CHAPTER XVIII

CRUSHING A PLOT

Anti-British activities--Headquarters at Hamadan--Plans to seize ringleaders--Midnight arrests--How the Governor was entrapped.

Back in Hamadan, the fierce political enmity of the Democrats, which had been quiet for some time, broke into fresh activity after the removal of Dunsterville headquarters to Kasvin at the end of May.

General Byron, who was in charge at Hamadan, speedily discovered through his Intelligence Officers that the local Democrats were bent on making things merry for the British, if they possibly could. Previous rebuffs had taught the Democrats the value of silence and a more complete method of organization. Their defects in these directions were now to some extent remedied. Turkish gold, too, was forthcoming, and the Democrats of Hamadan became a secret political organization--a sort of Persian Mafia or Camorra--which was hatching a political conspiracy against the British. It was the Ittahad-i-Islam again at work. This organization, while outwardly making common cause with the Islamic malcontents of Hamadan and elsewhere, was in secret working strenuously for Turkey and the Turkish cause, and the Democrats {197} who were caught in its net were but a means to that end.

One thing, however, soon became clear--that a vast network of Turkish espionage, with ramifications through Persia, had its headquarters in Hamadan. For many weeks the organization was allowed to have free rein in the carrying out of its "holy work."

Its propaganda mills worked long and late; its agents came and went; Turkish emissaries slipped into Hamadan and out again without any difficulty, and the leaders of the Hamadan movement, which aimed at our overthrow by a _tour de force_, must have often chuckled to themselves at our apparent simplicity and at the ease with which we had been outmatched by Oriental cunning.

While feigning blindness, the British were very watchful indeed. It was like the story of the faithful retainer of the Samurai noble in feudal Japan who set out to avenge his lord's death. His enemies were powerful and vigilant, but in the end his carefully simulated indifference threw them completely off their guard, and he triumphed. So it was in Hamadan, where sharp wits were pitted against sharp wits. In time the chiefs of the inner ring of the Hamadan combination grew careless. Little by little, their secret signs and passwords, their working programme, their membership roll, and even full details of the Turkish system of espionage in Persia generally, passed into our hands. There was little more to wait for. It was time to strike.

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But a fresh difficulty immediately presented itself. The plotters, in co-operation with Kuchik Khan, had fixed the date for an armed revolt against British occupation; and what afterwards happened in Egypt, was, in June of 1918, deliberately and carefully planned to take place in Hamadan. There were practically no troops in the town at the time, and the torch of revolt once lighted and the work of our extermination begun, ten or twelve officers with a couple of dozen of N.C.O's. of Dunsterforce could not for long have resisted the determined onslaught of a fanatical and arrack-incited population of 70,000.

To arrest the leaders openly in daylight would assuredly have precipitated a disaster, and led to bloodshed, and probably to our own undoing. The inner council of the conspiracy consisted of fifteen members, and included the Persian Governor and a number of local notables.

Secrecy and surprise were essential; so the plan hit upon was a night descent simultaneously on the whole band, an officer and two N.C.O's. being detailed for each arrest.

The procedure in the following case may be taken as typical of the others: In the early hours of the morning a Persian batman in the employ of a British officer was directed to deliver a sealed envelope marked "From O.C. Hamadan" at the house of one of the plotters. The messenger, hammering at the door, aroused the sleepy watchman within, and told him {199} that he had an important letter to deliver from the British General. "Come back in the morning," would reply the watchman, "my master is in bed and asleep." The messenger, duly coached, would reply, "That is impossible. Open the door. The letter, I know, is important, for I have been given ten krans to deliver it safely." The watchman, while wary and inclined to be suspicious of belated callers, was also avaricious, and was not going to let slip any chance of netting a few krans. As had been anticipated, his greed overcame his caution. He opened the door in order to claim his share of the late letter delivery fee. As soon as he did so, a couple of stalwart British sergeants, springing out of the darkness, seized, bound, and gagged him. Once within the high-walled courtyard of the house, the rest was easy. It was but a few steps to the sleeping apartments, and the proscribed conspirator as a rule woke up to find the chilly muzzle of a British service revolver pressing against his temple. He was gagged to prevent his raising an alarm; his hands were bound; and, thus helpless, he was carried off and dumped into a covered motor lorry, where an armed guard saw that he came to no harm.

But the Persian Governor himself was the most difficult of the whole band to surprise and arrest. His residence was in a big walled serai at the extreme end of Hamadan, and, in accordance with Persian custom, and by reason of his official position, he lived surrounded by a guard of about fifty men. To {200} deal with him tact and finesse were necessarily called into play.

The task of securing the Governor quietly and without unnecessary fuss fell to the lot of a Colonel who had learned something of native ways in Rhodesia and East Africa. He was an Irishman possessing a glib tongue, a knowledge of Persian, and all the suavity of his race. He also had the advantage of being known to the Governor and his entourage. So, when he knocked at the door of the Governor's residence at an hour long after midnight, the watchman admitted him without hesitation. The guard turned out and eyed the intruder suspiciously, but, finding it was the sartip sahib (Colonel) from the British Mission who was making inquiries about the state of the Governor's health, they yawned sleepily and betook themselves to the shelter of their blankets, vowing inwardly that the eccentricities of this strange race called English who paid ceremonious visits in the middle of the night were beyond the comprehension of any Oriental mind.

"There has come wonderful news from Teheran, and the Governor must be told at once," said the visitor, flourishing a big envelope with many red seals attached thereto.

"Good," replied the janitor deferentially, "the Governor is enjoying sweet repose, but if it is the wish of the Colonel Sahib, I will take him the paper."

"Alas, that it should be so!" interposed the caller gravely, "but into his own hands alone am I permitted {201} to deliver this precious letter. Go, faithful one! Summon your illustrious master, the protector of the poor, and the friend of the oppressed! I will remain on guard by the open door, and none shall enter in your absence."

The ruse succeeded. The servitor departed on his errand, and in a few minutes returned with the Governor clad in a dressing-gown and slippers. He greeted the Colonel, who handed him the envelope which contained a blank sheet of paper. It was dark on the threshold where the Governor stood tearing open the missive, so the Colonel proffered the aid of his electric torch. Presently the Governor, divining that something was amiss, looked up with a start, and found himself covered with a revolver. "Come with me," said the officer tersely, "and, above all, do not resist or attempt to summon help!" The trapped official obeyed with docility, and followed his captor to a waiting automobile, into which he was bundled and placed in charge of a British guard. Two sentries at the guardroom door kept the Persian guard within in subjection while the Governor's papers were being seized. These latter proved to the hilt his complicity in the plot that was being hatched to destroy British lives in Hamadan. The deposed official--accompanied by copies of the incriminating documents--was sent as a present to the Teheran Cabinet, with a polite request for an explanation of the gross treachery of their unfaithful servant.

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The coup had succeeded without the firing of a shot, and the back of the conspiracy was broken, for it was left impotent and leaderless. Before sunrise all the captives, with the exception of the Governor, were on their way to Bagdad and an internment camp.

An amusing sidelight on the affair was the attitude of the Persian police in Hamadan. Hearing of the arrests, they assumed the worst. They bolted, taking refuge in the neighbouring cornfields, where they remained a whole day under the impression that they were the sole survivors of a "general massacre" of inhabitants carried out by the British.

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