Page 76 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

faintly yellow sky where the sun was trying to conic through, was like
came over to see if I wanted anything. Very thankfully I let him help me
a delicate Japanese print.
into the lorry and we went to the hospital where they discovered that I
The police enjoyed their mornings at Idari. They swam races, they
had a broken ankle. This kept me more or less immobile for several
tried to play water polo, although a round pool was not suited to the
weeks in my house, becoming every day more and more irritated, men­
game, and those of them who had been divers competed to sec who
tally and physically, for I developed ‘prickly heat’ inside the plaster
could stay longest under the water. I think two-aiid-a-quartcr minutes was
which was on my leg. However, some good came out of the affair. When
the record. Sometimes we had recruits who could not swim; they were
the Shaikh heard about the ‘Good Samaritan’ act of the lorry driver he
taught in what seemed to me a very short time by some of the older men.
sent for him and rewarded him handsomely.
It was not a safe place for bathing unless one could swim. There was a
After breakfast I changed and went down to the office and then the
superstition that every year the pool claimed a victim and certainly
work of the day began in earnest. On the mornings when the Shaikh did
while I was in Bahrain someone was drowned there almost every sum­
not come I spent most of the time seeing people. The Arabs got accus-
mer. Before Idari became a ‘Lido’ I used to bathe there myself, after
tomed to coming to the point without wasting time in long conver­
dinner, and there were rarely any other people at the pool, but afterwards
sation, although it was contrary to their normal custom, but some of the
it was too crowded to be enjoyable. In the evenings and at night the pool
Europeans were excessively long-winded and seemed to think that I had
was surrounded by parked cars with blaring radios, and rowdy parties used
nothing else to do than to sit chatting with them. There was no lack of
to stay there till dawn. I found a new bathing place, it was a garden which
variety in the subjects which I had to discuss. I tried to see everybody who
belonged to Shaikh Hamed, about ten minutes from my house. There
had a real reason for coming but it was not always possible. I was often
was a big tank with a garden pavilion and, as it was private property,
greeted by some Arab in the bazaar who complained reproachfully that
nobody except myself, and anyone I cared to take there, was permitted
he had called at the office to see me, without an appointment, and had
to use it; here I used to bathe in the summer evenings, dawdling about in
been told that I was busy! The ordinary people did not ring up my secre-
the cool water and then sitting on the side of the tank eating dates and
tary and ask for an appointment, they just came and sat below my win­
gossiping with the old Bahraini who looked after the garden.
dow keeping up an endless monologue about the matter which they
I got back to breakfast, after my morning ride, at about eight o’clock,
wished to discuss, and when the coast was clear they sometimes slipped
but one morning I did not come back till the end of the day. I was riding
into the office by the garden door. I never kept a policeman at the door
along the edge of the cemetery on the south side of Manama when
to drive people away. I rarely went upstairs to luncheon before two
suddenly a man seemed to appear out of the ground in front of Olean­
o’clock. Afterwards I worked in the garden or, when Marjorie was
der’s nose. She shied, slipped and came down with me underneath her.
in Bahrain—latterly she used to go home for a month or two every
She then got up and walked away, and the man who was the cause of the
summer—we went out for a drive, usually with the object of looking at
trouble ran away. He had been digging a pit, possibly a grave. I sat up
some work which was going on, or sometimes to visit people at Awali,
and called to Bilal, my police orderly, who had been riding behind me,
the oil town, which was in the middle of the island about twelve miles
telling him, to follow the mare and catch her before she got into the
traffic on the main road. He went after her, leading his pony, but she was from Manama. towns in other
evidently determined to get home first. I then tried to get up but found I suppose Awali is typical of many oil company
it always seemed an amazing place, like a
that I had damaged my leg. There was a side road, with traffic on it, parts of the world but to me
city which suddenly appeared out of the desert at the wave of a magician’s
about two hundred yards away, so sitting,on the ground I waved to the
wand. Until the first building shot up, in the early ’thirties, I had seen
cars which passed hoping that one of them would give me a lift. But all
gazelle among the rocks and wadis and had coursed desert hares with
the drivers did was to wave back at me. I suppose they thought that the
my silugi hounds where there are now streets of European houses, cinemas,
Adviser had developed a new form of eccentricity which consisted of
libraries, schools and offices. ‘Awali’ means ‘High Places’; the houses in
sitting by the cemetery and waving to the cars which passed. After
the older part of the town, which stands on high ground, are built of local
quite a long time, so it seemed to me, the driver of a lorry stopped and
materials, stone and gypsum, and have some individuality. They are
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