Tuesday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
May 7, 1940.
Whatory, Shepreana Crawf
MAGAZINE PAGE
GRIN AND BEAR IT
By Lichty
VANT
ALL TYRES JUURES
MLE N
"It's an insult, the wages they offer-what do they think we are,
college fellas!"*
The gang's
all here!
By P.
NE night in May, 1917, I Net to see "Bubbly," one
of the best revues of the war, at the Comedy Theatre. As I opened the programme a printed slip fluttered out, nor- mal foreboding that principal was "off."
Home
Sure enough, "owing to the ab- sence of Mr. Jack Hulbert, his part will be played by who cared? Hulbert had Johnied the Army, and we had to make the best of T understudy.
Within ten minutes of the under- sludy's appearance, people were groping for the lips they had thrown away. "This fellow's darn- ed good. What's his name? Mr. -Jack Buchanan --~ never heard of
him.
Within two months Jack was a blit star. The other night I watch- ed him delighting a huge Army audience. Like others who shot to fame during the last war, he is as good as ever.
is remarkable how many who
Idageted us then are still drink
, their powers undimmed. There ts, for example, Leslie Henson. It is hard to believe that 24 years have #own since his sudden arrival at the Galety in "To-night's the Night," succeeding the tate Teddy Payne.
For years Henson has held un annual reunion party of those who were with him in the remarkable entertainments behind the lines in 1918, which culminated in full- dress productions at a theatre in Lille.
ile intends to repeat his good work this time, and I cannot think of anyone who will be more wel-
come.
IN
Na terrime spectacular revue of 1915, "Watch Your Step," a lead- ing part was in the hands of Luning Lane, then lately graduated from the halls as a buy tumbling come- clian.
For ronny monthe this jolly, cheruble, agile little man has been explolting The Lambeth Walk" in the Victoria Palace show "Me and My Girl," and his tree shows to soldiers have included a complete transportation of the production to Windsor and back.
In
George Graves, veteran dispenser of fruity chaiter, WO3 also "Watch Your Steps," and Intely re- tires from the Victoria Palace cast.
MASTER showman and im- A premio C. B. Cochran Intro- duced us in 1014 to delectable Alice Delysin in the first British Intimate revue, "Odds and Ends."
This glamorous, fascinating crea- ture beenma a ator overnight. For- mer midinette and wife of the comedian Harry Anglo-French Fragson, she epitomised Tarisian allure and grace.
I shall never forget her on the Pavillon stage on the hysterical Armistice Night of 1018, draped in a Tricolour flag and weeping with happiness. To-day you may nee thin delightful, artist as leading lady af. the new Criterion comedy, "French for Love," first of London's now wartime plays,
MANNOCK
JACK HULBERT is so sprightly
young in his current piece "Under Your Hat" that his star status before the last war la hard to believe. His wife, Cleely Court- neidge, was a soubrette heroine then, and did not become a come dienne until later.
This week Tom Walls reappears a new force, "fis Majesty's Guest," at the Shaftesbury. In the
war this popular comedian (once a London polleenan, and since trainer and owner of a Derby winner, April the Fifth) was busy at Daly's, the Gaiety and Adelpht. His partner in so many Aldwych fatees, Ralph Lynn, was at that time equally in demand in musical ennedy,
A
We also had Harry, Tate, Gene
"Gevelard: Billy Merson zrasel - above all, George Robey, Prime Minister of Mirth, who to-day quite rightly refuses to be his age. Robey had "The Bing Boys Are Here at the Alhambra, which he- cune a recognised venue for men. in khaki, from fleld-marshals. tu privates.
wor and
the
is tremendous efforts for
raised £ 100.000, charities earned him the C.B.F..
After the first few months of war, people flocked back to theatre. Old favourites were play- ing, and new actors and netresses made reputations. Fuy Comptott was one Gladys Choper. Owens Nares and Gerald du Maurier were already established.
Fine new plays come along: period of record long runs set in. The music-hall was still flourishing; you could see Marie Lloyd, Little Tich, R. G. Knowles, Mark Sheri- dan, T. E. Dunville, Groclt, the Two Bobs, Alfred Leater. Chirgwin and Harry Welldon.
Bu
*
UT the variety cornedians have nearly all gone. The star pér- sonalities of 1918 who remain to regate us in the second war against Germany
those of musical comedy and revue. I look forward to a fresh lease of life for intimate revue especially-a wonderful nur- sery of new star talent.
nre
"All quiet during the night. We repelled a number of enemy raiding parties." -Official War Communiquo.
THE advance listening post lies about eighty yards from the edge of the forest..
From it runs a shallow, zig-zag communicating trench to the main front-line trench skirting the forest to north and south..
The port
in is strip of. deep trench About Bfteen feet long, and along is full Jength
Bre-
HOT
step, Its surface is nearly two feet above the trengh and dluck - boards.
nhout four feet be-
low the parapet.
The post to a som-
bre, brooding little world in the hours
WHILE IT
just before dawn-a still world held in the velvet grip of the lift- ing blackness.
The soldier, standing on the then- step and leaning heavily against the parajset in the centre of the post, staren with trained intenary to liis front.
Suddenly, there is a faint tide
there. The soldier stiflins.
His eyes, and his mind, strive to pierce through the grey-dark; to reach the faint noise.
For perhaps a minute his brain, eyes and body strain, yearn, to
where he wards the spot from
the sound to have come. imagines Then, decisively, he cuddles his rifle stock to his shoulder, and the sharp, whip-like cracks of rille- shots stab through the still coldness of the early dawn.
The effect of the rifle shots is like that of a pre-arranged signal. Fur to the East, miles behind the enemy's known front line, bijel yellow flushes stab their way to wardy the sky. Seconds later Heil breaks loose behind and to right and left of the small post.
☆
THE canvas cloth of the dugout is thrust violently aside, and the men of the post stumble uncertainly out to the duckboards, then on the post fire-step.
Behind and to right and left of the post the crash of shells pune- ture the dawning day with livid flashes of light.
trench
skirting
From the main the forest, Verey lights shoot into coloured the air, and burst into multiples, screaming desperate SOS. to the artillery far behind.
In the post, lining its length of Bre-step, nine men stare Krimly
front.
into the misty grey in Silently, efficiently, hand-prenades are passed along from hand to hand and played at each man's feet.
The bursting of shells behind ord to right and left tell them a plain story. They are the objective of an emy raiding party.
The box barrage hems them in on three sides. They van expect main from their no assistance trench; retreat is impossible.
The sentry who gave the first alarm first sighted the enemy.
He points towards a moving grey- mass seen vaguely some forty yards beyond the harbed wire of the post. There they are," he shouts, "Just aver by those fallen trees!**
LASTED
of of
A number of the men fire vapidly into the grey mars, now breaking up into swiftly moving forms.
Voice breaks The corporal's
thic through
pandemonium shells, rat-a-tat crashing machine-guns, and crnelt of rifles.
"Go easy. Get ready to give them a dose of bombs when they're within distance,"
EVEN as he spoke the front rank of the grey mass resolved into distinct forms, looming threateningly up about twenty yards from the wire.
The corporal's voice breaks through again. "Give it to 'em," he yells. "Give 'em all you've
Rot
As he speaks he tears out the pin of his bomb and flings the Milla into the advancing mass.
The others followed the curporal's action. Crash, crash, crash, rip number of the grenades, and a
despairing grey forms fling up arms as they collapse, their cries of pain cutting through the welter
sound. of mad
Other grey forms come on. With grim. desperate courage, they ig
and nore the fallen comrades bear down relentlessly on the post. From among them arms shout up holding canister grenades, and these come hurtling towards the post. Most of them burst near the wire, scattering a fury of metai and earth over the defenders.
One of the men of the post makes gurgling noise, his mouth opens. Kasp, he then, with a surprised
the tupples over and crashes to duckboards.
The grey forms are now up against the wire."
One of them, a hulking man in thirties, breathing heavily the through an opened mouth, crashes forward before the others.
at
He trips on an out-wire, strives frenziedly to regain, his balance, full then sprawls awkwardly length across the wire.
For a moment his pain-wracked eyes glare at the defenders of the post. Is eyes hold fear, hatred, and appeal, then they film over and his body sags loosely
across the wire,'
And now comes a new con- tribution to the car-spiliting orchestration of sound, Shells begin to crash in No-thun's land behind the attackers,
The defenders' artillery is responding in answer to the Vercy Hght SOS from the main trench. The pest is completely boxed-in by vielous,
s. Hyld bursts of high explosive.
In the post men use rittes and fling hand-grenades in the knowledge
that
they
are playing out the last few seconds
of the drama of dawn.
in the Victory and defeat are
deckle Seconds, will bala 100. whether the venture against death will be recorded s a successful rald or a repulsed raid.
And in that knowledge, edged with its implications, they strive like men possessed, in blind. sullen desperation.
The attackers wade through the nire; some try to cut at the wire with cutters, while here and there a grey man hammers blindly at the wire with a rille-butt, hoping to Batten its crisp and prickling curti- ness with blunt vialenec.
Some of the attackers keep lob-
others bing over hand-grenades; fire blindly with their rifles. And the defenders keep firing stubborn-
THE conflict ends suddenly. One moment the attackers are there, struggling against the wire; the next they have melted away.
They could be seen running towards through the dawn mist their own lines. Some half-carry, half-drag wounded comrades.
For about a minute they remain In sight, then disappear behind the loose curtain of shell bursts from the defending artillery.
As they disappear the terrifying crash of shells begins to die down. spasmodic The barrage flags to bursts, then to occasional crashes, and finally ull nolse ceases and quiet holds the dawn in thrall.
In the post the corporal is com- pleting an inventory.
The right-side-of-his-unshaven face is clotted with blood, and he limps slightly as he moves across
duckboards. the squelching
For a moment he stares bleakly towards the East. Then, speakingg as if to himself, he comments in ä dry, that voice:
Two dead, three injured. Ten Jerries on the wire und others, maybe, further out. It was short, bul, God, it was hot while it last- ed!"
S. A.
Britain Needs Low-Dive Bombers
our
מיורם
German experience in Poland, briefer practice and against German airfields in Nor- way and Denmark points to low dive-bombing as the only rellable target.
The German JU87 and Henschel 18123 dive bombers massacred the grounded Polish air force on the day war broke out. Afterwards they smashed up the Warsaw aircraft factory, Lvov railway station, and heavily damaged Modlin fortress.
10-CENT FARE TO HEAVEN
"PEOPLE give to God what they would blush to give a porter for a tip."
find
This remark was made a short while ago by a Purley vicar com- menting on the fact that people who
went to church. expected to a bright, well-kept place Awaiting thein and a smiling par- greet them, son at the door without thinking where the money for such things was coming from.
The lust monthly returns of the offertories inade in the great St, Paul's Cathedral in London, would indicate that the "penny" church-
is atlit much in
evidence. Rock
On a recent Sunday, the collec- tion for the expenses of the service In the Cathedral amounted to the inglorious total of £4 7. d,
fraction of the It In just a amount required.
What is the average contribution- to the plate or collection bag by the ordinary churchgoer?
A special commission of the Chuch Assembly which set out to investigate the problem reported rather ambitiously that the average mon's contribution was 1s. 1d. a week. This was calculated on the busis that the average income of churchgoing people, including children, was £50 a year.
Ono of the commissioners re- ported that in his district. the squire put half a crown in the plate every Sunday morning, his wife o snilling, and his family suns vory- ing from 3 to 6d.
The lawyer's largess was es- timated at 2, with correspondingly decreasing amounts for his wife and dependants. The tradesman and farmer were forthcoming with a weekly Bd. Artisans gave id, and even a halfpenny.
In a year the total sum collected at Westminster Abbey in the offer- tory was £3,354 13s Od.
(By
A Military Correspondent) German decoy tricks are endless. Five raiding aircraft few high over Norwegian anti-aircraft batteries. Suddenly two (the dive bombers) broke formation and dived. The A.A. gunners, believing these two airplanes hit, Sred steadily at the three planes flying at high level. The dive bombers swooped_down, obliterated A battery, and xig zagged away at low altitude,
Our Fairey "battle" monoplanes and Westland Lysander Army co- operation machines can be used for dive bombing. But since they are not filled with diving brakes to steady themselves, their aim lacks precision.
J
The only real dive bombers in Bellain's Air Forces are the Black- burn "Skuas" of the Fleet Air Arm Their diving brakes check diving speed to 250 mph. Two hundred Douglas naval dive bombers are on order from the United States,
The Nazi dive bombers, being short range machines, have hither- to been unable to attack targets such as Bellish coastal defences. But (1) The new Naat Norway bases are a good dent nearer. (13)
Longer range dive bombers will certainly be ballt. The (SLO) Italians already have them. The French largets are within cary reach of the Germans,
The wise French have foreseen this. They have built underground aircraft factories The Nazis are reported to have many more.
France is training companies of Barachute troops, intended to
»
*
harass convoys and trains and to destroy or scize bridges, railway The harbours. stations And Russlans, who first developed this technique, did not succeed very well with their parachute troops in Finland, The Nazis claimed im- portant tactical succèsses in Poland, and to-day are fully exploiting the practice in Norway. What are wo doing about R7
IDEAL DIET FOR DIGESTIVE DISTURBANCES
The big problem with sufferers from gastritis or other digestive disturbances is how to avoid pain and discomfort when eating. The inflamed stomach walls are so sensitive that solid foods can not be retained. Even liquid foods are often vomited.
Yet the patient must get quick new strength into his body. Doctors, and nurses have found that Horlicks is retained in the stomach when other foods ara rejected. The reason is that Horlicks is so easy to digest. At the same time it rebuilds the exhausted body, and restores strength and stamina.
Keep Horlicks ready at hand. It is delicious to taste. Your store sella Horlicks.
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