1961-09-09 — Page 9

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MALAIS

THE "CHINA MAIL · SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1961.

by Edgar

THE POLICE & THE PUBLIC Lustgarten

PART THREE

No time for tradition when a man is shooting to kill

You don't need to

Look

For the most part, people for them be. living rough are not, except in ú technical sense, criminals; nor do they constitute any substan- tal. danger to the society from which they have

hind the hedges of the B roads-although, look hard enough, and they'll be there.

You don't need to look for them in the woods beside the tributarlet-lthough, look had enough, and they'll be there as well. But, for Londoners, Furel explorations are superfluous.

All that's needed is a five penny ticket froin St Paul's.

It's not more than a hundred yards or su away from the cease- less roar of traffic on the high- way to the docks.

UNCHANGING

There they are, unchanged. unchanging, and unchangeable; huddling tipsily- they are re- latively Bush-in a bomb-shat- tered house with some methy- lated spirits soberly crouched- they are relatively skint-on waste land over a fire fuelled with filth and refuse.

Their faces--if you can call. them fuceInf BAY expres- alon. Their bodies-if yati.com call them bodies-lack any shape.

RUMO

women

Men and

nlike- though both are so sextoys in aspect that is an expert's task To determine which is which shun the normal world just os the normal world shuns them.

There is no common ground. no shared convention, no point of coninct.

For there are the lost leglons, the modern Ishmaelites, the human beings unconcerned with human extitutions. They are those who, whether by necessity er cholec, lead the form of existence

known Rough....

ኪ።

Living

withdrawn.

They are iterally lawless, but nol actively hostile to the law; they simply don't belong, to our organised community that has evolved legni sanctions for Its cwn protectim,

Their favourite state is ruthier anarchy then violence. They are not apostles of disorder, but

of no order at all.

FRIGHTENED

A nolable exception, however, was Alan Derek Poole. That Poole would twenty-year-old eventually have come up against the pollee was determined by His character and temperament.

That it occurred that summer evening in 1951 was determined by a white-faced and apprehen- sive boy, who frantically hailed a police car, based on Chatham, which had been patrolling the adjacent countryside.

"Hey, Mister! Mister!"

"What's the trouble, sonny?" "I've been shot at, Mister, & fellow with a gun."

"Where?"

"Down there. Near the rub- bish tip."

"Was it an sccident, d'you think? Someone after rabbits?"

"No. Mister, it wasn't on acci- dunt. First ho shouted some- thing: then he pointed it right at me; and then he ared. Fired three or four times."

'I'LL LOOK'

The boy's distress was unmis- The relationship between takable. The sergeant and the such

the car outenste

were in and the constable who police is one of raniual got out.

suspicion rather than deep- "You stay here soony. rooted conflict.

see if we can and hini."

Well

The two officers went down. to the Up, surveyed it from each sido in turn, combed the neigh- bouring, spinney. Nobody in algli

"You'd better get back to the

car."

"Okay, Sarge."

"Have another word with tho ind. I'll just go across and take n look in that shed over there." shed,

It was a tumbledown and appeared abandoned or dis- used. The closed door, though, wouldn't yield to pressure.

There was no sign of life, but just to make quite sure, the ser- geant walked round to the side and peered through a broken window.

In the half-light, he saw the door being opened cautiously from within, and a young man, followed by two teenage girls, slip through.

The sergeant had unknowing- ly hit upon the quarters where Alan Derek Poole was at pre- sent living rough, together with two fugitives from a female ap- proved school.

He dashed round to the front of the shed for all he was worth, shouting.

"Here! Hold ont I'm a police officer. Wait a minute, I want a word"

As he turned the corner of the shed, though, the sergeant stopped abruptly. The two girls had darted back, half thrilled, half terrifled. But Poole faced him arrogantly, holding a Sten gun, levelled,"

•

"Drop that," called the ser- geant.

"Let me through," called Poole, his fingers twitching dangerously.

"Let through, or I'll shoot my way through, sce.”

But shortly before breakfast Up there, by the car, the constable had heard the shots, time on the second morning he up at his family's and now he saw Poole-running turned

home, drove straight towards him, the Sten peatable little

the occupants out, locked him- gun poised 50 05 to threaten self inside and prepared, with his xun and ammunition, for a instant death..

siege.

that

ITI

The storming of ` Poole's fortress took great courage, large numbers, and ... more than two hours.

Here a policeman

gives cover as others move in on the cornered gunman

And Indeed the last move in the siege, may fairly be called heroic by the most exacting military standards. A posse was formed to approach the house and break down the front door.

There had been no shots for a short while from the windows, but none could tell exactly what that signided. Was Poole out of ammunition or merely holding his fire?

Ás the posse, en open target from the house, strede forward, each officer reflected that at any second he might be added to the murderer'a grisly score.

But they could not have dis- charged their task more boldly or more coolly if they had already known what we know now that Alan Derek Poole had died as roughly as he lived. with an unknown policeman's bullet through his spine....

Hed Poole survived to stand hia trial for murder, no doubt a plea of insanity would have been raised on his behalf. Better, perhaps, that he did not

better for all concerned.”

What refuge Poole was suck- ing at this stage is a secret that

It is a jealously guarded tradi- he carried with him to the tion and a matter of pride in grave, but whatever his object, Britain

ordinarlly. the clearly the constable blocked his police do not carry army. But

knew that, they brought

the arms to path. They both and neither of them inched Poole engagement; they had no the one as little from killing us.. option. the other from being killed.

Public safely insisted Poole It was the sergeant's turn now should not be left to hear shots in

at large;

His plea might have falled. Or worse might have succeeded.

COPYRIGHT: EDGAR LUSTGARTEN, 1961

the distance, Poole insisted on using his pa NEXT WEEK:

By the time he could reach the car Poole had completely van- lahed-but not before leaving the tragic traces of a surer aim.

WRITHING

prustrate The constable lay and writhing on the ground, yet me able to sum up with dreadful clarity both his present plight and his Tuture prospect. "He's got me in the guts," he mur mured to the stooping sergeant. "I've had it. I am going to die...."

The sergeant gallantly stood Arm.

"Drop that," he repealed. Poole's answer was to fre-- once, twice, three times in sac- session. Fortunately, however, he was a mediocre marksman,. and the sergeant sprang un- harmed for cover as the young bandit, still firing, made towards the read.

against all comers.

If the police had attempted to make an unarmed arrest, they would merely have put them- selves up as uniformed Aunt Sallies.

As it was, the storming of fortress Poole's extemporised took great courago, large num bers, and two and a half hours.

SILENCE

All advantages were with the man inside. He had cover, they were totally exposed. He shot to kill, they in self-defence.

The climax of the measures put in train to capture Poole resembled less a police opera- He took up a position as and tion than a war. For thirty-six how he pleased; they perforce hours a most intensive search say flat upon their bellas na it hnd failed to find him. Pre- they were a unit of the Old sumably he spent those hours Contemptibles trying to reduce somewhere living rough.

A pill-box on the Menin-road.

The Thurso Boy

-London Express Servicej.

Page

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