THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14,
The Churchill Story; 3rd Instalment
WINSTON AMBUSHED IN
ROM the moment of his birth Winston Chur-
FR
chill showed all the signs of being a young man in а hurry.
It is said that as his ship sail- ed for India, he looked toward the horizon in gleeful anticipa- tion of further adventure, and said: "We Churchills peg out early-I must make sure of my
innings."
Only the early breakdown' and death of his father at the age of 45 would appear to be the evidence on which he based that belief.
But it is certain that he held it firmly in his young days and that accounted in part for his reputation for pushfulness.
He had a lot to do and, he be- lieved, not long in which to do it. Injured Shoulder
A
On
an
T any rate he landed in India still in a hurry. He was so keen to leave the skift and step shore that he wrenched his shoulder on iron ring in the jetty and handicapped himself for life,
Ever afterwards his shoulder became dislocated at unexpected moments and he still has think ahead before using his right arm.
to
He was a brilliant polo player, but probably his finest game was played with his striking arm strapped to his side.
Something of the Churchill attitude to pain can be gauged from the fact that he invented for himself a system to reset the
· shoulder when it agonisingly slipped out.
He dangled his useless arm over a gate or some such handy operating table and pulled the joint back into position.
Yet, since he has rarely had ill-luck from which he has not profited, people may like to con- jecture whether Churchill would be alive today had he not been so eager to see Bombay 55 year ago.
Twice in the Malakand Field Force and again th the charge of the Lancers, at Omdurman--the dislocated shoulder led him to use a pistol rather than fight closely with the sword.
CH
Played Polo- HURCHILL himself looking back on those battles, thinks the end of the story might easily have been different for him, but for that uncertain shoulder.
INDIA
"I forgot everything else at this moment except a desire to kill this man," he wrote.
First he decided to have at him in personal combat with his public school fencing prowess.
By Colin Frame sword, fortified by his
↓
He read Gibbon because péo- plo told him Lord Randolph Churchill had read Gibbon with delight; he read Macaulay.
Half a century later, the de-
fiant phrases that rolled round the world, and rallied an Empire to fight for its life could be traced to those evenings in India,
There Churchill lay on his bed in a pink-and-white bungalow and read and recited Gibbon and Macaulay.
But did he remember that dislocated shoulder?-he chang- ed his mind, and probably the
course of his life.
He drew his pistol-and was
disconcerted to find that he had to fire three times before the behind a Pathan went down rock.
When he turned away again. Churchill found himself alone. He raced safely through rifle fire to the lower slopes of the hill where the Sikhs were drawn up. "It was a curious education." two deep for a last stand. he has recalled. "First because
Order In Writing I approached it with an empty. hungry mind and with fairly IIS Colonel ordered him to strong jaws; and what I got T1 fetch the Buffs (East Kent bit; secondly because I had no Regiment). who were not far one to tell me. "This is dis-away. "Go and tell them to credited.'"
hurry or we shall all be wiped out," he said.
WIN
Wanted Action
H
He
Churchill did not move, INSTON CHURCHILL is in has since admitted that in a flash he foresaw himself arriving truth a self-educated man-breathless as the sole survivor, and the decades since those far with all the miserable implica- off happy days in India tend to show that he did not make a bad job of his studies in between chukkas of polo.
of his desire for action-the whining bullet and the sword flashing in the sunlight.
was
tions of desertion.
"I must have that order in writing, sir." he said coolly.
Before the order had been
rived.
*
But Cuba had not cured him scribbed out the Buffs had ar- After the excitement of the Malakand affair Churchill was doomed to disappointment in his The Tirah Expedition, a similar second attempt to get into action affray, which followed petered out. The tribesmen were paci- un-fied.
Although his regiment never committed, Churchill broke away to take part in two campaigns on the rugged North- West Frontier.
The string-pulling, the abashed approach to influential people who could grant him postings iinto action would make a story in themselves.
Chief of his aides was his mother, "In my interest she left no wire unpulled, no stone unturned, no cutlet uncooked," is how he puts it
People have made a habit of tary actions these frontier ex- Pooh-poohing the sort of mill-
peditions were,
Hints To Generals THERE followed "a lasting
1950.
EDE SATURDAY EVENING, POST,
EDITORE PRESS SERVICE, INC.-NUEVA YORK-
Herbert
1849-
"Well, it's all fixed, darling. We're dining at the captain's table.”
FOR THE BUSINESSMAN -
Britain Now Back On Her Own Feet
London, Dec. 13.
Britain's victory in her battle for economic independence was announced today by the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, Mr Hugh Gaitskell, who told the House of Commons that from January 1,
America, Britain will take no more Marshall aid from
Britain will thus become the first of Europe's 18 Marshall aid countries to get back squarely on her own feet a year and seven months earlier than expected.
peace, the wisdom of which as a budding politician," writes The news was announced-in- Churchill, I was forced to ap- a joint Anglo-United States prove."
statement read by Mr Gaitskell. But he felt cheated. Recom-It came almost simultaneously an- pense arrived in the success of with a Board of Trade
nation's cam-nouncement that the articles on the Malakand paign.
export trade broke all-time re- He incorporated them in a cords last month by reaching a book-"The Story of the Mala provisional figure of £211,900,- War In The Hills
kand Field Force"-which not | 000. only received wide public re- DUT it is worth remembering cognition, but also the approval to Parliament said that Mar- of the Prince of Wales, who Malakand. Field
sent Churchill a
would be Force, Churchill's first action
pleasant note
at the end of the about it. with British troops under his friend Sir Bindon Blood, con-
Not everyone was complimen-year, sisted of three brigades--nearly the book an occasion to hurl a of this phraseology was a
tary. Young Churchill
He made it clear that the use safe- three times as many men
few darts at his superiors.
guard in case changed cir- fact, as Britain now has in
cumstances forced Britain once Korea,
again to fall back on American help.
that the
And
in
"Life is a whole and luck is a whole," he wrote commenting
the Tirah Expedition on it, in "My Early Life," "and which followed was fought by no part of them can be separated | 35,000 soldiers of the Queen. from the rest."
made
Late
Rally
In Chicago
Mr Gaitskell's announcement Markets
shall aid to Britain suspended
Chicago, Dec. 13. Late rallies carried the grain market to a firm close, although nervousness prevailed through most of the day's dealings. Corn was the only cereal grain to fail to show strength at the close.
Someone renamed it "A subaltern's hints to generals." It
Wheat futures closed % to % made him enemies among the military commanders.
He warned that suspension of higher, com was 4 to 5% lower, Although blooded--he was aid does not mean that recovery oats were % higher to lower, So, usually in the company of For three years Second Lieute-Bengal Lancers, Churchill rode mentioned in despatches for his of the British economy is com- rye 1-4 to 1-2 higher and nant Winston Churchill (pay 14s through the ravines
part in the fighting-he was plete or that the financial resoybeans higher to 3% lower. still a young pushful and in-sources of the Sterling Area
Prices closed today trepid subaltern.
are adequate.
lows:→→
and corn- an fields of the wild, unpacified frontier country with the aim of punishing Pathan tribesmen.
a day, supplemented with allowance from home of £500 a year) enjoyed the polo-playing life of a cavalry officer in India. And during that time, by all accounts, he began to do the very thing that Ascot, Brighton and Harrow had failed to do for him--not for want of trying. He began to become an educated
man..
He was almost 23 when a sincere thirst for knowledge came upon him. For four or five hours a day he settled down to read history, philosophy and
economics. His mother sent him the books each month.
JEST A MINUTE ! Bu GEOFFREY EVANS
"One Uttle lot of those invisible' expertz they're talking about Ir
the papers these days, chumiy
Thee tribesmen took to the hills and it was on one of these. that the young subaltern nearly wrote Finis to his life story.
He had climbed it with a com- pany of Sikhs. He explains: "Like most young fools I was looking for trouble land only hoped that something exciting would happen. It did.”
Suddenly down the mountain- side, flashing swords and firing rifles, came the tribesmen.
He snatched a rifle from a Sikh and began to shoot back while the rifleless man handed him the cartridges.
Adjutant Shot
THEN came an order to with-
draw. Rather than let any spare ammunition fall to the tribesmen Churchill picked up cartridges near him and handed them one by one back to the Sikh.
This methodical action prob- ably saved his life. Of the first men who got up to with- draw two were killed outright and three were wounded...
Churchill and the rest helped to drag the wounded down the the hill.
As they joined the main party the adjutant was shot. Four soldiers carried him."
But six Pathan swordsmen leapt down the hillside, the soldiers dropped the adjutant and ran, and the leading tribes- man hacked him to pieces.
Churchill saw this. He was, by all acounts boiling mad. He turend to settle the score.
STANDARD BRIDGE By M. Harrison-Gray Dealer: North Love all.
♣ K
E 8
N.
J 3
K
964 10 3
K75
S.
Q 3 7 5 2
♣ A 10 9
AJ 4 3 2
• J 8 984
England gained points on this hand from the 1939 match against Scotland. In both rooms North bid One Diamond, South One Heart and North Two Hearts. The
Scottish South jumped to Four Hearts and was set two tricks after West had found the inspired opening lead of
K.
DIFFICULTIES AHEAD
as fol-
Wheat-price per bushel
Spot
2.37
December March (1951)
2.35-34 2.40-16-%
2.38-%-%
July
spot
Corn
December March May
1.72
(1951)
1.07-34
The increased defence pro-
and gramme
the impact
of May higher raw material prices were certain to mean new difficulties in 1951 for the nation's econo-
my.
for July
Rye December
He gave two reasons suspension, of Marshall aid. One was Britain's economic recovery and the disappearance of her dollar deficit and the other was the strain the new United States defence programme had put on American economy. The decision
to
suspend Marshall aid was reached at talks recently between. Mr Gaitskell and Mr William E. Batt, the aid administrator in Britain.-Reuter.
May (1951)
Oats December March (1951) NEW YORK FLOUR-pèr sack, $12.80.
2.33
1.66-12-38
1.67-36 1.67-7-34
1.53-14 bid 1.60-94-1.61
-96-4 96-56
200 lb.
-United Press.
Steadiness In London Tin
London, Dec. 13. The tin market was steady
Credit Approved this morning. Turnover was 65
For Germany
The English South made the more subtle rebid of Three Clubs, prepared to play the Hand in Three Hearts if North had to sign off. With the fit in Clubs. however, North was able to bid Four Hearts. The psychic trial bid worked to the extent of inhibiting a Club attack until too late, West led and South declined the. Heart : finesse, running back The Organisation on Novem-
Paris, Dec. 19. The Governing Council of the European Marshall Aid Plan Organisation, meeting here to day, gave final approval to a US$120 million credit to Ger». many to overcome temporary difficulties in her balance payments.
after cashing Kand A and thus making tricks: In this Instance the trial bid was made responder.
London Espress Service. t
of
ber" 14" approved the credit subject to the acceptance of Measures proposed. by the German Government to read- just its balance of payments.-- Reuter.
tons,
Prices closed today at the end of the official morning bession as follows:-
Spot to buyers Spot tin sellers Three-months tin, buyers Three-months tin, sellers Business done at Settlement
1,130
1,160
986
990
{
1,140
930
-United Press.
New York Metals
New York, Dec, 13. Prices in the metal market here closed today unchanged with the following exceptions→→
Tin," Grade A (99.80 percent or higher) New York, per lb. 139.50.-United Press.