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THE CHINA MAIL, ・ SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1959)
CONCLUDING THE MOST UNUSUAL MEMOIRS TO COME OUT OF ANY WAR
I MEET THE GIRLS WHO CARRY
and give Fidel Castro a few tips on the art of speech-making
BARGING around in the rebel camp I naturally.
found my way to the women's corps, the Mariana Grajales Battalion. Mariana was the mother of Antonio Maceo, a Cuban patriot, and the girls in the battalion had been with the Castro force for a long time.
1 learned that they were armed with brus, lowheeled shoes, no make-up, and guns. All very ascetic, like the bearded men who didn't drink and didn't consort with females while the revolt was on-poli was sald
Most of the girls had personal senson for being there.
T
A brother or a parent had been
shot by the Batistans
would
One girl kald she never barry, uni the revoll was complete. Another was in it for revenge, for injuries done los zweetheart,
No chorus line
Their boots and shoes were pretty well gone, from plenty of walking. They wore slacka -which they entiel plecadores... that opened above the boots: akinil of blue jeans garb.
When they joined up with Castro and lock to the hills the to put aside bobby girls had
all the gadgety pins, curler, stuff that women everywhere and vital.
Errol Flynn prosents the second rip-roaring chaptor of his memoirs of the Cuban war. Flynn was with tho rebel forces' when their rovolt moved to Its triumphant climax. This is a front- line despatch. To prove it, Flynn has
his famous Wound.......
Cuban War: by ERROL FLYNN
period when Batista was getting ready to quit Cuba, just as the revolt what the coge Di AUCCOLE ile asked me about my own life and experience and my work as an actor, and that led into my giving him some thoughts on delivery, histrionics, and how to be effective with an
audience,
He sened attentively 10 that and bald he would try to put some of the advice to work. He intended giving an address to his officers shortly. and he asked me to let him Inow how he did.
No terror
I can't say that this made exactly a bevy of chorus-type beauties out of the ciris, but they had something that was pretty wonderful, a camara about many things, and he told of his strategy for defealing the Batista Government,
derie, and fine faces.
They were rather
grio; they wanted no more tyranty, they said. "Peace, for God's sake. Let our country live, let the people be in it without constant threats to our men or land,"
sec.
con joke about Not oven I everything 1
What I bumped lite among the rebels was serious, and truly revolu tionary. There had been 100 much suffering over the whole
istanc
My advice
Fidel Castro, the rebels' leader, gave me a surprising amount of ปร thue and attention at the
We talked hot and heavy
☎
I asked Costro why he move- int allowed itself to be called a rebel rising Instead of pairiet movement, I auggested that the word rebel had an out- w flavour to it; that they should call themselves patriote, Je Uldn't understand the difference,
I mentioned Jesse Jamca,
"Who is she?" he asked,
I described the notorious out- law-and Castro sald he didn't understand. I then said that His movement looked, In America, us if i was a force directed against
legal authority.
a
That 110 understood. Ho 91iffened. "I am a doctor of law myself," he said, "and the Government has never done
anything legal, never,"
His 'luxury'
He told me how one of the methods was to cut electric
This was a principal We dined together, always power. part of the strategy which won pretty lightly. He look no him the victory. But it was pleasure or interest in his food, ultogether (unother thing and a fl seemed. He went about it wrong thing, he said, to poison perfunctorily, like a man who, water, which was a Government, shaving, thinks of other things.
etc.
His food was about the same us everyone else's, as near as I could judge.
His Iden was to do everything to keep the good will of the people and develop their ap- reciation of the rebel move- ment and not to endanger the pubile in any way.
Cat of transportation, yes. Break up communication, yes. Bu no mistreatment of the public. no terrorism.
The time-honoured
Occasionally he had a tin of Spanish tube served to him, bu he said he felt he was being
verprivileged if he got fare like that. Mostly he ate arroz con pollo-which is chicken and rice. But you had to look hard to find the chicken
drink from Scotland
I tried my hardest to malco him laugh, but it wasn't easy to get him to do so.
I
gathered that he used laughter rather as a tool in his ormoury, as a weapon, to work on the spirits of his followers, but he was too involved man to see ironies, paradoxes, or Amusement in what he WEL dolce.
Captured guns
that one of the I gathered things that pleased Chaire was the way in which his forces captured the guns of his enemies. He told me how his movement had started with eight men set. ting out to defy the Goverment -without guris,
GUNS
LR #
RIDING AROUND behind the rebel lines, Flynn stops to give a soldier a lift.
20
I am usod.
Batista had He gave kinself up and be
to bearing good going out with girls, and theve that
‚fted fream. cimo over to the robel forces, voices and to being sõelated girls weren't even members of "Cuba, that Santiago bad fallen shaking and trembling, and with men who have timbre and the movement. Where in blazas without a fight. when he was brought before power in their throats. I had was this going to ond? Castro he said: "I would like given Castro a few suggestions, asked. to join the movement of the now 1 Ilstened, 26th of July"-the anniversary útle by which the anil. Batisto campaign was known.
"Not until you have earned il,” Castro said,
filx movement obtained its
He gave this colonel a loaded guns mostly by capture from
with directions to their enemies,
And when a tommy gun, man got a gun he kept in foin his force and show his marvellous shape, and trestos mettle before he could belong to It like teenager would the Castro movement, handfe is first old erock of a car.
3 a.m. speech
Oratory
His voice ripped through the mlil, and even with my mengira Spanish I caught the words; "You are failing yourselves!"? Castro had as much power Even so he had them Iughing In his voice as anyone I ever once or twice. Then they would beard say Unts for the screen get tense and rapt as he went
I believe scrious, or in the theatre. that this has since been noted by television anülenses who have heard this volde, with fie confidence and sweep,
Here, by sheer oratory, he held the attention of a crowd In the popular mind the mill-
at young men-young because At three o'clock in the the Castro movement is langely tary side has been attributed to
It dawned Castro, but, from what I morning I was awakened from a youth movement. gathered, the military chter of a trul sleep-i was on a low-on me he was giving them hell. staff was an Argentino named lying wooden bench of sorts-
always fought They had Emerio Guevara. Castro spoke when my photographer and I honourably, he reminded them, of the rellability of his aides were told that Castro" was ad- and they treated their prisoners and advisers, and modestly dressing his officers, and so well, and they hadn't stolen, attributed to many others the could go and hear him.
but now, he accused, the diaci- pline was breaking down. reason for his
movement's
growth and the run of military
successes.
The prisoner
In my presence this scene took place:-
#
I woke up my, photographer, "Come on, Johnny, get moving.”
then Just
hawk-faced captain; with the usual board and the lean and hungry look of the revolutionist, came to me with the message: Mr Flyin Fidel sends me to tell you that to go to Santiago will be highly dangerous. You want to go!"
I hadn't been so close to Bo much virtue in a long time, not since the last time I entered a did the photographer, church 12 years earlier, dragged there unwillingly by my mother. ****
I sure did, I told him, and so
I thought of my wives, giri friends, and Teaser, females in the Flynn retintis around the globe. I wondered whng the relationship WAR between bellbooy and movesatul
⚫ revoluilon,
....-
1
Dangerous
We walked from the hilltop
Maybo, he said, this was In the moonlight down the long because they had come down!
I suppose females do interfere hhl that ted to the sugar mill out of the mountains and the with that dedicated feeling you where Castro held forth. All scent of victory was in their ought to huve during a crustide. about there was a gathering of rostrils, but some things that I realised I could never have the rebel soldiers. They talked were going on had to stop! frenziedy, and in the semi- They were drinking beer! Beer qualifications to paw the muster dark I could see their beards. While the exure was to be of the true Castrolie rebel. the trade mark of the revolt, wonl the austere bush on the face, symbol of hardness, masculinity,
solf-denial..
A colonel
of police, a hard Batista man, surrendered. I saw this man as be came to Castro's beadquarters. Ho In the mill was a large room was. brash, be Брока
good where Castro would speak. We English, and he had bees to were led inside, Along with school in Chicago. Soldiers us there filed in scores of brought him to the Comman soldiers and officer, 1 took up dante extra well secured because a spot in the back of the room......... the mob was ready to fear him Up front, on a rigged kind at apart. They knew his record platform,
was Castro. He as a terrorist.
stepped forward.
'Failing'
I hadn't realised that this was stich a crime at this end of Cuba. What was 3. doing here? I biller "koop" "zindar wraps that briefcase with the drop of vodka still in it.
Now Castro was really letting them have it. They were also
Suddenly the Commandante giluned, threw up his arms, andt left the room. He admirers ist loose with earspilfting yells, and was clear to me they loved an as if he was their mother, father and brother.
Wounded
During the day a long convoy of rebel troops formed, stretch- ing for a mile. Jeeps and motor- cycles carried the soldiers, Rebol flags, made their appearazite, oh. poles and trees. -I was in' 'a' jeep with the photographer; and somie Castro men as the Une moved: sluggishly toward San-
lago.
3
Everybody expected: there would be resistance in the city in spite of the fight of Batista. The local Batista men would figure they might as well fight', as to be arrested and shot,
We bounced along behind a column thát cónvoyed Fidel him! telf toward Santiago, We got as for Central Palms, several miles from Santiago, and 'wors suspected an ambush; The Jeeps glow, and then ther was a burst of fire from some
It was na Gettysburg address, I decided, but it was nice to see the boss in such great form. where. Everybody went for the
ditches.
Then came the morning when was awakened with the erg
(Continued on Page. 7)
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