India to intrigue among the Sikh troops employed in Palestine.
There's a very strong party yelling for an American mandate. The
Armenians, poor devils, are pulling any string they can get hold
of, in the hope that anything at all may happen. The orthodox
Jews are against the Zionists; the Arabs are against them both,
and furious with one another. There's a pan-Islam movement on
foot, and a pan-Turanian--both different, and opposed. About 75
per cent of the British are as pro-Arab as they dare be, but the
rest are strong for the Zionists. And the Administrator's
neutral!--strong for law and order but taking no sides."

"And you?"

"I'm one of the men who is trying to keep the peace."

He invited me to stay to dinner. The other members of the mess
were trooping in, all his juniors, all obviously fond of him
and boisterously irreverent of his rank. Dinner under his
chairmanship was a sort of school for repartee. It was utterly
unlike the usual British mess dinner. If you shut your eyes for
a minute you couldn't believe that any one present had ever worn
a uniform. I learned afterward that there was quite a little
competition to get into that mess.

After dinner most of them trooped out again, to dance with
Zionist ladies at an institute affair. But he and I stayed, and
talked until midnight. Before I left, the key of Palestine and
Syria was in my hands.

"You seem interested," he said, coming with me to the door. "If