Part 13

Daud and Farraj were proving good servants; they were brave and cheerful, rode well, worked willingly. They spent much time attending to Lawrence’s camel which had the mange very badly on its face; having no proper ointment they rubbed in butter, which was a slight relief for the intolerable itch. This tenth day’s journey brought the party to the railway which they had to cross near a station called Dizad. It ran in a long valley. They happened on a deserted stretch of line and were much relieved, because Sharraf had warned them of constant Turkish patrols of mule-mounted men, camel-corps and trolleys carrying machine-guns. There was good pasture on both sides of the line, and the riding-camels were allowed to graze for a few minutes while Lawrence and the Ageyl began fixing gun-cotton and gelatine charges to the rails. The camels were then caught again and taken on to safety while the fuses of the charges were lighted in proper order: the hollow valley echoed with the bursts. This was Auda’s first experience of dynamite, and he improvised some verses in praise of its power and glory. Then they cut three telegraph-wires, tied the free ends to the saddles of six riding-camels and drove the astonished team far across the valley with the growing weight of twanging wire and snapped poles dragging after them. When the camels could pull no more, the tangle was cut loose. They rode on in the growing dusk until the country, with its switchback of rock ridges, was too difficult to be crossed safely in the dark by weak camels. They halted, but no fire was lit for fear of alarming the Turks who, roused by the noise of the explosions, could be heard in the block-houses all along the line shouting loudly and shooting at shadows.

The next morning they left the rocky country behind and found themselves on a great plain: it was a country unknown to Europeans, and old Auda told Lawrence the names of this valley or that peak, bidding him mark them on his map. Lawrence said that he did not want to pander to the curiosity of geographers in an unspoiled country. Auda was pleased and began to give Lawrence instead personal notes and news about the chiefs in the party or ahead on the line of march. This whiled away dreary hours of slow march across this waste of sand and rotten sandstone slabs. There were no signs of life in this desert, which was named ‘The Desolate,’ no tracks of gazelle, no lizards, rats or even birds. There was a hot wind blowing with a furnace-taste and, as the day went on and the sun rose, it blew stronger. By noon it was half a gale. The Arabs drew their headcloths tightly across their faces to keep the stinging sand from wearing open the sun-chapped skin into painful wounds. Lawrence’s throat was so dry that he could not eat for three days after without pain. By sunset they had gone fifty miles and came then to a valley full of scrub as dry as dead wood. The party dismounted wearily and gathered armfuls to build a great fire to show the rest of the party, from whom they had got separated the previous day after crossing the railway, where they were halting. When there was a fine heap gathered together they found that nobody had any matches. However, the main body came up an hour later, and that night they set sentries to watch because it was a district over which raiding parties frequently passed. They gave the camels the whole night for their grazing.

Noon of the twelfth day brought them to the place towards which they had been heading, an ancient stone well about thirty feet deep. The water was plentiful but rather brackish and soon grew foul when kept in a water-skin. On the thirteenth day out the sun was hotter than ever: at midday Auda and his nephew Zaal rode out hunting towards a green-looking stretch of country while the rest of the party rested in the shade under some cliffs. The hunters soon returned, each with a gazelle. Bread had been baked the day before at the well, and they had water in their skins, so they made a feast of it. On the fourteenth day they came in view of the great desert of sand-dunes called Nefudh which Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Gertrude Bell and other famous travellers had crossed. Lawrence wanted to cut across a corner of it but old Auda refused, saying that men went to Nefudh only out of necessity when raiding, and that the son of his father did not raid on a mangy, tottering camel. Their business was to reach the next place, Arfaja, alive.

They rode over monotonous glittering sand and over worse stretches of polished mud, often miles square and white as paper, which reflected back the sun until the eyes were tortured even through closed eyelids. It was not a steady pain but ebbed and flowed, piling up to an agony until the rider nearly swooned; then, falling away for a moment, gave him time to get a new capacity for suffering. That night they baked bread; Lawrence gave half his share to his camel which was very tired and hungry. She was a pedigree camel given to Feisal by his father who had her as a gift from the Emir Ibn Saud of the Central Oases. The best camels were she-camels: they were better tempered, less noisy and more comfortable to ride. They would go on marching long after they were worn out, indeed until they fell dead in their tracks of exhaustion: whereas the males when they grew tired would roar and fling themselves down, and die unnecessarily from sheer rage.

The fifteenth day was an anxious one: there was no water left, and another hot wind would delay them a third day in the desert. They had therefore started long before dawn over a huge plain strewn with brown flints which cut the camels’ feet badly and soon set them limping. In the distance they saw puffs of dust. Auda said ‘Ostriches,’ and presently a man rode up with two great eggs. They decided to breakfast on these, but there was no more fuel than a wisp or two of grass. However, Lawrence opened a packet of blasting gelatine and shredded it carefully on the lighted grass, over which the eggs were propped on stones. Nasir and Nesib the Syrian stopped to scoff. Auda took his silver-hilted dagger and chipped the top of the first egg. A terrible stink arose and every one ran out of range. The second egg was fresh enough and hard as a stone. They dug out the meat with the dagger, using flints for plates. Even Nasir, who never before in his life had fallen so low as to eat eggs—eggs were counted as paupers’ food in Arabia—was persuaded to take his share. Later oryx were seen, the rare Arabian deer, with long slender horns and white bellies, which are the origin of the unicorn legend. Auda’s men stalked them: they ran a little but, being unaccustomed to man, stopped still out of curiosity, and only ran away again when it was too late.

The Ageyl were dismounted and leading their camels for fear that if the wind blew stronger some of them would be dead before evening. Lawrence suddenly noticed that one of his men, a yellow-faced fellow called Gasim from the town of Maan, who had fled to the desert after killing a Turkish tax-gatherer, was not with the rest. The Ageyl thought that he was with Auda’s Howeitat, but when Lawrence went forward he found Gasim’s camel riderless, with Gasim’s rifle and food on it: it dawned on the party that Gasim was lost, probably miles back. He could not keep up with the caravan on foot, and the heat-mirage was so bad that the caravan was invisible two miles away, and the ground was so hard that it left no tracks. The Ageyl did not care much what happened to Gasim; he was a stranger and surly, lazy and ill-natured. Possibly someone in the party had owed him a grudge and paid it; or possibly he had dozed in the saddle and fallen off. His road-companion, a Syrian peasant called Mohammed, whose duty it was to look after him, had a foundered camel and knew nothing of the desert; it would be death for him to turn back. The Howeitat would have gone in search, but they were lost in the mirage, hunting or scouting. The Ageyl were so clannish that they would only put themselves out for each other. Lawrence had to go himself. If he shirked the duty it would make a bad impression on the men.

He turned his camel round and forced her grunting and moaning with unhappiness past the long line of her friends, into the emptiness behind. He was in no heroic temper; he was furious with his other servants for their indifference, and particularly with Gasim, a grumbling brutal fellow whose engagement he had much regretted. It seemed absurd to risk his life and all it meant to the Arab Revolt for a single worthless man. He had been keeping direction throughout the march with an oil-compass and hoped by its help to return nearly to that day’s starting-place seventeen miles behind. He passed some shallow pits with sand in them and rode across these so that the camel tracks would show in them and mark the way for his return. After an hour and a half’s ride he saw a figure, or a bush, or at least something black ahead of him in the mirage. He turned his camel’s head towards it, and saw that it was Gasim. He called and Gasim stood confusedly, nearly blinded and silly, with his arms held out to Lawrence and his black mouth gaping. Lawrence gave him water, a gift of the Ageyl, the last that they had, and he spilled it madly over his face and breast in his haste to drink. He stopped babbling and began to wail out his sorrows. Lawrence sat him, pillion, on the camel’s rump and turned about. The camel seemed relieved at the turn and moved forward well.

Lawrence went back by his compass course so accurately that he often found the old tracks that he had made in the pits. The camel began to stride forward freely, and he was glad at this sign of her reserve strength. Gasim was moaning about the pain and terror and thirst; Lawrence told him to stop, but he would not and sat huddled loosely so that at each step of the camel he bumped down on her hind-quarters. This and his crying spurred her to greater speed. Lawrence was afraid that she might founder, and again told him to stop, but Gasim only screamed the louder. Then Lawrence struck him and swore that if he made another sound he would be pushed off and abandoned. He kept quiet then. After four miles a black bubble appeared in the mirage, bouncing about. Later it broke into three and Lawrence wondered if they were enemies. A minute later he recognized Auda with two of Nasir’s men, who had come back to look for him. Lawrence yelled jests and scoffs at them for abandoning a friend in the desert. Auda pulled at his beard and grumbled that had he been present Lawrence would never have gone back. Gasim was transferred to another rider’s camel with insults. As they went forward Auda said, ‘For that thing not worth the price of a camel....’ Lawrence interrupted: ‘Not worth half a crown,’ and Auda, laughing, rode up to Gasim, struck him sharply and made him, like a parrot, repeat his price. What had happened, apparently, was that Gasim had dismounted for something or other that morning, and sitting down had gone to sleep.

An hour later they caught up the caravan and towards evening they reached Sirhan, the chain of pastures and wells running up towards Syria. There among sandhills grown with tamarisk they halted. They had no water yet, but ‘The Desolate’ was crossed and they knew that they would get some the next day, so they rested the whole night and lit bonfires for the Emir of the Ruwalla’s slave who had been with the caravan and had disappeared the same day. Nobody was anxious for him, for he had a camel and knew the country. He might be riding direct to Jauf, the capital of the Emir Nuri, to earn the reward of first news that the party was coming with gifts. However, he did not ride in that night or next day, and months afterwards the Emir told Lawrence that the man’s dried body had lately been found lying beside his unplundered camel far out in the wilderness. He must have got lost in the mirage and wandered until his camel broke down, and there died of thirst and heat. Not a long death—the very strongest man would die on the second day in this summer season—but very painful. Fear and panic tore at the brain, and in an hour or two reduced the bravest man to a babbling lunatic; then the sun killed him. Lawrence himself learned to stand thirst as well as any of the Bedouin. He noticed that they did not drink on the march and learned to do as they did—to drink deeply at the wells and make it last, if need be, for two or three days. Only once in all his journeys did he get really ill from thirst.

The next day, the sixteenth of their journey, they came to the wells of Arfaja, grown about with a sweet-smelling bush after which the place was named. The water was creamy to the touch, with a strong smell and brackish taste: it soon went bad in the water-skins. There was plenty of grazing for the camels, so they stayed a day and sent scouts to the southernmost well of Sirhan to inquire for news of Auda’s Howeitat, in search of whom they came. If they were not in that direction they would be to the north, and by marching up Sirhan the party could not fail to find them.

There was an alarm at the wells when a Shammar patrol of three men was seen hiding among the bushes. Mohammed el Dheilan, Auda’s cousin and second man of the clan, went after them with a few men, but did not press the chase because of the weakness of his camels. He was about thirty-eight years old, tall, strong and active; richer because less generous than Auda, with landed property and a little house at Maan. Under his influence the Howeitat war-parties would ride out delicately with sunshades and bottles of mineral-water. He was the brain of the clan and directed its politics.

Lawrence was taking coffee that night, sitting at the camp-fire with the Ageyl and Mohammed el Dheilan. While the coffee-beans were being pounded in the mortar (with three grains of cardamom seed for flavouring) and boiled and strained through a palm-fibre mat, and they were talking about the Revolt, suddenly a volley rang out and one of the Ageyl fell screaming. Instantly Mohammed el Dheilan quenched the fire with a kick of his foot that covered it with sand. The coffee party scattered to collect rifles and shot back vigorously. The raiders, a party of perhaps twenty, were surprised at the resistance and made off. The wounded man soon died. It was most disheartening to be troubled by inter-Arab warfare when all efforts should be concentrated on fighting the Turks.

The seventeenth and eighteenth days passed without danger as they rode from oasis to oasis. Nesib and Zeki the Syrians were planning works of plantation and reclamation here for the Arab Government to undertake when it was at last established. It was typical of Syrian townsmen to plan wonderful schemes far ahead and leave present responsibilities to others. Some days before, Lawrence had said: ‘Zeki, your camel is mangy.’ ‘Alas,’ he agreed, ‘but in the evening we shall make haste to dress her skin with ointment.’ The following day Lawrence mentioned mange again and Zeki said that it had given him an idea. When Damascus was in Arab hands, he would have a Government Veterinary Department for the care of camels, horses, donkeys, even sheep and goats, with a staff of skilled surgeons. Central hospitals with students learning the business would be founded in four districts. There would be travelling inspectors, research laboratories and so on.... But his camel had not been treated yet.

The next day the talk went back to mange and Lawrence chaffed them about their schemes: but they began talking of stud-farms for improving the breeds of animals. On the sixth day the camel died. Zeki said: ‘Yes, because you did not dress her.’ Auda, Nasir and the rest kept their beasts going by constant care: they might perhaps survive until they reached a tribe that had proper remedies.

On this eighteenth day they met a Howeitat herdsman who guided them 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.