Page 39 - Arabian Studies (II)

Memories and Impressions of the Arabia of I bn Sand 29

the Government, may know this or have a different version, but I
have come from England more recently than he has. It is this.
According to the British Government’s own published figures, the
loss of ships of the Merchant Marine is already heavy and if you take
those figures per month and that of the total of the Merchant Navy
and remember that we are an island dependent upon its food from
overseas you will find that within eighteen months our Merchant
Navy and our food will be at an end and we shall be obliged to ask
for peace. Of course de Gaury may have an answer to this, a different
one, but I am quoting the British Government’s own figures,
well-known facts.’ At that moment a barefooted guardsman who had
come quietly to the doorway announced ‘Wasalii ash Shuyukh’,
meaning Ibn Saud had arrived. As the doors into the King’s room
were opened Saud and I looked at each other. I shrugged and showed
by clicking my tongue on the palate, in the oriental way, how utterly
the remarks of Philby could be dismissed. As it turned out I think it
was more effective and suitable to the moment than any words. Saud
waved to me to precede him and I similarly insisted to him. He went
first with an apologetic little lingering smile, as if to show his
sympathy for the behaviour of my tiresome compatriot.
Ibn Saud did not mention Philby except to say of him two days later
that I was not to be upset about him. He apologized, as it were, for
harbouring him. He said that he had known him ever since he had
come bringing gold from my Government. He knew his extraordinary
character and had become used to him, was never deluded by him
but had found him helpful in some ways. When he heard of Philby’s
intention to go to the U.S.A. ‘on a lecture tour’ he tried to dissuade
him from leaving and Saud also tried, but Philby left via the Gulf and
India. When he left Ibn Saud sent a cable to the Shaikh of Bahrain
saying, ‘Abdullah Philby left us for you today. To say what this man
has said and done what he has done he must be mad.’ On reaching
India Philby was detained by the police and sent back to England
where he was brought before a tribunal and kept for many months in
detention under Wartime Regulation 18b. I mention this case of
Abdullah Philby in my book on the present King Fai$al, and give the
references and mention the papers I have which Dr Weizmann gave
me towards the end of the war when he raised this matter with me.
Weizmann said how deluded he had been by Philby, who had
persuaded him that Ibn Saud would accept <€20 million for an
agreement on Palestine whereby the Jews might have the country
west of the Jordan — a proposition that Philby must have known Ibn
Saud could not possibly accept. Ibn Saud had in fact immediately
dismissed it, forbidding Philby ever to mention it again to anyone.