Open Writing

We were busy now, recruiting staff for the 3rd construction, the 30 inch pipeline to be done by the American, Bechtel Company, and priority was given to the old Gang employees. I wondered why Hassan had not come and asked Mohammed to contact him, at the town of Abu Kemal. When he arrived, I asked,

"Why did you not apply, my old friend, when everybody knows that another line is being built?"

"Master, I did not want to bother you; I knew that if you wanted me you would call for me."

I sent him off to see the IPC doctor, a Syrian from Horns. Before long, Hassan returned looking very sad. The doctor had failed him for weak eyesight. "Imagine, Master, me with weak eyes when I can see a gazelle a mile away, in the desert. He says that I must go to the optician in Horns for glasses and then he wit! pass me."

"How much will it cost?

Hassan looked embarrassed, "Twenty pounds, oh Master."

I guessed his problem.

"Here, I will give you twenty pounds; you can repay me, little by little, when you start to receive your pay. Here, take it; twenty pounds between old friends."

Hassan received his glasses, passed his medical, was engaged as a driver with the 30 inch construction — and never wore his glasses.

"You know, oh Master," he said as he repaid me in full from his first pay, "Is it not strange that ail the applicants for drivers' jobs had weak eyesight and had to go and buy glasses from the optician?"

"Yes, oh Hassan, very, very strange indeed." And we both burst out laughing.

I discovered what was obvious a little later. The doctor was in partnership with the optician, the only one in Horns. Nothing could be done about it; his appointment was 'political', so he was able to run his dishonest business with impunity. The once powerful IPC had no option but to succumb to these political pressures. At the same time, the influence of the Soviet Union was beginning to spread; there was political unrest and disquiet could be felt. The Palestine problem was a permanent, festering sore that would never be resolved and for which the British and the Americans were blamed, and one could but wonder just how long the tottering monarchs of Iraq, Egypt and Jordan, would last. Only Jordan had some hope, because of the strong Bedouin backing for the King, and the superbly trained Arab Legion Army with its loyal Bedou soldiers.

The growing antipathy towards us was distasteful; why put up with it? My career was obviously limited in time; it would not be long before they refused to extend my 'Permit to Work1, and my second tour of two years was coming to the end. I was 26; now was the time to pull out, giving me a fair chance to start a new career elsewhere.