to the camp of one of the chiefs. The first part of the journey was
happily over and the gold and explosives were safe. A council was held
and it was decided to present six thousand pounds to Nuri by whose
permission the Howeitat were here in Sirhan; Nuri would probably allow
them to stop a few days longer and enrol volunteers, and when they
moved off would protect the Howeitat families and tents and herds.
Auda decided to go to Nuri on this embassy, because he was a friend.
Nuri was too near and too powerful a neighbour for Auda to quarrel
with, however great his delight in war, and the two men bore with each
other’s oddities in patient friendliness. Auda would explain to Nuri
what he, Nasir and Lawrence hoped to do, and say that Feisal wished
him to make a public demonstration of goodwill towards the Turks. Only
by these means could he cover the advance to Akaba while still
keeping the Turks favourably disposed. Feisal knew that Nuri was at the
Turks’ mercy still; they could blockade his province from the north. So
Auda went off with six bags of gold and said that he would rouse all
his clan, the Abu Tayi Howeitat, on the way. He would be back soon.
Meanwhile the local families promised unlimited hospitality and Nasir,
Lawrence, Nesib, Zeki and the rest were bound to accept it. Every
morning they had to go to a different guest-tent and eat an enormous
meal. About fifty men were present at each of these feasts and the food
was always served on the same enormous copper dish, five feet across,
which was lent from host to host and belonged really to Auda. It was
always the same boiled mutton and rice, two or three whole sheep making
a pyramid of meat in the middle with an embankment of rice all round,
a foot wide and six inches deep, filled with legs and ribs of mutton.
In the very centre were the boiled sheeps’ heads propped upright with
flapping ears and jaws pulled open to show the teeth. Cauldrons of
boiling fat, full of bits of liver, intestines, skin, odd scraps of
meat, were poured over the great dish until it began to overflow on the
ground; and at this sign the host called them all to eat. They would
rise with good-mannered shyness and crowd about the bowl, twenty-two at
a time, each man kneeling on one knee.
Taking their time from Nasir, the most honourable man of the company,
they rolled up their right sleeves, said grace and dipped together
with their fingers. Only the right hand might be used, for good
manners. Lawrence always dipped cautiously; his fingers could hardly
bear the hot fat. Nobody was allowed to talk, for it was an insult
to the host not to appear to be very hungry indeed, eating at
top speed. The host himself stood by and encouraged their appetites
as they dipped, tore and gobbled. At last eating gradually slackened
and each man crouched with his elbow on his knee, the hand hanging
down from the wrist to drip over the edge of the tray. When all had
finished Nasir cleared his throat for a signal and they rose together
in haste, muttering, ‘God requite it to you, host,’ and then made room
for the next twenty-two men. The more dainty eaters wiped the grease
off their hands on a flap of the roof-cloth intended for this purpose.
Then sighingly all sat down on carpets, while slaves splashed water
over their hands and the tribal cake of soap went round. When the last
man had eaten and coffee had been served, the guests remounted with a
quiet blessing. Instantly the children would rush for what was left,
and tear the gnawed bones from one another; some would escape with
valuable pieces, to eat them safely behind a distant bush. The dogs
yapping about finishing what was left. Nesib and Zeki soon broke down
under this continual feeding, not being used to desert hospitality, so
Nasir and Lawrence had to go out twice a day for a week and eat for the
honour of Feisal.
On May the thirtieth they went forward again in company with the
whole of the Abu Tayi; it was the first time that Lawrence had ever
taken part in the march routine of a Bedouin tribe. There was no
apparent order, but the caravan advanced simultaneously on a wide
front, each family making a self-contained party. The men were on
riding-camels; the black goat-hair tents and the howdahs in which the
women were hidden were carried on the baggage-camels. Farraj and Daud
were behaving with more than usual mischief in this care-free
atmosphere. They rode about leaving a trail of practical jokes behind
them. Particularly they made jokes about snakes. Sirhan was visited
that summer by a plague of snakes—horned vipers, puff-adders, cobras
and black snakes. By night movement was dangerous and at last the party
learned to beat the bushes with sticks as they walked. It was dangerous
to draw water after dark, for snakes swam in the pools or gathered in
clusters on their brinks. Twice puff-adders invaded the coffee-hearth,
twisting among the seated men.
Lawrence’s party of fifty killed about twenty snakes daily. Seven men
were bitten. Three died, four recovered after great fear and pain. The
Howeitat treatment was to bind up the bite with snake-skin plaster and
read chapters of the Koran to the patient until he died. They also
pulled on thick blue-tasselled red ankle-boots from Damascus over their
feet when they went out at night. The snakes loved warmth and at night
would lie beside the sleepers under or on the blankets: so great care
was taken in getting up each morning. The constant danger was getting
on everyone’s nerves except Farraj’s and Daud’s. They thought it very
witty to raise false alarms and give furious beatings to harmless twigs
and roots: at last Lawrence at a noonday halt forbade them ever again
to call out ‘Snakes!’ About an hour later, sitting on the sand, he
noticed them smiling and nudging one another. His glance idly followed
theirs to a bush close by where lay coiled a brown snake, about to
strike at him.
He threw himself to one side and called out to another of his men, who
jumped at the snake with a riding-cane and killed it. Lawrence then
told him to give the boys half a dozen strokes with the cane to teach
them not to take things too literally at his expense. Nasir,
dozing beside Lawrence, woke up shouting: ‘And six more from me!’ Nesib
and Zeki and the rest who had all suffered from the boys’ bad sense
of humour called out for more punishment still. However, Lawrence
saved Farraj and Daud from the full weight of their companions’ anger;
instead he proclaimed them moral outcasts and set them to gather sticks
and draw water under the charge of the women, the greatest disgrace for
sixteen-year-olds who counted themselves men.
The tribe moved on from well to well—the water always brackish—through
a landscape of barren palms and bushes which were no use for grazing
or firewood and only served to harbour snakes. At last they reached a
place called Ageila where they came on a village of tents, and out rode
Auda to meet them. He had a strong escort with him of Ruwalla horsemen,
which showed that he had had success with Nuri. The Ruwalla, bareheaded
and yelling, with brandished spears and wild firing of rifles and
revolvers, welcomed the party to Nuri’s empty house.
Here they stopped, pitched their tents, and received deputations from
the clans and gifts of ostrich eggs, Damascus dainties, camels and
scraggy horses. Three men were set to make coffee for the visitors, who
came in to Nasir as Feisal’s deputy and took the oath of allegiance
to the Arab movement, promising to obey Nasir and follow him. Their
presents included an unintentional one of lice; so that long before
sunset Nasir and Lawrence were nearly mad with irritation. Auda had a
stiff left arm due to an old wound, but experience had taught him how
to poke a camel-stick up his left sleeve and turn it round and round
against his ribs, which relieved the itch a good deal.
Nebk was the place decided upon for a rallying ground; it had
plentiful water and some grazing. Here Nasir and Auda sat down for days
to discuss together how to enrol the volunteers and prepare the road
to Akaba, now about a hundred and eighty miles to the west. This left
Nesib, Zeki and Lawrence at leisure. As usual the Syrians let their
imagination run ahead of them. In their enthusiasm they forgot all
about Akaba and their immediate purpose, and spoke of marching straight
to Damascus, rousing the Druse and Shaalan Arabs on the way. The
Turks would be taken by surprise and the final objective won without
troubling about the steps between.
This was absurd. There was a Turkish army massing at Aleppo to recover
Mesopotamia, which could be rushed down to Damascus. Feisal was still
in Wejh. The British were held up on the wrong side of Gaza. If
Damascus should be taken now by Nasir he would be left unsupported,
without resources or organization, without even a line of communication
with his friends. But Nesib was infatuated with his idea, and Lawrence
could only stop him by intrigue. So he went to Auda and told him that
if Damascus were made the new objective, the credit and spoils would
go to Nuri and not him; he went to Nasir and used the friendship
between them to keep him on the Akaba plan and also flattered Nasir’s
distinguished birth at the expense of Nesib’s, a Damascene of doubtful
ancestry. This was sordid but necessary. For Damascus, even if captured
by surprise, could not be held six weeks; the British at Gaza could not
attack at a moment’s notice, nor would transport be available for a
landing at Beyrout. And a set-back at Damascus would end the rebellion:
rebellions that stand still or go back are always doomed. Akaba must be
taken first.
Fortunately, Auda and Nasir listened to Lawrence but Nesib decided
to go off with Zeki to the Druse mountains to prepare the way for his
great Damascus scheme. The gold that Feisal had shared out to him was
not enough for his purpose, so he asked Lawrence for a promise of more
if he raised a separate movement in Syria under his own leadership.
Lawrence knew that he could not do this, so promised Nesib that, if he
now lent Nasir some of his gold to help him reach Akaba, funds would be
got together there for the Syrian movement. He agreed, and Nasir was
glad of two unexpected bags of gold for the payment of new volunteers.
Nesib went off optimistically: Lawrence knew that he could do no harm
with the little money that he had with him, and by talking too much
might mislead the Turks into thinking that an immediate attack really
was intended on Damascus.
XIV
What follows next is the brief and unsatisfactory story of what seems
to have been the maddest and most dangerous adventure undertaken by
any man in the whole course of the World War: a four-hundred-mile tour
through the Turks’ country with visits to their key-positions, without
any disguise but the unbelievable folly of the journey. Lawrence
decided to visit Damascus and the railway to the north of it. The
exact account of it he has never given, even in his _Seven Pillars of
Wisdom_, and I have been unable to piece it together accurately from
the casual fragments which he has from time to time given his friends.
But the motive of the journey seems clear, and the fact of it is beyond
dispute. At Nebk Lawrence had time to think about his own part in the
Revolt, and was not pleased with it. He began to see clearly things
that he had been hitherto content to put into the background.
First of all, he was more or less an Englishman and bound to the hope
of staving off his country’s defeat. Successful war in the East, with
the present deadlock in the West, might turn the scale and save further
slaughter. Next, he was an Arab by adoption: the tribes trusted and
loved him, and he was bound to do his honourable best for them. The
Arabs could help the British to success while fighting their own war
for freedom. So far, so good, but then came the difficulty. The Revolt
had begun on false pretences. The British Government through the High
Commissioner of Egypt had agreed to Sherif Hussein’s demand for Arab
freedom not only in Arabia but in parts of Syria and Mesopotamia,
‘saving the interests of our ally France.’ This clause concealed the
secret Sykes-Picot treaty between England, France and Russia, in
which it was agreed to annex some of the promised areas and establish
‘spheres of influence’ over the rest: in fact there was no genuine
freedom possible. The High Commissioner had not been told beforehand
of this treaty and so the Sherif did not know about it either.
What apparently had happened was that the Foreign Office had two
departments, each responsible for one of these agreements, and neither
had taken the other into proper confidence. The High Commissioner,
it may be noted, when instructed by the Government to make the
agreement, had sent a strongly worded message of warning. He had said
that in helping the Nationalist cause in Arabia a most dangerous
thing was being done. Freedom for the Arabs might grow one day into a
Frankenstein’s monster: and he urged that great care should be taken
to deal honourably with the Arab leaders; particularly he recommended
that a single Government Department should be entrusted with all
negotiations.
The Russian revolution took place in the spring of 1917, and the
Bolsheviki published the secret treaty, copies of which the Turks
sent about where they would do harm to England. Nuri had just had a
copy sent him and confronted Lawrence with it; it was a great shock
to Lawrence to be asked which of two contradictory pledges was to
be believed. Lawrence did not know what to answer; he felt that the
most honourable thing to do would be to send the Arabs home, and yet
perhaps only by Arab help could the war in the East be won. So he said
that England kept her word in letter and spirit, and that the later
pledge cancelled the former treaty. This comforted Nuri, and the Arabs
thereafter trusted Lawrence and fought finely with him: but instead
of being proud he was bitterly ashamed of his deception. Later,
he quieted his conscience as well as he might by telling Feisal all
he knew and by refusing all decorations, rank and moneys that his
part in the Revolt brought him personally. He would make the Revolt
so well-armed a success that the Powers could not in honour or common
sense rob the Arabs of what they had won: and he would fight another
battle for the Arab Cause in the Council Chamber after the War ended.
But this was not all. He knew now that the War was entering another
stage. In Syria the reputation of England was powerful and the
reputation of the Bedouin leaders and of Mecca was low. He was the
only man who, knowing the Syrians from before the War and having the
confidence of the Arabians and being a representative of England, could
carry the Revolt successfully north. All the responsibility fell on
him. Was he strong enough to undertake it? He never had counted himself
a man of action; books and maps were more in his line and he had left
the Cairo office only under protest. And, again, towards what freedom
was he leading the Arabs? A Confederation of Arab States, even if such
could be founded against the wishes of France and England, would be
necessarily the inheritor of the Turkish Empire. Town Syrians like
Nesib and Zeki would run these states: their Governments might be more
enterprising than the Turkish Government, but would be as corrupt; and
the innocence and idealism of the desert Arabs on whose account alone
he hoped for freedom would be infected by the filth of Damascus or
Basra. Was the gift of freedom worth giving?
In this tangle of thought and shame he seems to have decided in Bedouin
style to throw himself on the mercy of fate. He would go out on this
mad ride and, so far from taking precautions, would expose himself
to every possible danger. If the Turks were so foolish as to let him
get back safely, they must pay the penalty of their folly, for he would
carry the Revolt through to a finish with no more qualms. If they
caught him, on the other hand, the Revolt would get no farther than the
deserts of Arabia.
On June the third, 1917, in the fifth week of the journey from Wejh,
he started off northward with a few of his body-guard and was away a
fortnight. How he reached Damascus—he admits the visit—is not known,
but it is possible that he went by way of the Druse mountains and the
Lebanon, there visiting his friends the Christian Syrians, and that he
turned south near Baalbek. He is said to have been convoyed by relays
of local tribesmen, beginning with the Ruwalla, and changing them at
each tribal boundary. Apparently none of his own men nor of Nasir’s
completed the journey with him. He is said to have been franked by
private letters of Feisal’s, but, as I say, nothing certain is known
of his immediate purpose, his route or the results of his journey. At
Ras Baalbek, south of Hama, considerably beyond Damascus and Baalbek,
the farthest points associated by rumour with his journey, there
was an important bridge over which all the railway traffic between
Constantinople and Syria passed. An intercepted enemy report of that
month mentions the destruction of the bridge and one hesitates to
regard this as a coincidence; yet its demolition must have meant the
use of a great deal of explosive and Lawrence appears to have ridden
light.
Of the Damascus visit little more than negative information can be
given. Lawrence neither dined, lunched nor breakfasted with Ali Riza
Pasha the Governor (as Mr. Lowell Thomas and others have stated),
nor did he then or at any time since set eyes on Yasin, another
Arab patriot. But it seems that he made arrangements with prominent
members of the Freedom Committee in Damascus for the action to be taken
when the Turks were finally expelled. There is a circumstantial story
current that he rode into Damascus in English uniform on a camel and
that seeing a notice pasted up offering a large reward for the capture
alive or dead of ‘El Orens, Destroyer of Railways,’ with a portrait at
the top, he decided to put the matter to a supreme test; he sat down
to coffee under one of these notices: but, nobody connecting the man
and the portrait, after an hour or two he went on. That while he was in
the city the men with him camped outside the walls in a cherry orchard:
that there they were disturbed by some inquisitive Turkish policemen
who, however, lie buried under the cherry trees. The poster story at
least is untrue: none such were put up, nor was any camera-portrait of
enlargeable size available. On the positive side, Lawrence has told me
that he was never disguised during this ride, either as a woman or as
anything else, but instead put off necessary visits to dangerous places
until after darkness had set in. In the dark his figure could not be
distinguished from that of any other Arab of the desert fringe. And the
reference in _Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ to his usually wearing British
uniform when visiting enemy camps may well refer to a practice begun on
this ride. Whether or no he regarded Damascus as a ‘dangerous place’ I
cannot say. Other picturesque incidents reported of this journey are
as demonstrably untrue as the poster story. For instance, the Lowell
Thomas account of his attempted visit to a military academy at Baalbek
is disproved by there not having been a military academy there—only an
infantry depot and a training camp. It is possible, though, that
he visited these. Nor did he enter Rayak junction (‘for the purpose of
inspecting the railway repair shops’—another story) during the War. He
seems, however, to have visited one or more of the bridges over the
River Yarmuk, of which an account will be given in a later chapter, and
to have been at Ziza, the headquarters of the Beni Sakhr tribe.
At all events, Lawrence’s reticence about this ride is deliberate
and based on private reasons, and it is my opinion that he has found
mystification and perhaps statements deliberately misleading or
contradictory the best way to hide the truth of what really happened,
if anything of any serious importance did happen. His return journey
was possibly by a Yarmuk bridge and across the Deraa-Amman railway to
Azrak, and so to Nebk. I have marked the route, in the map, with dots
to show my uncertainty.
XV
He returned on June the sixteenth and found Nasir and Auda still at
Nebk; the final preparations for the march to Akaba had been made. Auda
bought a small flock of sheep from a drover and gave a farewell feast,
the greatest of the whole series. Hundreds of men were present and five
fills of the great tray were eaten up as fast as they were cooked and
carried in. After the feast the whole party lay round the coffee-hearth
outside the tent in the starlight while Auda and others told stories.
Lawrence happened to remark that he had looked for Mohammed el Dheilan
in his tent that afternoon to thank him for the present of a milch
camel, but had not found him. Auda began to laugh out loud until every
one looked at him to know what the joke was. Auda pointed to Mohammed
sitting gloomily beside the coffee-mortar and said to the company, ‘Ho!
shall I tell you why Mohammed has for fifteen days not slept in his
tent?’ To every one’s delight he told how Mohammed had bought in the
bazaar at Wejh a costly string of pearls and had not given it to any
of his wives, so that they all began to quarrel and only agreed in one
thing, to keep him out of the tent. This was Auda’s usual mischievous
invention and Mohammed, whose wives in the tent near by had come
up close to the partition-curtain to listen, was much confused and
appealed to Lawrence to witness that Auda lied.
Lawrence began his answer with the phrase that introduces a formal tale
in Arabia. ‘In the name of God the merciful, the loving-kind. We were
six in Wejh. There were Auda and Mohammed and Zaal, Gasim, Mufaddhi and
the poor man’ (which meant Lawrence himself). ‘And one night just
before dawn Auda said, “Let us make a raid upon the market.” And we
said, “In the name of God.” And we went; Auda in a white robe and a red
headcloth, and Kasim sandals of pieced leather. Mohammed in a silken
tunic of “seven kings”[3] and barefoot. Zaal ... I forget Zaal. Gasim
wore cotton and Mufaddhi was in silk of blue stripe with an embroidered
headcloth. Your servant was as he now is.’
[3] See page 37.
He paused, and the Howeitat sat dead-silent. Lawrence was mimicking
Auda’s epic style, also the wave of his hand, the booming voice and the
accentuation of the points or what he thought were the points of his
pointless stories. Parody was an unknown art among the Bedouin, and
Lawrence’s beginning had a tremendous effect on them. He went on to
tell how they left the tents (giving a list of them) and walked down
the village, describing all the passers-by and the ridges ‘all bare of
grazing, for by God, that country was barren. And we marched: and after
we had marched the time of a smoked cigarette, we heard something, and
Auda stopped and said, “Lads, I hear something.” And Mohammed stopped
and said, “Lads, I hear something.” And Zaal said, “By God, you are
right.” And we stopped to listen, and there was nothing, and the poor
man said, “By God, I hear nothing.” And Zaal said, “By God, I hear
nothing,” and Mohammed said, “By God, I hear nothing.” And Auda said,
“By God, you are right!” And we marched and marched and the land was
barren and we heard nothing. And on our right came a man, a negro, on a
donkey. The donkey was grey with black ears and one black foot and on
its shoulder was a brand like this’ (here Lawrence made a scribble in
the air) ‘and its tail moved and its legs. Auda saw it and said,
“By God, a donkey.” And Mohammed said, “By the very God, a donkey and a
slave.”’
Lawrence continued this Arab version of the ‘Three Jovial Welshmen’
with ‘And we marched. And there was a ridge, not a great ridge but a
ridge as great as from here to the what-do-you-call-it yonder; and we
marched to the ridge and it was barren. The land was barren: barren:
barren. And we marched; and beyond the what-do-you-call-it was a
thing-um-bob as far as from this very place here to that actual spot
there and afterwards a ridge; and we came to that ridge: it was barren,
all that land was barren: and as we came up that ridge and were by the
head of that ridge and came to the end of the head of that ridge, by
God, by my God, by the very God, the sun rose upon us.’
This brought down the house. Every one knew the repetitions and linked
phrases that Auda used to bring some sort of excitement into the dull
story of a raid in which nothing happened, and they knew of old the
terrible bathos of the sunrise which ended the story. But the walk to
the market at Wejh was one also that many of them had taken. So they
howled with laughter, rolling on the ground.