Part 21

First went the Beni Sakhr, scouting under Adhub. The ravine was slippery with the rain and two or three men fell heavily. When they were at the worst part of the descent, there was a clanking, screaming noise, and white puffs of steam came up from below. The Serahin hung back, but Wood drove them on. It was only a train from Galilee, low down in the ravine on the same side of the river. Lawrence, in the light of the engine furnace, could see open trucks in which were men in khaki—probably British prisoners being taken to Aleppo. They worked down to the right and at last saw the black shape of the bridge, and at the farther end a flicker of light, the fire by the sentries’ guard tent. Wood stayed here with the Indians, who mounted their machine-gun ready to fire at the tent. Ali ibn el Hussein, Fahad, Lawrence, the Beni Sakhr chief, and the rest crept on downwards in single file until they reached the railway where it began to curve to the bridge. There the party halted while Lawrence and Fahad stole forward. They reached the bridge and slowly crawled along the abutment in the shadow of the rails until they reached a point where the girders began. They could see the sentry walking up and down before his fire, sixty yards away, without setting foot on the bridge itself. They wished him either much nearer or much farther. Fahad shuffled back and Lawrence followed, to bring the gelatine-porters along. He was going to attack the girders and risk the sentry.

Before he reached them there was a loud clatter and bump. Someone had fallen and dropped his rifle. The sentry started and stared up. He saw something moving high up in the light of the now risen moon; it was the machine-gunners climbing down to a new position so as to keep in the retreating shadow. He challenged them loudly, lifted his rifle and fired, yelling to the guard in the tent to turn out. Instantly, there was confusion and uproar. The Beni Sakhr blazed back at random. The Indians, caught on the move, were not able to use their machine-gun against the tent in time. The guard rushed out into its prepared trench and opened rapid fire at the flashes of the Beni Sakhr rifles. The Serahin porters had been told that gelatine would explode if hit, so they threw their sacks far down into the ravine and ran.

Lawrence and Fahad were left at the end of the bridge. It was hopeless now to climb down the ravine in search of the gelatine with no porters to help and sixty Turks firing from just across the bridge; so they ran back up the hill and told Wood and the Indians that it was all over. They reached the cairn where the Serahin were scrambling on their camels and did the same, trotting off at full speed. The whole countryside was roused. Lights sparkled everywhere over the plain, and rifle fire began from all the neighbouring villages. They ran into a party of peasants returning from Deraa, and the Serahin, smarting under Lawrence’s sarcasm about their fighting qualities, fell on them and robbed them bare. The victims ran off screaming for help; the village of Remthe heard them, and mounted men poured out to cut off the raiders’ retreat. The Serahin lagged behind, encumbered with their booty, while Lawrence and Ali hurried forward to safety with the rest, driving the slower camels along, as before, with their sticks. The ground was still muddy and many camels fell; but the noise behind spurred them on again.

At dawn, the tired party reached the railway in safety on the way back to Abu Sawana. Wood, Ali ibn el Hussein and the chiefs amused themselves by cutting the telegraph wires to Medina. This, after their proud intention of the night before! Allenby’s guns still drumming away on the right were a bitter reminder of failure. It began raining again, and when they reached the long pool at Abu Sawana they had to explain to the men left behind there the causes of their failure. Not a glorious failure even, thought Lawrence, remembering his speech of five days before, but a silly shameful one. Every one was equally to blame, but that made it no better. The two body-guardsmen began to fight again; another of them refused to cook rice and Farraj and Daud knocked him about till he cried; Ali had two of his servants beaten—and nobody cared a bit. The party had come nearly a hundred miles, over bad country in bad conditions between sunrise and sunset, without halt or food.

They took counsel in the cold rain as to what must be done next. The Beni Sakhr wanted honour and the Serahin wanted to wipe out their disgrace. They still had the electric-mine apparatus and a thirty-pound bag of gelatine; so Ali ibn el Hussein said: ‘Let’s blow up a train.’ Every one looked at Lawrence. He would have liked to encourage them, but there were difficulties. They would have no food left after that night and, though the Arabs were accustomed to starving, the Indian machine-gunners were of no use unless well fed. And to mine a train properly the machine-guns were needed. The Indians could not even be given camel-flesh to eat; it was against their principles, though they were Mohammedans like the Arabs.

Lawrence explained this to Ali ibn el Hussein, who said: ‘Only blow up the train and we Arabs will manage the wreck without the machine-guns.’ The others agreed; so they sat down to make out a definite plan. The Indians miserably moved off towards Azrak but, to make their departure honourable, Lawrence asked Wood to go with them. He consented, and wisely, for he was showing signs of pneumonia. The remaining sixty Arabs, with Lawrence as guide, went towards Minifer, to the camp behind the hill under the ruined watch-tower, where he had been in the spring.

At dusk they went down to lay a mine at the rebuilt culvert that he had blown up before. They had hardly got there when a tram passed. This was annoying, it was still more annoying later when, after spending all night burying the gelatine under a sleeper on the arch of the bridge and hiding the wires—it was the mud that made him take so long—Lawrence was signalled at dawn to run back under cover while a patrol went by; for, in that interval, a train, seen too late through the mists, steamed past at full speed.

Ali ibn el Hussein said that bad luck was with the expedition. For fear that someone would next be accused of having the evil eye, Lawrence suggested putting out new watching posts, north and south, and gave as a task to the remainder to pretend not to be hungry. Waiting in cold wind and rain, without food, was bad; the only half-consolation was that Allenby was being held up by the bad weather too, and the Arabs would be partners with him next year when the Revolt was riper.

At last a train was signalled; an enormously long train, the report was, coming very slowly. Lawrence had only a sixty-yard length of wire and so had to put the exploder quite near the line behind a small bush, where he waited in suspense for half an hour wondering why the train did not appear. The engine was apparently out of order and the long gradient made it go very slowly on its wood fuel. At last it appeared. The first ten trucks were open ones, full of troops, but it was too late to choose; so when the engine was over the mine, Lawrence pushed down the handle.

Nothing happened. He sawed it up and down four times. Still nothing happened, and he realized that the exploder was out of order and that he was kneeling behind a bush only a foot high with a Turkish troop-train crawling past fifty yards away. The Arabs were under cover two hundred yards behind him, wondering what he was at; but he could not dash back to them or the Turks would jump off the train and finish off the whole lot. So he sat still, pretending to be a casual Arab shepherd and, to steady himself, counting the trucks as they went by. There were eighteen open trucks, three box-wagons and three officers’ coaches. The engine panted slower and slower and he thought every moment that it would break down. The troops took no particular notice of him, but the officers came out on the little platforms at the ends of the carriages, pointing and staring.

He was not dressed like a shepherd, with his gold circlet and white silk robes, but he was wet and mud-stained, and the Turks were ignorant about Arab costume. He waved innocently to them and the train slowly went on and disappeared into a cutting farther north. Lawrence picked up the exploder and ran. He was hardly in safety when the train finally stuck; and while it waited for nearly an hour to get up steam again, an officers’ party came back and very carefully searched the ground by the bush. However, the wires were well hidden; they found nothing and, the engine picking up again, away the whole lot went.

The Arabs were most unhappy. Bad luck was certainly with them, grumbled the Serahin. Lawrence was sarcastic at their expense and a fight nearly started between the Serahin and the Beni Sakhr, who took Lawrence’s part. Ali ibn el Hussein came running up. He was blue with cold and shaking with fever. He gasped that his ancestor, the Prophet, had given sherifs the faculty of second sight, and he knew that the luck was turning. That comforted them and the luck certainly began when, with no tool but his dagger, Lawrence forced the box of the exploder open and coaxed the electric gear into working order. All that day they waited, and still no train. It was too wet to light a fire and nobody wanted to eat raw camel; so they went hungry again. It was another cold, wet night: Lawrence spent it lying sleeplessly by the exploder, which he had re-connected with the wires.

Ali awoke next morning feeling better and cheered the party up. They killed a camel then and were about to light a fire with some half-dry sticks, warmed under a cloak all night, and shavings of the gelatine, when a train was signalled from the north. They left the fire and dashed to their positions. The train was racing downhill with two engines and twelve passenger-coaches. Lawrence arrived at the exploder just in time to catch the driving-wheel of the first engine. The explosion was terrific. He was sent spinning backwards. He righted himself and found that his left arm was badly gashed and his shirt ripped to the shoulder. Between his knees lay the exploder, crushed under a sooty piece of iron; close by was the horribly mangled body of the engine-driver. He hobbled back, half-conscious, with a broken toe, saying weakly in English: ‘Oh, I wish this hadn’t happened.’ The Turks opened fire, and Lawrence fell. Ali ran forward to him with Turki and some servants and Beni Sakhr tribesmen. The Turks had the range and hit seven of the rescuers in a few seconds; the rest picked Lawrence up and hurried him into shelter. He secretly felt himself all over and found that, besides the bruises and cuts from flying boiler-plate, he had five different bullet wounds; none were serious, but all uncomfortable. His clothes were ripped to pieces.

The train was a wreck; both engines had fallen through the broken bridge and were beyond repair. Three coaches had telescoped, the rest were derailed. One was decorated with flags—the saloon of the Turkish General commanding the Eighth Army Corps. There had been four hundred troops on board and the survivors, now recovered from the shock, were under shelter and shooting hard under the eye of their Corps Commander. The Beni Sakhr had grabbed some loot from the train in the first rush—rifles, bags, boxes and some loose military medals from the saloon, but soon had to draw off. If only there had been a machine-gun posted not a Turk would have escaped. Adhub inquired for Fahad, and one of the Serahin said that he had been killed in the first rush: he showed Fahad’s belt and rifle in proof that he was dead and that he and his friends had tried to save him. Adhub said nothing, but ran to the rescue right among the Turks, and, by a miracle, came back safely dragging Fahad, who was badly wounded in the face but alive. The Turks began to attack then and the Arabs, after giving them a volley which killed twenty men and drove the rest back, drew off, firing as they went. Lawrence could only go very slowly because of his hurts, but pretended to Ali that he was interested in the Turks and studying them. Turki, who was giving protecting fire from the ridges as they went, got four bullets through his headcloth. At last they reached their camels—now forty men instead of sixty—and galloped eastward out of range. After five miles they met a friendly caravan with flour and raisins, and, halting under a barren fig tree, cooked their first meal for three days. There was camel meat, too, for one of the body-guard, Rahail, had remembered to bring a haunch along from their previous interrupted meal. There, Fahad and the other wounded men were attended to. The next day they went on to Azrak, showing their booty of rifles and medals and pretending that it was a victorious return and that they had done all that they had intended to do.

XXI

The weather had broken now finally and the Turks in Palestine were safe until the following year. Lawrence remained at Azrak with Ali ibn el Hussein and the Indians, and sent to Feisal for a caravan of winter supplies. It was a good place for preaching the Revolt and comfortable for the winter, once the ruined fort had been cleaned out and in part re-roofed. The Indian, Hassan Shah, took charge of the defence of the fort, mounting machine-guns in the towers and placing a sentry, an unheard-of thing in Arabia, at the postern gate. They settled down here with coffee-fires and story-telling, and Ali and Lawrence daily entertained the many visitors who came in to swear loyalty to the Revolt—Arab deserters from the Turks, Bedouin chiefs, head-men of peasant villages, Syrian-Arab politicians, Armenian refugees. There were also traders from Damascus with presents of sweetmeats, sesame, caramel, apricot paste, nuts, silk clothes, brocade cloaks, headcloths, sheepskins, patterned rugs and Persian carpets. In return the traders were given coffee, sugar, rice and rolls of cotton-sheeting, necessities of which the war had deprived them. The tale of plenty at Azrak would have a good political effect on Syria.

During this wet weather an opportunity came to Lawrence for having a look at the Hauran and in particular the Deraa district, the inevitable scene of the next Arab advance. For Tallal, the head-man of Tafas, a village in the Hauran, rode in one morning and consented to act as his guide. Tallal was a famous fighter, outlawed by the Turks, of whom he had killed twenty-three with his own hands. There was a price on his head but he was so powerful that he rode about as he pleased. He carried richly ornamented arms and wore a green cloth coat with silk frogs and a lining of Angora sheepskin. His other clothes were silk, his saddle was silver-mounted and he wore high boots. Under such guidance Lawrence had a safe and interesting trip round the vital railway junction which was to be the scene of heavy fighting in September, 1918. He seems, though, to have got into trouble on the return journey, after he had parted with Tallal, for he records his arrest by the Turks (who took him for a deserter from their army) and his punishment in custody for his refusal to obey an order given him by the military governor, a Turkish major. This incident, apparently, did permanent damage to his nerve, coming as it did after the grave disappointments of the bridge and train failures and the exhaustion of the last few months.

Back at Azrak, he heard the story of Abd el Kader. The mad fellow, after his desertion of the Yarmuk party, had gone in triumph to his villages, flying the Arab flag, his men firing joy shots behind him. The people were astonished and Jemal, the Turkish governor, went to him protesting against the insult. Abd el Kader received Jemal in pomp, remarking that the whole country was now under the rule of the Sherif of Mecca, who graciously, however, confirmed all the existing Turkish officials in their appointments! Next morning he made a second progress through the district. Jemal complained again and Abd el Kader drew his gold-mounted Meccan sword and swore to cut off his head. The Turks saw that he was quite mad and so disbelieved his story that a raid was intended that night on the Yarmuk bridge. Later they employed him again, as before his ride to Mecca, to have secret dealings with the Syrian Arab nationalists and then to betray them.

The weather was now worse than ever, with sleet, snow and continual gales. It was obvious that there was nothing but talking to be done in Azrak. Lawrence felt himself a fraud, teaching and preaching armed revolt to this foreign people while knowing the whole time that it was unlikely that they would ever benefit by their strongest efforts. And he disliked the Syrian townsmen with their compliments and servility as they came ‘craving an audience’ with their ‘Prince and Lord and Deliverer.’ He preferred the simple desert manners of men who would come bluntly up to him with their requests, shouting: ‘Ho, Aurans! Do this for me.’ He decided to go off again to see if he could do anything active against the Turks on the Dead Sea. He handed over his remaining money and the care of the Indians to Ali ibn el Hussein. They took an affectionate farewell, exchanging clothes in sign of intimate friendship, and on November twenty-third Lawrence rode off south, alone except for Rahail, the strongest of his followers.

He was making by night for Akaba across the wet plain and the going was fearful. The camels were continually falling with their riders until, after some hours, Lawrence halted in despair and they lay down in the mud and slept till dawn. They rode on the next day, caked with mud. About noon, to the north of Bair, they were suddenly fired at by four men who rushed shouting from ambush. They asked Lawrence’s name, saying that they were Jazi tribesmen. It was a plain lie, for Lawrence saw that their camel-brands were of the Faiz tribe. They covered Lawrence and Rahail with their rifles at four yards’ range and, jumping off their own camels, told them to do the same. It was to be murder, but Lawrence kept his head. He just laughed in their faces and remained in the saddle. This puzzled them. Then he asked the man who appeared to be their leader whether he knew his name. The Arab stared, thinking Lawrence mad, but came nearer, his finger on the trigger. Lawrence, covering him with a pistol under his cloak, bent down and whispered: ‘It must be _Teras_’ (that is, Seller of Women), for no other tradesman could be so rude.’ It was an insult which in the desert meant instant death for the man who uttered it, but the Arab was too astonished to shoot. He took a step back, looking round to see if Lawrence had a large armed party near; for otherwise he could never have dared so to provoke an armed man. Then Lawrence turned slowly, calling to Rahail to follow, and rode off. The Arabs stood and watched them go and only recovered their senses when they were a hundred yards away. Then they fired and charged in pursuit, but Lawrence and Rahail were well mounted and escaped. The Faiz were a very shifty tribe. On one of Lawrence’s rides in the previous summer—I believe the Damascus ride—he had been given hospitality by their chief, a prominent member of the secret freedom society. Asleep on the rich rugs of the guest-tent, he had been roused by a whispered warning under the tent-flap. It was one of the chief’s brothers, telling him that messengers had been sent by his host to the nearest Turkish garrison. Lawrence only just escaped in time: the traitor died shortly afterwards, probably murdered by his own people for disgracing them.

They passed Bair the next night and reached Jefer at dawn, having come a hundred and thirty miles in thirty hours over bad country. Lawrence had fever heavy on him and kept going at this pace because he wanted to reach Akaba before a caravan, that had gone there from Azrak to bring back stores, started back again. He had long ceased caring what happened to his own body and was resolved to humble Rahail, who had for months been aggressively boasting of his strength and endurance, by riding him to a standstill. Before they passed Bair Rahail was begging for a halt; before they reached Jefer he was crying with self-pity, but softly lest Lawrence should hear him. Beyond Jefer they came on Auda’s tents, stopping only for a greeting and a few dates, and then on again. Rahail was past protest and riding white-faced and silent. They continued all that day and all the next night on their weary camels, crossing the railway. Lawrence’s fever was dying down now and he fell into a trance in which he saw himself divided into different persons, one riding the camel, the others hovering in the air and discussing him. Rahail roused him at dawn, shouting that they had lost direction and were riding towards the Turkish lines at Aba el Lissan. They changed direction and reached Akaba by way of Rumm the following midnight.

To him at Akaba came urgent message from Allenby who had beaten the Turks in a series of battles, capturing Jaffa and the outskirts of Jerusalem, to report to him at once. Lawrence went by air, and arrived just in time to hear of the fall of Jerusalem. Allenby was too busy with news of victories to wish to hear details of the failure at the Yarmuk bridge, or to mind very much; a simple statement was enough. He kindly invited Lawrence to take part in the official ceremony of entry into Jerusalem and Lawrence accepted, with a quick-change into British staff-officer’s uniform with brass-bound hat and red tabs.

For the Akaba success, by the way, Lawrence had been made a major and gazetted a Companion of the Bath, but steadfastly refused to wear the ribbons and has never accepted these or any other decorations. He was recommended by the High Commissioner of Egypt for the Victoria Cross, instead, but the recommendation was, much to Lawrence’s relief, refused. The Victoria Cross is not given for good staff-work or brainy leadership but for courage of the fighting sort. This courage was of course not admitted by Lawrence in his official report—he has never admitted it since—and the Victoria Cross could not in any case have been awarded, on technical grounds: ‘No senior officer was present as witness.’ The nearest senior officer was several hundreds of miles away on the right side of the Turkish lines. Lawrence’s lieutenant-colonelcy came early in 1918, to put him on the same level as Lieutenant-Colonel Joyce who was graded as General Staff Officer, First Class, for liaison with the Arab Regular Army; Lawrence was General Staff Officer, First Class, for liaison with the Bedouin Arabs. It would not be correct to say that Lawrence accepted this rank; he just went on working, whatever they called him. The Distinguished Service Order to which he was gazetted was a present for the Tafileh battle of which an account is given a few pages ahead. His full-colonelcy Lawrence applied for himself (just after the capture of Damascus), much to the surprise of General Headquarters where his indifference to rank and awards was a standing joke. But he explained that he wanted the rank (special, temporary, acting and with all other possible qualifications) merely to secure for himself a berth on the staff-train through Italy which accepted no officers of lower rank than full colonels. He got his way. He called it his ‘Taranto rank.’