1955-08-29 — Page 4

Page

F

DID IT

HAPPEN?

OR over three years, from 1987 to 1940, I enjoyed the rare ex- perience of working in the former seraglio of in Ottoman Sultans the Istanbul. I was one of two RAF officers lent to the Turkish Air Force as in- structors for their newly formed Staff College, the first British officers to be seconded to the Turks since 1914.

The Colleges of the Air Force, Army and Navy were housed the in the Yildiz Palace, as soragilu was called, a place made famous, or ruther Infamous, by the despotle regime of Abdul Hamid the Damned. Tho which WOR strictly consisted closed to the public, of groups of hulldings, of vary- set ing size, style and function, out irregularly among court- yurds and gardens, all perched on the top a hill overlooking

Palace,

of

the Bosphorus, and encircled by huge forbidding walls,

Here, protected by troops and police, the Sultans had lived in prison-like seclusion, rarely seeing anyone but their Court officials, and spending most

hundred!

their Ume in the harem. This menage, in an Inner, enclosure. contained

keverni Odalisque wives, concubines servants all jealously and guarded by Negro eunuch- slaves. Only towards the end of the 1914-18 war tid this atrocious oriental institution disappear,

Several tours

By 1937 most of the Yildiz buildinge were employed for military staff courses. My com- panion (who was later killed In

Our

a flying accident, and whom I will here call Mac) and I gave in lectures

rooms wer which gil bore the marks of their former use the ornate ceilings, mental

cupboards,

mirrors, the

THE CHINA MAIL"," MONDAY, AUGUST ~ 29, ̄ ̄ 1955.

THE BRIDGE to the

BOWSTRING

'Most of the women here were no more than slaves, young girls in a cage,' he said But did this story really happen? Tomorrow

the answer will be published.

DHAWING DY BLOWELL

THEN there appeared through the door which I had

thought closed, two burly Negroes drapping a while girl between them.

-by.

ARTHUR GOULD

LEE

AIR VICE-MARSHAL ARTHUR STANLEY COULD LIE won the Militery Cross as a tighter pilot in the first world, war. Early in the second he escaped from Crate with King Faul of Greece and served in Turkey, Egypt, Greece, He took up writing on his Ramosis and Yugoslavia, retirement in 1944, and his most recent book - The Empress Frederick Weltes To Sophie has been recor mended by the Book Society. Sixty, he is married and

ver in Kensington,

Yet in the open air, many of if she never caught his eye, and

com-

artong the

one of them began to WCCP, quietly, but with such sadnicas What

I could not bear it, and decided to go.

But I found to my amazement that I could not move. And as I sat there, alarmed and puzzled ut my predicament, there

Come

women

י.

people either looked at me side- ways or nooused me of roman- eing. 5o. I explained no more.

Then war came, and I still hnd the pearl with me in April, 1941, while I was serving with the RAF in Greece. When the evacuation of the British forces soared, contain, I pooled my most prized personal belongings, tire pearl included, in a sulicose, which I put on in embesy launch that was escaping to

Crole, was But while lying off an boland

the sound of bolts being drawn of the Cyclodes, the launch was and a door opening, followed by sunk by a prowling German a woman's cry of alarm. Then bomber. And no the pearl of the man's voice. Both Bridge to the Bowstring Hen now" immediately burst into some fathoms down Ira the tearful words of untreaty and waters of the Aegeon. protest.

at over- WORLD Embarrassed hearing this domesile squabble, DA It seemed, I struggled to gat up, but was rooted there unable even to lift an arm.

Then care 1 second male voice, harsh and peremptory. At ence a damour followed, with both women crying out in fear and the men growling angrily. Then there appeared, a

yurd fram me through the door which I had thought closed, two burly Negroes, dragging a white girl between them.

Gold cloth

The men wore the fez, and black zouave jackets with red trousers to the knee, and corried shart scimitars through their girdles. The woman, young and lovely, also wore a zonave Jacket of gold cloth, with silken On her trousers to her ankles. dark hair was a gold cap from which hung n loop of pearls to below her car. And from her came a pungent waft of musky perfume.

me, the three took no notice whatever. While I strove lo escape from my nightmare I saw them force her, paralysis, struggling and weeping hysterically,

the bridge.

Then her tears turned to a shrill scream, which one of the blacks stifled with his hand.

His clumsy fingers broke the loop of pearls, which cascaded down to the ground, even as they rushed her across, and dis- appeared with her through the doorway opposite. It had all happened in a few seconds. Some of the pearls were still rolling down the slope of the bridge

One dropped towards me.

zig-zag gap. Then from where they

the

thene came Ü

in

a

COPYRIGHT REIKSVED

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

YES❘ NO

• Put your tick in the’spare above and kop this panel by you until tomorrow ce when the atoric wilt be gire--with amether story in this vacleť by a c

LILIAN WYLES

Did Saturday's story-The Letter from Aldershot, by Arthur Calder - Marshall— actually happen? The answer IX YES.

It might become imperative "before" acceptance" to engine

to the applicarii's 102 Nistory of exposure

to radiation

Boy Geigers Girl

GERETIC

MUTATION

ww

*In such a world, diminished fertility and shortened life-span" "might" not be altogether to be

deplored

"One mutation which results in an Arisibile. a Leonardo, a Newton or an

Einstein might well

outrinh 49 thật

led to mental

·defectives"

Family Group

RADIATION ROMANCE

World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester Guardian

By Stephen Garnett

THE ASTONISHING

CASE OF HU FENG

THE

announcement from Peking of the arrest of Hu Fing in the middle of July 1955, marked the final chapter of an he had stonishing story. For already been publicly tried and condemned-if nation-wide de- nunciatione, with no provision hador wall for defence, can be called a trial. and

into

Cree, gasps and high-pitched national news the domestic scene

Then

my

Fow outside observers have understood perfectly the Chinese Communist persecution of the writer Hu Fong, which has figured dominantly in the current drivo against "counter-revolutionarias." The puzzling aspects are here explained by a journalist and

with a familiar of knowledgo

the

contemporary political and social scene on the Chineso, mainland. His father was a teacher of Ehglish in China, and he

the himself has spent many years in country,

traveller

aro

Two more batches of letters, Implicating others as well an Hu Feng, were subsequently

and published,

everywhere denounced at enormous length. "Literature is as dend 04 0 corpse," Hu Feng had written to Niu Hon in January, 1991. "It grieves me even have my poem published,"

fo

the glided woodwork, the orna- the buildings had charm, with some day tried to find Court of despair, which went on From May to July, while

And Niu Han replied; "Par lattleed their projecting eaves, and wis- perhaps

on until it became a shriek of tolerance, peaceful co-existence Hitle terin-clad dainty the

haps after a few decodes there walls, and marble officials....'

terror. It stopped and the easing of tensions pro- in oval wall panels. teproces ant tranqull court- He stopped, and shrugged his mortal

may be no conflict between man convulsion of vided the main themes of inter-

and man in China and the And although the whole seraglio yards. One sccluded arbour shoulders. was normally thronged with men that took

my faney, between

"Liquidated?" asked Mac.

which, quickly in China was dominated by this

At first sight it looks killing server in tedium also) with the dignity and honesty of man will extraordinary demonstration of "The Bosphorus or the bow- whimperingence

not be injured. Today, a man in uniform, the

"Resist America Aid atmosphere of a two pavilions of the harem, was

Nally with C sledgehammer. former past centred by a

he a fountain and pool string,"

replied. And he sunk into

tenelons, strange and melancholy

internal

Intolerance Meanwhile, the woman in the

But there are many questions Korea" movement, and with the gets injured precisely because still clung everywhere.

spanned by

marble footbridge, told us how sometimes suspect-

and and thought-control. Day after still to be answered, and it is publicity compaign to "liberate he defends his dignity

week after

honesty.

is This

China's Mac and I took several tours which connected iron-studded ed women were tied up in sacks room behind had fallen into any

ter weak not easy for those living outside Talwan." and long shuddering Chinese broadcasts, ofcfal the harem, with its doors in either pavilion, and thrown into the sea, while succession of

certain in their China to be around

But there

differences. shame." others were strangled here in sobe. I could endure no more, agency reports and newspaper udgments in

Bro pavillons and chalets and kiosks,

this publicly Wo accustomed in all What these men were fighting "Snug corner, this," I

and fought desperately to free articles layed the ideas and and always the encircling walls.

the seraglio.

to mass conducted "unmasking.

countrica suddenly

appeals to was the stultifying effect of the But it was not until we were mented.

"Strangely enough," he went myself.

One of the most striking political patriotism: dictator Party control of literature, and "But like the whole harem, a

associates as public dangers.

things in the whole affair is taken round by a visiting officer,

the ships,

whether Fascist or Com- the dogma of "social realism.” prison," answered our guide. on. "this graceful little bridge bonds were broken by a hand philosophy of Hu Feng and his

Great Influence contrast between the extreme; munist, arc simply who knew the place well because Most of the women here were was once known as the Bridge touching my shoulder,

more Chang Chung-hsiao, another **Steady,' father had onco been

came Mac's volée. because. It his

Bowstring,

official thorough and almost hysterical,

more ruthless of the group, exclaims in a In the more than slaves, young to the he pointed to one of "Snap out of that dream,"

end-and almost Court official, that we saw the

wrath. and alarm on the one about it. But the Hu Feng letter of February 1951: "How whole incredible warren the girls In a cage, fretting away ledded

Inevitably - Hu n "to

Feng formally charged with """spying

and on the other the self- affair begins with a clash of was dent optimism with which personalities

many promising talents have Karish salons, the dead little their lives, pining for love."

women were

and coteries in they not destroyed with the chambers still holding the aroma "But surely the Sultan....?" chamber where

for Chiang Kai-shek," tortured until they revealed I sought for words to answer,

of proletariat, In China the literary of musk, the dark, secret I began.

and over tradi-

intellectual educated minority has "Of course, if a girl became their accomplices, and then I could still hear that wail and

pensantry and soldiers and with passage-ways, and some cell-

he made an expressive gesture those gasps of strangulation, bore him

-in- ilke rooms with small, barred a concubine and

tionally

great. wielded throat "the bow-

vulgar patriotism!" com quence. "It's time to go," he

to But against his child, her lot was casier.

may help windows.

plained. "You've been up here string.

explain the weight Stato

of. over two hours."

power now brought to bear upon a relatively uncelebrated

no

Shadows of Doubt

"

A human drama of life in a normal suburban family.

J

Commencing on

September 1st, 1955

over

REDIFFUSION

MONDAY THRough Friday

7.45 — 8.00 p.m.

Produced in Australia, this powerful serial story describes the fact on ordina lives

of the shadow of suspicion and„disgrace, when the father of the family is arrested on a charge of embezzlement and his family and friends rally to his support and 'vindication.

This dramatic serial will be broadcasted to Hong Kong listeners through the courtesy of Colgate-Palmolive Co., makers of Colgate Dental Cream, FAB, Ajax Cleanser and Cashmere Bouquet Soap...

the

ܚܝ doors

Cool arbour

www

Staring eyes

I

This

the

a

sigantic Angry Despair

"I must have fallen asleep. But then and afterwards I muttered. felt a little sick.

Writer. Today the name of Hu be and a small circle of write felds and the mechanic at his friends. Hu Feng would reply Mao and I had little time to It had all seemed so real.

Feng must be known to every friends "Asleep! You were throwing one in China who can read. dwell on such horrors, for we

a fit almost. our

open listen to the radio, or attend to were fully occupied with

as though you'd just what his neighbours are talking duties. We had the use of a small staring

about. kiosk, and here, one afternoon seen a ghost."

onco

Σ

Eyes wide

"Do

not

bo

95

in

So,

a number of years Hu the small literary world, and a obstractions Feng did battle against the

squabble about Party dictatorship over litera-

theories that many of us was dismiss as "highbrow". Thence ture. The fly, it seems cooler than the sledgehammer.

It Hu Feng habitually

is expanded into *TOLO DS

call to vigilance and discipline

To such outpouring of his a follower of Marxist-Leninist S

in which the peasant in the acems that theory, but if now

sometimes with angry despair, are summoned to talco sometimes with bold defiance of have always been in bench

to an interest in-and a warning the situation and contempt for come degree of opposition to

of a writer of the enemies of creative writing. the official Communist Party of from the case China. He was never a member whom they would never other Now he would work enthusiasti- cally at influencing people by of the Party, but he belonged wise have heard. to the Youth League and to • Human Note magazine articles and meetings, several of the

sponsored

and again he would feel, as in literary societies. He was even In the second place, the use

#n undated letter. that: a delegate to the first National of Hu-Feng's private corres

"We must do what we can Congresa, in the pondened as evidence

in 'the People's

attack summer of 1954.

the and be patient with what we upon him gives whole thing a

humanitarian

I am afraid there More Elastic

quality is no other way. Nothing will which the other Soon after that

Congress, it willen

these come out of writing for opinion, income, out manipulations of appears, he proposed to the China have lacked. Valces are magazines, The powers that

of Central Committee

the beard, real

dine bo are lucky fellows who have voices sounding. of inter- Chinese Communist Party that through the jargon

developed an insensible har shell, But you may try they should make the organisa- pre and rejoinder.

with

pretation

They

Irut berr

In the mid-summer of 1938, wo A ghostl I stood up dazedly. For Hu Feng himself it is had Bettled down to work The door beside me was closed, fame and catastrophe together,

drama human

quite during a spell when the other as also the ons opposite.. I tried

to the remote instructors, Turkish and Ger- them both and they were locked. fascinating man, and all the students, were Mae watched me with surprise. spectator as the larger aspects case--and "they may away on a tactical exercise in Then I heard the wall of a ferry of the the Dardanelles, and when for siren. Of course, I told myself prove to be very large indeed. of the more 'récent was the siren In one Yildiz wog practically with relief it

accusers have had heard, just as I was talling letters that his deserted.

obtained, by means "both The

day was blazing hot, into a doze. with

"Come on, let's go," said Mac. voluntary and compulsory," Ha not a breath of cooling

In "I'm panting for a cup of tea Fe wrote 10 league (on wind from the Black Sea.

1955): town I had lunched generously still confused. The girl's per

was Februny 8, But I We moved off.

and aggrieved, and the stifling air of the kiosk soon made it difficult for me to gume seemed yet in my nostrils, pray keep your head whatever ton of literature much more may or may not be the voices monkey's tactics of entering

There will yet be elastio, oven to allowing in or counter-revoluticas They thely insides."

dependent popular

tho Journals are dontalny

The thought of I could see her frantic struggles happens.

volors 01.

dissent and keep awake. Then

edited by established writers mental atruggle and profert, opposition, are plain enough the cool arbour by, the bridge, on the bridge, see the big black many more things we have to

It is only endure, and Mac

preferred to stay in the hand over her face, the pearls endurance that we may live who might note. He said that moving purge of Hu Feng and other organ of

see to

On May 13, when the slow But the People's' Dilly, and the kiosk, and so, promising to be

one of them

Buthority back within the hour, I cal- between the slabem doppie zain. All this be for the cause,

all for a greater future. the rules and regulations about his associates became a public designated for the exposure of in the forthcoming meeting do

what should and should not be affair, the offelat People's lected my papers, and was soon pavement.

Dally Hu Feng, went to extraordinary A sudden inspiration came, not be stubborn. You should

written amounted to bench by sitting

five of Peking devoted in entire lengils to interpret what was on a shady studded

stopped. "You go ahead," I talk about the mistakes of Hu daggers stuck into the heads of one of the

doors.

to the "self-examination" niteady clear, and to emphasise I tried to get on with my told Mac. follow in

Feng Myself, if the Party, both writers, and readers, He which he had been persuaded that only their interpretation wants me to dlucidate wanted a chance for younger to prodice. It was not a very could gombly be currect. work, but even here the heat couple of minutes."

stand, I will write was too much for me, and I

an article.

writers and for individual crea- apologetic atatement. There is really little more to be tivonesa.

still for

Ferig, the Hu again

The people know in

of the paper carried posite pare Ha spoke of the "expansion and the stillness was broken and knelt by the zig-zag crack. their hearts where I have erred

of the inner self" as a better aerie of 34 confidential only

splash

of the i noticed now that a beldience and where I have been in the theme for literature than the lotters which he had written instance, one of Chum Chung fountain, and the occasional of one of the slabs had recently right."

endlos mulling over oficially long been to two. des. halao's fotters was quoted, t "significant" subject Buch as La Ling, and Shu Wu. It

which Hu. Fang, wa

warned walling siren of a distant ferry- opened the gap, so

caked ac

workers peasants that it was Shu Wu, amarting that the feudalistic power is on the Bosphorus

and exposing tho

of dust and dirt

the veters, and their contribu- from.

quarrel or trying a frantically slaughtering people My head kept;nodding for- cumulation how many years they were expected to accept, tion to the fulfilment of polių- save the own.

knows

ekin, wards, and I would come to with heaven kn

who had

pak a scalo unprecedented a jerk, gazing lethargically at a Out came my palmita and

surrendered the letters. and I (after months of verbal bom- cal and economie plans.

Obviously, ran the pick out the, white

They are for the

part It is refreshing to know that zig-zag gap between the marble began to

most kurdient

the Prosz

explanation, he alabs of the pavement, just by grains. I knew

where

monopoly Feng ideas of illorary freedom the sort of letters any literary exactly my feet. Idly I noticed spocks to go. Almost at once the blade pay which Hu Fey had such current, and that someone man might write who found by the "feudalirile of white stone in the gap. The dislodged something larger that i nound of falling water was very wag round 1-Ufteå It' out with the of creative - writing, was was bold enough to put them himself and his'ideas threatened, ship. Writers who so ma

oothing, and I was quite con a feeling half of clatios, half of te

to enjoy a few moments' dread.

feel drowsy, bo began There was not a soul around,

tent

nap.

by

the

White grains

I went back to the arbour, said.

disturbing • Denounced

Except for the

Perhaps the Chinese people the do know that, althouch

bund what

from

thoug

of

by dogmatio conventions and

of

modiopoly publishing. But in

hi Communist

Party convention,,

"upon..||

Turning Back

Some of their comments wero

the extreme,

For

meent

· power” she

"people's democratic dictator

in words are not to be trusted, this case the conventions were indictment, and the enlargement Studying the whole Inimene

speck of white, it was covered as to begin_os si llburny, that Hu Fong should · with grime, which, when I rub Cry of alarm with a wet handkerchiezties into antic Then suddenly, above the quickly: slidoff - exposing in which · warrings' haye:"been - months for the cook and) Hu Teng's remarks were of the Ulerary opposition into

creamy shining surface, splash of the Zountain, I heard Yes it was a pearl. A few whispering voloes, quife, near to days later I took it to a jeweller me, nod they were 'women's in Pera; who offered to buy it volcom. Strange, I thought, I've

a hindred and, fifty, Turkiat never men woman in Yildiz, ur worth about fifteeni posaoda not in sit the months Tye boen sterling. But, it was, too: Wor

drone thing to well, I kept it, The whipering, grew louder, whipped in cotton wool in mo until I could recogndas Turkish), stud box, path though I knwar, too little of their At the time I mid Biker also

be in the sound behind wink

hore,

some

to

that his errors had been total, before the all-powerful

and criminals. What But it seems almost

has been enlarged by the "have

a dangerous plan of counter pooting of counter-revolution would be

therefore political deviations.

revolution, one wonders home. against zu, bim

eather More Letters times whether the main object given of 10 percent month

but when it did

of the purge of Hu Jang may whether of the Party or of

former However, when these early not act of treactiery by

bad. In the hands of letters were written, neither Chinese population, at large to of touching the States employees in not clear,

Hat Feng, and his handour of the authorities private letters literary nor indeed the politient

mistrust play intellectuala, 17 ・their Tittie".

which they have used to the dictatorship were

yet imply axinem, their philosophic

stabilshed They were enough that is indeed at the look of full, in inpating the Hu Feng und their epatuript

caso into a warning to the whole for disapproval, but perhaps bot China's rent cultural history Chirioms nation;

counter

that

back