THE CHINA MATE, MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1955.
BUT 29 IN EACH
LEAP YEAR
FEVRIER DID IT HAPPEN
by Xan Fielding
THE BIG GAMBLE.
by Cummings
A the old town of Marseilles had heen destroyed a few years before the W 11 7 instead of during it. 1 should not have this story to tell. Because what happened to me then could hot have happened anywhere else but perhaps I should first to be Teame explain how
there.
$ '*t*II
I was younger and headstrong in those days, of COUNE. It only needed some footling little quarrel with my parent Lena't remember what it was about nowfor me to get on my high horse, puck my bag and leave home, “For guid,” I shouted as I slammed the front door bebind
1914 I 10. 'U
really incantat. show them, I said to my self. I'll show them enn stand
oh my own fest.
of confidence,
usually is.
males.
I was full AL 18
11
tar
nly when gi Maiselies that I realised things Although I had put myself off peren't going to be quite
the patverbbal
For by Bhen my little Pampletely dulg. 1
pital had vanished Not that had some bel STGE
been extravagant for Change from the £5 node tinele from a For over a month 1 had Crest had gisen me for my Swen living wough, birth day
quifle etough to get me across the Channel on! starts forties The Yo a new career abrund,
for Taume wax
ben
today to sav
Next morning I sold my Arst sketch...
Was 13) longer permanently ruld and hungry thanks ently to Madame Rache
myself I felt com- pletely át home there. What a silly young ass I must have been.
truth
suppose
the
WILN, I With gciting a blt 1 big for my boals;
my newly won - dependence ha ad gone to my head. Heaven knowa where I
migh
have landed up if
hadn't been brought 10 my senses through my meeting with Corsican Max,
i had got to the bar rather late one evening.
h(rr[ him A:
those surround- ings his expensive clothes stood out a inile. He wasn't a regular customer of Mudome Roche's though they seemed to know each other quite well. At any rate, they were deep in conversation as I I hadn't the faintest
cane in. iden who he was till she called Be over and introduced me to bim.
There's another you" she explained
model
The evening I came across her marked the turning paint in my Marseilles carver. It had been a really nasty day, with an ey I didn't really feel like work- Wind shipping through the ing at that time of night, but he athon tungarees which were all caged me with an engar- I to war since
sold in smile. Ital my suit my
and overcoat. famished, but what I longed for than food was a ginss of Tut was just about all i afford in any erse.
T
Tarkway tapes, sleeping out in In mid-winter, too so is to avoid hotel bills, endiging focal All I redest was a state al
Lom wayside houses stead of Hack, and!
11:3
restaurants, bpmg ! જેમ| iષ 1
Sounds silly But I bebevist danging on to very five-erntune cead now stesn't it?
ce in the hope of turning it With E l ant
my pocket ant day into a thou-and-franc Jandswald in
And after all this 1 was fates and everything
sidy enough to get involved in a at parowar prices, 4 coetuber - 1
"Ich belofte party at a roufters' cafe trit 1 eugh to bus my independence, the main road south of Aix-
BODY WAEN
#teaduches
Toothaches
Colitą.
BER
DA
are quickly overcome by
CAFASPIN
"This
is
Y-Pipence.
con
Lovely eyes
1
was
under ten
Cummings
Liber
NOTICE TO PUBLIC
DONT PANIC! NO SHIRTS HAV. BEEN LOST TO THE RUSSIANS
JUST A QUICK SUNBATHE BETWEEN
TALKS.
Highest housewife in the world ['
BRIGHT-RED knitted land is really better thum
seen
hat
with two perky Switzerland for that."
will be tassels
So although it was daring around London at the first it was hardly surprising she
EL Wearing chose
of cool opportunity.
the
JOU make it a good like- ness, pay you double,"
Needless to say, I got down to it was 4 Vosy work at once. face to draw--a typical good- face- and I wooking gangster mode 13 pretty good job of it in So I went into the nearest bar hot unt
minutes. that looked shabby enough for "Now sign it," he said, "and by pocket-and three beblad while you're about it, put the
Was this
name of this bar, and the date the zuse-lined counter Mautame Roche, a horrid-looking in ny well. That'll make a nice
woman Let's see how. parce of goals if ever there was little souvenir. $222 2ow that cu
Lovely eyes ruined by a today's the twenty-eighth at one stage in the alafy expression. thin Tips February-oh, but it's after mid- we'd better call I winning, hands camouflaged by over-thick lip night, so
stick, hale dyed the sort of rext March the first." that in certain
did as he asked and he light or purple you know the kind of fuce 1 mean?
You turned out Evening 1 IN IN down; hald on hour later I was And the friendly -Renned out. driver who had suggested the game had driven off, with my Culeast in the back of his van. When I waened Marseilles next morning after walking all wight, I was just about done for.
Obvious spot
Marseilles
the
hid seethex! Cabvivus spot to make fur in the It was the ant cheumstuuices
Though there was no one else in the place sh" served me without word or a smile. them went back te her evening paper. Not that I cared. 7 was
mocd in no for conversation myself. I
wax
of place, i thought, where A down-, nd-on could pick up
h without too many questions being skid about labour per Trats 4. nd that kind of thing
was a the chance of, thak I was consciously copying ila notionless features in front st wing away on a ship. And i a vise failed, there was always of me as i ly traced the out- face with the Foreign Legion depot round Enes of a waiman's the other
ก R
quite content to sit in silence, sipping my drink and doiling 1 still don't on a paper napkin.
etsy.
my blunt penell stub; yet within five minutes I found to my sur- prise that I had drawn quite a de-like caricature of Madame
Roche.
Luekdy i didn't come to that. As i said before, things weren't Tegin with, in fact, I had a pretty this time. But in
I was just going to erumple it a week or two I was caring o living-well, you could call it a "Here, It's
up, when she caught sight of it. have look at living. I suppose. Anyway, 1
that
she demanded.
Arst I thought she was
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AL
I
Major Alexander (Xan! Field has apent most of his 36 years in Mediterranean countries. During the way he won the 130 with the Resistance Movement in Crete Twice he was landed on The land in secratance from * cubmarine and once frame destroyes
Laja!
was
in France, Fleiding captured by the Gestapa and trötenced to death, but his la was tynd by Christine Granville, the Polish ceuntess who became a British agent and who was mur dered in London in 1953.
the
The counings persuaded grisan commandant to release Fielding and his two cempanlont en the ground that Montgomery's forces were drawing neer.
Fielding has written two bask about Crete
in
married Nh wife they 1953 Daphne #weiding. In merly the Marchioness of Dath. They live in Cornwall
of
Then he handed over 20 francs. shook me by the hand and left. "What a nice chap." I said to Madome Roche,
"That's what you think," she replied.
didn't realise what she
part
it will be a slender, blonde Himalayas, the Jugul Himal
with
quick, region, that was not only feminine step, delicate-look uninhabited but unexplored. ing wrists and ankles-the For her there was the ex- kind of woman who brings clusive extra thrill of being The first to go into the un- out the Galahad in men.
But don't be deceived. Lasted, untainted air and That is the hat that three untrod snow of a 22,000ft. months ago brought a burst peak that had no name.
of colour to the remote whiteness of A Himalayan peak 22,000ft high.
And the
way it got
SHE wanted a mountain to call
her own
SHE found it in the unmapped
flimalayas
SHB says: Women have more
endurance than men
SHE tells her story to
ANNE
there was by HARPLEY
virtue
of
Typically enough, she choso to name the peak after the Sherpa porter, Gyal- -gen,
accompanied
who
her.
And all this
at an ago
those same delicate-looking (33) when most women with
children
the accept wrists and ankles. Hard, two tough climbing all the way pattern of their lives as
and history-making, too. being confirmed and
changing!
un-
For Mrs Monica Jackson,
return Nor, on her
to a Sl. member of the first all-
વ Wood fit that the John's woman expedition to
the first Swedishly bright and colourful Himalayas, wag human being to set foot on with the only mountaineering touches a few smail photographs
wheel from Tibet, does she Just "settle down,"
angry because I had spoiled one meant til I saw the papers three an unnamed peak in a part of Kangchenjunga and a prayer-
of her napkins, but all she said
thays later and read about the ast "You know, you could raid on the bank. The strong nake some money doing this." room in a Paris branch of the
First sketch
That started me thinking.
Minor In Caneblere.
cafe
been
of the Himalayas previously unexplored.
So small
a
She does--If you call rising every morning at six for half-hour's run in the paric settling down.
And the little red hat she wore throughout that gruel-
Luckily her husband is on ling climb will stay her athlete himself. . He not only favourite hat even
for approves
of racing round the town wear.
park at dawn-ho goes along. too.
a
"I had to have it specially knitted because I could never
"Costs us nothing 'except find Д bajuelava
soyz Mrs Jackson small little sleep,"
briskly, enough," she explains.
No one had foreseen that
a petite woman of bft, lin., I don't know-
weighing 100lb. and taking
Credit Lyonnais had been blasted open and several million I francs had been stolen. One of never much of an artist, the Burpects who had licen miled you, but I had once won brought in for questioning was prize for drawing at school; Corsican named Max Malandri and since I still seemed to have who appeared to have a com some talent for catching a like-
watertight plately
alibi. He It? ness, why not try to exploit By 11 o'clock next morning I had claimed he wasn't even in Paris the time the raid was com- sold my first sketch to a cus- milled-In the early hours of 2 the March the 1st-and stated he lud documentary proof to that After that I never looked effect, back, Oh, I didn't make a fur-
The trap tune, of course, but at least managed to keep my head above Frankly I didn't see how he whter. There were not many could have done it. I hated the Frenchmen who were willing to foea of an innocent man being be caricatured at 10 franes a grilled, and was almost prepared , but Marseilles was a regular to come forward in person to port of call for the P and O support his statement until I iners--and what was 10 francs renfised the trop I had fallen to an English tourist? On a into. When I dated Max's quod day I sometimes made sketch "March the 1st, 1980" Himalayas. Chough to live on for a week. lind forgotten for the moment
Final drink
about leap year.
Oh, I could still stand on my I had to spend all my worlding own feet all right, I told myself hours in the smarter bars and after all, I was tough and cafes round the Cours Belsunce Independent. But somehow that that was where I found most didn't prevent me from pocket- For my
customers but every ing my pride and taking the first uight I usod walk
up to the train home, vld part of the town for n final drink or two ai Madamo Rocha's. In spite of her rather forbidding appearance,
couldn't help liking the old girl. After all, awed her everything I had-hot that that was much, but I felt grateful to her.
I
And besides, I really enjoyed the atmosphere of her place, After my daily dose of provincial bourgcolate, it was an exelting change to settle down, for the in the company of cut-throats and
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, LTD. tramps. I thought I was no end.
HONGKONG
evening Wharf-rais, of, a fellow for finding my foot KOWLOON among such a splendidly tough crow, and even tried to pretlačio
WORLD COPYRIGHT 'REJENYED
DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?
YES
NO
• Put your tick la the sport where and keep this pawel 'by you wati) fameron *ke when the answer will be glansætta another story in this anclas by.
Diana Greenly
© 'Did Saturday's story in Wall,"¦ Net, That I Knew Q1, ky Robert MorDermat artnally happen. "The answer for ND,
there us A
Incidentally she
is 5 ft. 1 in.
MES, MONICA JACKSON Conquering mountains is so natural
"I don't know quito how it came about," says Mrs Jackson, "but I found myself agreeing to
size three in shoes, would be Although brought up in India go." equipping herself for the end later living
When, at the beginning of married woman, Mrs Jackson did not climb mountains until April, the expedition ("There Was no leader: we were All Climbing becamo
out of Kat- equal") walked But to talk to Mrs Jackson she was 27,
her son and daughter were at Jetter, was heard of them for you would think it was the term-time" interest while mandu, no news, apart from Dro most natural thing in the
boarding school. world. There is about her
two months
་་་
an atmosphere of the In 1952, three years after the The story ni the climb to the the summit will be told in the boole Himalayas. The clean bril- first climb, she went to liance of her tan. Hor clear, Himalayas and climbed two they are writing
20,000ft.. near fresh voice, blue eyes and peaks of over
But if it seems an extra- Kangchenjunga. aun-blenched hair.
brdinary feat that a woman) Bo small and so light-or a woman When she came. to live in at nil for that matter-should No queues
Britain in 1953 it seemed to be bo ablo to climb in $110 the end of Himalayan, adven- tures for Mra Jackson. She com- Himalayas, let Mrs Jackson dis Moreover, with a jealous promised, however, by making a ilusion you.
second home, in addition to the love, she
wants her moun- London flat, in Scotland-where
"Women can elimb as well as men and better. We can stand tains all to herself.
she could keep up her climbing, the cold more and have greater
In Scotland
powers of eDÍATEDOO, ske met "I have a phobia about meeting other people on women, Miss Elizabeth Stark, "Ae for being small and light mountains. In Switzerland and Dr Evelyn Camrass, bots that is a help it makes one feel have to practically experienced mountainters, plans the errex of initudo diver,
ning an expedition to the Gentlemen, loold queue to climb them. Scot- Himalayas,
you
two
Intentia,
to your
POCKET CARTOON By OSBERT LANCASTER
"Believe it or not, young lady, but your dear mother here helped me to break, training the yeas & stroked Leander in the Grand!"
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