Club, alore at her.
"Got what right at last?" he asked savagely, wiping the other eye open.
"It's the fashionable. smiling beak," said hia wife,
flow do I look?".
now
"Like an intoxicated clown," said the Sparrow yawning.
Dishes he has invented pre served at table with a little note, stating "marque deposce," I
or "copyright reserved.
idea
of
"Oh, what an awful thing to say," said his wife, a tear start- this kind is like- ing in her eve. It's supposed ly
to spread until haddock to give you a gay, tip-tilted curers sign their own work and look." beans on toast are served in "Maybe that's why you look I never saw him again, but I
British cafes together with the drunk," said the Sparrow, confess I wrote the play. It's names of the man who opened "And it makes you smile even- called "The Second Generation."
the tire and the girl who bum- when you're asleep," said his I could never get it produced,
ed the toast,
wife.
"I don't want you grinning at but it was printed in a book Even Mal Manger, a pscu- called "Three Plays and a Play-donym thinly disguising the me all night," said the Sparrow.
"I thing." The fellow has been identity of your Uncle Nat, may get enough bad dreams as it on my conscience and still is apply for copyrights to protect ia" He'll sco this story if he's still
from gas-slove creations
"I suppose you'd think it
от lovely
another envious and unprincipled imita- looked tors.
sparrow," said his wife, the tear For instance thero is the in- rolling down her beak. valid dish, Poisson
"I'll go and find out," said the au Lait, frequently served to Mal Man- Sparrow, flying straight to the
Plucky Other Sparrow's Nest," ger's life partner, the Little Woman, when she has ilu, and guaranteed to keep sick people sick.
to admit this and my face alive and he will hear people showed that the Admiral had
his
question. had answering hit me; also the sentry had seen For if
true, then his story us struggling on the stem walk. I
reciton be
he was a murderer, I refused to say why we had All I can tell you is that if you quarrelled; only that I had tried
files, you'll find look up the to prevent the Admiral going that an Admiral was lost over
over side. The court came board. But you cannot get the "He told me the whole story out with an inconclusive report minutes of the Court of Inquiry quietly, in detall and without in which they said it might out of the Admiralty. I tried emotion. Then he picked up a
have been suicide or murder. when I wrote the play. miniature of my mother, which The legul authorities
decided there I knew he always had on his that
insufficient deak. The door to
the stern evidence for a court-martial. welk wis open. He got up, put
"Soon afterwards I left the on his cap, and, turning to me, Service and married the girl. he said: Do your best; the two I've
kept her straight and
sill together. we're
Now 1 Theen
he was out on the want you to stern walk, and I saw him with
I asked.
this,"
of
was
"How?" help one leg over the low murd "It's like
raplied my rall. We were doing 20 knots. companion, "I don't know the I seized my cap and rushed answer lo
question. Can't
то
after him. I caught him by you see what it is?"
the shoulders, Both his legs I shook my hood, The were over and he wAK a big Division Bell rang.
Our faces were a foot man.
He leant forward and with a- apart. I think I sold. 'For strange look- in hig eyes God's sake, sirl'
WHY
whispered intently:
WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED
010 IT REALLY HAPPEN?
YES
NO
Put your tick in the spere above ond keep this past by you until tomorrow ... when the answer will be given with peother story in this series by...
JOHN MONTGOMERY
● Did yesterday's story — The Lotlar and the Law, by joke Cunn-actually kappen? Thi saswer is: YES.
NOT A HOLIDAY
London,
ECHNICALLY, there's
TE
By LES ARMOUR
his
The Other Sparrow, lying on her little settle, was wearing a green leaf neglige draped over one wing, leaving the other bare. claw she held a tiny In one mirror, with the other claw the drew a lipstick across her beak, twirling it upwards at cach
It is a lump of plaice or solo corner. corner.
put in a dish with milk and "Well," she said. "If it kan't butter and popped in the oven, You might say anybody could my sugar daddy. How do you
Mal like my new, make-up? do this, but the original
"Supersonic," said the Spar Manger touch is to forget all about it while he is in the low row, pocking ravenously at her
bare wing. tavern,
"What? No lunch today?"
Hours later 11 is taken red
hot from the oven and, if not asked the Other Sparrow, draw-
ing her Hitle shoulder away. dropped on the floor, served This is hors d'œuvres before dry and burned to the starving dinner." said the Sparrow, Invalid Mal Manger pretends "Have a drinic with it," waid the black bits are mushrooms,
Mal Manger's stews are also worth copyright protection,
ON
MARS?
the
Other
Thanks Parrow.
helping
BECM
said the Sparrow, himself. "You more beautiful every time I see you. What was it the poet said-'Age shall not weary · nor the years condemn'?"
make-up
so it does,” said the
be so far off course that you could not got bacie,
"Any more of those cracks Anyhow, there is a margin of no reason why you tions were hard at work on the If you went a fraction too error in our knowledge of the and you're out" said the Other
an fast, you would find yourself in planets-probably
about 500 Sparrow, this shouldn't spend your next text and timing of the
nouncement that the US. Gov-a wider orbit-tens of thou miles and that is just about supposed to give me the gay, holiday on Mars.
errument would launch a satellite sands of miles wider. Then, ac enough to land you in trouble, tip-ilited look and the mysterious Now that the U.S. Govern- laboratory.
conting to the laws of physics,
The problems can bo over-mile of the Mona Lisa,"
And ment has revealed that the
What with international you would certainly be most come by an atom motor which snags fh building
will drive your space ship at a Sparrow. "Gay, mocking, mys- an articlal secrecy-since the practical work, unlikely over to get back to the
earth. satellito have bean ironed out, on space travel is, in effect, a
steady 70,000 miles an hour torious. I suppose it makes you feasible proposition out in space, smile even when you're sleep?"
'old' the "Maybe"
Other But you will need a tremendous
'In the skill of the Sparrow, "but who's to ace (t mechanica.
"Meaning?" asked the Spar- SPACE PLATFORM
Anyhow, your space ship will
too
the scientists are hard put to by-product of defence work on H. you went a fraction 1 to say exactly what there is rockets there is no telling just slowly, you would never get to in the way of space exploration, how neae to a solutions the prae- Mors.
The real answer is money.
faith
•
tical problems
But there are other practical are.
SEVERAL WEEKS
of space travel. Furthermore, if at any point
on the trip your. speed varied/ you would find the sume result, Once you loft the orbit, the problem of getting back into it
-rather than strictly fochalcal
drawbacks to that holiday on
But.
5. Precision movement of
#Sweep second-hand
"Rolex accuracy”
10 World-wide Rolex service
row.
"Not that you mean," said the Other Sparrow.
"Gay, mocking, mysterious,"
o” said the Other. Sparrow,
Mars,
And there is no telling just But technically, there are now would very nearly be insoluble. have to be launched from a sald the Sparrow, "Always the when they will be overcome, no good reasons why you'・・ Astral navigation, Just for one space platform-an enlarged same.”
it, may
be a lot sooner shouldn't eat off for Mars. With thing, is next to impossible. You artificial satellite: Space plate "And going to stay that way, than you expect. Just five weeks present knowledge, the trip have no impression of motion in forme de polomäße s observas sion Dr. Hot de voted would take several wooks (This space was, more than, rom have forlor are bound to follow the "How's the wifez day, mock- British expert in the fold, is the estimate of British any ingression of the tremen work on the Arst telling thought this was going to
mysterious?!! wrote: Before
satellite astronomer, De R. L... Boyd.) dous speed at which you were After they there, laboratory is established, there You would need to leave the whirling around the earth. To to be any wopping somebody be a plemant evening,” said, the? is willl a great deal to be, dine, earth, at a precise speed and a. And your position" you! would heading dor Mark
Sparrow, pouring himself and with presont fecbriiques precise angle which would put have to take precise astronomi- Butt 105is not so: Zikaly, that other drinkkiMLEKET
At that moment, in all peois- you into an eliptical orbit which pal bhaningen |reveral days run the dry man to do it will ever
(World Copyright.) ability,