Open Writing

I spent several weeks at the Tripoli Personnel Office. It was a busy time and the antithesis of the Haifa work. There it had been the sad duty of terminating employment, but now, with expansion and construction of tanks and pipelines, it was the enjoyment of employing people.

A pipeline construction gang was busy building the new 16 inch line in Iraq and had just crossed the border into Syria at our T2 station. One morning I was told that the Chief wanted to see me and I reported to him.

"Ah, Johnny, better get your bags packed again. The Personnel Officer in the pipeline gang has had to leave. I want you to go up there and take over the duties. They are at T2 now, so I'll fix transport for you to leave first thing in the morning. Go to Homs and report to Farouk Shaabani, the Personnel Officer for Syria. You'll be under him while in Syria. He'll be very helpful to you.
Tell me, how is your Bedouin dialect?"

"I must confess, I've never heard or tried it."

'You'll pick it up quickly enough with practice. You know, when English officers were seconded to the Arab Legion and couldn't speak Arabic, they used to send them out on a desert patrol with a dozen Bedouin soldiers, who couldn't speak English. By the time the officer got back he had learnt the basics; he had to — or starve. So cheer up. I bet you'll have more difficulty in understanding the Yankee foremen. Off you go, lad, enjoy yourself."

"Yes, I know, enjoy myself, be good and if I can't be good then for God's sake be careful."

He laughed, "I tell you what; you'll find that your Haifa adventures will be a nuns' picnic compared with what you'll come up against in the Gang."

"A Nnuns' picnic? What, no pretty Arab maids this time? Just nuns?"

He laughed again. “You'll see, Johnny. Good luck."

He knew. He had been in the first construction.

I left Tripoli early the following morning in an International pick-up truck that was delivering goods to T2. We crossed the Lebanese border into Syria and, passing through a gap in the mountains, then crossed the low-lying Bekaa plains and continued on the road to Homs. There I had a briefing from Farouk Shaabani, a very affable and competent Syrian.

Leaving him, we continued onwards along the main road towards Damascus until I began to wonder where the desert was. Suddenly we swung off the bitumen road onto one of dirt and stone, liberally sprinkled with potholes. We headed south, and before long we passed the village of Farkloss in the distance, with houses being round in shape with unusual conical shaped roofs, similar in shape to a type of African hut that I had seen in pictures.

The shape of the Farkloss roofs kept them warm in winter and cool in summer, which I was to discover later. I could never understand why no other village had houses of this peculiar yet practical design for the climate.

And there the dirt road ended. It was the last made road that I was to see for months. From then on it was desert tracks.

The desert was unlike the greater part of the Sinai desert that I had seen in the Army. The Syrian desert was an arid, barren expanse, sun baked in the summer, sometimes with whirligigs of dust travelling with the wind but in winter showing the suspicion of a green tinge. The direction and location of the IPC pipeline, buried under the ground, were indicated by the line of telephone poles stretching to the horizon. The poles and telephone lines had been erected by the IPC from Kirkuk to Tripoli and Haifa, providing instant communication between the Head Office and any pumping station.

We continued southwards. The flat desert reached to the horizon, while the desert tracks crisscrossed each other, the driver sometimes switching from one to another that appeared more favourable. Our International truck was heavily oversprung, and on the rough, potholed surface we bounced continually. Sometimes I had to press my hands against the cabin roof to protect my head from hitting it as the truck hit an extra deep hole and the dust cascaded down on me from the lining, its smell everywhere.

I discovered that the eyes became tricked. A building on a distant slope gradually changes shape as we approach, until close up it turns out to be nothing more than a discarded cardboard box. During the summer, in the shimmering, dancing heat waves, there are constant mirages of water appearing ahead of you and which recede, further and further, as you draw near.

After some time, ascending a slope, I saw buildings and green trees in the distance, but this time it was no mirage but T4 pumping station. T4, as were all the stations, was self-contained, with its own shop, a surgery with a resident doctor, even a school for the employees' children. The whole station was surrounded with trees and protected by a high wire security fence, while the administration block had an additional security door made of thick steel. It was a man-made oasis in the middle of the desert and there a handful of British engineers and Arab staff lived with their families, to keep the pumps moving and the pipelines maintained so that the crude oil kept flowing to the Mediterranean terminals.