Page 118 - Life of Gertrude Bell

104 GERTRUDE BELL

Lady Ramsay look it on herself to minister to his practical needs,
but Gertrude had to look after him in matters of work and to keep
a constant eye on his notes, drawings and rubbings, which he
was always liable to leave under a heap of rubble. In addition she
commanded a workforce of thirty-one Turks who were detailed
to clean out parts of the churches she and Sir William wished to
investigate. All day long the air was thick with *Effendim!
Effendim! come and look at this’, or cEffendim, this is good’, only
to find that their discoveries were usually of the most insignificant
kind. Still, she was devoted to her Ottoman workforce, writing
to her ‘Beloved Hugo’ in July: ‘They are perfectly charming ...
we are all on the most friendly terms.’ The biggest blow came in
July after a month of excavation when her ever-present Armenian
companion Fattuh became seriously ill. When he was with
Gertrude in Konia two years before he had suffered the inevitable
consequence of trying to keep up with her in the near delirium
which always accompanied a new discovery or a memorable sight.
She had rushed madly into a church and Fattuh, trying dutifully
to share her enthusiasm, rushed after her and gave his head a
terrible blow on a low doorway. Ever since he had suffered from
acute pains in the head and on this visit he collapsed. ‘I fear there
must be something wrong. I cannot of course leave him in this
state to go back to Aleppo,’ she told Lady Bell in mid-July. She
thereupon telegraphed the British Ambassador in Constantinople
and the Grand Vizier, telling them that she wished to take Fattuh
with her to the capital to receive specialist attention, making
!i
mental reservation of the fact that there was a German doctor at
Smyrna who would be able to tend the patient in emergency.
Fattuh would not receive much of a welcome among Turks with
a long and vicious record of persecuting the Armenian race.
She nearly gave up at one stage. She wrote confidentially to
1 Chirol expressing doubts about the country, the people and her
own ability. ‘This is not my country —I must break the news
gently to the good Ramsay. I have not the training for it... No
I shall go back to Arabia, to the desert, where I can do things and
see things that Ramsay and his learned like could scarcely do and
see . .. ’ But the depression did not last, and she was soon digging
and note-taking again. She also mentioned to Chirol the helpful-
ness , of the young vice-consul at Konia, Captain Doughty-Wylie,
who had shown some interest in her and her work, ‘a charming
young soldier with a quite pleasant little wife’.

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