The Desert Song 1936 Version T HERE are two systems of
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land transport from Baghdad to Damascus. One offers attractive prices ; the other an attractive reputation. We chose " the safe way " and paid about three times as much as we would-have paid by the other services. The Nairn brothers, strayed sons of New Zealand, have developed a service that stands head and shoulders above that of every other transport company in the desert.
Mr. Norman Nairn, the younger brother, was to accompany our coach to Damascus. Our trip promised to be exciting. Being winter, rains were normally expected, but not to the degree experienced. They were said to be the worst since 1926. Five times as much rain as in the previous year had already fallen.
A Week Late.
As an ominous preface to our own career on the desert, we saw an Indian convoy bringing its fatigued and half-starved passengers to port a week late. They had been without food for 36 hours. The Nairn service, "the safe way," had arrived only 48 hours overdue. The two drivers had, I understood, been continuously battling with the desert's vicissitudes for 60 hours.
While waiting for the coach to be loaded, we watched an Imperial Airways giant from Australia splash to a successful landing on a muddy field that had, ortly an hour earlier, been made usable. The report from the next landing, Gaza, proclaimed the field out of commission by heavy rainstorms.
Twenty-four of us—French, Persian, English, Greek, Iraqi and American—answered the roll call. We all sensed a stiff journey ahead. The brisk and humorous chatter of our host, Mr. Nairn, however, put our confidence on a high level.
What we saw around us as we dashed across the barren wastes reminded me of the ocean expanses. An occasional living thing, a plant or tree, would have relieved those monotonous stretches. But there is nothing conspicuous on a desert, except the all-pervading desert itself. We did have the variety of a few mirages, now and then, the illusions taking the form of distant blue lakes.
Just Part of the Nairn Service. . . .
Luncheon was the first really significant event of our trip. With anxious fingers we tore open the luncheon boxes provided. They are one of the distinguished features of the Nairn service. It was late and we were hungry. The food consisted of cheese sandwiches, two hardboiled eggs, almonds, dates and oranges. Our keen appetites were finally satiated. The drivers had uneventfully kept to schedule, and at the end of the first 12 hours we had reached Rutbah, the halfway station. Although the lap with the disagreeable reputation was still ahead, I had just about concluded that this desert was a "snap."
Out Into "The Blue."
The occupants of the coach were all congenial and in good spirits, except one car-sick French woman. She had undergone colour changes that would shame a chameleon. However, she did not seem to care.
After two hours' rest at Rutbah, we left at midnight for " the blue," as they call the wide open spaces that now separated us from Damascus.
Hello What is this? First drops of rain. Soon it was coming down hard. A long slit of lightning and a terrific thunder clap put all of us on the edge of our seats. Our two tired drivers and Mr. Nairn were peering through the muchdrenched windscreen. Then they alighted and tried to pick the best track.
Mr. Nairn returned to the wheel. The other two boys were far ahead
directing our course. The idea seethed to be to travel from one high place to the next one by rushing through, the watery middle—a valley c.alled a " wadi." We reversed as far as possible. With a. deafening roar of the engine, and screaming gears, we• plunged ahead. The coach was literally immersed in the spray of its own rush. The windscreen wiper was very busy. The engine was spluttering ; it died out. And we were then right in the middle of a wadi ! The spray had soaked the distributor.
Bogged in the Desert.
Mr. Nairn dried the wires by pouring petrol on to the distributor head and burning off the moisture. The
engine was running again. Holyever, we could not move. The rear wheels spun independently in the slime. The coach sank down to the back axle in the slush. . . .
It was just 2 a.m. We in the coach were quite warm and comfortable. The rain clouds had flown and the full December moon was flooding the desert with its pale light. Its beams were dancing in the shallow water, and the romance of the night had transformed our inconvenience into an adventure.
The boys outside were heroically struggling with a big jack, planks, shovels and a hoe. Every time the jack took hold, the long planks supporting it sank into the ooze as if it were so much toothpaste. The desert proved to be not -pure sand; it seemed to consist of fine gravel in a salty soil matrix.
. Finally, after a two-hour battle, planks were established under the rear wheels. Mr. Nairn, at the helm, roared the engine, let in the clutch and the wheels spun to the end of the mud-greased board, and then dived down into the mud again, as deep as ever.
Another tactic was then tried. The tyres were deflated and we seesawed back and forth. We managed to make a deep track in which we could run, but out of which we could not extricate ourselves.
Men Ordered Out.
All the men were ordered out and the load was lightened by at least a ton. The night was bitterly cold. For the first time we realized the icy conditions complicating the men's work. They were soaked to the skin.
With the engine roaring first in bottom gear and then in reverse, the vehicle see-sawed backwards and forwards. Next the women were ordered out. Immediately the
vehicle rolled on to the more solid strata. We raised .a rejoicing cry. The romance had left the experience so soon as we got Our feet wet.
It wasthen 6 a.m. The sun's first beams were spraying the Eastern horizon. Dry wood was soaked in petrol and kindled. Tea was brewed in the open. air. Most of us poured two steaming cups of tea down our shivering frames and -munched halfa-dozen " cookies." The hot stimulant, and hopping up and down, revitalized us. Tired although we were, laughter was rampant.
I made the mistake of offering the car-sick French " ghost" some tea and biscuits. She slowly opened her eyes, saw my offering and snapped them shut again.
Progress was slow, because the boys had to ferret out the passable portions of each wadi. We had come to an especially large expanse of water. The four coaches of the rival Indian company that had left 24 hours before us had just been dug out after a 10-hour struggle. It was a matter of great satisfaction to the Nairn passengers that we sailed through the hazard, before their very eyes, without a moment's hesitation.
The boys picked a path in the next wet area. We stormed it with a roaring engine and as we entered the mud it felt as if a huge rubber band were pulling us to a stop. T irty feet from the opposite side our momentum ceased, the rear w eels and the coach subsiding to the axle.
After an hour of digging and jacking, all the male passengers were harnessed to a tow line. They tried unsuccessfully., The four rival coaches rushed the water-hole from another direction. For a moment it
"Carry Your Bag, Sir ?"'
To heighten our humility, the driver of one of the rival operators' lorries, which was standing on solid ground, volunteered to tow us out. Mr. Nairn was in a tight spot. The passengers were anxious to move.
• but he did not want to accept favours from his cut-rate rivals. It was not hard to find the reason for their generosity. Mr. Nairn had a tractor stationed at the worst wadi hole. Some lorries had been marooned there for two weeks. It
was the Indian company's cht.nce to work a bargain—and it did.
In a Water-hole.
We were soon sitting baulked again in a new water-hole. Two of the four Indian coaches aroused our envy as they drove through where we were mud-detained. The third and fourth both stalled. A half-hour battle ensued before we reached hard ground. The cheap ,concern's vehicles was still stuck. Their passengers came over to us to try to buy food ; 2s. were offered for a biscuit. Mr. Nairn said: " I don't know how long we may be in getting to Damascus. I must provide a safe margin for passengers and my reputation."
We left the "bargain " coaches, with their 110 lungry passengers, stalled in "the Me." This seemed heartless desert justice.
At thefl worst wadi, where Mr. Nairn '8 tractor was stationed, he ac-. n37 complished a rather spectacular feat. After charting a course, our coach backed up to the crest of the hill, charged at. full speed, bit the _water, groaned and then slithered through to the other side. The tractor waiting for us was a Marmon four-wheeldrive outfit with immense tyres. It had 12 gears, the lowest ratio being 300 to one, and represented an investment of about £2,750.
We did not have the big-brother tractbr following us in vain. It was
not long before we entered a waterhole and immersed the axle on one side, giving us a pronounced list. It was a treat worth paying for to see this giant tractor drag our coach, with an avalanche of -mud, to terra firma.
We reached Damascus about midnight of the second day. The drivers faces showed lines of fatigue in its last stages. Mr. Nairn was beginning to look like a gargoyle, but wit flowed from his phonographic mouth, still providing a high level of entertainment.
Mr. Nairn's dream is a daily " safe way" across "the blue," air-conditioned coaches (with first, second and third-class compartments) plying between Haifa and Baghdad, an efficient non-stop mail and freight service, and rapid air transport. " want air-conditioned hotels in the desert and all through Iraq. A strictmonopoly through service is my ambition," he declared. H.M.P.