"When will this war be over?" groans the man in Falluga.
"Shut up!" complains the staff man. "That is in the hands of Allah."
I write zealously. This is important for our intelligence people. Despondency. War weariness. And that is the best brigade in the Egyptian army... Nonsense! I suddenly say to myself. Those are the very same words that we use. War weariness? Who is not tired of this war? Wouldn’t we break into a wild dance of jubilation if someone told us that a peace agreement had been signed?
And anyway - why not? Why are we fighting? Why do they aim their British weapons at us, and we our Czech machine guns at them?
Do we really have any conflict with each other? Isn’t what they want the same as what we want - to drive out the British, the Americans, and the French and to develop Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq?
For a moment I have the crazy idea of taking the receiver from Jamus’s hand and talking with them. "Listen to me, Suleiman," I would say, "we are wasting our time here. You won’t really be serving your homeland, nor I mine, if we kill each other. Your father is a Muslim and mine a heathen and they hate each other. But you and I, Suleiman, what have we got against each other? Don’t we belong to the same patch of earth? We speak (almost) the same language. And if we argue, the Brits, the Yanks, or the Moujiks will come and swallow us up. If we had a little sense, Suleiman, we would organize a Sulha.171 would help you to drive the British out of Sudan and you would help me to irrigate my land. Then we could work together to make this sleepy region blossom and live peacefully and amicably..."
An idiotic idea. You can’t speak to the enemy on the telephone, or they will know that we have tapped their line. And anyway: what can we achieve - Suleiman, Jamus, and I, and all the hundreds who are lying around here and trying to kill each other? What is our opinion worth? We are just little pawns on the great chessboard, moved by someone who finds the opinions of Suleiman and me as important as the sex life of the fleas which are biting us here.
"Quick. Write it down!" calls Jamus.
Iraq Suweidan is speaking with Beit Jibrin. They are talking about light tanks and heavy automatic Vickers machine guns. Apparently