Page 5 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

wrecked my chances! I still cannot think why painting should be regarded
in the Sudan, Palestine and Egypt. I was first commissioned in the Royal
Warwicks but all my service was with various Camel Corps, and during with suspicion.
I was summoned to an interview in a small West End hotel where I
most of the time I was in the Army the men whom I commanded were
met an unusual little man with a dynamic manner and a pointed beard
Arabic-speaking. I started in the British Camel Company, in the Sudan; it
who reminded me of Captain Kettle—though only my generation will
was a small force in which the Sirdar, General Sir Reginald Wingate, took
remember the illustrations of Cutliffc Hync’s fiery little Welsh skipper.
a very keen interest. I took part in the expedition against the Sultan of
He asked me a great many questions and eventually told me that the post
Darfur, during 1915 and 1916, which was a somewhat Kiplingesque
was in Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf.
affair. During this little war, aeroplanes appeared for the first time in the
My only knowledge of the Persian Gulf was from the crew of a
southern Sudan and the Sultan, Ali Dinar, built high towers from which
tanker in which I had ‘wangled’ a passage when coming home on leave
he hoped to shoot them down. On one occasion he was almost successful;
in 1919. They described it as ‘Hell’. The only ‘Bahrain’ I had heard of
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, then a young officer in
the Flying Corps, was wounded in this expedition. was the uninhabited oasis of that name south of Siwa, in the Libyan
Desert; in fact, I was one of the few Englishmen who had visited it. My
I never had the slightest wish to be in the Army. I was originally
destined to be a parson and hoped some day to occupy the family living interviewer, Clive Daly, of the Indian Political Service—later to be
in Leicestershire, where the incumbent had been a Belgravc for over 200 knighted—closed the interview by saying: ‘You may, or you may not,
hear from me again. There arc many other candidates in the field.’
years, but I was attracted and drawn to the East and I decided to give up
By this time I was very interested and I tried to find out what I could
the idea of returning to Oxford and eventually settling down as'a country
about Bahrain. Nobody seemed to have heard of the place and my friends
parson. Towards the end of the war I was seconded from the British
thought it ‘very odd’ that a responsible post should be advertised in the
Army for service with the Frontier Districts Administration Camel
‘Personal Column’ of The Times. Such a public approach was more
Corps, a branch of the Egyptian Government.
unusual thirty years ago than it would be today.
I spent several years on the Western Desert of Egypt and was stationed
But all of a sudden Bahrain was in the news. A tremendous storm
for two years in the Siwa Oasis, where I was the only white man. In Siwa
struck the Persian Gulf in the neighbourhood of the islands and many of
my duties included a certain amount of court and political work—when
the boats of the pearling fleet were lost. It was an even worse storm than
I came back I wrote a book abdat my experiences there. I remained in
the one which occurred in the spring of 1959. The London papers pub­
Egypt for some time after the war ended, until British officers in the
lished a few (very inaccurate) facts about the islands, which I read with
Frontier Districts Administration were replaced by Egyptians. It was
owing to this background that I felt that I should prefer to work among interest. Even today Arabs in Bahrain, when they want to fix a date, refer
to incidents having happened before, or after, ‘the year of the sinking*.
Arabs than to continue my career in Africa.
Time passed and nothing happened. I supposed that someone else had
I answered The Times advertisement, more from curiosity than
been chosen for Bahrain. Then, when I had almost forgotten the affair, a
the expectation that it would lead to anything. In reply I received a letter
asking many questions about myself but giving little information about telegram arrived telling me to present myself at a flat in Baker Street.
' Again, although quite unintentionally, there was a slight air of mystery
the appointment; so, before writing again, I decided to take advice.
about the proceedings. Finding myself at the address much too early I
I consulted two people, both well-known men, older than I and
wandered round Madame Tussauds to fill in time; after the Chamber of
experienced in the ways of the world.
Horrors I felt rather like a victim going to execution by the time I got to
One of them advised me to have nothing to do with it. ‘I think it looks
the flat. However, I was soon put at my ease.
very fishy,* he said. ‘You had better stay where you are.* My other friend,
The flat belonged to Colonel F. B. Prideaux, the British Resident in
Sir Reginald Wingate, under whom I had served in the Sudan, recom­
the Gulf, and both he and his wife were extremely pleasant and com­
mended me to follow it up. I took his advice and dutifully replied to the
municative. He was a large, rather pink-complexioned person, who re­
long questionnaire. One of the queries was whether I had any hobbies, so
minded me of a bishop, interested in horses, archaeology and geneaology.
I mentioned that I was fond of painting. This, I learnt afterwards, almost ^
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v*.