We went, through the driving rain, to a near-by restaurant. He chose something, but when it came, although it looked very good, he complained after eating a little that it was not nice. It was so unlike him. However, he ordered some soft roes on toast and we sat on till near midnight whilst he talked of his tour. He was full of it. Full of stories and impressions. I asked him if he had made notes of the more interesting things that had struck him. He had not. He had them all in his head. He told how at the aerodrome at Amman an Arab Sheikh had appeared with his followers, all heavily armed with service rifles and bristling with ammunition. Sir Walter and the Sheikh were introduced and sat together awhile at a corner of the aerodrome. The Sheikh occasionally stroking Sir Walter’s cheek apparently as a mark of friendliness. The followers formed a large circle round them and squatted. This went on for a bit and then the conversation being rather one-sided Sir Walter got bored and walked away to sit at another part of the aerodrome. He was deep in thought. He looked up and there silently squatting around again were the Arabs with the sun gleaming on their rifles. He talked a bit with the Sheikh and then tiring got up and sought the officer in charge of the aerodrome.
“What do you do when you want to get rid of these fellows?” he asked.
“Do?” was the reply. “What do we do? Why, we take a big stick and tell them to hop it.”
The big stick was produced, the order was given, the rifles were quietly slung and the Arabs went. They were like children, said Sir Walter, and knew what you meant when you told them that you didn’t want to play with them any more.
He spoke of his stay with the High Commissioner at Jerusalem. How he had gone over the road on which the Turkish 7th Army had been bombed from the air until it had become a rabble. The havoc of that day--September the 21st, 1918--was made clear to him. The Turkish armies were in retreat. Soon after dawn on the 21st a reconnaissance machine landed with the information that dense masses of men and transport were on the road running north-east from Nablus. This was the Turkish 7th Army making for the Jordan, hoping to cross at Jisr-ed-Damieh. The enemy retreat via Beisan had already been blocked by the cavalry, but it was out of the question that ground troops could guard the Jordan crossings for some hours. If the road could not be blocked from the air, the army would escape. All available aeroplanes were got together and there began the most awful disaster which has ever been suffered from the air by an army. To strike from the air you must strike quick and strike ceaselessly. The attack was arranged so that two machines should arrive over the retreating enemy every three minutes. In addition a formation of six machines was sent over every half-hour. The attack started at 8 o’clock in the morning. At noon it was all over. The road is bordered by steep ravines. No cover for a rabbit. There was no escaping the pitiless rain of machine-gun bullets poured on to the enemy from a low height, or the bombs which soon reduced the head of the column to chaos. The road was blocked, but there was panic pressure from the rear. Dead were piled on dead. Drivers jumped from their motor-lorries. Motor-lorries ran amok. Horses stampeded, tramping soldiers to death beneath their hoofs. Guns were overturned. Every three minutes and every half-hour with demoniacal precision the aeroplanes appeared, did their job, and went. Every three minutes and every half-hour on the ground confusion worse confounded. The Turkish 7th Army a few hours before in orderly retreat, soon ceased to exist. Sir Walter inspected the road on a Scots Grey charger. He confessed that he was brought somewhat into sympathy with the panic of the retreat because he was not at home on a charger. On one occasion, and at a precipitous and dangerous piece of road, with a slope to doom on one side and an oppressive gaunt height on the other, Sir Walter coughed. The charger taking this as a sign of encouragement, went off at a gallop. Happily Sir Walter recovered his nerve and the reins without much loss of time. He talked of this trip, telling how the point where the bombing started is marked by the stone on which Christ sat and talked to the woman of Samaria.