Baghdad Aug 18 Darling Mother. I return to you a letter which has had singular wanderings. You must have wondered what had become of it!
I've just finished an immense letter to Father which ends, I fear, on a note of considerable perturbation. However we've weathered storms as bad, if not worse, so perhaps we'll come safely through the tempestuous sea. It's not a little irritating that at the moment the Turks are coming down to fight us and to do their best to destroy the 'Iraq Kingdom, the most violent of the anti British Shi'ah mujtahids has issued a fatwah calling on all true Moslems to subscribe to the Red Crescent - i.e. to the Turkish war chest. Nuri Pasha, who was lunching with me yesterday was boiling with indignation, all the more because as he said, he and others like him can make no open protest against an appeal made in the name of Islam.

What makes the heavy task easier is the feeling of complete solidarity one has intimate Arab friends. Nuri is a very exceptional creature, even for this surprising race, but there isn't anything one can't discuss with him just as one would with one of ourselves. It isn't that the point of view is exactly the same but that one finds in him a complete understanding of the differences which have to be adjusted. It's not the less complicated that except for Col. Joyce, Capt. Clayton and me, everyone holds Nuri to be an imp of mischief.

Well there! I must stop. I've still got a heap of work to do for the mail. I don't know why there has been such a rush this week. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude

I really must reopen my letter to say that the air mail isn't going today for the reason - this will interest Father - that the Wahhabis (Ibn Sa'ud's followers) have raided a village 12 miles S. of 'Amman and W. of the railway. They've killed 35 people. It's nothing but a tribal raid and has already been driven back, but this is the harvest of that fine field of dragons' teeth which Mr Philby sowed when he went to Jof [Jawf, Al (Al Jauf)]. Ibn Sa'ud has protested bitterly against his carryings on "with my Amirs" ie the Amirs of Jof.