February 11, 1919

I was very much on hand when the morning of the ninth dawned on which the pro-Arab and the pro-Sykes-Picot forces were to meet each other face to face before the Council of Ten in the famous Clock Room. In fact, I committed what would have been an indiscretion had I been a person of any importance. I went to the field of battle with Lawrence and there I joined Faisal and Nouri who were flanked by handsome young aides arrayed in robes and tunics of many colors, all of them with flashing, hungry eyes like the hawks of the desert. I could not refrain from saying, “Sir Mark must be a brave man to face that phalanx,” and Lawrence answered quietly, “He is a brave man and, worse luck, a stubborn one.”

There was a great shuffling of papers and then Balfour mumbled to the serviceable Hankey, “I think we’ll put Sykes on now. What?” “Have just had a message: Sykes has a bad cold. Can’t talk.” “Dear, dear. How provoking. I had so hoped we would get on with this business today. Tell him it will go over until the eleventh but he must not fail us then. I suppose we shall have to take up the next item on the agenda. What’s that? Oh, yes, those islands in the Baltic. I never can remember their names.”

The Arab contingent filed out. They were inclined to think that Sykes was playing possum, but not so Lawrence. “If Sykes admits he’s sick I fear he’s ill,” he said.

On the eleventh we all assembled again. Balfour was as usual quite a little late in arriving; blushing like a bride and with profuse apologies he said to his colleagues of the Ten: “Now we’ll get on with it. I’ll put Sykes on the stand immediately. Hankey, where is Sykes?” “His servant has just brought me sad news,” said Hankey in a low voice. “Sykes is dead. He died this morning at daybreak—septic pneumonia following on flu.”

“Dear, dear,” muttered Balfour. “It seems as though we shall never get on with this problem. And now, Hankey, what is the next item on the agenda? And do please see to it that I get the proper papers and that the important paragraphs are flagged. I so hate wading through interminable documents. …”

Faisal was a generous foe. Sykes’ coffin was returned to Yorkshire covered with a carpet of rare flowers which the Emir placed on it with his own Sheriffian hand. There were services in Aleppo and in Jerusalem for the soldier who had been withdrawn from the fray so suddenly, and in many other places where his motives were held in higher esteem than were the resulting policies.