Page 172 - Gertrude Bell (H.V.F.Winstone)

I52 GERTRUDE BELL
going nice and smoothly the India Office wired for me and
fired me out here ‘to get into personal touch’ with Bin Saud.
It was a weary long voyage out... I had got as far as Karachi
when war with Turkey was announced ... Here I find immense
relief that we have turned the Turks out of Basra and not a
trace of any fanaticism or of feeling against the British. Bin
Saud is as pleased as possible. He is making preparations for
a big raid on Ibn Rashid with a view to wiping him out
practically and I shouldn’t be surprised if I reached Hail in the
course of next month or two as BS’s political adviser II I
expect you are having a pretty busy time with a hospital or
something ... I am afraid Dr Keltic will be rather annoyed
with me —no lecture and no paper for the Journal... If you
aren’t too busy and can spare a line about your doings and how
the lecture went at the RGS you can help my loneliness out
here ... I trust you had a better Christmas and New Year than
I... a 22 mile march and New Year’s Day my second bath in
20 days ...
Within three weeks of writing that letter, Shakespear was dead,
killed in the battle that was to have wiped out the pro-Turkish
desert force of Ibn Rashid. With his death the British abandoned
Ibn Saud altogether. Shakespear’s maps and some of the most
detailed and valuable notes ever compiled on the Arabian
terrain were included along with Gertrude’s observations on the
War Office and Royal Geographical Society maps. In June she
was approached by the Director of Naval Intelligence. Britain’s
policy in Arabia was about to take a dramatic turn and Gertrude’s
expertise was needed in that theatre of war.