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om Melinda before ‘they were * arried, in which she writes: i. "Ifyou do feel an urge to have } drinking orgy why don't you Shave it at home—-so af least you. ji bed ? be able to get safely to wo» J lett Cairo again at the begin. -” ning of March and by the time I returned at the beginning of May the end of his career in Egypt was within sight. There had already been two incidents of which «a certain inumber of people knew, and “several very unpleasant domestic and more private scenes. . . The first Incident was rela- ‘tively unimportant. After two eocktail parties Maclean, instead of going home, had wandered off vand had been found shocless on ‘@ bench in the Esbekieh Gardens. The second was. far more #erious, i Dangerous Melinda had hired -2 pie- Auresque wide-sailed felucea to take some friends up the Nile to Helouan. The wind dropped and the trip, instedd of taking two hours, tock eight. And Maclean became dangerously drunk. ; At one point, in a fit of mad rape, he seized Melinda round the peck and might have atrangled ,her had the others net inter- ‘vened. When they reached Helouan at 2 am. a ghaffir, or watchman, e®alienged them with an anti- qgfated rifle, Maclean wresied “remvede from the ghaitsmr* -began to swing it wildly round vhis: head. One of the guests, also a Sec- retary. at the Embassy, tried to restrain Maclean, but in their struggle they both fell down the bank—~and the other man. broke his. leg. ‘ What story was told at the Embassy is not known. But the extraordinary feature of this escapade is that i} seemed to do no harm to Maclean's career. And this ts true, also, of the final episode, the culminating intident in his 18 months’ tour of office as Counsellor and head of Chancery. Sick leave It eccurred nearly two months later, when Melinda was again : pregnant. On a two-day “binge ® he and a friend entéred a flat belonging to a girl who worked at the U.S. Embassy, drank what they could find and then proceeded. to breuk up the furniture. The next m morning Melinda and: Maclean had «a heart-to-heart ‘talk, after which, with s loyalty which even. his outrageous be- haviour had not shaken, she went to see his Ambassador. She told him that Donald. was il, was suffering from. a nervous breakdown and must be given: sick leave to return to London. ta see his own doctor at once. And It is, one can only presume, on the strength of ‘Maclean's exceptional qualities and the excellent work he had done—- continued to do, it appears from aficial stalements, even at 4 time when he was drinking sa heavily that he was becoming notorious—that this permission was immediately given. [World copyright] ‘THE MARRIA GE HEADS |. FOR THE ROCKS — ae ene