BORDER WATCH IN TRANS-JORDANIA

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 19

BORDER WATCH IN TRANS-JORDANIA

(SPICIALLT WHITTEN HOB THE PRESS.) [By CAPTAIN A. M. HAMILTON, Author ot “Road Through Kurdistan.”!

CAPTAIN GLOVER turned to the business of his missicJn in Mafrak. “I’ll write out your orders, MacWhittle,” he said to the lieutenant, “and while I am doing it let me have a talk with that sergeant who has just come off duty in the Deraa section, he will be sure to know something of what has been happening on the French side of the frontier.” Then, with the smiling good humour of a man at the work he likes best in the world, Glover began his inquiries of the Arab—after paying him the appropriate courtesies always used in that land whatever be the relative stations of those who converse —in such amazingly fluent colloquial Arabic that I could not even follow the gist of it, reasonably well acquainted as I am with the language. The eyes of the Arab sergeant shone. This British officer, this “Abu Hunaich,” as they called him, might be one of his own brothers, so genuine his greeting, so fluent his speech, so minute his personal knowledge of every place in his territory and every man of the tribes. This time it was mainly of happenings in French Syria over the border that Glover sought information. Arab Ceremonial Now the business of drinking several of the small cupfuls of the thick black Arab coffee, highly flavoured with a group-up bean 1 do not know the name of, but which reminds one of aniseed, is as important as a lady’s afternoon tea-party. It is not to be hurried, and it must carry with it just the right kind of

light conversation. “Well, Mac, there are your instructions. I have written them in Arabic so that you can read them out loud to the men. They just love orders read out from a paper. It’s a primitive weakness of illiterate men. A few centuries ago anything in writing was said to be sacred, and even to-day a few lines scribbled from the Koran, and the paper placed on a wound or pain, are said to heal it! But now tell me why you are here and all about it.” So I told him. For once again he was the very man to help me with his rare combination of both technical and local knowledge. And having dealt with these matters at some length, with which I need not weary the reader, I managed to work the conversation round to ask —what I was all curiosity to know—why all this stir at Mafrak? Glover laughed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that,” he said. “You see, it’s all hush-hush. Nobody is supposed to know. Moreover we, the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force, are in disgrace at present, so are keeping it as dark a secret as possible, but what the French headquarters staff said about us up in Beirut, whew! the telegraph lines nearly fused at their last wire to Amman! Collaboration in Haste “But as you are bound to hear sooner or later perhaps I had better give you the whole yarn. “You see, with the trouble in Palestine getting no better, and a lot of gunmen and other toughs being wanted by the British police over there in Jerusalem, Nablus, Nazareth, and elsewhere it was discovered that many of the fugitives were heading up north through Acre and Tiberius into Syria. In

fact, it was known for certain that some had already made their escape that way, even though our old friend Bentley, who seldom let his man get far in the days when we knew him at Diwaniyah, is now one of their chief police officers. “Through all this chasing-up of murderers, and through channels so very high up as to be far above my humble head, France was asked to take a hand in stopping these wanted men going into Syria, and also in stopping any armed individuals or parties from coming down out of Syria into Palestine, for there is actually a fair amount of unrest throughout all the Near East over the Palestine as well as other Arab questions, and a good deal of help is always extended by the Arabs of one part to those elsewhere. Fortunately, by rigid exclusion of all Jews not native of Trans-Jordan, we have kept this country relatively peaceful and unaffected by our neighbours’ worries, “Well, just how strongly the request was put to France I do not know, but the Frenchman is essentially a serious-minded man—racially more so than we are, I think, and if there is one thing that can never be said of him it is that, as an ally, he doesn’t, try! On that supplication—however it was worded—the French in Syria got really busy. They rounded up their troops, they recalled officers from leave in the very middle of summer, when the desert fairly swelters with heat, flies, mosquitoes, and objectionableness. They produced armoured cars, tanks, machine-guns, and all the other implements of military business, and withal they fairly put a cordon of iron and militia, not merely along the Pales-tine-Syria frontier, where there were some British pickets already in position, but I’m blessed if they didn’t ‘do their stuff’ right out along our Trans-Jordan frontier as well, and far into the desert! “I tell you I take my hat off to the French Service that was able to

Collaborating With Efficient French Organisation

carry out such a feat at such short notice! But any admiration that may be showered ypon them by me, or by you, or indeed by the whole British Empire, will never compensate those Frenchmen who were recalled from leave in the heat of summer to do military stunts in a scorching desert, and who, having done them, found .... what do you think? .... that along the whole of that Syrian-Trans-Jordan frontier there wasn’t one British officer, and hardly a single Arab patrolman, within 50 miles of it!! “We had had no instructions, we had heard scarcely a word of all this ‘flap’ until the skies rent with well-justified French fury, and so out we had to rush this company and try to make it appear that we had really been there all the time. “The next move' is that MacWhittle, who can look terribly innocent when he likes, has to go over the border to his opposite number there (taking a few of his boys along as escort) and crack a champagne bottle or two, and afterwards invite the Frenchmen to come and do the same here, thus to appease matters and brighten up the situation generally. He will do it. too, for those Frenchmen are the best of chaps to get on with, really—treat them right and ‘toujours la : >litesse.’ “Even your presence on the subject of roads helps us, for it looks as though we have been hatching up some wonderful plan all the time, even though it has really nothing whatever to do with the matter/’ With a last cheerio. Glover was again in his car, making for headquarters at Amman, and the last I saw of him was a cloud of dust on the far horizon. But as I watched him go I wished that men with such profound knowledge of the East, with such easy tact whatever the nature of their problems, should have a greater voice in the perplexing policies that so often cause world difficulties. One day he will—if I am any picker of winners.