by Alan Gold
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains,
Round the decay of that colossal wreck,
Boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.
Great Britain was in the process of fighting the Ottoman and hopefully beating him out of Arabia, then Arabia would become a British possession, ruled by the Arabs but run by the British. So where would it stop?
Of course, nobody was for one moment predicting the decline and decay of the British Empire. But while the sun might never set on Britain’s possessions, it had grown vast and imperious and strong and smug, despite men and women like the idiot lady on deck, and not because of them. She, and probably her husband and their friends, were typical of why Gertrude had been so unsuccessful with all but the most intellectual and high-minded of British society. She only ever felt comfortable with the rulers of the empire—with Prime ministers and Cabinet Ministers and the most senior diplomats and officials of the Ministries, with judges and politicians and writers and journalists, with brilliant men from the Universities or with Lords who had gained high office because of their minds, and not because of the place to which they were born in society. She mixed comfortably with all and any of them, drinking their whiskeys and smoking their cigarettes and conversing at the level of great and enduring concepts.
She never swapped recipes or discussed fashion—though she spent a fortune on clothes whenever she was in Paris—and she never indulged in gossip. Yet when all was said and done, the major’s wife was just that . . . a major’s wife and a mother of five children and woman who was probably more acceptable to British society than Gertrude with her first class honors degree from Oxford and her gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society, and with Swiss mountain passes named after her, and her explorations and her literary successes. Gertrude sighed and became angry with herself as she felt tears welling up and frustration started to get the better of her.
When she worked hard, she somehow managed to keep control of her emotions, her aggravation, but when she had long days of solitude, the loneliness welled up, and she felt desperately unhappy about the way her life had been shaped.
Gertrude lay on her bed, thinking of how she’d upset the major’s wife, thinking about the fact that only married and ineligible men were attracted to her these days, as she was to them, that the only men she ever wanted were brilliant and brave and worldly and unavailable, other than for an illicit but glorious romantic interlude. And despite her anger at herself for being so weak and female, she began to swear softly under her breath as the ship carried her towards Basrah.
~
Basrah, Mesopotamia, 1916
“I fear, Gertie, that your view of the noble Arab on a white charger, as pure and unsullied as the desert sand, might change from what it used to be,” Sir Percy Cox told her over dinner at his residency in Basrah. “You’re working towards the unification of all the petty tribes under the banner of a single Saladin-type of leader, but recent events have shown just how far the Arab has to go before he puts aside his petty jealousies and can think on a broader scale.
“Unlike your Indians, or your Africans, our recent experience of the Arab is that he’s a liar, utterly untrustworthy, duplicitous, traitorous, and cowardly. It grieves me to say this, but although I recognize that we probably need them to fight the Turks, I wouldn’t give them an inch of slack as a part of the British Army.”
Sir Percy, the brilliant and normally temperate chief political officer in Mesopotamia, had the job of overseeing the new administration now that the Indian Expeditionary Force of the British Army had gained a foothold in Arabia and was driving north towards Baghdad. Gertrude had known Sir Percy and Lady Cox socially, meeting them once when she was traveling in India in 1902 and again several years later in England, but now that he was in such a senior position, she was answerable to him.
She didn’t know how to respond to such a diatribe. He knew of her love for Arabs and Arabia, and she felt inclined to respond to him in defense of those hundreds of Arabs with whom she’d dealt in the past dozen or so years, people of the highest caliber of decency and integrity. Like the wife of the Emir of Hayil who had saved her life when it was most imperilled during her imprisonment and threat of death by ibn Rashid. Like Fattuh, her faithful Armenian-Arabic servant who would lay down his life for her, and like so many others whom she had grown to admire. But she was in a war situation, and these generals and political officers didn’t want to hear her defense of the people who had been so much a part of her previous life.
But she couldn’t resist a small jab, “Liars, utterly untrustworthy, duplicitous, traitorous, and cowardly? Really, Percy? I didn’t know we had so many newspaper and magazine reporters in Arabia.”
The room erupted in laughter, and some of the men began to clap. She looked around the table, and acknowledged their appreciation. It was an interesting assembly of guests, for also at the dinner in the hot and uncomfortably humid dining room were the other political officers, St. John Philby and Captain Arnold Wilson, as well as the generals from the British Army’s Indian Expeditionary Force, General Lake, General Cowper, General Money, and General Offley Shaw.
~
Gertrude had been in Basrah for two days, acclimatizing herself, setting up her shoebox office, and beginning the job of creating a gazetteer of Arabia and Mesopotamia so the latest dispositions of the Arabic tribes could be identified, catalogued, analysed, and determined. In this way, her office could ensure the most up-to-date information was given to the field commanders. She also set in motion a series of meetings with Arab leaders, Sheikhs, Emirs, and local potentates, to enable her to determine the mood of the area—who would side with the British, who would stay loyal to the money paid to them by the Turks, and who would require additional bribing to change sides. In this way, she could report back the true disposition to Lord Hardinge in India, and that would surely show him the impossibility of trying to rule Arabia from so far away.
Even though it had only been a few days since Gertrude’s arrival, she already knew firsthand from conversations that one Sheikh, Ahmed bin Ibrahim Faoud of the Zahawi tribe had refused outright to back the British. He informed her that unless she paid him a quarter of a million American dollars, he would put his support behind the Turks, a fact she’d relayed to General Lake, who’d turned crimson with fury and told her to tell him to go to buggery.
Another chief, Ajaimi Sadun, who claimed to control the disposition of four thousand of his tribe currently serving in the Turkish army in Mesopotamia, was initially tempted to tell his men to decamp and fight for the British, but after meeting and being singularly unimpressed with some of the generals, had changed his mind, convinced Britain would undoubtedly lose the war.
What she was experiencing now, and what she’d begun to think since she was a young woman and Arabia had entered her bloodstream, was that this most extraordinary part of the world would never develop its true potential unless it was united. Dozens of different tribes, little more than extended families, ruled by an omnipotent and often dangerously ignorant and self-indulgent sheik fervently following an unreconstructed medieval religion, jealously guarding their territory, meant that Arabia would remain divided. She hoped and prayed that a good outcome from this terrible war would see the situation change and that, with her guidance, a leader would emerge and Arabia would become another Switzerland, a wonderful and rich land, divided into the Arabic version of cantons, but united under a central government and a wise ruler.
The entire High Command was in a state of utter disgust with the Arabs, and Gertrude knew she had two major campaigns to fight before the British could win their own battles—to convince the Arab sheikhs and chieftains to side with Britain, and to convince the generals that the Arabs were worth having on their side. Their typical British disgust with the Arabic way of being loyal to the nation which paid them the biggest bribe bubbled over in
to dinner, both because of Sir Percy’s outburst, and in spite of her flippancy. Her great plan, of being the catalyst which brought all the Arab tribes together under one leader, seemed to be slipping further and further away as the horror of the war progressed, and layers of civility and past relationships were stripped away and greed became the sole reason for action.
“I know you’ve got some sort of special relationship with them, Miss Bell, but I’m afraid that Sir Percy’s absolutely right,” said General Cowper as he lit his cigar and sipped a particularly fine Rhine wine which had been appropriated from a now-closed German produce shop in the port of Basrah. “For the past three months, the bally Arabs have been causing us all manner of problems,” he told her huffily. He looked at Lady Cox, and hastily added, “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”
“General, I’m sure both Miss Bell and I are quite used to the word bloody. It’s so much more adult than bally, don’t you think.”
General Offley Shaw commented, “What Cowper says is something of an understatement. The Arabs have been robbing us blind. They steal from our stores, loot our camps, murder our wounded, strip our dead of their rifles and ammunition and personal effects before we’ve had time to get medics to carry them off and perform some sort of decent Christian burial rite, and they’re like hyenas around our troops as the poor buggers march northwards. They wait for one of our troops to drop behind, too exhausted from the heat and the flies and mosquitoes and as soon as he stops to catch his breath, they’re on him. They slit his throat and strip him half naked before his mates realize what’s happening and come to rescue him. They’re bloody brigands, Miss Bell, bloody rotten evil brigands. They have no understanding of the rules of civilized warfare. I know they’re your best friends, and you’ve spent a lifetime ingratiating yourself with them through your articles and your books, but now we’re beginning to see the real side of the Arab, and it isn’t nice.
“General,” she insisted, “I haven’t ingratiated myself with them. I’ve merely translated some of their great writing into English. But I don’t just speak their language, General, I understand their customs. And while I have intimate knowledge of why they do the things they do, it doesn’t mean that I approve of murder and theft and brigandry. You see that, don’t you General?”
General Money hesitatingly continued, “I’m afraid, Miss Bell, that you might have convinced Hardinge in Delhi of the need for liaison between India and Egypt, but we’re on the ground, and we need a lot more convincing than just his letters introducing you. Your being here has caused us problems, not to put too fine a point on it. I’m afraid that some of the chaps you’re going to be working with will resent you a bit. They consider themselves the experts, and don’t take kindly to having a woman working alongside them.”
The room descended into silence.
“I see,” she said softly. “And what am I expected to do about that? Pretend I don’t know ten times more about Arabia than any of the men under your commands in Basrah? Pretend I’ve never travelled the length and breadth of the lands of the Abu Muhammad, or the Bani Lam, or the Bani Rabiah, or the Sadun, or the Anazzeh? Pretend I’m just a jolly English woman who’s here to support her officer husband and ensure I wear the correct hat to the viceroy’s tea parties? Is that it, General? Is that what you’d like me to do?”
“Of course not. When Hardinge wrote to introduce you, he said that you’ve got the brains of a man. But many people here think you’re an Arab lover, and . . .”
“No, General Money. I’m not an Arab lover, nor an English lover, nor a French lover. I love no tribe or race or religion. I only love people who are knowledgeable, worldly, honest, and decent. I’m sorry if my being here causes you problems, General, but I’m here to do a job, and I’ll prove to you I can be of great assistance in your efforts to win this damnable war.” Gertrude sipped her glass of wine, and looked around the room.
She’d kept her temper, which is all that mattered. She’d given well of herself. Now it was up to them to learn to live with her.
General Offley Shaw was the first to speak. “Point is, Miss Bell, we’re in a real pickle at the moment. We told Hardinge. We said we couldn’t embark on an expedition to push northwards from Basrah to capture Baghdad without proper logistical support, but our victory in Basrah went to his head, and he insisted we push on with all speed. Now we’ve got thousands of British troops dropping like flies at the mercy of Arabs and Turks, and no way to rescue them. These bloody Arabs . . .”
“They’re not bloody Arabs, General,” said Gertrude, trying to restrain herself. “They’re an ancient people who have been slaves of the Ottoman Empire for four hundred years. And they see the British as yet another interloper in their lands. A useful interloper, certainly, because we can rid them of the Turks; but a trespasser nonetheless. They want their land back . . .”
The entire table suddenly went quiet as she sat up as straight as a ramrod, her green eyes had narrowed and her lips were pursed. She was on the verge of saying more, but instead, she stubbed out her cigarette and looked at each of the military men in turn. What she’d said could be considered as treason. She noticed that Percy Cox closed his eyes, unsure of what she was going to say and do next. One of the generals twirled the ends of his waxed moustache
“With the greatest of respect, you gentlemen are making the timeworn and classic mistake of judging one people by the standards and behavior of another.
“Bribery to an Englishman is a criminal act, yet in Arabia it is considered a quite acceptable way of telling a person how important he is. Nepotism is frowned upon in certain classes of society in Great Britain, yet the Ottoman Empire successfully ran on nepotism for most of the past four hundred years. Killing someone who has offended your honor in England will see you dangling at the end of from a noose, yet you’ll be considered a hero in Italy and Spain and in many parts of South America. And I might say that if you’re a stranger who’s travelled a distance and seek out a refreshing drink at the door of an Englishman’s house, he’ll more than likely set the dogs on you, but even the most humble Arab will invite you into his tent and share with you the most generous hospitality, and that’s even to his worst enemy, provided he’s a genuine traveller.
“Look, please understand my position. I’m an English woman through and through. I’ve dined at Buckingham Palace. I’ve come out at all the social balls. And you must understand I have no fondness for Arabs who take money from the Turks and hold out for a better bribe from the British. But you must also learn to appreciate that it’s a part of their way of life. To the Arab, the more money you pay him is a sign of your greater respect for him and his tribe. And trying to change their way of doing things is as useless as missionaries telling brown-skinned South Sea Islanders to cover their nakedness with shirt, trousers, and a tie.”
Lady Cox burst out laughing. It broke the strained atmosphere. Even one of the Generals laughed.
Sir Percy intervened, “So what do you advise, my dear? You’re the expert on Arabs and Mesopotamia. I know we’ve got supposed experts here, but frankly we’re in a mess, and there doesn’t seem to be any way out of it.”
“Oh yes there is, Percy. I know I’ve only just arrived in Basrah, but I’m not new to this area by any means. I’ve spent the past fifteen years traveling from north to south, east to west. Give me a month, and I’ll have a majority of them understanding the danger of siding with the Turks against us. Give me two months, and I hope to be able to deliver you a million or so men, armed to the teeth, to fight on our side.”
There was a protracted silence, as the generals looked across the table at each other. It was broken by General Lake. “I’m afraid we might have neither two months, nor two weeks. I’ve been receiving reports from my commander that several thousand of his men have been forced to retreat to Kut al Amara.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “Kut? Surely not, General. The battle for Kut was our great victory. After Basrah and Qurna and Shaiba and Amarah, we storme
d the city and took Kut. It was in September last year. I was in India, but we heard about it. It was a great—”
“Forgive me for interrupting you, Miss Bell,” said General Lake, “but you obviously haven’t yet heard what’s happened at the Battle of Ctesiphon—”
“Ctesiphon?” she shouted in surprise. “I’ve dug there. It’s an archaeological wonder.”
“It was a terrible battlefield, I’m afraid,” said General Money.
“My God, no! Not Ctesiphon. Don’t tell me there was damage. The archaeology . . . it’s priceless.”
She held her breath in dread of the devastation a battle could do to a place as delicate as Ctesiphon, the ancient ruins where she’d undertaken some initial exploratory archaeology. She loved its romance, the gigantic temples, and the antiquity of the place. It was built at the very beginning of mankind’s climb to greatness. Ctesiphon was one of the greatest cities in all of Mesopotamia. It was the capital of the Parthian and Persian empires for nearly a millennium. In 200 AD the emperor Septimius Severus sacked the city and killed tens of thousands of its inhabitants. Since then it had been hidden by the sand from prying eyes until archaeologists had begun to uncover it, and the ruins were priceless.
“My God,” she whispered, “we have to do something to protect the temples . . .”
Astounded, Sir Percy said quietly, “Gertrude, may I remind you that British men are laying dead in Ctesiphon. Have some thought to them, rather than some long-forgotten empire and its pile of stones.”
Realizing her gaffe, Gertrude nodded, feeling chastened, and said, “I do apologize, Percy. I shouldn’t have said what I did. It’s just that I love Ctesiphon very dearly. But I do, sincerely, apologize for what sounded like my lack of concern for our lads. I’ve only just arrived, and I don’t yet feel a part of this damnable war. Do go on, General Lake.”
“You’re right when you say the Battle of Kut was a resounding victory for us. The commander, General Townshend, deserves great credit for it. But he was worried afterwards about pushing on and asked to be allowed to consolidate his forces. His supply route was horribly over-extended far up the river. We were four hundred odd miles from the sea, and supplying him was very difficult. We took on over ten thousand Turks who were under the command of General Nur-Ud-Din. It was quite a scrap, I can tell you! We killed over five thousand of their men, and captured all their heavy artillery. But then Townshend was ordered to continue pushing northwards to Baghdad. He told us it was folly. He told us he’d prefer to wait for reinforcements, for supplies, for boats and airplanes. But our lords and masters in Delhi were flushed with his victories, and ordered him to push on. And then he encountered Ctesiphon . . .”