1961-05-04 — Page 6

Page

6

LES

THEY screamed up the

dusty Egyptian road

at the time of Suez, a truck-load of poker- faced French paratroops, and stopped beside group of British troops who were trying to un- lock the door of a petrol station in Port Said.

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1001.

PARAS

A battle-etched monster

that mesmerises France

Born of beaten

nation. bronzed, lean Young mese men are probably the work's toughest professional Aghting force, They are probably the

most ruthless too.

A sergeant and Cine para- trooper climbed from the truck

Twee their officers have used "Why don't you shoot it

them to force their own country open?" said the sergeant

Beenuse we think there into the edge of a cliff. This time

France may topple. someone in there," said British lieutenant

the

"So?" said the Frenchman, brushing aside the British Heutenant and corporal.

Four bursts

the private enched {e and Their Night rub-machine as und red four. Tong bursis much into the floor.

There was, it turned out, no one inside.

The stunned British officer

raid: "Thank you,

The Frenchman bowed. "Enchante. inctsleur," Jac And drove off, leaving sack,

offlers from the young British

line regiment feeling like childish, Gungding amateur.

Such are Les Parus.

Arrogant

Les Parns are more than just a shock force. They are a cult, arrogant and brutal cult in a country of culis.

There are 75,000 of them. of this number 25,000 are regulars. The rest are conscripts.

Almost all of them are in Algeria. Almost all of them are

blended" oldiers.

The older ones are veterans of the bloody fighting of Vietnam. It was there that they learned their cynicism.

By

DENIS PITTS

we were losing comrade after had refused to give Los Paras a omrade, the politicians were drink. stabbing us cleverly in the back. 1 saw their eight bodlos,

A French paratroop officer, his "But they could never destroy face carved frun sandstone, and shoulders Our pride.'

shrined his turned away, "They offered m'sieur," he said, resistance, C'est In

guerre. C'est Araben"

constant

- After 11 years of gehting in Algeria together with a short excursion to Suz

have gained tremendous, though not entirely

viable. reputation,

Paras

*

"

In an almost derelict Dakoln aircraft }

situred once bottle of wine with

Reveral of Les Paros.

Danger

"Hey," he said, "you haven't finished your wine:"

They didn't care,

completely

They are

conttilaned to

danger and death.

Fiercely, brutally,

errogantly

Les Paras have tried to rebuild the glory which was Frptice.

Their magic

See them in Marseilles or Toulon, batile-etched, scorning all ceremonial dress for their brown and green Jumping smocks and bereta,

officer who They ignore any

They hold Isn't a paratrooper.

ather French soldier In uny contempt. Their

A Day is abysma;. private carne lese then 7s, a day. And yet such is their harsh magic that every young conscript in France writes. "Les Facas as frst choice of a future ult.

A world which has thrown up uch gifting machines as the of Alexander Bad armies Leonidas, the legions of Causer, the hordes of Attila. the Comanche, the Old Guard of Napoleon, and the Brigade (unds men,

They combine 11 these fighters.

Witness the first few hours of the Suez landings when eight of the members of the staff Casino Palace Hotel were lined

I got out quickly. A pora- and He said: "While we were up and shot through the centre

because they trooper grabbed my arm. while of the forehead Indo-China. Bghling-in

We were flying low over the of Mediterranean. The nort engine produced these began to stream oli,

Hul the coup succeeded they the The

glanced out could well have becinhe paratroops umething of and went on talking about loot, Praetorian Guard of a new dic-

lator. sex, and food. In that order,

I have seen these men i action. Lived with them, flown with them, and drunk with them in Cyprus, Suez. Algiers, Arseilles.

il

Lagaillarde, ex-Para Jeader of the barricades insurrection of 1959, wns sharing a cab with me in Madrid last

NEUT.

We handed safely. The engine was still smoking and. It seemed to me. liable to zatch are at any moment,

For in Les Paras the French have created no! merely a tough regiment.

They have created a monster. And the monster has got out of hand.

-Lovedon Express Service),

SPRING IN RUSSIA

THE

HE huge jagged heart, freshly carved across the wooden top of a classroom desk, set the authorities in a turmoil. Who had committed this disturbing and unhealthy act? The culprit was silent.

were made at

Speeches about the incident council meetings. The class-teacher was rebuked for ever allowing it to happen.

I stated: "The preseate ufa morati detritive boy ur girl is immediately reflected in the behaviour and the gradome output of the whole sch001,"

Then, almost mit of the blue, one of the quietest schoolboys Confessed that he had carved the heart after quarrelling with

He had 10 their he foved. ottilted it earlier because his widowed mother, a wor char woman--with whom he lived in one tiny, Bare roum-could not afford to aay for repairs to the clask.

From what sort af novel would you say I have taken that episode?

historic denunciation of Stalin's regine.

Ehrenburg is a brilhant and subile pusher of open doors, if one. For 30 tiere ever was years he has maunged, without any appearance of servility, to write whatever Moscow is about to want to read.

Is 1956 serial tale was won- derfully tuned to the mood of 1953. Yet, with Major Yuri Gagarin's muzing half-day excursion into space, its publica- tion in Britain is even more topical.

REJECTED

1s 11

After the long, cold winter, even men's hearts can melt

by ROBERT PITMAN

now

are

ta

O

They did not keep a maid.... whole, good- He was, on the natured; he sympathised teith young couples who were kept their years for wakiing two

At the same tine such petly, conservative minded praised and highly rewarded ran

lic looked for his canvas of camp-fire cases annoyed him. organisation men.

by

unsatisfactory people's glowing-eyed on Promptly he walks out of the surrounded

Pioneers, the Con- circumstances as on ruta in a Retory in rage. The does not young

equivalent uf Boy well-made road. You shouldn't call for a car, as he is entilled munist

Scouts.

pay too much attention to indi- to. He trudges back to his ful

Pukhov tella binself, "It ritual cases: that would be along the main street which the

the general doesn't matter how you paint. harmful local party committee is

What getting made

mantiers is the subject; interest." with farmac แน

the right the right subject for the frst ume ever. He stays

On the other side arc the nway from work for a week and time, not a year too early or a

late.

Suppose, for new, courageous thinkers who the

of Klory

hot- does not even bother to send in pour tou insener, Pron A. J. Cronin, perhaps?

there is a campaign

passionately interested in drunkennes3. Well, individuals. With their help From some story about the grim terapered Soltolovsky, the hand- a doctor's certificate,

days of same,

chief Welsh valleys in the

Arey hofred

As a result, a specially calind against excessive Doverly and puri- engineer of the chief factory in meeting of the factory's Party there you are-drunken father und with the help

can't get the key into the kry Krushchev-type local party Russian provincial town. group takes the drastic step of

thest

daughter in secretory, Sokolovsky inspired rule while the Sokolovsky has a scheme for humiliating

Pioneer uniform, of course the end. designer making machine-tool parts by a

giving him an

looks on disaprovingly." new electro-erosion procces, official reprimand.

Bat Pukhov is secretly dis- Now, as a reader, you should Russian not be daunted by a

gusted with himself. Unhappily he allends Incal

it

meeting about electro erosion. novel

uti Immediately

kinds

where a party toady altucks the Most of the best modern Bassion

similar theme.

logat people are involved in this unconventional portrait of novels have

submitted by an artist woman Not by decision. famous Dudinister's

whom Pukhov privately admires, Bread Alone is centred round

There is Sokolovsky's drunken Says the toady: "Here murely The Spring was first publish an exciting new way of manu-

young friend, the artist rukhov, tras the artist's oppertunity t as a magazine facturing drain-pipes. ed in Moscow

Pour brilliant Sakolovsky, like Pukhov has pushed himself in show us serin in 1938, the year when shricks and fainting attacks in the heroic maker of drain-pipes front of far greater artists by the gildert hall of the Supreme in Not by Bread Alone, has his painting Landseer-type pletures He the to please the Parly bosses. down by Khrushchev's scheine Jurned created

Louism?

BRILLIANT

No, the setting is much more recent than that, It is from u novel about Russin in the mid- voleran Soviet 1950's by the writer in Ehrenburg. Its tilie: THE SPRING (MacGibbon and Ker, 189.).

Soviet

• Whoa! -- you're drown.

ing it!"

"Mrk Clay poole? About The birthday. cake you ordered do you want the

randira?"

2 t

by

HIS FRIEND

of

of a new

NOT NEW

wins in

In

men

Such in The Spring. In some ways it is not entirely new. other Soviet novels also if not real life, it is always the in women who inspire their to fight the old sterile idens.

But there are some surprises One is the appearance of white-haired Dmitri's genial,

who * professor, slepfather, suddenly turns up in Lena's In the home after serving as a convict country? eper there is neither the flash the frozen Far North and of inspiration, nor the glow of in Siberia for 17 years,

You may ask how a professor refiretion; and her clothes are deliberately

The shoddy....It is could become a convict.

100. a specifically Soviet tupe. But that have we here? Can we believe that this woman plays a part in building Social-

1501 in our

COURAGEOUS

Fidel

Spaceman

GAGARIN

Cummings

A QUESTION OF 'FACE'..

London Express Bervice

AMERICAN NEWSLETTER

Why American

girls

being

THIS is the age of the

THIS

Yankee princesses. The liveliest and loveli- est girls of America are deserting home to be- come serene highnesses, and I predict that the fashion will now flame like a forest fire.

like

princesses..

From JEAN CAMPBELL

New York.

Suddenly her American Florida and married and now collapsed and she they are expecting their first marriage married a quiet Polish business child,

Now her home is In man. London and she hos two children and a house

The Oxenbergs expect to come to London Like a

for the Duke, f Faberge jewel near Buckinghamn Kents wedding because Lizi- beth is, of course, the Duke's cousin. Peggy, now Princess Charles d'Arenberg, is 28 years old. She was rich, being the daughter of the director of Standard Gl.

the harder to understand token, answer, given quite casually by

Take the three leading Yankee Palace. side by side with them, we see Ehrenburg, is that the unlucky

princesses,

Grace, Princess the remarkable

by old fellow had been falsely picture Pukhov, dedicated to the happy naturally. It took the authorities

Princess Lec and Princess Pergy. denounced-on political grounds,

They are all delighted in their life of little Soviet children,"

European marriages, and when they write home there is, be- lieve me, envy in the house,

"America." sald the American port Russell Davenport, "is ant land et case," and here women are expected to perform unceas- ing circus acts in kitchen, semin- ary and ballroom.

Miserably

discover a mere 17 years to that a mistake had been made, The stepfather is not in the though lecat embittered, even Pukhov realises he had suffered coronary that the dull, rigid-minded folk thrombosis as a result of kản who praise him are the very experience.

In the West his people who are persecuting his story would make several stark, friend Sokolovsky.

angry novels, In The Spring he Then there is lovely Lena, the is just another charteler, schoolteacher. She has left, her Yet, et a second glance, you first husband,

Uctatorial

im not there Бос lint he factory boss, in order to marry accidentally. The Spring idealistle. Diliri.

clearly refers to the melting of Now the 1s

shocked to hear men's hearts after the Tong, husband, despite cold winter.

that her new

of

A

the

Back to Bucks

She was blonde, beautiful and

THE most sinister looking heclie. As Peggy Bancroft she

man 'I have yet seen in gave nightly dinners for CO and shook sedute New York society New York is a pale English- with the galety of her gathering, Marriage to an American end-

but the

remark- and

פות

His name is Roald Dahl and he has captured the imagina

with tion of this country book of short stories, Kiss King, and

coast-to-coami A morbid television series.

man of Norwegion descent. › ed in faliore, and now she is Ho in a writer, with a pen married to a quiet Frenchman, that can pry into the nervo ared 55. They live in Paris, and contres with the unrelenting are expecting a child. A REST

officiency of a hypodermic I suspect that it is not the naadio.

Highness They are told from childhood title Serene that they must look like Yenas search for Berenity itself which and think like Plato. Whatever inveigled these three they do they must do perfectly. able young women to up

They must never appear tired, change their bustling lives. nover seem nervous. They must have all sallent faels at their call and be ready to throw those

On Frking Dahl returned to facts into every" conversation as We throw peanuts to monkeys.

Bucks, with marry, They must create. They must HERE, os the Americans his home at Great Missenden, I say, comes the "big haired actress wife, Patriola project, They must full them- selves not only as women but switch." Princess Elizabeth Neal, and their three children. Dahl tells me that he thinks as something called "people" of Yugoslavia oft the

for fiction writers have a that My theory is that Anterica's chaperoned and shadowy

more important place in the loveliest girls are marrying courts of Europa at the age American community today than

Princes-to have a resti

his Idealism, bas been weak But it is also a denunciation enough to vote for reprimand- of the strange, traditional Ing Sokolovsky and his electro- Russian system of denunciation. erosion scheme.

Sokolovsky is denounced by Leno, by the way, has worries the committees. Sana is de-

her own.

of her nounced. One

is The stepfather favourite pupils is the emotional denounced. There is even one carver of hearts; and she 13 kindly character in the book herself in trouble with

who has a thick file of grateful strict-minded bureauerais for letters from the men he han Eympathising with him.

always spoken up for whenever In other words, Sokolovsky's they were denmeert, fight for electro-crosion is in n

In the new Russian dietlon, of sense hur fight too. She does her best to make Dmitri change course, such men og Sokolovsky niways win through. Their his mind and join the fight on bright, new ideas bring in the ibeir side.

results. So you can see the line-up, But what of real life? Is there that Trifanov any guarantee On one side are the dreary, and the ruthless men whom he hervile little bosses who ruted served will not return in later Rushin under Stalin.

chapters? Such in Trifanov. a local

Perhaps the recent aight into party pfelal. In Ehrenburg' sonce will be the best guarantee eyes, Trifonov is not wholly of all. Let us hope it is black,

Triumph not only for pilot "He" in: "Walther greedy nor Gagarin, but for many a name- ambitious, ilin wife ghodys wore less sokolowany goo,

dhet. the same pleared hing

"Misundan Ekpika darstev).

can't you?

Monaco.

Big switch

In England. He writes slowly, Grace left a conquered Holly- of 23 to marry the son of o wood and the frenziest adula- man who owned a Seventh sometimes taking as long as BIX to finish one short tion of the United States to Avenue maternity dress months

alory. rettle in that pert and

prim shop. pocket principality of

The Dahl family have devised and Elizabeth met Howard, a a most Interesting way to shop Now she has two children mote Vitics than any other tough athlete, on the ski slopes their daughters studying them at St Antoine. She fell in love selves in their full-length mur woman in the world.

sery mirror. They have boarded Lee, now Princess Stanislas with hint and followed lm D Radziwill, the dark-eyed sister America, Howard was 40 and the mirror to the height of the children, and allowed them to of Jacqueline Kennedy, was divorced,

She

paint a picture on the wooden magazino photographer.

She was. Creek Orthodox, he surfaco. lived in a whiri of excitement

Lauder Käptosa Service). - was Jewish, They ran away to and light.