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"Have a heart, man!" protested Glubb. "Five-foot-six is only a little man like that," he said, reaching toward the floor. "I would say I'm about five-foot-nine."
"Yes, sir," said his inferior, acquiescent but unconvinced.
Glubb's stature among desert Arabs does not depend on his height. He won it by learning to speak Arabic fluently, by scrupulously observing their customs and courtesies, by being firm but smiling and unassuming. At meals he squats on his haunches with them, dipping greasy fingers into the communal dish, kusi, a mound of rice and sour milk topped with a roast sheep stuffed with rice and dates.
Lest they feel that he is different, he scratches and squashes imaginary lice while he talks with lice-ridden Bedouins.* Contrary to pukka British practice, he lets Arab enlisted men eat from the same dishes as their officers. In 27 years among the Arabs (ten of them in Iraq), he has become known as the Arabs' great friend.
Tears & Fears. Among the tales (most-apocryphal) which encrust his legendary name is one of a trip through the desert with several cars full of Legionnaires. One car turned over, killing two of the men. Soon afterward the party stopped for lunch at a Bedouin encampment. To show proper sorrow, Glubb sat for an hour before a steaming platter of rice and meat without tasting a mouthful, drying great tears on the edge of his khafiyah (shawl headdress). Then he solemnly kissed his hosts on both cheeks and drove away. Out of sight of the Bedouin camp, he opened a tin of bully beef and wolfed it down.
Asked what he would do if the War Office sent orders contrary to Abdullah's, the man who serves two kings replied: "I am a British subject. I would have no alternative but to resign my command." Last week the British hoped that Glubb would not be forced on to the horns of that dilemma. If the little chess player's ambitions run away with him, say the British, they will immediately withdraw their subsidy, officers, Glubb and all, and cut off supplies.
By week's end, Abdullah's emissaries and the British had concluded a treaty draft which, the British hoped, would keep Abdullah happy. Its terms promised to continue his military subsidy, cut down (on paper) British rights to use Trans-Jordan as a military base. But the British, fearing a repetition of the painful episode when Iraqi mobs had forced the Iraq government to reject a similar treaty after it had been signed and announced in London, were taking no chances this time. Abdullah's delegation took back only "fairly definite proposals," not a signed treaty. Said one British official: "We don't make the same mistake twice."
* The general's rank and the title Pasha (equivalent of "lord") were bestowed by Abdullah. His rank in the British army when he became commander of the Arab Legion (1939): acting major. His permanent British rank: captain in the officers' reserve. His temporary "local" British rank in Trans-Jordan: acting brigadier.
* An old Arab prover says that a deserted head shows an ungenerous mind.