Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  To F.B.

  BASRAH, March 9, 1916.

  I wish I ever knew how long I was going to stay in any place or what I were likely to do next. But that is just the kind of thing which one never can know when one is engaged in the indefinite sort of job which I am doing. There is, however, indeed a great deal of work to be done here. I have already begun to classify the very valuable tribal material which I find in the files at the Intel. Dept., and I think there are pretty wide possibilities of adding to what has been collected already. It is extraordinarily interesting; my own previous knowledge though there was little enough of it, comes in very handy in many ways — as a check upon, and a frame to the new stuff I am handling. And I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be in at the birth, so to speak, of a new administration. Everyone is being amazingly kind. I have been given a lodging next door to Headquarters in the big house on the river which belongs to Gray, Mackenzie & Co. That is most convenient, for I have only to step across the bridge a little creek to get to my work. To-day I lunched with the Generals — Sir Percy Lake, General Cowper, General Offley Shaw and General Money, and as an immediate result they move me and my maps and books onto a splendid great verandah with a cool room behind it where I sit and work all day long. My companion here is Captain Campbell Thompson, ex-archaeologist — very pleasant and obliging and delighted to benefit with me by the change of workshop, for we were lodged by day in Col. Beach's bedroom (he is head of the I.D.), a plan which was not very convenient either for us or for him. The whole of Basrah is packed full, as u may understand when it has had suddenly to expand into the base of a large army. Finally I have got an Arab boy as a servant. His name is Mikhail. Sir Percy Cox came back last night — he has been away at Bushire — and he also is going to help me to get all the information I want by sending on to me any Arabs whom he thinks will interest me. Therefore if I don't make something of it, it will be entirely my own fault. I'm thankful to think that M. won't be back in France at any rate till the end of April. The relief it is to know that he is not fighting! The situation night develop very rapidly here and there is a feeling of changing tide which is exciting and disturbing. My days are, however, very uneventful. I work at G.H.Q. from 8:30 to 12:30, come in to lunch, and go back there from 2 till near 6. Then, it being sunset, wonderfully cool and delicious, I walk for half an hour or so through palm gardens-it's more like a steeplechase than a walk for the paths are continuously interrupted by irrigation channels, over some of which you Jump while over the others you do tightrope dancing across a single palm trunk. I shall fall in some day, and though I shall not be drowned, it will be disgustingly muddy.

  To H.B.

  BASRAH, March 24, 1916.

  ... .I sometimes try to picture what it will be like when we are all at home together again and daren't think of it lest the Gods should be taking heed. We are now on the edge of important things and we hold our breath. If we don't succeed it will be uncommonly awkward. I don't know that there is much point in my being here, but I'm glad I came because one inevitably understands much more about it. And I'm glad I have got to know Sir Percy Cox. He is a very remarkable person, not the least remarkable thing about him being his entire absence of any thought about himself. He does his job-a gigantic job-and thinks no more about it. I wonder if Elsa is back at Rounton yet. Very soon the wild daffodils by the little pond will come out and nod their heads to the east wind. It is 3 years since I saw them.

  To F.B.

  BASRAH, April 9, 1916.

  ... This week has been greatly enlivened by the appearance of Mr. Lawrence, sent out as liaison officer from Egypt. We have had great talks and made vast schemes for the government of the universe. He goes up river to-morrow, where the battle is raging these days... I have nearly finished my tribe handbook, but I want go up to Nasariyeh before it is put into it's final form, for I know it needs checking from there. For that I must Wait to see the result of Kut.

  To H. B.

  BASRAH, April 16, 1916.

  ow Kut holds out still I can hardly guess, but it does and we may yet get through in time. But one feels dreadfully anxious... Even Basrah has a burst of glory in April. The palm gardens are deep in luxuriant grass and corn, the pomegranates are flowering, the mulberries almost ripe, and in the garden of the house where I am staying the roses are more wonderful than I can describe. It's the only garden in Basrah, so I'm lucky.

  To F.B.

  G.H.Q., BASRAH, April 27, 1916.

  Nothing happens and nothing seems likely to happen at Kut — it's a desperate business, Heaven knows how it will end. Meantime I have been having some very interesting work and as long as it goes on, I shall remain. One is up against the raw material here, which one is not in Egypt, and it is really worth while doing all these first hand things. I don't mind the heat-there has been nothing to speak of the thermometer so far seldom above 90, and I rather like it. But I wish I had some clothes; my things are beginning to drop to pieces; I wonder if you are sending me out any, and if they will ever arrive. I think I shall write to Domnul in Bombay for some cotton skirts and some shirts. One wears almost nothing, fortunately, still it's all the more essential that that nothing should not be in holes. I generally get up nowadays about 5:30 or 6 and when I haven't got to mend my clothes, bother them I go out riding through the palm gardens and have half an hour's gallop in the desert which is Very delicious. Then back to a bath and breakfast and across the road to G.H.Q. by 8:30, I work there till about 5:30, with half an hour off for lunch after which if I haven't been out in the morning I go for a little walk, but it's getting rather too hot to walk comfortably much before sunset. Then read a little or do some work which I have brought in with me, have another bath, dine at a quarter to 9 and go to bed.

  The days pass like lightning. Last week I went out for a night to Zubair. We have a political officer there, Captain Marrs, very nice and intelligent. I was put up at the post office in a room with a mud floor furnished with my own camp bed a chair a bath and a table lent by Captain Marrs, but the Sheikh of the town insisted on entertaining me and we went in to him for all our meals-and unlimited gossip about the desert with which he is always in the closest touch since the caravans come in to Zubair... .

  I was also much obliged to Father for his very interesting statistics about the falling mark, and for the article on the Mesop. campaign in the Economist. I fear the latter is nothing short of the truth, but the blame needs a good deal of distribution. I don't hold a brief for the Govt. of India, but it is only fair to remember that K. drained India white of troops and of all military requirements, including hospitals and doctors, at the beginning of the war, that the campaign was forced on them from England, and that when it developed into a very serious matter — far too big a matter for India to handle if she had had command of all her resources — neither troops, nor artillery, nor hospital units, nor flying corps, nor anything were sent back in time to be of use. And what was perhaps still more serious was that all their best generals had gone to France or Gallipoli many of them never to return.

  Politically, too, we rushed with the business with our usual disregard for a comprehensive political scheme. We treated Mesop. as if it were an isolated unit, instead of which it is part of Arabia, its politics indissolubly connected with the great and far reaching Arab question, which presents Indeed, different facets as you regard it from different aspects, and is yet always and always one and the same indivisible block. The co-ordinating of Arabian politics and the creation of an Arabian policy should have been done at home — it could only have been done successfully at home. There was no one to do it, no one who had ever thought of it, and it Was left to our people in Egypt to thrash out, in the face of strenuous opposition, from India and London, some sort of wide scheme, which will, I am persuaded, ultimately form the basis of our relations with the Arabs. Well that is enough of Politics. But when people talk of our muddling through it throws me into a passion. Muddle through! why yes so we do — wading through blood and tears th
at need never have been shed.

  To H.B.

  G.H.Q., BASRAH, May 14, 1916.

  You will tell me, won't you, if you think I ought to come home. I will do exactly what you think right and what you Wish, but if you do not send for me I shall stay here as long as they will let me-I might be recalled to Egypt, where they are fussing to have me back, but I am persuaded that for the moment I am much more useful here and indeed I am beginning to feel that I am being really useful. I should have to go a long way back to tell you how many gaps there were to fill. I have got hold of the maps and am now bringing them out in an intelligible form, but that is only one among the many odd jobs which I do. Also the natives here are beginning to know me and drop in with news and gossip. Finally, and I think most important of all, there is the difficult gap between Mesop. and Egypt to bridge and I hope I am going to be the person who is charged with the task. Sir P. Cox wants me and as I have a great respect and admiration for him and get on with him excellently I believe I can keep the matter going without friction. There is so much, oh so much to be thought of and considered-so many ways of going irretrievably wrong at the beginning, and some of them are being taken and must be set right before matters grow worse. I know these people, the Arabs; I have been in contact with them in a way which is possible for no official, and it is that intimacy and friendship which makes me useful here That is why I want to stay; but when I have letters from home telling of sickness and sorrow I can scarcely bear to be away from you.

  George Lloyd [now Lord Lloyd] has just come out to work with Sir Percy. It will make a great difference to me to have him. I hope he will find time to ride with me sometimes in the morning, when we can talk things over and help each other. But if I become the Egyptian link, I shall probably go into Sir Percy's office too, and that is where I ought to be. MY work is political, not military. The sole drawback is that it is a quarter of an hour from where I live and one can't come backwards and forwards in the middle of the day. Also it is not so luxurious as G.H.Q., where we sit under electric fans all day and really don't feel the heat. The moment you get away from a fan you drip ceaselessly, but I suppose one will get accustomed to that. I am absolutely fit, and don't suffer at all from the climate.

  To H.B.

  G.H.Q., BASRAH, May 4th, 1916.

  for some days before it actually happened it was clear that Kut must fall... Aubrey [Herbert] is, I gather, helping to arrange the exchange of prisoners, his knowledge of Turkish being very useful. The Admiral has just come down here; I have not seen him yet. And to-day the Army Commander and all G.H.Q. staff return from up river. I must then find out what they wish me to do. If they will let me, I shall stay for the work is extremely interesting and I think I can make a good deal more of the sort of jobs I have been doing if they give me a free hand to re-cast a lot of their Intelligence publications. I am now engaged in getting into communication with Ibn Rashid, whom it is rather important to preserve as a neutral if we can do no more. He is only about 4 days off and Sir Percy Cox has approved warmly of my sending him a letter. A curious game, isn't it, but you can understand that it is exciting to have a hand in it. The climate is, of course, infernal, but oddly enough I don't mind it. I ride 3 or 4 mornings a week, going out about 5:30, and then come in to a room with all doors and windows closed and electric fans spinning — really quite comparatively cool. The temperature hasn't run up to 100 yet, but it is very close and stuffy with a perpetual south wind — if you can call it a wind, it seems to me perfedly still. This is always the weather in May and they say it is more trying than the hotter months when the N. wind sets in.

  To H. B.

  G.H.Q., BASRAH, May 21, 1916.

  The question of my position with regard to the correspondence with Egypt is not yet definitely settled but I think it is practically certain that I shall be appointed. I shall have to come more strictly under official control and I should not be able to leave this country without very good cause shown, like any other person with a Job here. But I should have no hesitation in giving undertakings of that kind, knowing that you would approve. The thing is to be of the best use one can and I feel certain that this position would give me far greatter opportunities and that I can put them to profit. Things are moving very quickly here as you will probably learn long before this letter reaches you and the political side has become of immense importance, and will be of more importance still.

  Well, I come back to your pamphlet and find I haven't said half enough how good and witty and wise I think it, and God bless your soul how can any born man think otherwise?

  To F.B.

  G.H.Q., BASRAH, May 26th, 1916.

  ... ..I have a lace evening gown, a white crape gown, a stripy blue muslin gown, two shirts and a stripy silk gown, all most suitable, and the last superlatively right. Thank you so very much. I ride pretty regularly in the mornings for an hour and a half setting Out at 5:30, and feel much better for plenty of hard exercise. One comes in wet through, has a bath and breakfast, and begins work at 8 or a little before. After that You can't with any comfort go out in the sun till towards evening. The shade temp. is not much over 100. You keep all door's and windows shut and electric fans spinning, and except for about an hour in the afternoon you don't feel it. One sleeps on the roof. The temp. drops to a little above 90 and probably to 80 or so before dawn. It is quite comfortable.

  I went yesterday afternoon, after 5, in an electric launch up the Shatt-al-Arab turned into the new Euphrates channel a few miles above Basrah. The floods are out, and the whole country is under water. We left the channel and went across several miles of shallow water with occasional Palm groves standing in it, derelict villages made of reed matting, and even the reeds themselves sticking up where the water was very shallow. All stewing in the blazing heat. And in the middle of it was a solitary buffalo, knee-deep in mud and water, eating the reed tops. Whether he was there because he liked it, or whether he was there by mistake, I don't know. He looked quite happy, but if ever he wanted to lie down, he would have to walk for days-it is slow going-to find a dry place to lie on. The Ark and all the rest become quite comprehensible when one sees Mesopotamia in flood time... .

  [She goes up to Nasariyeh by river with Generals McMunn and Cooper — describes the flooded country on the banks of the Euphrates, always in a burning heat with a scorching wind.]

  To H.B.

  June 12, 1916.

  ... . ..I could wish Maurice were not so well. The thought of his going back to France — he is probably there by now — is horrible. How dreadfully you will miss him.

  Much as I enjoyed my little journey I was very glad to get in under a house roof again, for the last few days were very hot. I found a great deal of work when I returned. It's not easy here — some day I'll tell you about it. But the more difficult it is the more I feel I ought to stay.

  To H.B.

  G.H.Q., BASRAH, June 15th

  I'm delighted to hear that M. doesn't go back to France yet, but how will he like a Welsh regiment, I wonder. your encouragement to me to remain here came just at the right moment and I have decided to let them appoint me official Correspondent to Cairo. A routine order is now to be issued ,making me part of I.E.F. "D," the Indian Expeditionary Force "D," and I believe I'm am to have pay, but fortunately I need not wear uniform! I ought to have white tabs, for I am under the Political Department. It's rather comic isn't it. It has its disadvantages, but I think it's the right thing to do. The news this week has been of Mecca, deeply interesting, and one up to Egypt and my beloved chiefs there, from whom I am now entirely detached for the moment. I expect the immediate results will not be very great — we must beat the Turkish army before anything very striking can happen — but the revolt of the Holy Places is an immense moral and political asset. I've had a busy week and I expect I shall be busier when I take up my new work. I shall like very much coming into closer contact with Sir Percy Cox. He is going to give me a room in his office where I shall go two or three mornings a week — as oft
en as is necessary. The other days I shall go on working at G.H.Q., which is next door to where I live. Sir Percy's office is a quarter of an hour away-you can't realize what that means until you've stepped out into the sun here anywhere near the middle of the day. The heat from the ground burns you like the breath of a furnace. We've had a very hot and heavy fortnight, and the north wind, long overdue, doesn't come, curse it. The result is that there's an astonishing amount of sickness, all the clerks and typists going down first so that you can't get your work done. I am absolutely well. I never have the smallest touch of fever or even feel tired — a little slack at the end of the hot day, which isn't surprising seeing that one gets up soon after 5. I sleep like a top, My bed is on the roof; I've discarded all mattresses and sleep on a bit of fine matting with a sheet Over it. After midnight it gets cooler and one wakes for a moment and pulls a second sheet over oneself.

  Mr. Dobbs has come back. He's a great addition to my small world. I like him so much and he is so interesting and so clever. George (Lloyd] is still here, but I fear he has nearly finished his job. He will be a great loss. It's the queerest life, you know-quite unlike anything one has ever done before. I love the work, and the people are all very kind. On the Whole I like it all.

  But I feel rather detached from you — I wish I could sit somewhere midway and have a talk with you once or twice a week.

  To H.B.

  BASRAH, July 3, 1916.

  I have entered on my new duties, to my great satisfaction and amusement. I go every morning at 9 to the Political Office — it's about 10 minutes' walk — and work there till 12:30. They give me a cup of coffee in the middle of the morning. Then I have a cab to fetch me and come back to lunch, after which I rest for half-an-hour and go to G.H.Q., where I either find some job waiting for me, or I write things from the notes I have made during the morning. I hope that it will all work out very well and that it will be satisfactory to the Egyptians. There's no denying that the weather is confoundedly hot. We have had some bad days, temperature over 111, and very damp. Hot nights, too. One swears at it, but I'm perfectly well so I haven't any business to complain. There is a terrible amount of sickness, however, among people who have to be out of doors and who are not luxuriously lodged and fed. To carry on a campaign under these conditions is no small matter, for not only are your soldiers enduring more casualties than in the worst battle, but your staff vanishes like sand before the sun — clerks, typists, servants, they go down before you can wink, and you are left to do the things for yourself.