Page 57 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

A rumour reached the police that a girl had disappeared. Women knew about it but we were unable to discover which of the men, her
who knew her noticed that she was no longer about, and when they father or her brothers, had murdered her. The investigation by the police
asked her relations where she was they got evasive replies. The gossip and the discovery of the crime was much resented by the people of Hedd
reached the cars of the police in Hedd, who reported what they had whose sympathies were entirely with the girl’s family, and even some of
heard. At the time I was running the police as we had no British police the ‘progressive’ Arabs considered that the girl’s murder was justified-
officer. We had to move cautiously because any questioning of women Sex was usually the motive behind murders. Sometimes the victims
by the police was apt to lead to trouble, and as soon as it was known were prostitutes who were murdered by jealous lovers. They were known
that enquiries were being made all mouths would shut. The * girl, the as ‘Daughters of the Wind’. It was too attractive a synonym for the be­
daughter of poor but respectable parents, was unmarried, but there was draggled creatures who traded in the brothel area where male prostitutes
reason to believe that she had an affair with a man. • were almost as numerous as women. On several occasions the police
After collecting a good deal of hearsay information, much of it was cleaned up the brothel area and deported all the foreign women and boys.
The first time this was done a vociferous crowd of ladies of the town
from a gossipy old woman in Hedd who was a relation of one of the
I policemen’s wives, we sent for the father and I asked him where his surrounded my office to protest against being repatriated to their homes
in Persia, Iraq and Oman. Their spokesman was an elderly procuress from
daughter was. He produced a story about her having gone to Saudi
Arabia to visit relations, because she was ill. This sounded to me unlikely Persia who argued, quite sensibly, that it was a matter of supply and
as I knew that the family had no connection with the mainland. We demand. If all the foreigners were sent away, she said, their places would
decided to chance the consequences and to search the house which, as it be filled by local talent. However, the order had been issued and the
was in Hedd, was rather like tackling a wasps’ nest. ladies left by ship. They were escorted to the end of the pier by a large
That night, without giving the girl’s family any opportunity to make crowd of friends and patrons and there was quite a harrowing scene when
‘arrangements’, I and the police officer, with half a dozen policemen, went they embarked in the launches which took them to the steamer. Sure
to Hedd. We walked quietly through the dark narrow lanes, hardly enough, in a month or two the brothel area seemed to be just as full as
seeing a person on our way. We arrived at the house. After some time it had been before the foreign ladies were sent away. The second time we
we were admitted. The father and two sons and several women of the tried to clean up the area we found that a number of quite obviously
family were in the house. The men’s expressions were quite impassive, foreign women, who had entered Bahrain, had become Bahrain subjects
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they showed no excitement at our visit. The women, covered in their by the simple expedient of marrying Bahrainis. One has heard of similar
clothes, squealed a. little. We had nobody who could identify the girl, if arrangements being made in England.
she had been there,, but the family still said that she had left Bahrain. Often newly bom unwanted babies were found, alive, deposited in
Certainly there were no signs of her, dead or alive, the municipal rubbish dumps, which stood at the comers of the streets,
I went into one of the small rooms on the ground floor. There was or placed outside the hospital. The American Mission had an orphanage
an unpleasant smell. I asked one of the men what it was. ‘It’s the latrine where some of these little foundlings were looked after. When they were
in the yard,’ he said. It was not that sort of smell. The Arab police officer old enough the boys were sent to school and later found employment.
t came in. ‘The girl is buried here,’ he said. There were signs that the room Others were cared for in the Government hospital and very often they
was inhabited; clothes were lying on the bed and there were cigarette
were adopted by women who had no families. There was very little
stubs on the floor. We sent for a crowbar and a couple of spades and two stigma in illegitimacy; I knew several young men who were proud of
of the policemen began to dig up the floor. Very soon they found what belonging to important families, though on the wrong side of the blanket.
they were looking for, the body of the girL The men of the family stood When oil was discovered Bahrain acquired the reputation in the Gulf
by quite calmly while the body was disinterred—but it was more than I of being a place ‘where all the streets are paved with gold’, and Arabs
could stand; I beat a retreat and waited outside in the yard. from other parts of the Gulf entered the country seeking work, expecting
During the trial it was established that the girl had been killed by to make their fortunes in a few months. I had introduced passports and a
some of the men of the family, because she had ‘gone wrong*. The women system of checking arrivals and departures soon after I came to Bahrain
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