Page 82 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

79

1926

Went down to the office as usual. I was talking to de G outside when Mohamed, my head servant, rushed up &
said that there was a row at the Fort & Daly & the Subadar had been shot. Got a car from Kanoo & motored
up through the market. Near the Fort we saw lots of people standing about & at doors of houses. Found M on
the veranda not particularly agitated. Left de G & went through into the Fort. Heard that while Daly was in
the office with the subadar one of the Baluchi sepoys had shot the Subadar & the shot went clean through him
& hit Daly too. He then shot a havildar & attacked D with a bayonet. The men appeared quite quiet. Took the
car & went down to the Agency. Found Daly pretty bad with the Dr doing him up, shot in the ear & bayoneted
in five places, the subadar & the havildar both in hospital very badly wounded. A huge excited crowd all round
the Agency. Motored back to Fort, saw the fellow who did the shooting & had him properly jugged, then had
breakfast. Motored down to the office. A real panic in the town. The people got it into their heads that all the
officers & white men had been shot & the Levy Corps were in mutiny & going to loot the bazaar. Every single
shop had shut in five minutes & a mob of people made for the boats & fled to Muharraq, others rushed off to
the gardens outside the town. Got hold of a few influential men & got the place quiet & shops open again.
Wrote to Sheikh Isa & told him all that had happened, went round to the Sheikh & told him - he had at once
gone to see Daly & was rather scared & furiously angry. de Grenier really enjoyed the excitement & "tattled"
round the place "soothing the natives" but such is his Arabic that he probably made things even worse. Came
back to lunch at the fort where everything was very quiet, except women wailing. Went down again in the
evening to see Daly. He is pretty bad, a shot through the ear that just missed killing him, & 5 bayonet wounds,
naturally he had a bad shock & on the top of it has got malaria. The Subadar died in the evening. He was a decent
fellow, a Punjabi native officer & apparently the only thing that the fellow had against him once or twice. After calling
on Daly we motored out to Budayia, a town along the coast, to see Armstrong, the Engineer, who is boring wells out
there. Rather a nice little place right on the shore. It used to belong to the Dawasir Arabs before they were turned out
& is now practically deserted - an Eastern version of The Deserted Village. Motored back in the dark but quite a good
road. The fellow who did the shooting is reported to have announced that he regrets not having got three more men.