EXPERIENCE WITH BANDITS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17957, 8 December 1932, Page 2

EXPERIENCE WITH BANDITS

POLKA TOO SENSUOUS CAPTIVES WELL TREATED NEWOHWANG, Manchuria, Oct, 24. Six weeks in the hands of Manchurian bandits was not so bad as it sounds, Charles Corkran, ransomed with Mrs Kenneth Pawley last week, said 'to-day. The two were kidnapped early in September and released on payment of about £6400, 250 pounds of opium and a supply of 'winter clothing. “Generally -speaking,” said Corkfan, “they treated us well and looked upon us as valuable assets. They’re not a bad lot of fellows on the whole, but some of them arc brutes.

“Tinko (Mrs Pawley) and I had 'personal guards to prevent efforts to escape. These fellows threatened us time and again, saying they were going to cut off our ears. “At first it got 011 our nerves, but Pei Pa-Tien, the chief, would come over to us and sit. down beside us and pat us on the Juice. “ ‘We wouldn’t really hurt you,’ lie used to say, ‘but we’ve got to threaten you to make our friends hurry up with the ransom.’ “Once Tinko and I were dancing the polka, but the bandits thought it sensuous. They told us to stop and ordered 1110 to sing.

“I -can’t sing, I refused, and one of the bandits struck me with a flute. “Tinko was furious. She took the flute away from him and made him apologise. “Well, wo had been captives five days and then we had a narrow squeak. Troops pursuing us appeared in the dusk and we were ordered to lie down in a ditch and kee'p qujot. I felt the muzzle of a pistol at my back and I hoped that any involuntary movement I might make would not be misinterpreted. “Pei Pan-Tien qiut on a farmer’s gown and advanced coolly to meet the Manchulcoa soldiers. lie told them lie had seen a gang of bandits with two foreign captives going south. The soldiers wheeled about and went off in the wrong direction. “It was easier for us after the pursuit was called off on October. 15, but we still moved about three miles every day. Sometimes they woke us up at 3 o’clock in tho morning to move on. Tinko and I had to walk.

“When we finally parted some of those bandits showed genuine regret, but I would regard it as a privilege to attend the trial of those blighters if they were ever caught.” SMOKED OPIUM FOB -SOLACE A Router’s News Service correspondent named Van ess, who was one of the negotiators for the rescue of Mrs Pawley anil Corkran stated that the two Britons solaced themselves during their confinement by smoking opium.

He also told of a Japanese major, one of those who effected the release, wrestling with the bandit chief while each had a revolver in his hand.

Speaking of the rescue Vaness said that last Thursday morning the bandits woke tho -captives and told them curtly to pack their belongings.

On the arrival of tlie negotiator they were told to mount ponies and started on their way, still accompanied by the bandits .

‘Eight miles distant they came on an armored train which had been

waiting. Both victims suffered very badly with their feet. Mrs Pawley’s socks had to be removed with scissors. They had stuck to sores on her feet. For Route' time, too, she said, she had suffered- from a sore throat and stomach trouble.