Over the Hills & Far Away

JOURNEY TO THE END OF AN ERA (438 pp.)--Me/wn Hall--Scrtbner ($3.75).

Colonel Melvin Hall, U.S.A.A.F (ret.), has led the life that small boys and commuters dream of. His father, a successful Vermont businessman, was a passionate canoeist, boxer, bicyclist, motorist and traveler, and he shared those hobbies with his son just as soon as Melvin was out of diapers. At twelve, young Hall made his first tour of Europe (in a Pan-hard); at 17, he was ridden clear around the world; at 18 he attended George V's Coronation Durbar (1911) in India, watched the imperial sweat drip from the ermine band of the royal crown, while rajahs and princes made obeisance in robes of gold.

By the time son Melvin went to Princeton, the travel bug had ruined him for normal life. Once, in the middle of a lecture, he took a desperate flying leap out of an open window, landed safely on a ladder that he had known was there, and clambered joyfully down--only to find Princeton President Woodrow Wilson awaiting him at the bottom. "Was the lecture very boring, Mr. Hall?" asked Wilson. "Very, sir." The president gave him a friendly smile, and walked on.

Hall walked on too--to Paris, where he turned art student in the Latin Quarter, lived with a collector of poisonous serpents. His friends lived with far-from-poisonous mistresses, whom they obtained through the Montmartre want-ad columns. Sample ad: "Artist, young, tall, healthy and sincere, seeks feminine friend (18-22), brunette, to chase away cafard (the beetle of loneliness), pretty, well formed, pretty legs, healthy, sincere, pecuniarily disinterested, affectionate; for durable relations; send photograph; professionals keep away."

Reilly In a Villa. Hall's careless youth came to a sharp stop in August 1914. He became a volunteer "automobilist" with the British Army, chauffeured Albert, King of the Belgians. The British sent him (a "neutral" American) to Berlin, where he spied out plans for the German aviation program and the bombing of London by Zeppelins. Later, Hall fought with the U.S. Army at Chateau-Thierry and the Argonne.

"I hitched my wagon to a restless star too early in life to watch the world revolve . . . from a static point," says Hall. In the 1920s he became director of finance to the Persian Government, lived the life of Reilly in a sumptuous villa, explored the wildernesses of Turkestan, Northern India and Iraq. Later he became a vice president of Curtiss-Wright, displayed company planes in Europe, Siam, Turkey and China. In World War II, he became a colonel in the Ninth Air Force, fought at Cassino and Anzio, was shot through the leg in the invasion of Normandy.

Most nostalgic note in the book: an exchange of letters between Melvin Hall's father and the Winton (automobile) Corporation, circa 1898: "Dear Mr. Winton: I am now in possession of my horseless carriage, which is giving me fine service. There is one feature, however, which disturbs me, and that is the question of repair of . . . puncture(s). .

"Dear Mr. Hall: I am glad to hear that your horseless carriage is giving you the satisfaction that I felt sure it would. As to the tires, you need have no concern. They are made of real rubber and are five-eighths of an inch thick. . . .

"Dear Mr. Winton: I appreciate that the tires are made of real rubber five-eighths of an inch thick. . . . But I might run over a railway spike or something else that would pierce even their tough resistance. In such case, what should I do? No one [in Vermont] can suggest how a repair might be effected. . . .

"Dear Mr. Hall: In the highly improbable event that you will ever have a puncture . . . I can only suggest that you remove the wheel and send it back to our factory at Cleveland, Ohio. . . ."

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