ABSTRACT

During the First World War, Basra was occupied by the Indian Army of the British Empire, and the occupying forces set up a civil administration that made its headquarters on the bank of the Shat-al-Arab, a great waterway that connects Iraq with Iran. Soon after the headquarters were set up, an army officer paid a visit there and was confronted by the sight of a tall, awkward-looking man with remarkably dark eyes running around his office in “full cry, dashing through an enormous pile of waiting papers and disposing of them one after the other like a threshing machine.” The man was broadly built but had seemed to have lost a lot of weight recently, and his visitor noticed that he was “looking a bit green.”

“Babu’s job this, isn’t it?” He said, “but I feel I’m doing three men’s work.”

“I know you do,” the officer replied, “but you never consider what the three men think about it.”