I've enjoyed reading this thread over the years, so I was tickled to come across a reference to Rutbah Wells this weekend in a book I'm reading, which would allow me to pay back in kind. It's from The Pilots' Book of Everest, by Squadron Leader The Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale, AFC, MP and Flight Lieutenant D.F. M'Intyre (Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1936), a travelogue of the 1933 Houston-Mount Everest expedition as told by the expedition's two chief pilots. Pages 49-51 discuss the expedition's journey through Rutbah Wells on their way from Amman to Baghdad. It doesn't go into detail about the station itself, but it provides a colorful description of the surroundings and life at the station that I thought might add some texture to the evolving history of the fort:
"About five hundred miles of desert had to be covered before Baghdad could be reached, and in that desert the features repeat themselves with such monotony that they are useless as landmarks. The R.A.F., just after the war, made a plough furrow to guide them on this run. Nowadays there is an oil pipe line to follow and a motorcar track alongside it. The air commodore [P.F.M. Fellowes, head of the expedition and I believe an ancestor of Julian Fellowes] had taken a hand in making the furrow and knew enough about the desert to avoid foolish risks. As the visibility grew poorer we clung to the pipe line. At times we were only 100 feet above it. The sand became thicker, and eventually we lost sight of each other. We did not meet again until we reached the isolated fort of Rutbah Wells, the half-way house on several desert routes. Clydesdale got there first. The other two missed the point at which they should have turned away from the pipe line and had to go back in their tracks to look for it.
"The Fox Moth, helped by the following wind, made Rutbah at nine-forty that morning. M'Intyre arrived ten minutes later and took off again almost at once to look for the air commodore. He did not find him, but the air commodore soon realized that he had overshot the mark and came in half an hour late. The rest of that day was a trial to us. Weather reports were most unfavourable. Visibility was reported as 5 yards at some points between us and Baghdad, and the wind was whipping up white dust from the stony aerodrome to add to the fine sand already held in suspension. At last we settled in at the rest house, picketed our aeroplanes and waited for an improvement. Life seemed likely to be pretty dull and tedious, particularly as the price of beer--the only available solvent of dust in parched throats--was about three shillings a bottle.
"In fact the day at Rutbah turned out to be full of interest. Motorcar loads of pilgrims on their way to Mecca drove in to the fort during the afternoon, and the occupants tumbled out with prayer rugs for their evening devotions and with pots and pans for the preparation of the evening meal. A party of police also arrived in three cars with machine guns, bringing in prisoners charged with the theft of four hundred sheep from some tribe 100 miles away in the desert. In the evening a huge Nairn motor coach, which operates on a regular schedule across the desert between Baghdad and the coast, put in for an hour or two with its begrimed and weary passengers looking anything but fit for the night's journey over bumpy desert tracks. For our part, we lived comfortably and well in the rest-house, our appetites sharpened by the knowledge that everything eaten and drunk had been brought at least 250 miles for the benefit of such as we.
"The morning was cold when we rose soon after five next day, but there was much less wind and dust. The pipe line was rediscovered and followed hopefully towards the sunrise and Baghdad..."