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Iraq). It should have surprised nobody that
without trace and their lorry, repainted, was
recognised in Mohammad's fleet.
they vanished
subsequent 1y
The Sa'dun could not be expected to take this lying down, and
they massed a considerab1e number of armed men and lorries on the
Kuwait frontier. They carried war-banners and announced that
they were going to invade Kuwait and 'takeout* Mohammad. I
personally would have shed no tears had they done so, but an
armed invasion of Kuwait from Iraq could not be allowed and the
British authorities were becoming concerned. (Kuwait then had no
armed forces at all). The Shaikh, however, blandly denied the
whole scenario, and, in spite of repeated requests, would give me
no information on the matter. This simply was not good enough :
and I steeled myself for a showdown with Shaikh Ahmad, reflecting
that, as I was on the point of leaving Kuwait, any repercussions
could be attributed to a clash of personalities and the rift
could be healed by my successor. A stormy interview ensued and
hard words - very hard words - were used. We took a boot-faced
farewell, and I returned to the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. feeling that I had sealed
my term in Kuwait with a monumental blot. However it did not
work out like that at all. Next mornig the Shaikh was on the
telephone (a local system had just been installed) asking if
he could come round and see me. This was surprising as never
before had he called to see the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. : it was always
the other way round. He arrived all smiles, and immediately
revealed the whole story of the imbroglio with the Muntafiq
sparing no details. We decided that he should deal with the
matter in his own manner while keeping H.M.G. fully informed.
And he did so most ably. Talks dragged on until the Shaikh
promised to expel Mohammad from Kuwait, and the miscreant, his
wives, children, retainers and slaves ostentatiously piled into a
fleet of cars, and a cloud of dust progressed southwards in the
direction of the S'audi province of A1 Hasa. The Shaikh knew
well that the time had come for the Muntafiq to harvest their
crops, and the banishment of Mohammad gave’ them the excuse to
return to Iraq and do so without losing face. When the move had
taken place the cloud of dust reversed itself and came
unobtrusively northwards again; but Mohammad was not allowed back
into the area of desert bordering Iraq.
By the end of the summer blood had cooled and the incident was
forgotten .
A few days later I handed over to a young man from The Foreign
Office who had no Arabic, and felt that an era had come to an
end. I can't help thinking that Shaikh Ahmad felt the same for,
when I called to say good-bye to him, he was in tears. Driving
straight to the stretch of desert where aircraft landed - marked
only by a ragged tent and a wind-sock - I found Shaikh Abdullah
Mubarak representing the Ruler, with a line of four or so men in