6
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, MONDAY, MAY 23, 1938.
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scary.
A
every
gave
bere
most of them had men at the Front to whom death might come in this or worse shape many, likely, thought "this wo how he looked." They we people stricken dumb, unape
even to shed tears.
Quickly, but carefully, bit by AY 22, 1915. War "shirring" and tape machines
"click-clacking" in every news- bit, this twisted rail, that clouds darkened Eu- paper office in the United King- fractured sleeper, without fuss,
and hysterin, that dom. In one of them sat I-a without on rope, but
was exposed. TRY THEM morning, in that corner of cub reporter, still in the stage another victim
of police-court pars. There was Drawn forth, laid on the gruss
So the day wore on, its the flat Border country be- no one else available. It was a to await the stretcher parties.
sunshine a mockery, or Nothing Cover the mangled, calcined a forenoon. Saturday
blessing as you took it. tween England and Scot-
"breaks" ever
Saturdays. body with his khaki cont; cover More people arriving break- land, it was peaceful enough. The early messages gave little the tortured face.
down gange, the huge cranes, to People the or no hint of the enormity of "Who is it, Jock? D'ye ken raise the wreckage. The sun shone on
the disaster. Besides there was him?”
talked, not too budly-they wide fields; there were no a war on. A troop train was
"It's Willie Fergie; gie's a even laughed. The ate; there was food and drink for the see to it that nothing much got lift wi' him."
They lay dotted all over the soldiers. One forgot horror in milk pails in the dairy into the papers. Nothing much
were field, the silent men in khaki, face of the irrevocable. People yards; the lone cry of the did that day. Editors
awaiting removal to the barn went back to the towns to tell which was their morgue. From their tale in kitchen and tap- Some who had come Stubbs Rd. whaup by the marsh mea- "Get the full story," said the
town within
call am- roum. dows, the far-off shriek of News Editor, "we'll risk
bulance nid had come for the from afar decided to go on and the troop train nearing the special Sunday edition, if we injured. The civilian dead had visit the blacksmith's forge be-
can get past with it."
been taken away. They were not fore they went home, junction.
The little piles of equipment We jammed into an Old Bili so numerous. It was the soldiers Early workers in the near-by taxi, myself, a stray photo- who had suffered most, whose were set out neatly on the grass;
всепе the
its the rifles, the burnt haversacks. their heads to grapher caught on the wing, presence
Smell of burning still lingered helds raised watch it pass, to wave farewell men from other papers, assem- battlefield aspect.
bled from nowhere. Down
For them it was "all in the in the air. The dead were all of accounted for-as many as could through the long, winding roads, day's work," a recurrence to the glengarry-bonneted Inds
dusk, who would be hanging out of with their stone dykes, through what they knew, u foretaste of be in the circumstances.
changing to the windows, waving to the town and village where only old what might await them "over was
numbed with fatigue lasses. Braw, braw lads, n men and wives were to be seen there." They were disciplined, nerves
Bonnetless, without were immune to further shock. call. battalion of the 7th Royal Scots now, the bonny Border country, controlled.
Now
the roll came on their way to the foreign land green fold on fold beneath the equipment, they did their job,
impossible to think of
in cigarette
mouth,
almost Strangest, most thrilling, heart- A bugle where death awaited them,
death and muliguant fate on callously, it seemed. Some had rending scene of all. maybe. It gave ye a catch in such a day.
blood-stained bandages about note, and the quick scurrying of But then the field itself. Ere their heads; some an arm in a the tired khaki men into line- The train rounded the curve, long we were to see most of sling. Some limped, some had thin khaki line atraggling across us-those other fields where hair and eyebrows scorched by the field, shuffling into place. came rushing nearer,
steel and flame and mounded the flames, some fingers scared eyes right in alignment, number- screaming past to its destiny, ruin made inferno and mon in by the hot metal and smouldering-"One, two, three, four.
Officer in command calling out head-on collision with the for- khaki moved with quiet purpose ing wood. They were grimed,
shocked, exhausted, the names: "Ferguson," "Pre- "McFic," "Present"; gotten local train from Carlisle among the still figures that lay tattered,
They sent"; which had been switched on to on the earth, supplicating arms but they were soldiers.
(silence)- "Ab "Macdonald" the up line to make way for a
raised to the heavens,
sprang to attention when the
So on It went, until the Strange initiation. It was so harassed officer survivors spoke sent." Euston-Glasgow express behind
much alike-so much worse to them, officers unrecognisable voices calling in the dusk were than the reality; it blunted the from men, in soiled uniforms, silent. edge of horror. There was no worn with fatigue. sound now, no weeping or wail-
Mrs. H. F. Westlake wishes to thank all those who kindly sent messages
of condolence in her bereave-
ment; for flowers and attendance
at the funeral.
The
Hongkong Telegraph.
MONDAY, MAY 23, 1938.
ONLY A SPARK IS NEEDED
A spark cun set all Europe blazing.
more
Crisis has followed crisis in the past few months, but there has not been a single instance where the situation was fraught with menace than that exisiting at this moment. The danger lies in the pledges given by various Governments.
Herr
the throat.
it.
☆ ☆ ☆
went
Nun.
in the ing, no cries for help, stifled as
* 4 4
Day and
And then "The Last Post," the dim bugler, scarcely seen, blowing his piercing notes in the still caller alr of the Borderland
مت هر گرم کرتے
THERE
were 500 of them set out on that journey
were
Pus-
other dead
The whey-faced men
1 had happened; it had ended. PEOPLE came from vil night-notes that pierced your signal box who had forgotten the creeping flames passed on. the local train saw the express
lages far and near to heart.
The help, or merely to look. ☆ ☆ ☆ approach. It was too late to do
roads were thick with them, on Hitler has sworn to defend any anything to avert the holocaust.
Men, persons of German blood against while yet debris from that first THE great, writhen mon- bicycles, in cars, afoot.
sters that were trains women (the weird women of Chater Road. death at the hands of persecu-shell-burst shock was whizzing
Edinburgh; 187 lay spent, smashed, fantastically that period with their floppy from tors, no matter where they are shrapnel-like through the air: up-ended across the track. Rail hats and voluminous skirts) and dead; 191 were injured. If any incident causes a serious and flame was sending greedy way men, soldiers, farm workers, children. The field was like a sengers on the local train, the clash between the Sudeten Ger-ndder tongues towards the im- everybody, anybody, were work show-ground and their curiosity express, and railway servants mans and the Czecho-Slovakians, prisoned doomed, the express ing ant-like, slowly, laboriously, was as untouched with awe as accounted for the
into the wreckage, hopelessly, it seemed, among though the figures beneath the and injured. therefore, Herr Hitler is bound crashed
The cause of the disaster, it ploughed through it, mounted it the splintered ruin, to reach the sheets and sacks and greatcoate
There were had been waxworks.
was afterwards revealed, to intervene.
and collapsed a top of it, a writh-
some still there, it was snid, but They walked among the ranks the error of the signalman at the ing dragon spuming hissing they could not be reached. They of the dead, looked idly upon Quintin's Hill box in leaving the
noted them,
the steam and fiery coal in its death had been locked in.
tortured local train untended, accepting death throes.
Could nothing be done? No, gestures in which
had the troop train from the next nothing. Was there no power to taken them, and passed on to box. He should have been on In that disaster 227 died and tear away that deadweight of the next rank. They filtered duty at 6 am, he did not relieve 246 were injured.
wood and metal, to let them through the barn-morgue one by his mate until 6.30. The man The reverberations of that breathe the clean air again, see one to gaze upon the contorted he was relieving was reading a
the newspaper a human face, clutch a succour figures there-these were
first when the triple shock set telephones
ing hand, before the blackness ones "burned beyond recogni- collision occurred.
were sub- came upon them? No; nothing tion"-a horror too pitiful to be
Both signalmen They were more could be done than human described.
not sequently tried at Edinburgh on merely morbid, these people a charge of culpable homicide. of hands could do.
司公空航亜歐
FOR PASSENGERS, MAIL & FREIGHT HONGKONG HANKOW EXPRESS
EVERY
MONDAY, THURSDAY
HONGKONG
EVERY
& SUNDAY
Dept. 07.00 and CHANGSHA - HANKOW SERVICE
If his troops cross the Czecho-Slovakian frontier, those powers who have signed defensive alliances with the Czechs are sure to march. Both France and Russia are bound to assist the Czechs. Obviously, a false move at this juncture may bring about pre- cisely the same situation as occurred in 1914,
are not
with Russia issues involved and France tackling Germany sufficient consequence. from the cast and west, and
It is a fact, just the same, that
dead--the dying.
SHOWKE EL WEMPO
Britain hesitant. As for the seemingly trivial things can be GRIN AND BEAR IT British Government, much will magnified into tremendous signi- depend upon developments.ficance. From this far distance Britain is not pledged to defend it does seem incredible that the
she Czecho-Slovakia. But
is deaths of two German farmers pledged to Belgium and France. ehould bring all Europe to the It is almost inevitable that she field of battle. But the danger would align herself with France. is there. Just such another However, the situation is by spark may spread the fire. For no means hopeless. The chief such things lead to reprisals, EURASIA AVIATION CORPORATION Bolace may be found in the fact and reprisals to mass killings,
TUESDAY & FRIDAY Dopt, 07.00
WITH CONNECTION TO SIAN, CHENGTU, KUNMING
HANOI
H.K. OFFICE:
(Yunnan)
KING'S BLDG., 4th Flr.
Tel. 25552.
HONG KONG SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION, OF CHILDREN The total Expenditure in 1938 on behalf of sick and destitute children la callmated at $27,000, against which the Income to date is $15,000 only,
In order to continue its work, the Society aaks for the balance of
$12,000
before the close of the financial year
'31st October;'
Hon. Treasurers:
Mr. A. McKELLAR, C.A.,
c/o Mackinnon Mackenzie & Co.,
P. & O. Buliding.
Mr. KWOK CHAN,
c/o The Banque de L'Indo Chine,
Hongkong.
on
that all Governments are appar- ently striving, with all sincerity, to dissolve the crisis whch has crystalised since the two Sude- ten German farmers were shot on the Czech border. The details of that unfortunate affair have not come to light. Unless Czech crowds lose their heads
and any development of that! nature will be more than enough to start the war machines.
Onco started it is difficult- impossible, perhaps to control a marching nation. History showed that in 1914. Russia and Austrin mobilised; and or before the pacific-minded powers Sudeten Germans do some mad had time to intervene, it was thing, it is likely that the elec- too late. Nations were already tion machinery in the Czecho- at each other's throats.
Slovakian municipalities will run
Calm statecraft is required smoothly. The situation is don- now. If a single leader loses lila gerous, admittedly; but there la grip he is apt to precipitate the no real reason for
The deluge..
wer.
was
One was sentenced to three years' penal servitude, the other
By Lichty to 18 months' Imprisonment.
"I don't recognize one of these billboards told you we should have brought a road mop!"
☆ ☆ ☆
BACK in the office
What a story
writing, writing, writing. Cups of
Sub-
News
coffee, cigarettes, Editora, Reporters, Editora, Night Editors (a whole nuisance of Editors), comps, copyboys; billmen, waiting, snat ching the copy slip by slip, shouting, falling over each other, bawling over telephones. Paste, pencils, scissors. Smell . of printers' ink (amell of burning still in the nostrils); pounding of the machines (pounding of your own heart.)
copy
"Any more copy. .. copy. ..?" "Leave him afone, he's doin' fine." All through the night it seemed. We They decided to risk it. slopt in our boots on the subs' tables, and early Sunday morn- ing brought UA a complete Special Edition - a "War Edition" they called It (it gave' a little news of the war), but most of the disaster-descrip- tions, stories, interviews, late of names, pictures, atreamers, screamers what you will, or as you like it--it was "all in the |day's work,”, too.