1950-12-19 — Page 7

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, TUI

The Churchill Story: 6th Instalment BOERS OFFER £25: DEAD

OR

ALIVE

It was a 16-hour journey. But By

Colin Frame Mr Dewsnap and company were CHILL'S variety Of

taking no chances. hats have been a car into a truck. He burrowed into With Lancashire appreciation toonists joy for halfa some coal sacks and went to of the inner man they had pro-

century.

sleep.

He left the train before dawn, There are several theories swinging off acrobatically while about how it all started but it was travelling at a fair speed, there is some evidence that the but the ache was taken from his first really odd piece of headgear, bruises as he watched the line he wore was a Dutch clergy-run on into the sunrise. For he man's hat, when, four weeks wanted to go east. after he was captured, he escap ed from the Boers.

This dramatic escape has not been dimmed by the great escapes of two world wars. He has told the full detalls in his long and enthralling account of his first 30 years, which Messrs Odham's publish under the title, "My Early Life," from which have already quoted Churchill's own story of the cavalry charge. at the Battle of Omdurman.

Ten-Foot Fence ELEMENTS in it

were SO

daring and so phenomenally lucky that few fiction writers

would attempt to use them af they wanted a story to sound plausible.

The prison camp at Pretoria was 300 miles from the nearest friendly territory Portuguese East Africa. Churchill knew no Dutch or Kaffir.

www.

The camp was surrounded by a brilliantly-lit quadrangle and a ten-foot fence patrolled by armed sentries.

First plan, to make the break with two fellow prisoners, failed. Then Churchill, with four slabs of chocolate and £75 in gold in his pocket, heaved him- self over the fence.

A Free Man

E passed within fifteen yards H

of one sentry who was light ing a cigarette and within five yards of another who stared at

him

That day he lay low in a grove. At night he returned to the railway, but no train came along

vided two roast chickens, slices and of meat, a loaf, a melon, three bottles of cold tea to bear him company.

To this day Churchill can re-

member, much as a porter shouts them, the names of the stations along that perilous route-Wit- bank Middleburg, Bergendal, Belfast, and so on to Komati Port

At last it was over. The fron-

"I pushed my head out of the

He set off on foot along the line, skirting bridges and wad-tier was passed.

streams. He stumbled on tarpaulin and sang and shouted. almost exhausted.

some

He moved towards buildings and found he was at a coal mine.

Falteringly he walked to the door of a small stone house. He beat on it with his fist...

of

His Lucky Star MAN opened it to whom he to a lame tale of falling

a train while sky-larking with other Boers

The man heard him out in silence, then invited him in. He locked the door and Churchill feared the worst.

mine

Then "Thank God you have come here," said the manager.

"This is the only house for twenty miles where you would not have been handed over. But we are all British here and we will see you through."

•

nd crowed at the top of my voice.

"Indeed, I was 50 carried away by thankfulness and de- light that I fired my revolver two or three times in the air," wrote Churchill in "My Early Life."

Told To "Be Off"

DIR

IRTY and dishevelled, he slipped over the side of the truck and sauntered across the goods yard to the British Con- sulate in Lourenco Marques.

"Be off. The Consul cannot see you to-day," announced the secretary.

But Winston Churchill had not come all this way for such treatment. He roared and ranted so loudly that the Consul himself looked out of the window and inquired what it was all about. From that moment," wrote Time and again in the Chur-Churchill, "every resource of chill stony appear signs that he hospitality and welcome was at was born under a lucky star-

my disposal." the boyhood fall which might his neck, the have broken Pathan tribesman with uplifted sword, the Cuban rifleman and the Boers potting at him by the train, German machine-guns in and their bombs in

one

war

another...

and uncomprehendingly, walked into the town a man. Audacity and simplicity had succeeded.

That is a Churchillian under- statement.

It was roses, roses all the way, At Durban he was almost torn to pieces by a delirious crowd. Back in England they introduced a music-hall song about him. The Army Again free But in this long and adven-

turous story his star has shone DUT Churchill went straight never so brightly as at that into the Army again and incredible moment when Chur- sent a graphic message to his chill picked one house out of paper, the "Morning Post," those scattered on the veldt and which he prophesied that more found it to be the ace of trumps. vigorous action was needed

defeat the Boers.

But for how long? He had no map and no compass. Very soon the Boers had a description of him widely circulated and a reward for his capture "dead or alive."

If Churchill had known of this

at the time it would possibly have ruined his morale, for neither his description nor the size of the reward could be con- sidered flattering to a veteran of four campaigns and author of three books.

The reward was £25.

THE

The Description HE description was: "English- man, 25 years old, about 5ft Bins tall, indifferent build, walks with a forward stoop, pale

appearance, red-brownish hair, small

noticeable and hardly moustache, talks through his nose and cannot pronounce the letter S properly."

But Churchill knew nothing of this. He walked through the. night, read his direction by the stars and made detours round any possible picket when he came to places like bridges.

Then he hit a railway line. He swung himself on to couplings of a goods train as it clanked past him. He clambered

the

JEST A MINUTE!

By GEOFFREY EVANS

Mine Hideout MR DEWSNAP, of Oldham,

the Lancashire town that had turned Winston Churchill down when he first essayed an election, risked his life when he hid him in the depths of mine.

the

So did the manager, John Howard, and two Scottish miners who helped to work it.

But They'll vote for you next time," said Mr Dewsnap, as he lowered the man the Boers sought into the blackness where white rats with pink eyes kept him company.

Several people have been churlish enough to throw doubt on parts of the tale of Churchill's escape from the Boers.

in

to

"Are the gentlemen of Eng. land all fox hunting?" he cried. Some of them were stung into cabling back from their London club. "Best friends here hope you will not continue making further ass of yourself."

Churchill joined an irregular force, the South African Light Horse, because it had finally been decided that no man could be a soldier and a newspaper correspondent at the same time,

He was at Spion Kop and at the relief of Ladysmith. He was with his younger brother Jack when he was wounded in the leg..

Once more hé risked the firing squad when, carrying a message from Sir Ian Hamilton One took the trouble to go to to Lord Roberts and in an the bottom of this mine. And, attempt to hurry his reports to for the sake of the record, he his paper, he put reported that, despite his pre-clothes and cycled coolly and vious doubts, the rats in that deliberately right. through Transvaal coal mine did indeed Johannesburg, then still in Boer have white bodies and pink eyes. hands.

on: civilian

Churchill was in the mine two But his narrowest squeak was days and two nights and there- at a place called Dewetsdorp. fore had a good opportunity to discover their colour.

Accompanied by Montmo- rency's Scouts he had galloped For five days, spent walking to a small hill which was sud- on the veldt in darkness and denly found to be in

Boer then sleeping behind packing possession. Bullets frightened cases, he plotted with his new his horse so that, it broke away. found friends the method of

The scouts retreated. escape.

Meanwhile successive cables Chased By Bullets whipped the British public up

to the highest pitch of excite-ON foot, a mile from any cover

and but. a few hundred

ment they had known in a war that had so far been unfortunate yards from the Boers, Churchill and dreary.

turned and ran for the second Reports of his escape flowed time in this war. in. So did reports that it was Up came a mounted scout. quite impossible for him to "Give me a stirrup, yelled wriggle through the Boer net. Churchill. In a second he had And, more ominously, there swung himself behind the was a report that the minute he trooper to make, chased by was recaptured he would be bullets, an escape of which any shot-

Wild Western film producer would be proud.

Read "Kidnapped"

"Oh, my poor horse," groaned

MEANWHILE, Churchill lay the trooper as the beast was hit

reading

ped."

the packing cares but galloped on Stevenson's l idnap- "Never mind, you've sayed

One week fror

he bad relia

PM

But Trooper.

DECEMBER

COITOAS PRESS SERVICE. INC-NUEVA YORK

-1858-

"You must have the wrong number. I don't have a

beautiful sister

FOR THE BUSINESSMAN

Wage Increases Given Spanish Civil Service

Madrid, Dec. 18,

The Government's Council of Ministers ended a two-day session today by adopting a number of decrees, including one providing a general wage increase for Government employees.

Wage rises will range from 20 to 40 percent and employees will receive other benefits, notably a permanent Christmas bonus.

が

The Council also imposed fines on industrial two heavy firms for tax law violations.

The Holding Company of Sofia was fined 3,000,000 pesetas and ordered to cease manufac- turing fertiliser in monium sulphate plant.

national situation.

its

am-

SLOW

PACE

IN GRAIN

TRADING

Chicago, Dec. 18.

A 1,000,000-peseta fine was imposed on a flour mill and supplies and other equipment Trading moved at a relative- ly slow pace throughout the ordered seized.

It was disclosed that Generalissimo Franco, gave the session with profit-tanking Ministers & report on the inter-causing a reaction from top prices in all pits. However, with the exception of March oats, all deliveries of grain hif new ground for the crop year. Trade in general was featured by a noticeable lack of pres- sure. Commission houses were on the buying side most of the day.

to have been taken in the field No deccisions were reported

of foreign relations. United Press.

New York, Dec. 18. Prices in the metal market here closed today unchanged with the following exceptions:-

Tin, Grade A (99.80 per cent on higher) New York, per lb. 146.-United Press.

STANDARD BRIDGE

By M. Harrison-Gray

Dealer South Game all

Wheat futures closed 1-4 to 3-4 cents higher, corn was 1-2 to 2-% higher, cats % to 3 cents higher, rye 4- to 5-% higher and soybeans 4-5% to 5-% higher.

Prices closed today follows:--

2.4114 - 56

Wheat-price per bushel

Spot

2.4914

N.

December

Q4

2.42%-

10.8 7.3

March (1951)

2.40

May

2.45

8 6.5

July

J9.7 2

Corn

Spot

1.75

A 8 6

December

March (1951)

-1.714-94*

1.71

2

K 9 3

742

May

1.7136-15

AK 84

Q 10 6.5 3

July

1.7138

Ryo

S.

December

1.6414

KJ 10 9 53 AKJ64

May (1951)

1.711

Oats

December

9936

March (1951)

987% -$

22Dak

A Q

South opens Two Spades, North would pass a One-bid. but he must now bid. Two No Trumps. South rebids Three Hearts. North can drop the bidding, but he has some useful values and raises to Four Hearts, As the cards lle, East-West can make Five Clubs.

West leads - K. South and plays, but cannot continue ⠀⠀ trumps when East shows out; he ads a Spade to East's ♣ A, A Club return is ruffed and South plays out his Spades. If We ruffs with 5 dummy over-ruijs. South returns to be hand with ♥ A and continues Spades, discarding: dummy Diamonds The

Mmple if

NEW YORK FLOUR- per 200 16,

sack. $13.00.

United Press.

London Tin

Market

London, Dec. 18. The tin market was quiet and this morning. Prices today at the end of the

the