k
to the cars and we ran on through to Haditha. Here we were to remain for a
week or ten days to permit the evacuation of the captured supplies.

Thus far we had been having good luck with the weather, but it now began
to threaten rain. We crawled beneath the cars with our blankets and took
such precautions as were possible, but it availed us little when a
veritable hurricane blew up at midnight. I was washed out from under my
car, but before dark I had marked down a deserted hut, and thither I
groped my way. Although it was abandoned by the Arabs, living traces of
their occupancy remained. Still, even that was preferable to the rain, and
the roof proved unexpectedly water-tight.

All next day the storm continued. The Wadi Hauran, a large ravine reaching
back into the desert for a hundred and fifty miles, became a boiling
torrent. When we crossed over, it was as dry as a bone. A heavy lorry on
which an anti-aircraft gun was mounted had been swirled away and smashed
to bits. The ration question had been difficult all along, but now any
further supply was temporarily out of the question.

Oddly enough, I was the only member of the brigade occupying Haditha who
could speak enough Arabic to be of any use, so I was sent to look up the
local mayor to see whether there was any food to be purchased. The town is
built on a long island equidistant from either bank. We ferried across in
barges. The native method was simpler. They inflated goatskins, removed
their clothes, which they had fastened in a bundle on top of their heads,
and with one hand on the goatskin they paddled and drifted over. By
starting from the head of the island they could reach the shore opposite
the down-stream end. The bobbing heads of the dignified old graybeards of
the community looked most ludicrous. On landing they would solemnly don
their clothes, deflate the skins, and go their way.

The mayor proved both intelligent and agreeable. The food situation was
such that it was obviously impossible for him to offer us any serious
help. We held a conclave in the guest-house, sitting cross-legged among
the cushions. In the centre a servant roasted coffee-beans on the large
shovel-spoon that they use for that purpose. The representative village
worthies impressed me greatly. The desert Arabs are always held to be
vastly superior to their kinsmen of the town, and it is undoubtedly true
as a general rule; nevertheless, the elders of Haditha were an unusually
f