1955-05-12 — Page 4

SI

/Page 4**

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1955.

40.

490

For Peace And Quiet

Give Me Hollywood

Hollywood, Tuesday. ESCAPED from Baby- lon for a few hours to the cathedral calm, tranquillity, and good taste of Hollywood. Well, per haps "cathedral calm" is overdoing it, but after the flash and phonyness of Las → Vegas the film capital is a

refuge.

DON

IDDON'S

DIARY

On the plane from the gambling town (it's only months here last summer-new roads, new restaurants, new an hour-and-a-quarter hop) stores, new houses (almost all the man next to me said: "I ranch-type), and new people. dropped plenty, but I'll be California is increasing its

back.".

population at three times the and is national average rate They always go back to Las growing four mes as fast as Vegas. If they win they 8 Florida and three times as fast back to win more and if they lose they go back to try to re-exas, its two big rivals in

the booster business, coup their losses.

But the gambling machines always win in the end. I must be one of the few people who haven't put even a nickel in as slet

Gambling has machine. not the slightest lure for me- I recoil from it.

The quick fight was good. We skirted the mountain peak which shattered the plane la which Carole Lombard was fly-

d the

The people here are better looking and better dressed than most of the Las Vegas crowd.

In Hollywood women greatly There is outnumber the men. a plethora of lovely ladies, a superabundance of females and a dreadful dearth of men.

Best part

ing all those years ago DESTAURANT owner "Prince".

stewardess told me:

have to make an instrument landing." But, RS it turned out, we put down at Les Angeles In perfect weather, clear and bright and warm.

The big worry

"The

อา

vants and secretaries but I drove to the studios anyway.

The biggest names in Holly.

at the wood

moment are. William Holden. and Grace Kelly. "We are concentrating on the ladylike and the gentle. manly" I was told. But neither Miss Kelly-nor. Mr Holden is too happy about the money they've been receiving.

j Like so many stars before him, Holden is forming his own production company, and Miss Kelly, who has been getting miserable $1,000 per week and has been loaned out at $100,000 a picture, is having her contract raised to a modest $10,000 a week.

Holden, who is enjoying such spectacular success after years < solid work, says he doesn't know why he's now right at the pinnacle. Не suggests; "An actor must not be caught with, pin his traits showing. You've got to subordinate completely your own personality to that of the character you're playing. Some can do it and some can't,"

One of the richest film couples around these gilded parts are

Masons, the James

and I wouldn't take his talk of retire- ment too seriously-not as long as be can command $200,000 and more per picture.

Mikke Romanoff says: single "Hollywood is full of women who have reached the

Own worries desperate age when their voices are changing from No to Yes." You see the weirdest-looking TOLLYWOOD, which is al- men escorting the glamour dolls, ways worrying about something. Is anxious about the British Board of Film protesting about Censors

recedit American *lms. Producers say they've been battling against the strait- jacket code and, want to be realistic and present life in the Beverly

Hills, which is

Maybe they know that Jaw. Hollywood's swank suburb, does brutality is paying off at the no: allow advertising signs of box-office better than saccharin neon in the residential area. It is determined to be in good I have some worries of my Laste even if it likes stronger own just now. I have to 80 flavours. I rate its Wilshire back to Las Vegas. Boulevard as one of the most elegant and attractive

shopping

It's not just the sinful, razzle- I am always being asked why centres in the world.. My dazzle city that repels me—it's we recognise Red China, and I friends Stewart Granger, Jean the drive, night after night explain carefully, slowly, as to Simmons, Greer Garson and through the desert, the waiting a child. This is the Americans' Deborah Kerr were out of town up at all hours for the atom big worry: why we ever even or out of the country-the bomb to blow the suspense and speak to Red Chinese.

Hollywood stars are scattered tension, the build-up and the

Las Vegas here all over the globe these days, let-down. leaving their mansions to ser- come again.

handsomest part of Hollywood is Beverly Hills, and N airline official said, when I drove over to the Beverly Aldinim was going to the Hills Hotel, past the palms, the violence in Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel: bright green manicured lawrk, "Have you got any dollars-it's the lovely homes close to the a $5 fare out

I blue Pacific. there, and thought the British hadn't any doilars?"

him I told weren't as broke as all that

The cab driver, after a few asked: "Why preliminaries, does Britaini recognise Red "China--that's no way for an

ally to act."

wa

Hollywood and Los Angeles have grown since I spent two

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a teaching career is suddenly becoming attractive to young people."-Sir David Eccles, Minister of Education.

CREDIT-

where

credit's due

LL over the world there are places, off the beaten track, that are staging posts for the more unusual birds of passage. Such a place is the Fort at Sharjah in the Persian, Gulf, and it was there that I met Com- mander Morgan and became involved in something a little out-of-the-ordinary in the way of treasure hunt. ing.

He came in on the schedule

by

Hammond Innes

THIS story might be FACT-ar

it might be FICTION.

IT continusa 'the series of stories told by famous writers. The tales are complete but they (sava you to decide—DID IT HAPPEN?

of the entrance

the

flight two days after I had buried in sand a little to the three-thirty and we anchored in and swirling into the open hold, arrived, and the Political Agent south

to the 29% fathoms. Morgari went and the dhow rode sluggishly, was there to meet hin. I saw Elphinstone Inlet.

down on the first recce, plummet- listed over by 120ft. of piping him first as he came in through The caretaker had reported Ing into the Umpid green of hung over the side. the arched entrance to the fort objects about a metre long seat- the dentas

like some strange The nakhouda and his Arabs between the two iron camon, a tered about the wreck. "It Martian monster, all Ans and were busy battening down the We tried to haul the funny little piratical man with a' could be ivory," he said, his tin-canister shell, his face and hatches.

of the suction

pump goatee beard and an irritating eyes gleaming.

beard hidden by bis mask, and piping pitched high Jaugh

like a I thought the man a phoney, carrying the big underwater inboard, but it was impossible

with the but a dhow trip up the coast was camera in his hands, hyena.

vessel rolling he

with gunn'ls under-even His face was the colour of too good to miss and there was mahogany, his fair hair bleached no doubt that he really was an ..

Arabs it was still impossible. There was nothing for it but to white by the sun, and his clothes underwater specialist.

as though they hung on him

Our dhow was moored just

jettison the pipe, but sand had and we didn't belong. With him were below the dried fish market, a his two assistants Bob Hewitt small bum

Bob hovered above him as his jammed the joints with four ragged

watchman He was gone the couldn't find the tool for loosen and an Italian, Cesare Maresi. Arab sailors squatting on thei:

The PA introduced us over a haunches on the high poor full limit of his dive and when big them. drink, and I took an instant dis- round a rice pot.

be came up he was excited. The dhow

was a big one, only its like to the man. He was self- The nakhouda a thin-featured. centred,

outline showing above the sand egotistical and bom- hook-nosed man in a dirty

that all encrusted with bastic. He talked about himself turban with a big silver khanjar and

Janife all the time.

Encrusted

Only order

London Express Service ›

When he came up ke

was excited so."

"..

The Arab engineer never did get the engine going. Hour after hour we sailed back and forth between Ras Shaikh Mas'ud and another, smaller headland, with Mergan constantly at the helm, windward and only just succeed!- forcing the ungainly craft to ing in gaining what we lost in

that leeway so

we remained, gripped by the elements, about a mile off that deadly eliff-line.

He stayed at the beh

helm all through the night, fighting the ungainly craft to keep her off the rocks, and the following day Morgan, who had gone up the wind veered slightly, we at his waist, showed coral growth. There were objects

more sail and, heeled Morgan the equipment he had buried in the sand about the into the bows, came back to say hoisted brought down from Bahrein; a length of elephant tusks, but we were dragging our ancher. right ever, he drove the dhow quite The wind WES blowing us down the coast, into the surf off ble suction pump was lashed to heavily encrusted and

straight on to the shore. Не Ras al Khaima and through it the deck and the hold was full immovable.

gave the caly order he could and over the bar into the lagoon.. He'd sailed round the world of 40 fathoms of suction piping,

The suction pump was rigged and we cut the lashings of the And there we ran her ashore..

It blew for four more days and single-handed, been a year on a 4 battery of compressed air and four 30-foot sections pump and slid it across the deck

made a cylinders, buoys and ropes, and piping süd over the side so that and over the side...

The engine desert island, he'd

that time we chipped during the coral from the single piece fortune pearl diving and lost it the crates containing the aqua- the dhow listed badly. Then the started with a cough and a roar, again in a wid attack on the lungs, cameras and other under- pump was started and 23 the we hauled up the anchor, and that had been brought up

sun's rim touched the horizon for perhaps a quarter of an hour the wreck. It wasn't ivory. bank at Monte Carlo, he'd been water equipment.

they all three went dien on

we plugged it against wind and was an ald everything from cow-puncher to

muzzle-loader. disgust roughneck; there was nothing he

a quick dive.

sea, gaining a little offing and Morgan threw It

observing hadn't done, nothing he didn't

Sand gushed from the pump's heading up the coast for the into the wis time sur risked

he'd wasted his outlet, clouding the sea all round Elphinstone Inlet. and Cesare opened the the dhow and in ten minutes Then suddenly the engine his life for what was almost cer÷ pirate dhow quite insufferable. He treated crates, checked everything, and they were up again, for it was slowed and stopped. We dropped tainly a damned

when that was done, Morgan too dark for them to see. They the hook again and dragged sunk by the British where they his two youngsters as though signed to the nakhoude that he brought with them a ral- shorewards until we snagged tock Ras al Khaima in 1822. they were a pair of puppies he was ready to leave. This pro- encrusted object about a yard something and the anchor rope was training, and they responded duced an outburst of gutterat long and about a foot through. broke as the long bow reared to with a dog-like devotion. *** Arabic, in which the word

Lost fortune

know.

He was an Irishman and

Bob

Ready to go

Over drinks that evening and Ajuzah was repeated again and

on into dirner I had a whole again.

series of quite incredible naval "Ajuzah, said Big wind Is experiences" thrust on me, and

then

suddenly he asked what very bad. No good,"

11

Stir at dawn

the creaming crest of a wave.

deck and looked at the

Tell it right

"You're the only one of us nakhouda, who cried to Allah who gets anything out of it,"

All that evening we chipped and got his men hoisting the he said, turning to me "But see

at it with hammers and cold great dhow sall. But the weight you tell it right, and give me the hell I was doing in a God- I have since discovered that chisels, working carefully and of the wind cracked it out with credit for sailing a dhow off a forsaken place like Sharjah. And Ajucah is the name for a very patiently, but it was slow work such force that the rope hold lee shora. Damn it, Ras when I explained that I was a strong shamal that blows up and in the end we gave it up and ing the long curved gaft parted Khaima writer, he immediately suggested the that gave about one and the whole thing crashed to be a pirate couldn't have that I join his expedition. It wards the end of February or in the morning I woke, cold the deck.. was a dhow trip he was offering early in March. It is known as and diff, to hear Morgan and

me We leave from Dubai the old woman" and it blows, the nakhoude and the caretaker tomorrow," he said.

"Where for?" I asked

Derelict

stil.

Took over

znan

off into that vile laugh of his.

But

somehow I didn't mind the Laugh any more, or his bombastic manner. The was a fine saman, and when I to Sharjah and saw the PA. I was

as not surprised to. had

for about five days.

all shouting at each other. The naichouda wanted to return to Sometimes it veers quickly to Khor Kuwal. They word Ajuzah

It was a nasty momenta lee got back to kaus, which is the warm, humid kept recurring in the clutter of shore as ugly as Land's End and learn that Morgan really south-easterly. It is violent and Arabic and English that he ten times as high, he engine, dangerous, but none of us knew poured out at Morgan as he sall and the boat drifting on the sailed round the world" single- anything about the Gult clutched at the commander's wind straight for the cliffs legs handed and done all the things "HMS Hormuz? And when, I' said I wasn't aware that there meteorology and, even if he had blankets. The sea was glass than a mile away-and I sud- he said he'd done. "I thought

impetuosity calm, the air known, Morgan's

that the nakho do you knew all about him, he denly realised that was a British naval ship of that would have brooked no delay at

we said. “He wrote one of the best. up. The crisis was name in the Gulf, be burst into that stages de Morgan refused to weigh beyond him. He had relied too fe stories the war: Didn't his byens laugh. ⠀

The date was February 28 and anchor and finally, to get some.ng, on diesel power, and now he, mention" It?” ș "Good God!" he cried. T isn't a ship, it's a naval base outside the estuary, the sea was price, and that settled we he was down on the deck, faced WORLD COPTRIGHT EZSELVED

towards Mecca, putting himself a fiat calm, hazy and pastel stayed anchored there, with the in the bands of Allah. Absol been derelict for years. And coloured under the blue sky. We great cliffs of the Ruus al Jibal he got up from...” his meat prid

with its

humped against the stars. It was then that Morgan tok DID IT REALLY HAPPEN? took me through into the lounge coasted the shore-line,

charge and I shall always re- Occasional silhouette of a mud where there was a big wall map, town and palm trees, taking the I woke again just before dawn, member the quiet confidence of "and" pointed it out to me.

YES NO direct route to the Straits conscious of movement and a stir the man and the way he stood had been built on the advice of

A wind from the to the roll of the ship as though Lord

coughed in the rock-girt northwest we

DOLCE

he raised the charter

-

length

# Put your tick, hi, the specs above may karp"this pawn!" kyr^, youn watik

'with andikar story 'In, Cla

Curzon in the rocky out rough a steely down Uht about me blowing up his feet were planted in the narrows of the Khor Kawai, harrows of the Kher Kuwal with incredible speed, not gusty dock planking. He had a right at the entrance to the carrick-on-aducing tide, and like an English wind, but steady-of nylon zone brought up out

Gulf Bufit we not the there was the deserted naval and solid with the force is the hold and sear Cesare up the deserted naval base that inter

And mast with base crouched on a rock pro- great air mass on the move. And swaying montory with its

Will Als forlorn, wire the sea got up with it unti in when he'd got it through the a moment the waves were sheave, we rected the call by less masts, who discovered are above the ginn, rolling it and tybe the rolls, started Co the wreck. It was then about breaking with an angry roar and then we hoisted it

ed him.

It was the report of a simken dhow seen by the Arab taker lying id 30 Zathoms, half-

It was Cemre