1959-08-01 — Page 14

The ROBERT PITMAN Book Page

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST – 1, 1959.

The sickly soldier

W

who won

a

land for Britain

HILE April winds hissed across the huge waves outside, the carrot- haired young man pressed his long, thin legs against the cabin wall and groaned.

Beneath that bright red hair the young man's face, with its sharp nose and receding chin, was a deathly white. He was seasick; he had rheumatism; he had chronic kidney and bladder trouble too,

From time to time his twitching, tapering fingers reached out for the medicines he always carried with him.

A pitiful jizure? Brillen

patriots would not say no.

It was April 1750-just 200 years ago. The invalla was ncuring the shores of French- held Conoda Soon he would be dend. Rut not from any of his alligents.

For he was the 32-year-old General James Wolfc. By

Suplember 13 he would be dying from wounds during his great victory near Quebec.

JAMES WOLFE what

A

resounding name it is.

It is given to school houses. Il echoes in school lessons, On classroom walle hangs the picture of Wolfe reciting Gray's Elegy to his officers on the night before batile.

Splendid words

And we have at learned his rolemn, philosophical words: "Gentlemen, i would rather br the author of those verice than take Queboo**.

Yet what was this copybook hero really like?

year

thly

Earlier

Brian Connelly THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM (Hodder. 21s) put

the usual heroic view.

Now a book just published gives quite answer

London Express Bervice

stopped and the sun has come ous.

We see the invalided French soldiers crowding at the win- dows of Quebec's hospital to watch the scone like spectators aa football match,

We see Wolfe himself, impec- cably dressed in a new uniform put on for the Arst time that inorning.

is white fuce is alight with cestosy. A handkerchief round his wrist where a bullet has torn into it. A piece of shrapnel rips deep into his mid-

14

He dressed in

a new uniform to do battle with the French

diabolical cliizens of Portsmouth real and unavoidable calamity. It is a doubt to me if there is another such collec- tion of demons tepon the whole earth"

But his beller in James Wolfe

he

was boundless. Just before set sail he was invited to dinner by Pitt, who had promoted him over mony senior men.

on

Towards the end of the meal Wolfe stood up, drew his sword and rapped it the table. round the Then he marched room flourishing his aword and declaiming,

Pitt sat in embarrassed silence the blade whistled while around him. When Wolfe left he

"Good God! That sald: should have entrusted the fate of the country and of the AdministraUon to such hands!" Were Pitt's makutvinns Just

rit. He does not seem to notice. fied? Was Wolfe in fact a fault-

Gaily he talks to his men.

ksa general?

Well, consider

Then at last we see the whole the facts as given by Hibbert,

diferent French Inc advance. Writes The title: WOLFE AT Hibbert-

QUEBEC, by Christopher "It was porrible to hear from

Hibbert (Longmana, 21.).

Aritish lines the sharp, the

Persisted

array When his

encamped

libbert has ransacked old regular, disconcerting, hollow- near Quebec Wolle was tireless sounding drum-beɑts and to feel In training and other details.

he

-

with

diaries, letters, log-books for any delail that will bring Wolte's the rhytılımı of the tramping

As he went.on his rounds great year to life. The result boote on the damp earth,

was irritated by the unticinces

the 000 women is brilliantly exciting.

of "The British soldiers, stand- Take the final balle itself on ing up

now, watched quietly, followers who had come which the

He winced at the the army, foto of Cnnads their musketa loaded with qu

and their potticoats hinged.

sight of extra ball, murmuring softly, leather stays hanging between Through the eyeg af men who The sun shone cheerfully down."

the trees. He issued a flow of were there we see the French And so we find mrselves in and Brlilsh Torinles before

the British lines Be the French orders to put the women under

strict control. Quebec facing each other 500 evine nearer, and nearer.

strategist Wolte yards apart in the morning At 150 yards the French open drove his brigadiers to despera- light, The early rain has fire, British soldiers fall, but tlon. Against their advice he their places are filled and we ordered an Besult against clits can hear the British oflcers where the whole French Army shouting: "Hold your firet waited. AT A GLANCE Hold Your Are!"

The climax

But as

16 diasppointment Wolfo took

The result was calamitous, In rai, men slid back under fire down the wet clits. On the SOME CAME RUNNING.

beach below the wounded fccbly By James Jones, Collins, 211--

The French, bring alt the resisted as Red Indians prowled Small town fe in the States, Ume, are now advancing at the imong with is respectable surface and double.

them for booty and In Hibbert's words:- scalps. Its study undertow of gambling, "The 70 yards of ground be- drinking and petty secret vice is tween the armies narrowed to to his bed. explore through the eyes of a 60 and then to.50. A volunteer reyescals failed writer returning from the in the 47th Regiment remem- Canadian villagers (one priest wars. By leaving out no detail bered afterwards how sick he had his head smashed in, then that is even faintly relevant, the fell. His friend who had been sculped); Author of Fruin Here To Eternity packs aver 300 pages standing next to him had been

shot in the stomach and lan British morale A (π01 con- of solid, but not uninteresting, groaning on the ground, and reading.

victed of cowardice was dressed he could not help film.

in a petticoat and set on a "Would the officer never vive wooden hose with the noilee:

research.

DISASTER.

Bulher- Monica land. Barrie and Rocklt, 10%-

He ordered savoge against French-

Comic measures kept up

● LOVE AND THE FRENCIL.the order to Are? The French "This is the Reward of My Nina Epton. Cassell, 25s were less than 50 yards away Merit,” Scholarly history of love and more, and he was aure he could Yel Wolfe persisted in lovors In France from the not miss,

planning for the same assault Middle Ages to the present day. **FIREF It was Wolfe who bguin. Amusing and a tribule to much gave the order, and all down Only under pressure from his the line it, was immediately brigadiers and naval officers- obeyed."

with whom he was barely on What a elimax that is, But speaking Karma-did he agree to ⚫ THE SAN FRANCISCO the exciteraent is maintained. the strategy of scaling the We hear the screams and heights on the far side of shouts which come from the cuckte; a strategy which gove The story of the famous earth-thick smoke in front of the him the very battle which his quake 18 still fascinating, des- British lines. We watch the genius for discipline and precise pile writing unequnt to, the British soldiers as they calmly musket training could win and subject's dramo,

reland, advance 20 paces accord which his own strategy denied ing to the drill book, and Bre him. Soon after the Anal NEW FACE IN THE into the smoke again."

British charge, Wolfe lay dying. MIRROR. By Yac Dayan

Then the smoke. Hits. Writes A young volunteer wrote Weldenfeld and Nicolson 138. ed, | Tibbert:-

home:- -This Isreali novel recommends "All down the French ne as "Then I opened his Breast, itself by the strangeness of its far as the eye could reach, the And found his Shire full of setting.". Its heroine is a patrol bodice of soldiers, same situo- Blood At Which hẹ Smiled And leader in the women's section gling in soreaming agong, some when he Seen the Diaren I was of the Israeli army, and it is kneeling or sitting and groane In, My Dear, Said he, Dont against this unusubi backing softly, many quite still, Grive for me, lake Care of Your ground that she goes through were. revealed behind the Self As I see your Wounded... the less unusual motions of paterni screen of smoke. Just then came Oßeers Who

Alled

growing up.

•

THE SECRET NAME Lin Yulans. Heinemann,

Witty, erudite survey of the arsi 40 years of Soviet rule in Itusala,

Enthralling

of Berlio Wooster, In all his letters and reported Hibbert use

an

told him that the Freinch had piven Ground and our Troops was purautia Them to the Walls of the Toum, he was then Luin Thus Quebec was won. Yet t my Arms Just Expirin That what sort of person was the fireat Man Whore Sole Ambt- inan who won ?

tion Wan his Country: Glory Hibbort shows that, by normal Raised himself upon the News

• A FEW QUICK ONES. P. G. standards, Wolfe was not a alce. And Snitted in my Face." Wadehouse. Jenklus, Its. 08- man at all. He was neurotic, And the Gray's Megy episode Mixture as before, and zomo-suspicious,

ob the previous evening? times very funny despite the dotedness

eye-witness

Jogves and

Conversation there is rarely a report to throw a distinctive the others

word of praise for any one but light on that too. types."

himself. He despises his three

roport brigidler two are conoards, Wolfe's recital of the Elegy was

● THE BLACK AND TAMB, the third a villain”), his Ameris not well received by the officers, By: Richard Bennett. Edward can volunteers

f'the dirtiest, And his reactiod, was not philo- stulton, 11am An Important, more contemptible, courtly sophical, at all. fectual, lively account of sa istoga").

heldent in Anglo-Irish history bekas T which the British have pre- Wherover He inds himself the their': bored - amtrics, "that ferred to forget and the Kelaa la. Tocal people disgust hiņu. Awalt- would rather be the author of see through the grem glance of fig a ship he writes to his those Hass than wit the battre. pptriotic ferpod.".

mother: 12742 mkekulty of we are to fight tomorrow --Chonain Ersizes: Syrwten). Uving in the midst of the morning

•

According to the

"I can only say, gentlemen,** heenapped peavishly, angry, al

THE

fortune awaits

a man now

facing poverty

PASTERNAK'S £500,000

WWE wine glasses glinted on the well-laden tablo of Boris Paster- mak when this picture was taken at his viila outside Moscow. But is that table still well-laden? After expulsion from the Rus alan Wrllery Union Pasternak can no longer earn by translation or writing. Publication of his newly revised Russian Shakespeare has been stopped. Even official Polish altemple to help him by commissioning work have failed.

Yet while Pasternak faces poverty, his world earnings from a bank in' Switserland. I Dr Zhivago are being amassed at estimate that his personal share will soon be nearing £500,000. Who will get that fantastio fortunst. It has been suggested that he may ask for it to be passed to kia gialers. Lydia' and Josephine, who now live in Oxford. But Josephine Pasternak says: "We have never thought about this money. It really foem's

concern us."

Will Pasternak ever get it? In London, the co-translator of Zhivago Mrs Manya Harari, wife of a well-to-do banker, told me: "Even if his Government allowed him, I don't think he would Louch it. He would not leave his home and he would not wish it to be thought that his. motive was to earn

money outside Ruszla."

-London Express service),

JACKYS

DIAR

弟弟

JACKY MENDELSOHN

AGE 3%

Fleming's worst day

his discovery

is greeted in silence

THE LIFE OF SIR ALEXANDER FLEMING, By Andro Maurois, Cope, 251.

MAUROIS performs a great service. He explains in language the layman can understand and in a narrative both fascinating and dramatic just what Sir Alexander Fleming did and why the human race must be forever grateful to that shy genius.

enough

.

Fleming was lucky? True bacteriologist in the inoculation lleve that a team has ever pro-

He saw that, round department attached to 64, duced a new idea.“ the mould on the culture dish. Mary's Medical School, rebulit A man, a method, an outlook, the colonies of staphylococci had in the 1930's thanks to the a lifetime, a humility - these, been dissolved. But it would generosity of Lord Beaverbrook plus a little bit of luck, gave the be for truer to say that we are

world penicillin. lucky.

"For the birth of something new" said Fleming on one occa- slon, "Uhere has to be a hap pening." He thought of Newton and the apple, James Watt and the kettle, Roentgen and the ferged photographie plates that led on to X-rays. In Fleming's case the happening COUTCO the mysterious spore that blew into his tiny, cluttered laboratory and turned out to be geniclilium notatum. All his life he had been waiting for some- thing of the sort and organising his work so that it could hoppen.

His paper

and others;

For years Flemming went about delling people that one day the mould would be world-famous,

with pleading

to chemists underiake the work which he, being no chemist, could not do himself.

Collector

of

There is in this painstaking, deeply sympathetic biography eny amount of by-play: Fleming shoes collecting mouldy from fellow-members of Chelsea Arts Club; Sir Almroth Wright In 1929 he read a paper to the ercely denying that chemistry was, of Medical Research Club about could fight infection; Chain and

penicillin.

colleagues It was received In his

scally the stony silence. Not one question linings

their coat's" with followed. This was probably the penicillin. worst moment in Fleming's He For in that Hiller-doomed as a scientist.

summer of 1949 they might at any moment have to flea to the United States; une spore of the precious mould would be enough to corry across the ocean the hope of ultimate victory in the war against Infection,

interested," he confessed.

"I can't get anyone to be

And at last the long-awaited chemist appeared: Dr E, B. Chain, a Jew born in Beriln, He stumbled on the paper which

-read to the The story of this victory is by Maurois with Research Club.

He realised it unfolded importance. On May 25, 1940, thoroughness, elegance und an the crucial test was made; three tultive power to enter into the groupe of Infected mice were mind of that charming. treated. The controls died. The cruetacten Scatsman, Sir

Alexander Fleming, treated mice survived,

Chali was the key member of GEORGE the victorious team of chemists MALCOLM THOMSON out, as he said, "I do not be

He was untidy careless," leaving cultures of germs Fleming bad collect any "dirt" that happened to be about. This was his

eliberate practice.

"That's funny," said Fleming casually when he saw what the mysterious mould had done to

str phylococci. ·· At that moment Fleming had been working for 28 years as a

Hester Day Daddy & Me Started in Planting Vectables in

THE Gardene

Lettuce Plant

SOME VESTABLES

other-wise, if you plant them too Soon theYEL freeze of You'LL SET FROozened Food, Like in The SUPER-Market.

10

FROZENED Leaks

FROZENed SUCKERTASH O

FROZENED Hambur GERS

O.K.

—¿London › Exprezu Servicc).

When You See the I first Croak Us is WHEN YOU Can Start into Plant Stuffe

1ST YOU GOT To Make A Bunch of Holes in THE DIRT." THEN YOU ORRY THE Seeps inside. Its Some thing Like I a BUNERAL, Only You don't Need to get Dressed up

While in Was Digging & found Lots of Good things for my COLLECTshun Of AUNTS & OTHER Bugs Only Daddy Saip Leave them cause They Help to irritate the Soil»

RS: I'LL TRADE 3

Dead CapY BUSS for 10live beetles

After that we PLAnted Some Spinach. WHICH IS HEALTHY cause it's got Lots of iron in it. SPecially the kind thAT Grows in CaNSO

Lots of Oron inside

1959, KDS Fours 5oidra

GANnEd SPINACH LOIS

OF BRON

Outside

TOO

[World rights Reserved.

Later on We Planted a BUNCH? Laying in Au that dirt maken Veg ADD VICE FOR

OF GOTN, and GEEN PEAS, &

TABLes Dirty, So Daddy Took a HOSE STREEN BEANS. And some other) & gave them a bath. FRUITS Too

ADD

CHILDREN:

Just

one APPLE SEED WILL grow into a whole Big Tree Which is Why You Mustapt ever SWALLOW ONE

Your Friend, JACKY