Part 14

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.

Auda laughed the loudest and longest, for he loved a joke against himself, and Lawrence’s parody had only proved to him how fine a story-teller he really was. So he went over to Mohammed, embraced him, and confessed that the necklace story was an invention. Mohammed in gratitude invited the whole camp to breakfast the next morning: they would have a sucking camel-calf boiled in sour milk.

The next day they rode off making for Bair, sixty miles away in the direction of Akaba. There were five hundred in the party now and every one was happy and confident. The country was limestone strewn with black flints, and in the distance were three white chalk hills. The leaders had a treat of rice that night, the chiefs of the Abu Tayi coming in to share it. At coffee-drinking Auda began provoking Lawrence with talk of the stars. ‘Why are the Westerners always wanting everything?’ he asked when Lawrence had said that astronomers every year make more and more powerful telescopes to map the heavens out more and more accurately, adding thousands to the number of known stars. ‘Behind our few stars we can see God, who is not behind your millions,’ said Auda. ‘We want the World’s End,’ answered Lawrence. ‘But that is God’s,’ said Zaal, half angry. Auda said that if the end of wisdom was to add star to star, the foolishness of the Arabs pleased him better.

He took Lawrence ahead next day: he wished to visit the grave of his favourite son, Annad, which was at Bair. Annad had been waylaid by his cousins of the Motalga tribe and fought them, one against five, until he was killed; Auda was bringing Lawrence to hear him mourn for the dead. As they rode down a slope to the grave, they were astonished to see smoke wreathing about the wells. They rode up carefully and found that the well-top had been shattered: looking down they found that the stone sides had been stripped and split and the shaft choked. Auda said, ‘This is done by the Jazi.’ They went to see another well beyond: it was also ruined. So was a third. There was a smell of dynamite in the air. It was clear that the Turks had got wind of their coming, and had possibly also raided the wells at Jefer where they had planned to concentrate before the attack. But in any case they could not reach Jefer without the Bair water. There was still, however, a fourth well some way off. They visited this rather hopelessly, and were delighted to find it undamaged. It was a well belonging to the Jazi tribe and that it had been spared seemed to prove that Auda was right. But one well was not enough for five hundred camels. So it was necessary to open the least damaged of the others. Lawrence went down in a bucket and found that a set of charges fixed lower in the shaft had not all been exploded: the Turkish engineers had evidently been surprised before they had time to finish their work. So he carefully unpacked the charges and took them up with him. Soon they had two fit wells and a clear profit of thirty pounds of Nobel dynamite.

They decided to stay a week at Bair and meanwhile sent off a party to buy flour in the villages near the Dead Sea—it would be back in five or six days—and a party to inquire about the wells at Jefer. If Jefer was not spoilt for them they would cross the railway below Maan and seize the great pass that led down from the plateau of Maan to the red sandstone plain of Guweira. To hold this pass they would have to capture Aba el Lissan, sixteen miles from Maan, where was a large spring of water; the garrison was small and they should be able to rush it. They could then hold the road to Akaba from Maan and the Turkish posts along it would have to surrender within a week for want of food; but before then the hill-tribes would probably have risen in sympathy and wiped them out.

It was important not to frighten the Turks at Maan before the attack began on Aba el Lissan, but the destruction of the Bair wells showed that the news of the Howeitat march had reached them. The only thing to do was to pretend that Akaba was not the place aimed at, but that they were driving farther north. Nuri had been misleading the Turks into thinking this and Newcombe had allowed some official papers to be stolen from him at Wejh in which was a plan for turning north at Jefer and attacking Damascus and Aleppo. Nesib was in Druse country preaching revolt and Lawrence in his Damascus ride had himself, it seems, hinted to the Druse tribes that they would soon have the Arab army there. The Turks were taken in by all this and made preparations to resist the northern advance by strengthening their garrisons.