1955-05-17 — Page 41

0

? DID IT HAPPEN

Sometimes the answer

Yesand sometimes No.

When you have read this story-another in the series by famous writers you are posed the intriguing problem is it FACT or FICTION?

You have until tomorrow to decide: DID IT HAPPEN? ·

-----ཅ--བཀ---------------

NE night in the late summer of 1939 I landed by flying boat at Alexandria to join my husband, who was in the Regular Army, stationed at that time in Abassia, Cairo. He met me in our old open Bentley, which was relic of the "Twenties" and still going strong.

We set out' at once for Cairo. It is about 140 miles across the desert-not a bad surface, though the camber forces one to drive pretty much in the middle of the road.

THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, MAY 17, 1955.

Drawing by KOOLMAN

big

We had covered about 20 miles when a saloon, came tearing down the road in the opposite direction from ourselves.

My husband, who is a good

driver, at once slowed down

and moved over to the side,

dipping our lights.

The driver of the saloon haci

ONE MAN DID NOT

less senses. He stuck to the thing, he said, was for us to try centre and kept his powerful and cadge a lift and leave the headlights du en dazzling us, poor old car by the roadside. "He braked too late, caught cur

radiator and we described couple of very unpleasant arcs, Finally

we slowed round and found ourselves half on the sand

and half out of it.

Th

.:

No apology

2 We had a long wait before Two anybody stopped for us.

We got out. My husband the other chap began to tell What he thought of him. A stream of alian poured from this gentleman's mouth and an

equally unintelligible chorus

car.

came from what looked like a crowd of women in the back of his

Then, without apology or asking if we were all right," the "Italian jirove on, bent. on continuing his lunatic pace.

lots of lorries and two cars.

PASS

I

BY ..

already full of Egyptians, swept husband busied himself trans- my husband and me at the Half But the young I began to feel worried. ferring my by

suitcases into the Way House, Then suddenly there appeared a Merccces, but I overheard one. German saw that there were no sleek-looking black car going remark plainly: It was in Europeans in the restaurat at toward Cairo-it was actually a German which happen to this late hour and disliked, he Mercedes Benz- remember how

said, the idea of "dumping an my husband admired it.

mad. Hermann" English

with lady

bad Then something sponse to our frantic

such an about migraine," in

atmo- the driver pulled up,

sphere. Beside the purchase of

cyes.

An accent

understand.

In re-

"You

are

waving.

"Our orders?...

a

more

A

2

It did not seem important, but a cup of coffee, and some seda - I remembered it. The younger tive would not mean a long

however, determined delay. man was, to play knight-errant. · He smiled at me charmingly. We all drove on.

We explained our situation He got out and spoke to us with About an hour later I was

He had a great politeness."

seized by one of those wretched Slight accent-German, I judged. migraine headaches to which I He was a youngish man, fair, am prone. I stood the severe well-dressed, with pleasant blue pain until we reached the Hall He seemed upset. He Way House-a restaurant about We were left standing there, exul

explained to us that he was in a 70 miles from Alex. Then I told There was the usual strong wind frantic hurry because he had my husband that we must stop, blowug. I was not cold but just received news from his wife It was imperative that I should tired. I was not a little con-

Cairo that their small get hold of some aspirins and a cerned when my husband, after daughter, Greta, was critically hot drink. examining the Bentley, fold me

She might die. that it was out of action. radiator was stayed in and the front axle bent, How the other car had escaped damage, he could not think,

He was Herr Hermann-I never dis- The supposed to be flying back to covered his surname pulled up

Berlin tomorrow.

Cairo.

Again I heard the older man make some kind of warning cwn language, remark in his But Hermann appared to be en He refused to leave side. my without his passengers. We thanked him warmly I was most touched. Quarter of an hour later

recovered sufficiently to be able to stand the journey.

I had

Shook hands

1

By the time we reached Cairo the pain in my head had almost gone. I shook hands with Her- mana after we had pulled up about outside our block of flats in Gezira. I would never forget his

-by-

· Denise

Robins

THEY me: at a

party in Coira betore the warmthe samous navalist popular

and the young THEY afficer. Ther

crave persis the desert at 20 m..k. la his spen for They martad.

WF1 каме Lieut.-colosi R. O'Neill Passon: hers DENISE ROBINS.

M$1

Today they live in Chelse Robins has three daughter by on vortiar

Marriage, Haven grand- children. Three years ago she wrota bes 100th novel.

me.

He got out and spoke to us

with great politeness.

Stanislaw stared at me. But he gave to sign of having recog- rather "He stood nised stiffy to attention for a second. When bowed and said in excellent English:

He was as solicitous as before and quite prepared to wait for "I must press on," he said and me. But his disgruntled friend, looked so unhappy. I felt sorry was furious. He urged Her It was not a pretty situation for him. Nevertheless he offered mann not to stop. I heard him for us. It was eleven o'clock. to drive us into

We mutter

something My husband had to be off on a accepted gratefully but not be remembering Greta desert job very early in the fore we noticed that his com- Now I agreed with this and great kindness, I said, morning.

urged Hermann to carry on and added: "I do so hope you find the room, sat down at the plane We must get home panion seemed to object. and have some sleep. The only was whispering angrily. My get to his sick child and leave your little Greta is not as illas and began to play a Chopin

you fear."

He

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and

His eyes filled with tears as The clasped my fingers and mur- mured his farewell. His friend sat stiff and unbending and did not so much as glance in our direction. Afterwards my hus- band used to "rag me and call Hermann my "German boy- friend."

Then I forgot about the war broke out.

The pianist

until

In 1912. my husband was posted abroad. I lived alone in much bombed London and worked there. One evening I went to

the house of an old friend who,

"Good evening."

After this he walked across

nocturne.

My friend spoke to me.

"Don't these Poles play well," she said.

"M'm,"

I thought. Germans play well, too!"

"Don't

And now I knew what lay at the back of my mind a memory the of a

young German on Alexandria-Cairo road.

Is there any man who has not known some secret yearning?

By RONALD SINGLETON

New York. After the show he went round UDGED by any of the to see the clown who had made him laugh most. "My name is. usual worldly standards David Carey," said Rufus K he was a successful Dryer. "Can you recommend man. Mr Rufus K. Dryer, a good tattoo artist?" He was president of the Veteran clown 'Danny Styron, local paint, oil, and glass who amid the sawdust was Duck, was glart company. His salary was Charlie the

do 90. He was glad too 15,000 dollars (£5,000) a when later he had a letter from year. By his neighbours he "Me Carey" asking for a job es was-respected-envied.

But in his heart was a secret longing....

to

a clown

Again

Charlie the Duck

obliged.

So Mr Dryer joined the

to find marks of identification-- something to make me more It is by no means an uncircus and became a White sure. I remained baffled and usual thing, this longing Rabbit.

shaken.

17

hidden inside men of Mr And, ke wild rabbit that

I heard him talking to some-Dryer's type and of his age. has been penned up and now one, and

I had to confess his (He is 46.) They dream of has escaped, he "scampered accent was not quite the one I

famous musicians, and bobbed, capered and jump- thought Hermann had had.

ed- but for him the field of the other hand the resemblance famous orators of scoring, freedom was the sawdust of the

being On

Lord's. ...

.

He joined the circus at

was fantastic. I could not get perhaps, a winning six at Big Top. any details about his background from my friend-she knew none, decided to say nothing to her I must find of my suspicions, Jut more about "Stanislaw."

Oh, how I wished my husband had been in London so that I could have asked him what he

from

Tarapa, Florida 1,000 miles Impossible things

that city of Rochester, and they go on hiding their N.Y. There, with, head and eye- longing and continue their brows shaved, chest and arms daily round as business men tattood, and in a rabbit's guist,

Charlie the Duck trailed and bankers, traders and twisted him round and round.

thought! For, of course, if this taximen. was Hermana, I ought to go at

once

to the police. But this

But not so Mr Dryer. Yet

patriotic fervour was followed his was a longing that was

by 1

distinct

law was the to doing 1

A LETTER Telli all

and.

any such thing. it Stanis quite madly fantastic. He

they'd wanted to be a clown. A CHARLIE THE DUCK quack- shoot him. Yes, he'd be shot-circus clown. that boy who once had insisted

on helping us out of a jam that

quacked, and quack- ed. Up. reurixi and about went

It began when he was a the tattooed rabbit. And the night in Egypt. I just could not boy of six-that day when chlkren laughed Gust as the

do it. In any case. I wasn't even sure. It might so be the case of a man double.

Never know

For Rufus K. Dryer a dream

man Was

που

#

easily he first visited a circus. And children had laughed those 40

years ago), with "oh, how the clowns capti-

vated him as they cavorted had come true. The successful and tumbled while he and business all the other children clap- successful clown (but at 25 ped and laughed and cheer- dollars a

15,000 week, not ed! How wonderful it would dollars a year). One day white rabbit and duck appeared on I walked up to the piano, be to be a clown when one The Pole" had just finished grew up! playing. He was looking at me -oddly, I felt. In a low voice I sold;

**Tell me, Hermann, did your

tittle Greta get well again?

OBLIGED

by the Duck

"It seemed to me that he stared PUT the young Rufus did

But back home in Rochester they knew nothing "of white rabbits. All they wondered was! Where

Rufus B was Dryer, the

man of business?

And no one knew,

The police were told, of

at me in herror or was it fear? not become a clown. Like course, that he was missing. all the other boys, he went And for a distracted Mrs Dryer

He did not answer, He got

were daliy condolences. up bowed to me, and walked to school and he went to there away. When I looked for him college, and he went to a from friends and from the folk at the factory. Mr Dryer, all institute again he had gone. I never saw technical

and agreed, must be suffering loss of him again--nor did anyone else. (leaving many of those memory from overwork.

he other boys behind) he built Did he vanish because was Hermann, because he was up a factory and became its afraid? Or was it because, in boss. And he married. those days, any man from an

occupied country felt suspicion And he still dreamed, as

alone to be dangerous.

became

Was the young man with the round blue eyes playing my

he sat at work behind his friend's

I plano really a Pole? shall never know what big desk, and sat at home Or was he Hermann?

of Hermann-or of Stanislaw the Pole. Neither shall in his easy chair. How won- I was most disturbed. I felt I ever know whether Greta derful to be a clown. quite hot with all kinds of dis-lived or died. tressing thoughts and ideas.

Stanislaw might be a Cer- Like, myself, was fond of music. man spy of course. He could She had found a Polish ex- have infiltrated himself into officer who played the piano England (as many agents were

She divinely, she said.

was doing then) with a complete anxious for me to hear him. She change of

Identity papers him "Stanislaw and Posing as an x-Polish officer, some cutlandish surname which he might be now living in Lon- don trying to pick up what information he could get and passing it on.

called

I do not recall.

When I was introduced to the Fole, I was about to say, "How do you do" when the words died

I could not stop staring at the on my lips. I looked up at him into a pair of round blue eyes fair-haired pianist in the Polish that seemed oddly familiar, uniform. I tried, rather wildly

Approach Russia

WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

YES

NO

Put your tick in the spate obove and keep this pone! by you until tomorrow ..when the answer will be ghin-with- enother story in this marins by...

PETER USTINOY

● Did yesterday's storjum♬ Model For "the Patiest, by Louis Geldiag actually happen? The answer : YES.

ESTERN UNION

Of course, he told no one even a psychiatrist, -not which would have been the usual American way.. And

certainly he did not tell his How all his friends wife.

would have laughed!)

But one day the circus came to Rochester, which was Dryer's home town. (In it ve 300,000 people, and it stands in the State of New York.)

And

as he saw again" the

clowns Dryer knew what he

must do.

DIPLOMATIC HYPNOSIS AT PARIS

World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester, Guardian

But the missing business man was too happy in his dream- come-true. One day he wrote letter to Rochester and absent-mindedly put his Florida (circus) address on it....

A

So it was that the sheriff's men arrived at the circus, one day and found Dryer the clown,

asleep in a caravan, wearing baggy trousers, a pink T-shirt, and sneakers. At police head- quarters waited his wife Helen. And here comes, perhaps, a strange thing: wife and husband other's arIS rushed into each and burst into tears. But, then, life can pull at a man, a hus

band, in many ways....

SPIRIT Everyone "understands

MR DRYER said the trous

had been wonderful while

It lasted. Mrs Dryer said all was forgiven. Everyone under- stood. Lots of people said, it showed, what spirit he had.

Only Charlie the Duck was heart-broken at losing his best

introuper. "You may come back. to The circus any time. you wish," he said as the Dryers set off home, "You made the children laugh so much.".

"Absurd! He will never return to the circus," said Mrs Dryer. And she whisked her husband away.

BUT

Father steps in

THERE, if this were just a short story; the matter might well end...on a note of happy-ever-after- or at least of happy-as-can-be expected.

But this, being true life, can have no such clear-cut ending.

For when Mr Dryer the ex-. rabbit got back to Rochester he found things had changed in the three months he had been

clown

At the desk where he used to. sit he found the new president of the firm his father: 31r.. James Dryer, who used to laugh at a little boy's fascination for the circus.

Rufus's brother, James junior, was also an executive now. And James

sald shortly: come back to

the bra

Arm.

Now Rufus K. Dryer is back fn. Floridam this time with his wife. He has not rejoined "the" circus, He is, just wondering what to do

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