THE CHINA MAIL,
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1958.
Page
WITH THE WORLD'S GREATEST RACING DRIVERS
(Contitled from Pago 02
It was a Junutte game of *Last Aeross the Road."
For years the police had been helpless. Choering children sal in gutters, their dust-stained tert inches from the wheel.
roads
way through mounkin itzuak villages. Behind Collins, also in Fermri, were von Trips and Parum.
Only 140 miles from the finish Portugo's car wus well to the front, Peter Collins und fallen Dat with fansmission trouble. Then came Portago... Now the marquis drove desper iards never all on the steering ately. Terumi .. grizzled 50- wheel, before his eyes always the year-old Tarun," now led giddy blur of the dry stone wall the race. So little lay between that separated him frem a head- Portago and the prize and his
down a mountain- glory.
To the drivers these towns : werc a very real nightmare,
nuch worse than the hairpin raat bends with the precipitous drops up in the mountaină.
To race furiously at a sew of faees, only half convincerl that they would part in time, needed
all"a man's nerve.
.But the crowds loved it,
And to the winner came strange prestige.
Black clouds
a
Portago was after that prize. le was going to show Feirati ence and for all, thet be d skali to match his verkleusness. that he was i to rank with the great names of motor racing.
Portago How to Milan to get his car. Because of foking dimeulty Linda Christiền travel- Jed in another airer it to Home. The plan was that she should stay there until the day of the race and wait until Porlega hnd passed. Then she would fly to Milan and wait for him lo dilve over from the finishing line.
And a come May 12 ... the day of the Mille Miglia.
It was not an auspicious day, There were black clouds over
the mocalding,
Above the plains, the rain and the san chased each other.
At one moment the roads 'were swirling with clust; the
Ax, they were greasy and n treacherous at ine. Of half wet, half dry, foreing every driver la weary with concentration,
His flair
I was just about dawn when Tortogo's car--number 531-ahot forward bom the starting line.
Brescia.
"Portaga, Portage, Portuga," never off the
11is name was commentator's lips. Against the best drivers in the world he was "Tracing "whh" astonishing flair.
1
Linda Christian never left her radio. She had no reason to complain at lack of news of the marquis.
This is not a rive, Hite 1* „Mans, where a mán muy gettle 'down' Io drive fast but within himself. Nothing but maximum spred round t
alde.
Linda Christian rushed to the Home controt puin, Excited Italian mechanics told her that Portage's Ferrari was enlleng ing the lenders. Linda sebuled u note, giving his post.. tion. She added at the boltem in Spanish. "Te quiero mucho”—J love you doopty.
Portago carne Isto the control so fast thai even with his altes ful on the sild 50 Aards beyond the markers,
He was taking incredible, cát- culated chances.
Suddenly, round a narrOW, twisting road, he would sro a Blower competitor, nose tall they would silde, tyres serabbing. Then wheel
Ferrari
almost touching, the would urge past, Portage was driving superbly and medly, along a route littered with failure,
At Mantua, the very Inst check point, the marqule gulpe:
The actress raced to his car. Her she stragi stopped as she mouthfut of orangeade und ran but stumbling she reached scrambled on his way. He was him: Purlago, his face grimy only 15 miles from. The finish with dust and fumes, blinked when he died.
Linda
HOW HE DIED: The wreckage of Portago's car after
it had hit a knot of spectators near the end of the Mille Miglia. Before finishing in the ditch the cor hit a telegraph pole and uprooted a mildstone.
Christian gave
him a last note...
with relonishment. Even for his Illa bld this
Wis a most unprofessional way to carry on.
Linda kissed him, clung to him.
and whispere: des. nerately "Please please give up."
Forlago, deafened by his engine, shouted, "Don't worry, I'll see you in Milan,”
11⁄2 exhuest sidenly thun- davrid With his en-driver, white, shaken and sitern bewide, him, he rocketed out of sight,
New Linda Christian made a annad rush to the airport, She had to
react Milan and Portago's Triumph." But before shef Rome she went into The church apposite her hotel. In front of an image of the Virgin she burned two candles for Portago safely.
His order
But their fun butent
love
At 13 miles an hr Stirling affair was deed while Linda
Mess bed found himself with a
Arakon-off brake perial. Violent-
ly changing gear, he saved the
lite of himself and his passenger.
Christian rendezvous,
was flying to their
Portago had already swerved
Shello Vin Durum had off the road three times. Be- crashed. And snewhere in the tween Florence and Bologna Dubielus ahead u Dutch driver he pounded a wheel on a kerb.
was dying.
the
At the ext stop the mcc-
But
It was a tremendous battle all hanies insisted it was buckled
Why a me. Portago's and should be changed. team male. Peter Collins, was Port: go creamyd, "Leave rkidding. sliding with his alone." He sped eff again.
WEEKEND Friell
HANDS OFF BUMMAREES
"Irakis, Lebanc-now Bummarees! We simply must have a Summit meeting soon!"
TIEN AGE
DRINKING
inquiry
"One cappuccino in two hours. Write to Mr. Butler and ask him what he's going to do about it,”
"Sorry, sir
working to rule. Absolutely
по
standing."
London Express TUHU
outl
of
Eight more Italians sprawld and died before the wreck the Ferrari came to rest.
Within minutes almost the whole of Italy knew.
the
in.
whole
THE STAR AND THE MARQUIS : Lần da Chelattan"danbing with Portago.
It was all aliended despite the pro-
over. The on an average apood of 04.0
Driving at
down il Its underside was grotesquely foyer she heard him
on the straight, dusty mad between the nuked in the sunshine as it telephone shouting desperately: orange trees, there was an ex- tumbled over and over into the "P'm trying to tell her... I'm plosion like a bomb.
her." Linda One of the terror-krozen spretators un the trying to tell Christian knew. Tyres - the worn, paper-thin ulher side of the road. scrubbed tyves thai Purtuzo
Quietly she called a cor and refused to wait secunds to have
drove on the long winding placed-had burst. The crowds
Journey through the mountain at the roadside were Incapable
to that little town of death.
toy the
had set rain ul running.
the When she arrived hour
countryside was grey and weep- Ig. There was nothing for tests of members of the mar- who found in a motor race a miles an hour, hugged his wife her to say or to do, She just quia's family. She put red roses bitter and lonely challenge was close and said, "I will never
on his grave and, surrounded by dend. slood in the rain and stared.
The garishly fresh splinters of hostility, murmured, "I promised
savage to stay with him to the end." telegraph post, the The captain was trying to scars in the road, Two huddled There was one more humilla- remember what the company sheltering carabiniers and lion for her to come
In Paris a memorial service
· had wald about being attentiva on the grass verge... Portago's to passengeras. Over and over crumpled helmet.
to Portaba was held: The Duke he had told Linda
of Windsor Christian The
his and Duchess that reception was so bad that
His tended, and so did most of those the radio operator could not
who respected the noble mar hear the commentary.
was quis, but Linda Christian not invited.
At about 150 miles on the car lurched from alde to sie. No brakes, no steering wheel, nothing could save For tago, then, the rag doll Agure his co-driver beside him, Though the crowd the Fermri burst. It tumbled into a ditch, ricocheted out, almost lazily
telegraph A
pole, shapped bounded back into the middle of the road.
Already Portago and his passenger were dead. So were three spectators, but the mangled red car will the black prancing horse painted on its side was stilt a blur of ruln and pain,
The frantle" radio commenta-
tian they repeated tors wept story of the calustrophe.
There were a few people who did not know. They included the passengers of an alrcraft
lying to Milan.
shared marquis funeral with his victims, mother was here. So was hs American wife.
At Milan the news was broken But Linda
Christion slayed to her. She Was lold that and wept in the room that he Portago was injured. But he had booked for her in Milan. informant was unskilful.
Then his body was taken £0 As she stood in the airport Madrid. This time Lindo Chris-
The Castle On
Disenchanted
Hill
THE GATES ARE NOW OPEN ON
THE RETREAT OF ONE OF THE
MOST EXTRAVAGANT OF CHARACTERS
by Ronald Singleton
San Simeon.
ON the coast road between Los Angeles and San Francisco there stands a unique castle. It will open to trippers, sightseers, art lovers, and the curious.
The castle belonged to William Randolph Hearst (who died in 1951, aged 88), American newspaper publisher. They will clear the thrice-locked road never open to the public and the common man before. The castle cost 50,000,000 dollars, or as some insist, 300 million dollars. Now the Division of Parke and Benches will charge two-dollars-n-time (children' half price) to see the mountain-top retreat.
Time-labled buses, seven days She always longed for ghosts, billiard-room keyboard, were a week, will rumble up a five- The cold of the endless, duris, better left to itself for ever. mile drive to take 500 callers in mediaeval rooms beskoned them, batches of 80 to see a fantastic she said.
The ghosts and the silence were shattered as 20 uniformed | hodge-podge of priceless trea- There are Persian tiles abaye Division of Parks and Benches Aller n sures, home-made Californian Spanish Jewel boxes, Greek urns guides trooped in plaster and woodwork
Their coaching and with Itaflen monks' pews, relles week's
pro- antique gems.
of Welsh castles with Dutch nunciation of Greek and Roman room names was still shaky, and each the other day. Up til now the built to At Gothic cellings, practised a lecture on the Cel only way the publie could see it French tapestry with Callfor sprinkled with such warnings as was from two unrevealing ten- sisa plaster nymphs, and "No, madam, your little boy is cents-in-llie-slo, telescopes at ageless confessional turned into
allowed to pull those this Pacific const village four a self-service litt.
tapestry cords," and, softly, "No, ndani, the mattress of Cardinal mlies away.
Richelieu's bed is not foam rubber."
I saw the castle at dawn painting, old English
Great days
បង
The castle bulged with elegant. guests, liveried ·servants, cooks, The housekeeper longed for valots, and gerdeners before the the great days of great guests: Hearst family decided to give it Winston Churchill, George Ber- to the State of California.
nard Shaw, Calvin Coolidge. As I walked up the road to The beauty
3:01
A plane droned low over the castle, glittering in the noodday wa ke a. Moorish shrine. Ist
ot all the 38 was Bill Hearst, one of the
great man's five Hving sons, the castle at 7.30 the dawn glit bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 14 caught the mellow Blue Moun- allting rooms, the countless im- Why did the family give the tuins and bathed. them. In the ported trees, the mostics and castle to the Division of Parks Beaches? As da art hardly certhly light of an early tiles-loy in the artistic per- and
they
Because Gay. Bonality who had gathered these treasure,
monster. treasures and brought them to taxes had become a Sart Simeon's critde wooden others sympathise.
Californian morning.
Zebra cough
and ambled away.
The zebras,
I wen halted by a zebra which pler, plece by piece.
The money coughed a large cloud of breath Hearst camped here as a boy
when
this nothing crowned
Prosperity will come to San motel gnus, deer, and magnificent hill, with. Ita 50 Simeon village and a elk were the only living beings mics of seascape and woodland might replace the telescopes.
tent The Division his Dopping on the road in the grounds. The view, but
of Parks and
·Benches hopes to take 7,000 vast mansion was empty except canvas.
for. a woman housekeeper who When his father and he, dollars (£2,500) week from yearned for the golden days. rounded, off the borders of this callers;
She
This moaned:
was family camp they had 270,000 Woult Mr Hearst have ked called 'L Cuesta Encantada acres. Now it is 30,000. But 17 Most say he would have The Enchanted Hill. Now to they do not bother to round up to t keep my job I have to, pam a
le might have written the a tray zebm 12 miles away.
The housekeeper: would not roddaldo warning, collers -400. housekeeper's examination set by the Parks and Boaches. One, talk of visitors or the public. It when they leave the Enchanted question was "How many feet, was or though the charm of this Hill "Tilleen, miles an· 319ur*** 'win ***** Lot 2 be Will a pound of pastowave; stout castle, with fls two towers curulereness cover?'"
of 48 carllion bells played by a tolerated."
·
Snubbed and desolate once again she locked herself in her hotel, tess than a mile
away
race nguin.
But there was an odd com The woman he had loved was pensation for the deat Sportsh cold-shouldered. A little Italian gallant, town had found itself poorer by. The Ballan Government: do- the death of five children, and elded that the race would never that schle again. richer by 1,000,000 lire from the be held on mother of the man who killed Naw it is a puny restricted thing. Portago by his dying en- them.
And Plero Toru, the man sured that if he could not win, who had won the 998-mile race no one else over would.
Ä
NEXT WEEK: The fear that froze Stirling Moss
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