The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 63
63 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN were calling on us while dinner was being prepared. The calls went on until midnight, and then the dimmer was ready, and we ate, and had a few hours' sleep. The next morning we started quite early and made Basra by 8 O'clock, where we stopped for a wash and breakfast. Our next stop was Baghdad, which proved to be the hottest place I have ever encountered. I mean, on that day it certainly was. I consumed six long glasses of orange squash with plenty of ice but it had no effect on my raging thirst. The next stop was Rutba Wells, where we stopped for lunch, right in the middle of the desert. I had not seen such a cluster of flies anywhere in my life as I saw in Rutba Wells. I was surprised that right in the middle of the desert with nothing else visible, there should be so many flies that the veranda of the place was absolutely black, as though it were paved with flies. Luckily, the rooms had wire gauze doors with automatic springs, which kept the flies out. We took off after lunch and we had to land for refuelling again at one of the pipeline stations; there was no name to the place, only a letter and a number. For dinner we stopped at Gaza where we experienced the first cool breeze on that searing day, and by midnight we got to Cairo. The next morning we took a flying boat and crossed the Mediterranean. We stopped in Crete alongside a small British Naval boat which was moored there, and were served tea and biscuits. In the evening we got to Brindisi. From Brindisi to Paris, we had to travel by train because Mussolini would not allow Imperial Airways to fly over Italy. On the days on which aircraft was expected to land in Brindisi, a sleeping coach was reserved by Imperial Airways for their passengers. The passengers were taken to a hotel in Brindisi, and after dinner boarded the train and spent two nights and one day on the train. It proceeded along the Adriatic Coast, and then through Switzerland and on the third morning arrived in Paris. We were taken to a hotel for breakfast and on to Le Bourget, which was then the only airport, and there we got into a comfortable aircraft of Imperial Airways. It so happened that Lord and Lady Willingdon, who had been on leave from India in the middle of their tenure of the Viceroyalty, and had been vacationing for a fortnight in the South of France, joined the aircraft there and presently we landed at Croydon, which was the airport for London.