Fingernails

I read something quite ghoulish yesterday, a story recounted by Zahra Freeth, Colonel H.R.P. and Dame Violet Dickson's daughter. (For those that might not know, Col. Dickson was a British Political Agent to Kuwait in the 1920s-1930s, who then worked for Kuwait Oil Company after he retired from the British govt. The Dickson House on Gulf Road, across from the Souq Sharq fish market, was their family home until 1991, when Dame Violet, also known as Umm Saud, passed away at the age of 92.)

This is a story told to the Dicksons by some residents of Jahra in the 1930s, and is on the aftermath of the battle against the Ikhwan in Jahra (Red Fort) in 1920.

"During the days that followed...before the dead could all be buried the fingernails fell off the corpses, and for a period after the battle whenever the wind rose human fingernails were blown like husks around Jahra, eddying and drifting among houses and tents, creating a wierd rattling sound which was vividly described by those who had heard it." (Zahra Dickson Freeth, A New Look at Kuwait, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1972.)

What an awful image!