Part 9

The general position was now this: The advanced tribes this side of Medina were keeping up the pressure on the Turks and every day sent in to Feisal captured camels or Turkish rifles or prisoners or deserters, for which he paid at a fixed rate. His brother Zeid was taking his place in Harb territory while he made sure of the tribes who were covering Yenbo. His other brother Abdulla had moved up from Mecca to the east of Medina, and by the end of November 1916 was cutting off the city’s supplies from the central oases. But he could only blockade Medina, he could not make the joint attack with Feisal and Ali and Zeid because he had with him only three machine-guns and ten almost useless mountain-guns captured from the Turks at Taif and Mecca. At Rabegh four British aeroplanes had arrived and twenty-three guns, mostly obsolete and of fourteen different patterns, but still, guns. There were now three thousand Arab infantry with Ali, of whom two thousand belonged to the new regular army which Aziz was training: also nine hundred camel corps and three hundred troops from the Egyptian army. French gunners were promised. At Yenbo, Feisal was also having his peasants, slaves and paupers organized into regular battalions in imitation of Aziz’s model. Garland held bombing classes there, fired guns, repaired machine-guns, wheels and harness, and the rifles of the whole army.

Lawrence had decided that the next thing to be done was to attack Wejh, a big port two hundred miles away from Yenbo up the Red Sea. The chief Arab tribe in those parts was the Billi; Feisal was in touch with these, and had thoughts of asking the Juheina tribe, whose territory was between Yenbo and Wejh, to make an expedition against the place. Lawrence said he would go to help raise the tribe and would give military advice. So he rode inland in company with Sherif Abd el Kerim, a half brother of the Emir of the Juheina. Lawrence was surprised at the sherif’s colour; Abd el Kerim was a coal-black Abyssinian, son of a slave girl whom the old Emir had married late in life. He was twenty-six years old, restless and active, and was very merry and intimate with, every one. He hated the Turks, who despised him for his colour (the Arabs had little colour-feeling against Africans: much more against the Indians). He was also a famous rider and made a point of taking his journeys at three times the usual speed. On this occasion Lawrence, since the camel he was riding was not his own and the day was cool, did not object.

They started in the early afternoon from Yenbo at a canter which they kept up for three hours without a pause. Then they stopped and ate bread and drank coffee while Abd el Kerim, who made no pretence at dignity, rolled about on his carpet in a dog-fight with one of his men: after this he sat up exhausted, and they exchanged comic stories until they were rested enough to get up and dance. At sunset they remounted and an hour’s mad race in the dusk brought them to the end of the flat country and a low range of hills. Here the panting camels had to walk up a narrow winding valley, which so annoyed Abd el Kerim that when he reached the top he galloped the party downhill in the dark at break-neck speed; in half an hour they reached the plain on the other side, where were the chief date gardens of the Southern Juheina. At Yenbo it had been said that these gardens and Nakhl Mubarak, the village beside them, were deserted, but as they came up they saw the flame-lit smoke of camp-fires and heard the roaring of thousands of excited camels, the shouting of lost men, volleys of signal shots, squealing of mules. Abd el Kerim was alarmed. They quietly rode into the village and, finding a deserted courtyard, hobbled the camels inside out of view. Then Abd el Kerim loaded his rifle and went on tiptoe down the street to find out what was happening; the others waited anxiously. Soon he returned to say that Feisal had arrived with his camel corps and wished to see Lawrence.

They went through the village and came on a wild noisy confusion of men and camels: pressing through these they suddenly found themselves in a dry but still slimy river-bed where the army was encamped, filling the valley from side to side. There were hundreds of fires of crackling thorn-wood with Arabs eating or making coffee or sleeping close together muffled in their cloaks. Camels were everywhere, couched or tied by one leg to the ground, with new ones always coming in and the old ones jumping up on three legs to join them, roaring with hunger and alarm. Caravans were being unloaded, patrols going out, and dozens of Egyptian mules were bucking angrily in the middle of the scene. In a calm region in the middle of the river-bed was Feisal, sitting on his carpet with Maulud the Mesopotamian patriot and a silent cousin, Sharraf, who was the chief magistrate of Taif. Feisal was dictating to a kneeling secretary while at the same time another secretary was reading the latest reports aloud by the light of a silvered lamp held by a slave.

Feisal, quiet as ever, welcomed Lawrence with a smile until he could finish his dictation. After it was done he apologized for the confusion and waved the slaves back so that the talk could be private. The slaves and onlookers cleared a space, but at that moment a wild camel broke through the ring, plunging and trumpeting. Maulud dashed at its head to drag it away, but it dragged him instead, and its load coming untied, an avalanche of camel-fodder came pouring over the lamp, Lawrence and Feisal’s cousin. Feisal said gravely, ‘God be praised that it was neither butter nor bags of gold.’ Then he explained what had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

A big Turkish column had slipped behind the barrier of Harb tribesmen on guard in the valley where Lawrence had first met Feisal, and cut their retreat. The tribesmen farther down the valley panicked; instead of holding up the Turks by sniping from the hills they ran away in two’s and three’s to save their families before it was too late. Turkish mounted men rushed down the valley to Zeid’s headquarters, and nearly caught Zeid asleep in his tent: however, he got warning in time and managed to hold up the attack while most of his tents and baggage were packed on camels and driven away. Then he escaped himself; his army became a loose mob. They rode wildly towards Yenbo, which was three days’ journey away, by the road south of the one that Lawrence had just taken.

Feisal hearing the news had rushed down here to protect the main road to Yenbo which now lay open: he had only arrived an hour before Lawrence. He had five thousand men with him and the Egyptian gunners, the Turks perhaps had three or four thousand. But his spy-system was breaking down—the Harb tribesmen were bringing in wild and contradictory reports—and he had no idea whether the Turks would attack Yenbo, or leave it alone and attack Rabegh, a hundred and twenty miles down the coast, and so go on to Mecca. The best that could happen would be if they heard of Feisal’s presence here and wasted time trying to catch his main army (which was what the military textbooks would have advised) while Yenbo had time to put up proper defences.

Meanwhile he sat here on his carpet and did all he could. He listened to the news, and settled all the petitions, complaints and difficulties that came up before him. This went on until half-past four in the morning, when it grew very cold in the damp valley and a mist rose, soaking every one’s clothes. The camp gradually settled down for the night. Feisal finished his most urgent work, and the party, after eating a few dates, curled up on the wet carpet and went to sleep. Lawrence, shivering, saw Feisal’s guards creep up and spread their cloaks gently over Feisal when they were sure that he was asleep. Awake, he would have refused such luxury.

An hour later the party rose stiffly and the slaves lit a fire of the ribs of palm-leaves to warm them. Messengers were still coming in from all sides with rumours of an immediate attack and the camp was not far off panic. So Feisal decided to move, partly because if it rained in the hills they would be flooded out, partly to work off the general restlessness. His drums beat, the camels were loaded hurriedly. At the second drum, every one leapt into the saddle and drew off to right or left, leaving a broad lane down which Feisal rode on his mare; his cousin followed a pace behind him. Then came a wild-looking standard-bearer with a face like a hawk and long plaits of black hair falling on either side of his face: he was dressed in bright colours and rode a tall camel. Behind was a bodyguard of eight hundred men. Feisal chose a good camping-ground not far off, to the north of the village of the date-palms.

The next two days Lawrence spent with Feisal and got a close view of his methods of dealing with a badly shaken army. He restored their lost spirits by his never-failing calm courage and listened to every man who came with petitions. He did not cut them short even when they put their troubles into verse and sang songs of many stanzas at his tent door. This extreme patience taught Lawrence much. Feisal’s self-control seemed equally great. One of Zeid’s principal men came in to explain the shameful story of their flight. Feisal just laughed at him in public and sent him aside to wait while he saw the sheikhs of the Harb and of the Ageyl whose carelessness in letting the Turks get by in the first place had brought about the disaster. He did not reproach them, but chaffed them gently about the fine show they had put up and the fine losses that they had suffered. Then he called back Zeid’s messenger and lowered the tent-flap to show that this was private business.

Lawrence remembering that Feisal’s name meant ‘the sword flashing down at the stroke’ was afraid that an angry scene would follow, but Feisal merely made room for the messenger on the carpet and said, ‘Come and give us more of your Arabian Nights’ Entertainment: amuse us.’ The man, falling into the spirit of the joke, began to describe young Zeid in flight, the terror of a certain famous brigand with him, and, greatest disgrace of all, how the venerable father of Ali ibn el Hussein had lost his coffee-pots; one of the ‘children of Harith’ too!

At Feisal’s camp the routine was simple. Just before dawn a man with a harsh powerful voice who was prayer leader for the whole army would climb to the top of the little hill above the sleeping army and utter a tremendous call to prayers, which went echoing down the valley. As soon as he ended, Feisal’s own prayer-leader called gently and sweetly from just outside the tent. In a minute, Feisal’s five slaves (who were actually freedmen, but preferred to go on serving) brought cups of sweetened coffee. An hour or so later, the flap of Feisal’s sleeping tent would be raised, his invitation to private callers. Four or five would be present and after the morning’s news came a tray of breakfast. Breakfast was mainly dates; sometimes Feisal’s Circassian grandmother would send up a batch of her famous spiced cakes from Mecca, sometimes a slave would cook biscuits. After breakfast little cups of syrupy green tea and bitter coffee went round while Feisal dictated the morning’s letters to his secretary. Feisal’s sleeping tent was an ordinary bell-tent furnished merely with a camp-bed, cigarettes, two rugs and a prayer carpet.

At about eight o’clock Feisal would buckle on his ceremonial dagger and walk across to the big reception tent, which was open at one side. He sat at the end of this, his principal men spreading out to left and right with their backs against the sides of the tent. The slaves regulated the crowd of men who came with petitions or complaints. If possible, business was over by noon.

Feisal and his household, which included Lawrence, then went back to the other of his two private tents, the living tent, where dinner was brought. Feisal ate little but smoked much. He pretended to be busy with the beans, lentils, spinach, rice, or sweet cakes until he judged that his guests had eaten. He then waved his hand and the tray disappeared. Slaves came forward to wash the eaters’ hands with water: the desert Arabs use their fingers for eating. After dinner there was talk, with more coffee and tea. Then till two o’clock Feisal retired to his living tent and pulled down the flap to show that he was not to be disturbed, after which he returned to the reception tent to the same duties as before. Lawrence never saw an Arab come away from Feisal’s presence dissatisfied or hurt; and this meant not only tact on Feisal’s part but a very long memory. In giving judgment he had to recall exactly who every man was, how he was related by birth or marriage, what possessions, what character he had, the history and blood feuds of his family and clan; and Feisal never seemed to stumble over facts. After this was over, if there was time, he would go out walking with his friends, talking of horses or plants, looking at camels or asking someone the names of rocks and ridges and such-like in the neighbourhood.

At sunset came the evening prayer and afterwards, in his living tent, Feisal planned what patrols and raiding parties were going out that night. Between six and seven came the evening meal: it was like dinner except that cubes of boiled mutton were mixed in the great tray of rice. Silence was kept until the meal was over. This meal ended the day except for occasional glasses of tea. Feisal did not sleep till very late and never hurried his guests away. He relaxed in the evening and avoided work as much as he could. He would send for some local sheikh to tell stories of tribal history; or the tribal poets would sing their long epics, stock pieces which, with the change of names only, did service for every tribe in Arabia. Feisal was passionately fond of Arabic poetry and would often provoke competitions, judging and rewarding the best verses of the night. Very rarely he would play chess—the game was brought to Europe first by the Arabs—swiftly and brilliantly. Sometimes he told stories of what he had seen in Syria, or scraps of Turkish secret history, or family affairs. Lawrence learned from him a great deal about people and parties among the Arabs that was useful to him later.

Feisal asked Lawrence if he would wear Arab dress like his own while in the camp: it was more comfortable, and more convenient because the tribesmen only knew khaki as Turkish uniform and every time that Lawrence went into Feisal’s tent and strangers were there an explanation had to be made. Lawrence gladly agreed and Feisal’s slave fitted him out in splendid white silk wedding-garments embroidered with gold which had lately been sent to his master, possibly as a hint, by a great-aunt in Mecca. Arab clothes were not a novelty to Lawrence. He had frequently worn them in Syria before the War.

X

He decided to go back to Yenbo to organize the defence because Feisal’s stand could not be more than a short pause. With the hills undefended the Turks could strike where and when they pleased, and they were much better armed and better trained than Feisal’s Arabs. So Feisal lent him a fine bay camel and he raced back by a more northerly route, for fear of Turkish patrols that were reported to have pushed round to the road by which he had come. He arrived at Yenbo just before dawn, in time to see Zeid’s beaten army ride in, about eight hundred camel fighters, without noise but apparently without any sense of shame at their defeat. Zeid himself pretended to be less concerned about it than anyone else: as he rode in he remarked to the Governor, ‘Why! your town is half in ruins. I must telegraph to my father for forty masons to repair the public buildings,’ and this he actually did. Meanwhile Lawrence had telegraphed to Captain Boyle at Jiddah that Yenbo was threatened and Boyle promptly replied that he would come there at once with his fleet. Then came more bad news: Feisal had been attacked in force before his troops had recovered from their fright: after a short fight he had broken off and was falling back on Yenbo. It seemed that the war was nearly over, the Revolt crushed. With Feisal were two thousand men, but Lawrence saw at once that the Juheina tribe was absent: there must have been treachery, a thing that neither Lawrence nor Feisal had believed possible from the Juheina.

Lawrence, though dead tired after three days with hardly any sleep, went to see Feisal at once and heard the news. The Turks had broken in from the south and threatened to cut Feisal off from Yenbo: their guide was a Juheina chief, hereditary lawgiver to the tribe, who had a private quarrel with the Emir of the Juheina. They had seven useful guns with which they shelled Feisal’s camp. Feisal, undismayed, held his ground and sent round the Juheina to work down the great valley to the left and fall on the Turkish right wing. He then posted the Egyptian gunners on the right and began to shell the palm groves, where the Turkish centre was concealed, with his own two guns. These guns were a present from Egypt, old rubbish, but good enough, it was thought, for the wild Arabs—like the sixty thousand rifles also sent which had been condemned as useless for the British Army after hard service at the Dardanelles.

A Syrian Arab, Rasim, who had once been in command of a Turkish battery, was working these guns but without sights, range-finder, range-tables or high explosive. He was using shrapnel, old stock left over from the Boer War, the copper fuses green with mould. Most of it burst short if it burst at all. However, Rasim had no means of getting his ammunition away if things went wrong, so he blazed away at full speed, shouting with laughter at this way of making war. The tribesmen were much impressed with the noise and smoke and Rasim’s laughter. ‘By God,’ said one, ‘those are the real guns: the importance of their noise!’ Rasim swore that the Turks were dying in heaps. The Arabs charged forward happily. Feisal was hoping for a big victory when suddenly the Juheina on his left under their Emir and Abd el Kerim, his brother, halted and finally turned and rode back to the camping-ground. The battle was lost: he called to Rasim to save the guns at least, and Rasim yoked up his teams and trotted off to the right towards Yenbo. After him streamed the centre and right, Feisal and his bodyguard bringing up the rear and leaving the cowardly or treacherous Juheina to look after themselves.

As the tale was still being told, and Lawrence was joining in the general curse against the Emir of the Juheina and Abd el Kerim, there was a stir at the door and who should come running in but Abd el Kerim himself! He kissed Feisal’s head-rope in greeting and sat down. Feisal stared and gasped and said ‘How?’ Abd el Kerim answered that the Juheina had been dismayed at Feisal’s sudden flight: he and his brother had been left to fight the Turks for the whole night alone, without artillery, and the gallant tribesmen had resisted until they were forced out of the date-palms by weight of numbers. Half the tribe were just coming along with his brother, the other half had gone inland, for water. ‘But why did you retreat to the camping-ground behind us during the battle?’ asked Feisal. ‘Only to make ourselves a cup of coffee: we had fought all day and it was dusk: we were very tired and thirsty.’ Feisal and Lawrence lay back and laughed; and then went to see what could be done to save Yenbo.

The first thing was to send the Juheina back to join their fellows and keep up a constant pressure on the Turkish communications with raids and sniping. The Turks would have to leave so many men behind, strung out in small garrisons, to guard their supplies, that by the time they reached Yenbo the defenders would be stronger than themselves. Yenbo was easy to defend by day at least; the town was on the top of a flat coral reef twenty feet above the sea, surrounded on two sides by water, and on the other two by a flat stretch of ♦sand without any cover for the attackers. Guns were being landed from Boyle’s ships, of which he had brought five, and the Arabs were delighted with their size and number, and were much impressed by the fleet. All day long the whole army worked hard under Garland’s direction at the task of fortification, using the old town-wall as a rampart for the Arabs to defend under the protection of the naval guns. Barbed-wire entanglements were strung outside and machine-guns grouped in the bastions of the wall. There was great excitement and confidence, and nearly every one sat up all night. Lawrence himself was sound asleep on one of the ships.

♦ “stand” replaced with “sand”

There was one alarm that night at about eleven o’clock. The Arab outposts had met the Turks only three miles from the town. The garrison was roused by a crier and every man took his place quietly on the wall without a shout or a shot fired. The search-lights of the ships, which were anchored close to the town, crossed and re-crossed over the plain. But no further alarm was given and when dawn came it was found that the Turks had turned back. They had been frightened, it was discovered later, by the search-lights and the blaze of lighted ships crowding the harbour, and by the silence of the usually noisy Arabs. Yenbo was saved.

A few days later Boyle dispersed his ships, promising to bring them back at an hour’s notice to Yenbo if the Turks tried again. In one of these ships Lawrence went down to Rabegh, where he met the French Colonel. The Colonel was still trying to get a mixed British and French brigade landed to help the Arabs, and tried to convert Lawrence to his views. He said that so soon as Mecca was safe the Arabs ought not to be encouraged to go on further with the war, which the Allies could manage far better than they. His plan apparently was that if the brigade were landed at Rabegh, the Arab tribes would suspect Hussein of selling his province to the English and French and stop fighting for him. This brigade would then be his main defence against the Turks, and when the war against the Turks was won on the other battlefields, Hussein could be confirmed as King of Mecca and Medina as a reward for his loyalty. The Colonel’s general attitude seemed to be ‘We Allies must stick together and outwit these Arabs who are savages not worth the consideration of us Westerners.’