Aqaba, Arab Islamic Republic of the Levant

22 October, 1972

MV Al Sudan made port late in 1972, winter in much of the world but not so cool in the arid Middle East. She was an old landing ship from the war, known back then as HMS Cicero. Through the many and strange means by which ships change hands, HMS Cicero became the Empire Arquebus and then the Al Sudan. Thirty years ago she transported troops hither and thither at the behest of the Ministry of War Transport, in 1972 she performed regular passenger service from Egypt around the Arabian Peninsula.

Unassuming amongst the passengers was an older man, well into his 60s by this point but conversing ably enough in Arabic to one of the ship’s crew. He stood with the other passengers, descending belowdecks and retrieving his baggage. Minutes later he emerged onto the gangway, setting foot on the soil of Jordan. Blue-helmeted soldiers worked at the customs gates, pale ones speaking Russian between themselves and halting, ill-practiced Arabic to the passengers as they checked papers. He passed through with no issues, being a traveler. Trying to be clever, perhaps, he spoke to the Russian soldiers in Arabic himself. A part of him yearned for one final adventure, and it wouldn’t do to mark himself too easily as an outsider. These Russians wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, anyway, between a native speaker or a practiced foreigner.

The drive to Amman took him through numerous UN checkpoints, but they had no real reason to stop an old man being shuttled about in a cab. They didn’t even check his papers half the time. Upon arrival he found the city a mess. The UAR had made an utter shambles of things, not that the Israelis had helped much. People scratched out an existence between shell craters, some of the flags flying overhead looked hand-made and bore Arabic script painted on in green: Allahu Ackbar! Others were the old UAR flag, which he snorted at. Fools, all of them.

He knocked at the doors of several old friends but found the houses empty, ransacked, or locked up. Another cab took him to Zarqa, but he found less still. He got in another car, traveling further afield to Azraq. Another, far more militarized UN checkpoint managed this time by Americans stood between him and his destination, and again he spoke with them via a translator for all the same reasons. They cleared him to proceed to Azraq, but they couldn’t very well control where he went. The old man still had his wiles.

In Azraq the place seemed different. Things seemed slightly more normal, and the flags-- while still hand-made-- bore no paint, but stitched-on versions of the Takbir. Here, too, he found an old friend’s house. This time there were neighbors who he met, kind folk pleasantly surprised by his command of Arabic.

“The Colonel was called to service in the war, he never returned,” they said with regret in their voices. Such was the pall hanging over any old soldier, it would seem. Bidding them farewell, he paused outside and was spied by a bearded man-- a soldier, the neighbors said. One of the fighters who had proclaimed a new Arab Islamic Republic in Iraq, and by extension ruled Jordan.

After a short discussion, the bearded man’s eyes widened. He asked the traveler to join him in a trip to his base, which out of curiosity the man agreed to. They walked several blocks to a ramshackle headquarters, guarded by more irregular bearded men with Russian weapons. The man in charge here likewise seemed highly interested in this strange visitor, and picked up a telephone.

Days later, the visitor had been packed into a bus with several Arab soldiers and arrived in Baghdad, of all places. Statues of the communists had been defaced and torn down, the city was grander than any in Jordan and bore fewer signs of war. The Islamists had taken it easily, or so it seemed. Here regular soldiers in uniforms mixed with the Islamists, all armed similarly.

He arrived before one of the higher ranked soldiers, this one with bars on his epaulets. Snapping a salute, the old man assumed a ramrod-straight posture he hadn’t for years. A little light came back to his eyes, it seemed maybe he had that one adventure left to him after all. In perfect Arabic, he introduced himself. “Sir John Bagot Glubb, at your service.”