High Adventure in Many Lands

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22670, 6 March 1937, Page 3 (Supplement)

High Adventure in Many Lands

WHEN a Persian girl, young, beautiful, veiled and mysterious, hides you, badly wounded, in a well to save you from assassins, that is adventure. When the same girl suffers her lovely cheek to be branded with red hot iron and does not reveal your hiding place, that is courage. When she marries you and leaves her home in Shiraz to go with you to strange and faraway lands, that is romance and love.

the French Croix de Guerre and Medaille Militaire and a Persian decoration. ; A chat with him transports one from Toronto to Persia where he met many adventures and fell in love. Having served in France and gone to India, he was one of the men chosen in 1916 to go to Persia as one of the band of instructors to the Persian army, which, in the involved politics of that period and country, the British were trying to build up as the British were also lighting and striving to prevent Persia from failing into the hands ot the Turks and Germans. There was a mutiny of Persian troops against the British offieeis, a miniature of the Indian mutiny but that is another story. Following it, Chandler, who spoke perfect Persian, did special service work and, disguised as a Persian, sought out the ringleaders. But that is another stoiy, too. f This, however, is not a story or mutiny or politics, but of romance and love.

"Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall he my people, and thy God tny God."

New Religion This Persian girl, now Mrs. William Chandler, of Toronto, Canada, might well have repeated the words of Ruth os she followed her soldier husband to India and then went with him to Egypt, England, Australia and finally to the snows of Canada. * For she even ceased to be a Mahomttedan and was baptised into the Church of England. To-day., slio is a charming, ravenhaired woman who is scarcely to be distinguished from a Canadian, of, shall we say, French ancestry. But she was two years married to her husband 'before she discovered he was an Englishman, a foreigner, a Ferenghi. It was then she made the choice to leave her land of Persia, her parents, her home and follow him to tho ends of the earth. Many soldiers mndo romantic marriages during tho war, but few that compare with that of William Chandler of tho 17th Lancers, crack British cavalry regiment, the Death or Glory Boys. . Wife out of Persia ■''l nrn t.ho only man," he said, 'harried to a Persian woman on this continent, for 1 have made inquiries to find if there are others. I am tho only foreigner, so fat as I know, who ever Drought' a wife o-.it of Persia." This William Chandler, who is a bce*e*per by - trade, is a modest ex-®°-dier of former sergeant-major and *° rr ont officer rank with a string of a major - general might Besides the Mons ribbon of tho vai-Contemptibles and service medals, '"eluding one of the Afghan war, he has following decorations: M.8.L., » D.C.M., and bar, M.M., and

Shot Down His service in Persia began when he reached Shir a/, in January, 1917, after an 84-day caravan trip from the port ot Bunder Abbas. There he was a signaller instructor to the Persian army, his uniform not unlike that of a Persian officer. Indeed, one night when he slipped down to Malijud (street of the Jews) for a glass of wine, if the truth must be told, he wore a kulah or lambskin hat so that he was scarcely distinguishable from a Icrsian o ' }, °cr. Black-haired and with the wax out of his smart Lancer moustache, he passed afterwards as a Persian. This evening he was returning from the Malijud when from the darkness a sot rang out and a bullet ripped across the back of his left hand, tearing it badly Out of the darkness came another shot, and an explosive bullet tore up his right leg from above the knee to Chandier foil -wounded. He dropped in a doorway. He had a hazy recollection of beirfp drawn into a house. I hen evervthing went dark. , Two days later, when he consciousness, he found himself d I hut to his wonder, suspended the .-.tor in a dnk-hoh or leather sack used for drawing waterThis had ropes at the corner jo.ncd together to the rope to the pulley above and Chandler lay as in a hammock.

Badly Wouijded It was dark and cool and there was n cover over the top of the we!l and Chandler, badly wounded and only haltconscious. wondered. At least he seemed safe and he kept quiet. That evening three women pulled him to the surface. They were Man, who was to become his wife, her sister, and their mother. To him at the moment

Intrepid British Lancer's Romantic Story WAR HERO WHO WON A BEAUTIFUL PERSIAN BRIDE

By FREDERICK GRIFFIN (Illustrated by F. VAN. BRUSSELL)

tliey wore just three veiled women. He hail no badges or rank and it was quite evident they took him lor a Persian officer. It was further evident that they were anxious to help save him Irom rebel killers. . . They changed the dressings on Jus wounds, bathed him, fed him, and lowered him again. Small wonder he became interested in Mari. Had she not already suffered for him P He did not see her face then, only her soft eves filled with pity lor him, but he learned that her cheek was indelibly scarred because of him. So were her arms. . The night of the shooting, after the women had put hini down the well* men had come seeking him. '1 liev had been brutal. One fellow firing a wild shot had cut both Mari's forearms with a bullet. Thev had sought to make this sixteen-vear-old girl tell where they had hidden their victim. She refused. One of them heated an iron and held it against her cheek — " She did not tell. . The women, thinking him Persian, related these exciting tilings. He did not disillusion them, but his heart became conscious of Mari. Great Pain He staved in the well eight days, night and day. Every evening the women drew him up, dressed bis wounds ns well us they and leu him. Then they put him down again. Ho suffered greatly. His leg, badly torn, suppurated and caused lnm agonv. He ran a fever and was frequently delirious. It is remarkable that he did not die. There was no way of sending word to his British friends; he dared not try, since the women thought him Persian and might well turn against him if thev discovered him a foreigner. He only caught glimpses of Alan, for the veiled girl kept away from this strange man. It was the old lady who did the doctoring. On the eighth day, danger past, lie was brought into the house at sundown

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and placed in the men's room. A Persian doctor came, took off the bandages and dressed the running sores of his wounds. Ho lived in the house a month and never once saw Mari. He wanted to see the girl who had suffered for him. But he was in the men's room—men v and women in Persian homes have different quarters —and he did not see Mari. But hp saw the old man, the carpet merchant, husband and father, whose home it was. The latter accepted him, took him for a Persian. "No," explained Mr. Chandler, "lie asked no questions. 1 was in his home, a guest. If 1 liked to talk, all right. But lie was not going to question me. 'I hat is the Persian idea of hospitality. It was enough that I was in his home." " How Would a Man Know?" He lay on a dushak or mattress in the corner of the room and had his meals with the carpet merchant and his sons. The doctor came daily and dressed his wounds. Ho did not see any of the women now. only the mother once or twice washing pans in the yard. She wore an enveloping sariduz (l°"g garment) and kept her face averted. At the end of a month he was well enough to walk and reported back to the residence of the British instructors. From that time, however, he began to find excuses for walking down past Mari's bouse. Occasionally he saw her walking along. But she was cloaked and veiled. Only her eyes showed, soft, dark, alluring. "How did you know it was the girl you sought," I said, "disguised like that?" "How would a man know?" countered Mr. Chandler. "I knew her. And she knew me." "Did she speak to you? Did you speak to her?"

"That was impossible. No, but when I passed her 1 scratched my head with my whip or stick, you know. She wiggled her fingers holding up her veil and her eyes smiled. 1 knew by her eyes it was all right. So 1 haunted the place. One day 1 saw her coming out alone —before that she had always been with somebody—and I followed her. When she was passing through an archway under some buildings I caught up with her and spoke to her. She was 'all for it.' and we arranged to meet."

Thus the lovers met, Mari never suspecting that her officer was other than a Persian. He proposed marriage and she accepted. "You did not tell lier then that you were English?" "No, 1 did not want to disillusion her." "She w?is a Mahommedan and you a Christian—how did you get around that?" "I told her I was a Bahi. It is another religion to which many Persians belong. Then wo were married by Mr. Bill, the British consul, who was afterwards murdered. Major Kernoehan and Captain Dow were witnesses." "And your wife did not suspect even when you wero married by tlio British consul?"

Second Marriage "No, she thought it was because 1 was a Bahi. By the way, she always knew me as Mahnioud, and, of course, she could not speak a word of English." Incidentally, after they left Persia, Mr. Chandler and his Persian wife were married in a church, though the British marriage in Persia was perfectly binding. "What happened following your marriage?" "I went back to the residence and my wife to her home. She told her father she had married a Bahi. He was a good old fellow. I went to the house later, kicked off my shoes in the Persian manner, dipped my fingers in the perfumed water —and was accepted as a son-in-law."

Women, Mr. Chandler explained, then held a chattel status in Persia. The men were "tops," and women "just something around the house." Even when married, they occupied different rooms. They never walked out together. So Chandler not even take her walking out. It was not done in Persia in those days. In the home, he stayed with the men and she stayed with the women, which was not an Englishman's idea of romance. More Homelike

But within a few months, when he wont into the Persian special service, lie set up his own house and things were more homelike. "And your wife never suspected, from your different attitude of an Englishman, that you were not a Persian?" "She did not know until we were married two years, when I told her." With the preliminary statement that his "mother-in-law had a tongue like a file," lie told how he had come out with the news to his wife and father-in-law. That was when he received orders to rejoin his regiment in India in July, 1922. "The old man and I were good friends," ho related. "He and I sat drinking wine, and my wife came into the room. 'How,' I said casually, 'would you like to live in Ferenghistan? Come to London?" " 'Why say that?' said my wife. " 'lt happens to be my home. I am Ferenghi, and shortly I have to go to Bushire, then to India, then to London.'

" 'Ferenghi!' exclaimed the old man. 'I never would have believed it.' And we had some more wine. No, he was not upset. My wife —she did not say much. She told'me afterwards she was a wee bit thrilled to know I was a foreigner. Of course, she had no conception of where 1 lived.

"But my mother-in-law! When she heard the news, she cut loose and cursed the day I had got hurt. She was a thorough Mahommedan and was frightfully upset about her daughter marrying n foreign infidel. She wound herself up and flung words at both my wife and myself until I thought she was never going to stop. Finally she shouted at Mari, 'You go with him or you go with me. If you go with him, you are finished with me.' " "And what did your Persian wife do?" "She came over to me, touched my arm and said, 'Where lie goes, 1 go.' " The time came for Mr. Chandler to return to India and he could not take his wife with him. He left her money and went with a caravan to Btishire to embark. "The arrangement," he explained, "was that I should get my discharge in India and then return to her." The Faithful One But his Persian wife, his youngvoiled and cloistered wife, had other plans. Five days after he left SJiiraz she left, too, to follow him. She joined a small caravan and rode camel-back with a woman who was going on a pilgrimage to Herjaz. Chandler waited for a boat five days in Bushire but Mari did not arrive before he left on the steamship Bajora for Karachi in India,

He reached Karachi, went on to Bombay and moved into quarters in Cooperage Camp. He did not know that his wife, accompanied by the woman pilgrim to Hedjaz who had detoured to India to be with her, and a Persian man, whom they prevailed on to assist them, were on their way to Bombay by the next boat to seek him. It happened that he had given Mari a green silk handkerchief with his initials on it and a tiny photograph of himself as a young recruit at Aldershot, cut out of a group he had been in. A Green Handkerchief One day in the Bombay rest camp, nine or ten days after his arrival, he saw a man come through the lines with something in his hand, asking in halting Hindustani about something. He had a green handkerchief in his hand! And he had a tiny photograph of a young English recruit. Chandler could not speak Hindustani. "Where did you get that?" he cried in English. The man could not speak English. Could he speak Bahi, yes. "Then," said Chandler, "tell me quick, where did you get that? The handkerchief? The photograph?" "I come," said the Persian, "from Shiraz with two women."

Chandler and the Persian took s street ear to an apartment. There ha found his wife. She came out of a doorway and she was smiling. That was on a Thursday. And Chandler was under orders to sail the following Saturday for Cairo. It looked like another parting. He went to the camp officer and explained. "I do not know a thing about it," said that coldhearted sahib, "and I do not want to know."

Miserable, he went to the station office, found a sympathetic staff officer and told him the story of his Persian wife. The officer was moved by the Lancer's love story. He gave him a cigar and a drink. "Now, look here, sergeant-major," he said, "I'll postpone your sailing. Take your wife into the married quarters in camp. That shall be settled easily." Buying Her First Hat It was. Chandler and his wife went into married quarters. The quarter-master-sergeant's wife took her under her wing. Everything was fine. And on October 14, 1922, they sailed on R.M.B. Dufferin to Cairo, having been given a second-class cabin to themselves. When Mari reached Bombay she was still in Persian dress. One of Chandler's tasks was to outfit her with English clothes. He took her to Walter Locke's big general store there —it sells everything from a pin to an anchor—and found a shop girl as sympathetic as the "brass hat." "My wife can't speak English," he said, "and doesn't kno* what English women wear." The girl saw to that. And Mari donned a hat for the first tit-a, on top of her heavy long hair braided m seven plaits. Afterwards it was bobbed ii) England*

"That," explained Chandler, "got me down, for I thought my mother-in-law had turned up." But it was his wife, and her Persian friend of the pilgrimage. Actually, when the Persian man sought him he did not know his name, for Mari had been afraid to cfvo it. She gave the Persian, the 'hamikerc)iie£ and the little photograph, to searcu India for this British soldier' •