Hero_ The Life And Legend Of Lawrence Of Arabia Part 7

Lawrence returned from Basra raging against the inefficiencies of the Anglo-Indian army and administration in Basra, and spent his time on the s.h.i.+p writing a long report criticizing everything from the quality of the lithograph stones used in printing maps to the method of unloading supplies on the docks at Basra. Indeed, the missive was so vitriolic that General Murray's staff insisted on toning it down before it was shown to him, which was probably just as well for Lawrence. The reorganization of the intelligence departments in Cairo was in full swing, and Lawrence found himself answering to three different departments again, neither in the Arab Bureau nor altogether out of it, and at odds with the staff and the demands of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force intelligence department, toward whom he took an increasingly haughty and insulting tone.

On June 5, two events of great importance occurred. One, which was front-page news all over the world, was the death of Field Marshal the Earl Kitchener, who was traveling to Russia on board the armored cruiser HMS Hamps.h.i.+re when it struck a German mine and went down in the North Sea, drowning Kitchener, his staff, and most of the crew. The other was the outbreak, at long last, of the Arab Revolt. Informed that a force of nearly 4,000 Turkish soldiers accompanied by "a German field mission led by Baron Othmar von Stotzingen" was going to march through the Hejaz to reinforce the Turkish force in Yemen, and shocked by the execution in Beirut and Damascus of twenty-one Arab nationalists, many of them known to Hussein and his sons, Sharif Hussein drew the conclusion that the Ottoman government intended to overthrow and replace him. The sharif himself fired the opening shot of the revolt, with a rifle, through a window in his palace, aimed at the nearby Turkish headquarters.

Thwarted on every other front in the war against Turkey, the British moved quickly. Abdulla had already warned the British on May 23 that the revolt was imminent, and as a result Hogarth and Storrs were already on their way to Hejaz, carrying 10,000 in gold sovereigns, as requested. After innumerable delays and adventures, Storrs finally met with Zeid, rather than Abdulla, and was told that the revolt had already begun-or was about to begin, Zeid was not sure-and that his father required an immediate payment of 70,000 in gold, delivery of a long list of military supplies and equipment, and a.s.surance that the annual pilgrimage of Indian Muslims to Mecca-on which much of Mecca's prosperity depended-would not be impeded by the British. Storrs noted that Zeid brought his entourage on board HMS Dufferin, including a pet gazelle "p.r.o.nging playfully at strangers and eating cigarettes off the mess table."

The sharif's arrangements produced an overwhelming initial success-the Turkish garrison in Mecca surrendered; the Turkish force in Taif, where well-to-do Meccans went to escape the summer heat, was besieged (it did not surrender until September); and the Turkish garrison of Jidda, Mecca's port, surrendered after being bombarded from the sea by HMS Fox. Medina, it was optimistically forecast, would fall at any moment to the forces lead by the emirs Feisal and Abdulla. After nearly two years of promises, extravagant demands, and delays, the Arab uprising seemed at last to be under way.

Lawrence, though still deskbound, was delighted. "This revolt," he wrote home, "will be the biggest thing in the Near East since 1550." All the same, he was limited to such roles as overseeing the printing of maps, and designing stamps for the sharif of Mecca at the request of Storrs. The stamps were a political necessity. It was obviously impossible for Hejaz to continue using Ottoman stamps, and it was important to portray the Hejaz as an actual independent Arab state, rather than a former Ottoman province. Lawrence expended considerable energy and imagination on the project, hunting up Arabic designs in mosques, overseeing the engraving and the printing, and making plans "to have flavored gum on the back, so that one may lick without unpleasantness." The flavored gum turned out to be a mistake-Lawrence produced a flavor so tasty to the Arabs that they licked all the gum off and then couldn't stick the stamp to the envelope-but he was able to send a few samples home for his youngest brother, Arnie, noting that they might bevaluable one day, and that "things are not going too well" in Arabia, despite the initial successes.

What was not going well was the attempt to take Medina, where the Turks had 14,000 troops, well provided with artillery and supplied by rail from Damascus, against whom the Arab tribesmen, mostly carrying antiquated rifles, could make no headway. The sharif, Lawrence noted in his letter home of October 10, "has a sense of humor," an opinion which he would soon change, but noted "his weakness is in military operations." Lawrence complained about the volume of his work, and the amount of interruptions he had to endure in answering telephone calls from the staff, with whom he was fighting a kind of bureaucratic guerrilla war in order to get himself transferred once and for all to the more congenial Arab Bureau. He does not mention the fact that within forty-eight hours he would be on his way to Jidda in the company of Storrs. Storrs wrote in his diary, "12. X. 16. On the train from Cairo little Lawrence my super-cerebral companion."

Just nine days later, Storrs waved good-bye to Lawrence at Rabegh, from where Lawrence was to ride into the desert for his first meeting with Feisal. "Long before we met again," Storrs wrote later, "he had already begun to write his page, brilliant as a Persian miniature, in the History of England."

* The Sultan Osman I had originally been ordered from Armstrong by Brazil, which found itself unable to meet the payments for construction. turkey then took over the contract. The Reshadiye was built from scratch for turkey, and included such special features as turkish-style "squat" toilets. A third battles.h.i.+p was also on order. The Sultan Osman I had originally been ordered from Armstrong by Brazil, which found itself unable to meet the payments for construction. turkey then took over the contract. The Reshadiye was built from scratch for turkey, and included such special features as turkish-style "squat" toilets. A third battles.h.i.+p was also on order.

* Before declaring war an amba.s.sador asked the foreign minister of the government to which he was accredited for the pa.s.sports of his emba.s.sy staff and their families, signaling their imminent departure. Before declaring war an amba.s.sador asked the foreign minister of the government to which he was accredited for the pa.s.sports of his emba.s.sy staff and their families, signaling their imminent departure.

* This is odd, since later, in writing Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence deliberately abandoned any attempt at systematic or consistent spelling of Arabic names, informing the copy editor, "i spell my names anyhow, to show what rot systems are" (Jonathan Cape edition of 1935, p. 25). But then, as ralph Waldo emerson pointed out, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." This is odd, since later, in writing Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence deliberately abandoned any attempt at systematic or consistent spelling of Arabic names, informing the copy editor, "i spell my names anyhow, to show what rot systems are" (Jonathan Cape edition of 1935, p. 25). But then, as ralph Waldo emerson pointed out, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

* The famous line of Professor John Seeley, in The Expansion of England (1883). The famous line of Professor John Seeley, in The Expansion of England (1883).

* The book's subt.i.tle, "a triumph," is bitterly sarcastic, though seldom recognized as such. The book's subt.i.tle, "a triumph," is bitterly sarcastic, though seldom recognized as such.

* This applied to many other agreements, including the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration. This applied to many other agreements, including the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration.

* Both the British and the French understood that russia's ambitions would also have to be satisfied, and would at least include sizable gains in the Caucasus, equal representation in control of the Christian holy places in Jerusalem, and the biggest prize of all: Constantinople and russian control over the exit from and entrance to the Black Seathe supreme goal of russian foreign policy since Catherine the Great. Both the British and the French understood that russia's ambitions would also have to be satisfied, and would at least include sizable gains in the Caucasus, equal representation in control of the Christian holy places in Jerusalem, and the biggest prize of all: Constantinople and russian control over the exit from and entrance to the Black Seathe supreme goal of russian foreign policy since Catherine the Great.

Sir Mark Sykes would reemerge as front-page news in 2008. he had died of the Spanish flu in Paris, in 1919, and been buried in a sealed, lead-lined coffin. With the permission of his family, his remains were exhumed in the hope of finding viral traces of the flu that could be used as a vaccine against newer forms of flu, such as avian flu H1N1. Sir Mark Sykes would reemerge as front-page news in 2008. he had died of the Spanish flu in Paris, in 1919, and been buried in a sealed, lead-lined coffin. With the permission of his family, his remains were exhumed in the hope of finding viral traces of the flu that could be used as a vaccine against newer forms of flu, such as avian flu H1N1.

* This was a fairly common delusion among the British at the time, right up to the Balfour Declaration in 1917. it was based on the a.s.sumption thatthe Arabs and Jews both being Semitic peoplesthe Jews would contribute to an Arab state their knowledge of international finance, science, and medicine, as well as the growing agricultural expertise of the Zionists. This was, and has since proved to be, overoptimistic. This was a fairly common delusion among the British at the time, right up to the Balfour Declaration in 1917. it was based on the a.s.sumption thatthe Arabs and Jews both being Semitic peoplesthe Jews would contribute to an Arab state their knowledge of international finance, science, and medicine, as well as the growing agricultural expertise of the Zionists. This was, and has since proved to be, overoptimistic.

* The future Lord Carnock, father of the author Sir harold Nicolson, diplomat, politician, prolific author, and husband of Vita Sackville-West. The future Lord Carnock, father of the author Sir harold Nicolson, diplomat, politician, prolific author, and husband of Vita Sackville-West.

* The British had a touching faith in the value of royaltyhence their support of the princely states in india until 1947, and their eagerness to place emir Feisal on the throne of iraq and his brother Abdulla on the throne of Jordan; both of these "monarchies" were invented overnight on the British model. ibn Saud, at least, turned himself into a king without British help. The British had a touching faith in the value of royaltyhence their support of the princely states in india until 1947, and their eagerness to place emir Feisal on the throne of iraq and his brother Abdulla on the throne of Jordan; both of these "monarchies" were invented overnight on the British model. ibn Saud, at least, turned himself into a king without British help.

* Kress von Kressenstein shared his command for form's sake with a turkish general, tala Bey, and both were overseen from Damascus by Jemal Pasha, who was both the political and the military chief of the Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian portions of the ottoman empire. Kress von Kressenstein shared his command for form's sake with a turkish general, tala Bey, and both were overseen from Damascus by Jemal Pasha, who was both the political and the military chief of the Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian portions of the ottoman empire.

The key to building roads in the desert was to lay down wire netting, so that vehicles did not get bogged down in the sanda huge job of physical labor that was performed for the most part by egyptians. The key to building roads in the desert was to lay down wire netting, so that vehicles did not get bogged down in the sanda huge job of physical labor that was performed for the most part by egyptians.

* 3 million would be about $240,000,000 today. if it was to have been paid in gold, the current value would be in the billions! 3 million would be about $240,000,000 today. if it was to have been paid in gold, the current value would be in the billions!

CHAPTER SEVEN.

1917: "The Uncrowned King of Arabia"

After Aqaba Lawrence appeared to some a different person. He was no longer an intelligence officer observing the war from a distance; he had become a warrior, already famous and much admired. He had not only fought and won a significant victory against the Turks-in contrast to the British defeat at Gallipoli and the shame of General Townshend's surrender at Kut-but also ridden far behind the enemy lines with a price on his head. He had discovered that his name, his impatience with routine, his unorthodox opinions about war, and even his appearance were weapons more powerful than guns, swords, and high explosives. When he thought that humility and modesty were called for, Lawrence could give an excellent performance of both. He had an Englishman's understanding of the value of those qualities and the degree to which they mattered to other Englishmen of his cla.s.s, but there was not in fact anything remotely humble or modest about him, as Allenby had instantly perceived. Allenby possessed to the full that most important of skills in a good general, handling men; and throughout the next two years he handled Lawrence brilliantly. In a metaphor that is entirely appropriate to apply to a cavalryman, Allenby rode Lawrence on the loosest of reins, giving him his head, and allowing him to pick his own way forward over difficult ground. With a few notable exceptions, he gave Lawrence goals and directives, and allowed him to reach them in his own way.

Neither Lawrence nor the men he led and served would have been useful if handled in any other way. The Bedouin could be inspired by the right leader, and they could be bribed or shamed into doing great things, but they did not obey orders or submit to threats, so the discipline of a conventional army was beyond them: Lawrence relied instead on the strength of his own personality, and on his seemingly endless supply of British gold sovereigns.

Different as they were-Allenby was huge, overbearing, and notoriously abrupt and outspoken; Lawrence was, by comparison, tiny, soft-spoken, and inclined to be tactful, enigmatic, and often indirect-the two men became, at any rate in public and in their correspondence with each other, a kind of mutual admiration society. Their relations.h.i.+p survived the war, the publication of Seven Pillars of Wisdom Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and even the fact that Allenby, perhaps the most successful and competent British general of World War I, found himself living in Lawrence's shadow, a supporting player in an epic where "Lawrence of Arabia" was the star.

Allenby was astute enough, from the beginning, to allow Lawrence direct access, an immense concession for a busy army commander, whom even major-generals approached warily through his chief of staff. To put this in perspective, it is as if an acting major commanding a small force of French guerrillas behind enemy lines had direct access to Eisenhower whenever he pleased in the second half of 1944. It was shrewd of Allenby to see that Lawrence would never be able to go through the normal chain of command, and also to understand, perhaps better than Lawrence himself, that Lawrence's curiously inverted vanity and sense of being "special" could be satisfied only by going directly to the top. For a long time Lawrence was accused of not taking his own rank seriously, and that is certainly true. In later years he always talked about "Colonel Lawrence"as if that were a separate person, whose legend kept on growing, marching on indestructibly while the real Lawrence sought to hide. But the truth was that Lawrence considered himself, from the first, above such commonplace things as rank. Once, he had expressed an ambition to be a general and knighted before he was thirty; now, neither of those ambitions, though both were within his grasp, was enough to satisfy him. He had become, instead, something much more: a hero on a grand, unconventional, and glamorous scale.

On his arrival in Cairo on July 10, 1917, after the capture of Aqaba, Lawrence told Clayton, his nominal superior officer, that there was much more he could do, if Clayton "thought I had earned the right to be my own master," a telling phrase, and produced a sketch map of his plans-ambitious enough to startle Allenby when he saw it. Lawrence proposed to use seven separate Arab "forces" to disrupt the Turkish railway system, from Homs and Hama, north of Damascus, to Maan in the south, and to threaten vital railway lines and junctions deep inside Lebanon and Palestine, throwing Turkish communications into confusion, and perhaps even seizing Damascus.

With his usual quick mind, Lawrence had guessed that Allenby's intention was to advance from El Arish to Jerusalem, though he could not have known that David Lloyd George, on sending Allenby out to replace General Murray, had said "that he wanted Jerusalem as a Christmas present for the British people." Allenby was determined to give Lloyd George what he wanted, and instantly saw the advantages of using the Arabs to disrupt Turkish communications and supply lines, rather than have them try once more to take Medina, and probably fail again. He had also been concerned, not unnaturally, about advancing on Gaza and Beersheba with his right flank "in the air," a position no competent general wants to find himself in. Despite the forbidding terrain and the lack of roads between the coastline of Palestine and the Dead Sea, an enterprising Turkish or German commander could still a.s.semble a force large enough to strike westward against Allenby; and Lawrence was proposing to fill this vacuum with Arab irregulars, advancing north from Aqaba parallelto Allenby's line of march. Feisal's forces, whatever they might be-both Feisal and Lawrence were often wildly optimistic about numbers-would become Allenby's extended right flank, freeing him to feint at Gaza, then use all his strength to advance on Beersheba and outflank the Turkish lines.

Allenby did not necessarily expect Lawrence to succeed with these ambitious plans, but so long as Lawrence and the Arabs were active on his right and cut Turkish telegraph wires, he would be content. The Turks who were engaged in patrolling or repairing the single-line railway to Medina, defending Medina and Maan against Arab raiders from the desert, would be pinned down, unable to be moved quickly to threaten his right flank. For all practical purposes in the battle to come, they might as well not exist.

Lawrence moved fast to capitalize on his newfound position. He secured Allenby's permission to transfer his base from faraway Wejh to Aqaba-no easy task, because it involved securing Hussein's agreement to place Feisal and his Arab forces under Allenby's command, as well as squaring General Wingate in Khartoum, and drawing on the stores at Rabegh that had been intended for Abdulla's use. The s.h.i.+fting relations.h.i.+ps between Sharif Hussein's sons, consistent only in their obedience to their stern father's authority, required a constant, careful study of the Hashemite family and its moods, a subject on which Lawrence was already an expert. It also involved something he did not regret: further friction with the French, who wanted to see the Arab army tied up trying to take Medina, as opposed to seeing it in a position to advance into Syria. Indeed Colonel Bremond and the French military mission were in Jidda for the main purpose of preventing this.

One by one, these difficulties were sorted out. Clayton wisely chose, with Lawrence's agreement, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierce Charles Joyce to take command at Aqaba, and turn it into a secure base for the Arab army, leaving Lawrence free to go inland without worrying about supplies and support. Joyce, who had been offended by Lawrence's unmilitary appearance and flippant manner when they had met briefly at Port Sudan in1916, had become a convert, and would be a lifelong friend and admirer. On paper, Joyce was Lawrence's commander, but in fact he was the firmly planted anchor to Lawrence's ambitious schemes, a broad, six-foot-tall pillar of strength, common sense, and knowledge of how to get things done by the book and-more important-despite the book, in the army.

Lawrence was sent off at once to explain matters to King Hussein. The sharif had announced his newly a.s.sumed t.i.tle as king of the Hejaz late in 1916, over the repeated objections of the British, who feared the effect this would have on ibn Saud as well as on the presumably more democratically-minded Arab nationalists in Syria. Lawrence boarded HMS Dufferin Dufferin, which had been placed at his disposal, and stopped for one day in Wejh. There the RFC provided an airplane to fly him 100 miles inland to Jeida, "a little palm garden," where Feisal and Joyce were encamped. It is a mark of Lawrence's new status that naval s.h.i.+ps and aircraft were now his for the asking. At Jeida, comfortable under the palms, he discussed with Feisal the best way of approaching his father, and also a new factor in the Arab army. Jaafar Pasha, a Baghdadi who was a former Turkish officer, had become Feisal's chief of staff and had also organized a number of Arab prisoners of war from the Turkish army into a uniformed group, quite separate from the Bedouin tribesmen who made up the bulk of Feisal's forces. Jaafar's regulars were professional soldiers, not irregulars, and while their number was still small, they would play an increasingly important role in the Arab army.

In Jidda, Lawrence met King Hussein, whom he described as "an obstinate, narrow-minded, suspicious character, little likely to sacrifice his vanity to forward a unity of control." This was putting it mildly-almost all the British, while they admired him as a "splendid old gentleman," found Hussein difficult to deal with, unreasonable, intolerably long-winded, and vain. The only exception was Ronald Storrs, who had been negotiating with the old man since 1914, and described him more generously as a "gracious and venerable patriarch ... of unparalleled dignity and deportment," and whom the king in turn addressed familiarly as ya ibni ya ibni ("my son") or ("my son") or ya azizi ya azizi ("my dear"). ("my dear").

Toward Lawrence, King Hussein seems to have been more than usually suspicious, perhaps because of Lawrence's youth, perhaps because he feared Lawrence's growing influence over Feisal, perhaps because the shrewd old man guessed that Lawrence's pa.s.sion for the Arab cause was deeply conflicted, that he did not so much want to give the Arabs what they wanted as what the British wanted them to have. In any case Colonel Wilson, General Wingate's patient and long-suffering representative in Jidda, managed to talk Hussein around to the advantages of putting Feisal under Allenby's command instead of his own; and with that the king lapsed into a long and "discursive" description, "as usual without obvious coherence," of his religious beliefs, a tactic he seems to have used with British visitors to prevent them from asking questions he did not want to answer. For their part, both Wilson and Lawrence were embarra.s.sed by the supposition that they knew more about the Sykes-Picot agreement than the king did and by trying to put the best light on it they could-wasted efforts, since the king by now surely knew more about the treaty than he let on, and was better at dissembling than either of them.

Lawrence seems to have made a quick, unauthorized visit to Mecca, a city closed to unbelievers, certainly without the knowledge of the king or Feisal, to shop for a gold dagger to replace one that he had given to a Howeitat chief. For an Arab of Lawrence's rank to go without a curved gold dagger in his belt was the equivalent of being "half-naked," and he was determined to have the best and the lightest dagger that could be made, one that would establish his sharifian status at a glance. Though in general Lawrence disliked being tied down by possessions, there were certain areas in which he was unapologetically extravagant, and in which only the best would do: pistols, fine bookbindings, motorcycles, the art he commissioned for Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and the famous dagger were all examples of this. He would later write in detail about ordering the dagger from a goldsmith named Gasein, "in the third little turning to the left off the main bazaar," and once it was delivered, he would wear it through the rest of the war, whenever he was in Arab dress. It wouldbecome something of a trademark, and was often wrongly described as being the symbol of "a prince of Mecca," a t.i.tle which did not exist, and which he never claimed. and the famous dagger were all examples of this. He would later write in detail about ordering the dagger from a goldsmith named Gasein, "in the third little turning to the left off the main bazaar," and once it was delivered, he would wear it through the rest of the war, whenever he was in Arab dress. It wouldbecome something of a trademark, and was often wrongly described as being the symbol of "a prince of Mecca," a t.i.tle which did not exist, and which he never claimed.

The pleasure Lawrence felt at the king's rapid a.s.sent was marred by news from Cairo that Auda Abu Tayi and his Howeitat were in secret negotiations with the Turks, which, if they succeeded, would have meant the loss of Aqaba, and everything that Lawrence had planned. Lawrence's naval friend Captain Boyle provided him with a fast armed steams.h.i.+p, HMS Hardinge Hardinge, to take him at flank speed north to Aqaba, where Nasir told him that the Turks had indeed already retaken several outposts and gave him a "swift camel" and a guide to take him to Auda's camp in the desert. Lawrence intended to surprise Auda, and did-he "dropped in on them," walking unarmed into Auda's tent, where the old warrior was in conversation with his confederates, just in time to join in their meal. After the ritual fulsome greetings of desert courtesy, Lawrence revealed that he knew about Auda's correspondence with the Turks, and was even able to quote phrases from the letters that had pa.s.sed between Auda and the governor of Maan. Auda dismissed it all with a laugh-unbeknownst to him, he explained, one of his men who could read and write had sent a letter to the Turkish governor under Auda's seal, seeking out terms for his switching sides. The governor had agreed on a price, and to a demand for a down payment. When Auda found out about it, he caught the messenger with the gold in the desert and robbed him "to the skin," for his own benefit. It was a mere matter of business-brigandage being the main business of the Bedouin.

Behind this farce, however, Lawrence correctly divined that Auda had grievances strong enough to tempt him to seek out better terms from the Turks, one of them being that Lawrence was receiving more attention than Auda for the capture of Aqaba, and the other that the gold Auda had been promised was slow in coming. Lawrence explained in detail what was on the way-more gold, rifles, ammunition, food-and made "a down payment" on the gold that would be coming to Auda when Feisal arrived in Aqaba with the rest of the army. Like two old friends, they laughedover the incident, but it served as a lesson to Lawrence that even the best of the Bedouin were cold and crafty, and that it was foolhardy to make them wait for their money. Henceforth, sacks of gold sovereigns would always be the most urgent of his supplies, more important by far than high explosives, ammunition, or fuse wire.

Showing a capacity for duplicity that equaled Auda's, Lawrence then returned on the Hardinge Hardinge to Cairo, where he declared that he had looked into the situation and that there was "no spirit of treachery abroad," and vouched for Auda's loyalty. In this Lawrence recognized a great truth; "the crowd wanted book-heroes," and would never understand the complexity of a man like Auda, who not only was moved by greed for gold, but, as a tribal leader, would always want to keep a way open to the enemy. Over the next two years Lawrence would have many occasions to deal with the combination of greed and caution that was a natural part of Arab politics, an instinctive survival mechanism that would emerge in moments of setback or defeat, and that had to be concealed at all costs from the simpler minds of the British leaders. to Cairo, where he declared that he had looked into the situation and that there was "no spirit of treachery abroad," and vouched for Auda's loyalty. In this Lawrence recognized a great truth; "the crowd wanted book-heroes," and would never understand the complexity of a man like Auda, who not only was moved by greed for gold, but, as a tribal leader, would always want to keep a way open to the enemy. Over the next two years Lawrence would have many occasions to deal with the combination of greed and caution that was a natural part of Arab politics, an instinctive survival mechanism that would emerge in moments of setback or defeat, and that had to be concealed at all costs from the simpler minds of the British leaders.

Lawrence's duplicity has been an issue for some who have written about him, and in fact a number of biographies are intended to debunk him wholly or in part. This is partly Lawrence's own fault. He sometimes embellished the truth, and he invariably placed himself at the center of events, but it must be said that when the British government finally released most of the papers and doc.u.ments relating to Lawrence, almost everything he claimed was confirmed in meticulous detail. Sir Ernest Dowson, KBE, the director-general of the Egyptian Survey, who had clashed sharply with Lawrence over the transliteration of Arabic place-names on maps in 1914 and later became an admirer, remarked on his "puckishness," and went on to comment: "Many men of sense and ability were repelled by the impudence, freakishness and frivolity he trained so provocatively ... and regarded him in consequence at the bottom as a posturing stage player whose tinsel exploits were the fruits of freely lavished gold." (Dowson also shrewdly observed that it was "idle to pretendhe was not ambitious. He was vastly so. But, like all men of large calibre, he was ambitious for achievement rather than recognition.") The fact remains that Lawrence loved to "take the Mickey out of someone" as the English say, particularly if that person was pompous, obstructive, or slow to give him what he wanted, and not everyone enjoyed being on the receiving end, or forgave him for the experience.

A sense of humor is often the most difficult thing to convey about great men. Winston Churchill, for example, certainly had a robust sense of humor, but it was very often at the expense of people who were in no position to answer back, * * and reads badly in cold print. Something similar is true of Lawrence. With him, exaggeration was a form of teasing rather than boasting, and was usually aimed at those who were senior to him in rank and slow to recognize his ability. Once he had joined the ranks as a simple aircraftman or soldier after the war, he never did it to his barracks mates; he targeted only officers who had provoked him by some form of injustice to those mates. and reads badly in cold print. Something similar is true of Lawrence. With him, exaggeration was a form of teasing rather than boasting, and was usually aimed at those who were senior to him in rank and slow to recognize his ability. Once he had joined the ranks as a simple aircraftman or soldier after the war, he never did it to his barracks mates; he targeted only officers who had provoked him by some form of injustice to those mates.

Warfare and politics, of course, are a different matter; in both, duplicity is a weapon, and Lawrence used it expertly. During the war Lawrence was obliged to conceal from his Arab friends the ambitions of France and Britain in the territory the Arabs supposed themselves to be fighting for, as well as to conceal from his British superiors the problems of the Arab army. He was not Sarah's son for nothing, however-tactics and politics apart, in the things that mattered most to him he always told the truth, however painful for others or himself.

No sooner was Lawrence back at Aqaba-which was rapidly being transformed into an armed base, with a landing strip for the RFC and a stone jetty built by British sailors for unloading supplies-than a letter from Sir Mark Sykes brought alarming hints that the British government was secretly negotiating with the Ottoman government in the hope of Turkey's accepting a negotiated peace. It was not only Auda who was putting out feelers to the Turks. In the absence of a significant British victory, a negotiated peace with Turkey was a constant temptation to a wily politician like Lloyd George. From the British point of view, it would have freed large numbers of troops in the Middle East to reinforce the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the western front in France for the one big attack that might perhaps bring the war to an end in 1917; and it would no doubt have negated all British promises to the Arabs. From the Turks' point of view, it would have enabled them to get out of the war with the minimum of loss to their empire, and to reexert Turkish hegemony over Arabs, Kurds, Christians, and Jews, and whatever remained of the Armenian population after the genocide.* Sykes, ever the enthusiast, claimedto have returned to London and put an end to this attempt by facing down Lloyd George-a delusion, given the prime minister's habit of making promises he had no intention of keeping. Sykes was just as overconfident of his ability to handle Lloyd George as he was of his ability to handle Picot and King Hussein. As usual, Sykes was bubbling over with contradictory ideas: Lawrence should be given a knighthood for what he had accomplished so far, and must persuade the Arabs that they would be better off in the end under ten years of British rule, or "tutelage," as Sykes put it gracefully, before achieving independence. The French must be made to see that French colonial rule over the Arabs was out of the question-he would go to Paris himself and "slam" this to Picot. The British must stick together loyally with the French in the Middle East, and not let the Arabs divide them along the lines of "You very good man, him very bad man," in Sykes's cheery phrase, for despite his sympathy for every racial and ethnic group, there was still an element of the pukka sahib in him, which he was unable to altogether suppress. Sykes, ever the enthusiast, claimedto have returned to London and put an end to this attempt by facing down Lloyd George-a delusion, given the prime minister's habit of making promises he had no intention of keeping. Sykes was just as overconfident of his ability to handle Lloyd George as he was of his ability to handle Picot and King Hussein. As usual, Sykes was bubbling over with contradictory ideas: Lawrence should be given a knighthood for what he had accomplished so far, and must persuade the Arabs that they would be better off in the end under ten years of British rule, or "tutelage," as Sykes put it gracefully, before achieving independence. The French must be made to see that French colonial rule over the Arabs was out of the question-he would go to Paris himself and "slam" this to Picot. The British must stick together loyally with the French in the Middle East, and not let the Arabs divide them along the lines of "You very good man, him very bad man," in Sykes's cheery phrase, for despite his sympathy for every racial and ethnic group, there was still an element of the pukka sahib in him, which he was unable to altogether suppress.

Middle Eastern diplomacy: Sir Mark Sykes's cartoon of himself negotiating with Sharif Hussein in Jidda.

There were many reasons for these well-meant contradictions on the part of the imaginative and mercurial Sykes. The b.l.o.o.d.y stalemate on the western front showed no sign of ending; the abdication of the czar in February 1917 had led to a precarious stalemate on the eastern front as Kerensky's government sought to keep Russia in the war, while the Russian people yearned increasingly for peace. The United States had been drawn into the war in April 1917 by the folly of Germany's declaration of unrestricted submarine attacks in the Atlantic; and the Americans' entry had brought with it Woodrow Wilson's stern warning against further colonial acquisitions by the European powers, and had enshrined the principles of "self-determination" and democracy as the basis for any postwar settlement. The Sykes-Picot agreement seemed to be exactly the kind of secret diplomacy that Wilson was warning against, and it no longer looked to the British, or even to Sykes himself, like an attractive solution to the problems of the Middle East.

Early in September Lawrence wrote a long letter to Sykes from Aqaba, objecting to the continuation of a policy that would, in effect, marginalizethe Arabs, and antic.i.p.ating in detail the effect the Balfour Declaration would have on King Hussein and Feisal. The letter is particularly interesting because it is couched in the form of a request to know exactly what he should tell Feisal about every point Sykes raises, and among other things predicts accurately how bitterly opposed the Arabs would be to Zionist attempts to purchase large amounts of land in Palestine, whatever efforts were made to sweeten the pill. Clayton, who was n.o.body's fool, in effect "spiked" Lawrence's letter, and instead wrote back to Lawrence that the Sykes-Picot agreement was as good as dead, so he (and Feisal) should stop worrying about it.

Lawrence's concerns on the subject cannot have been stilled by the arrival of a French contingent at Aqaba, under the command of Captain Rosario Pisani, an experienced French colonial officer. The French detachment was dwarfed by the 800 uniformed Arab soldiers under Jaafar, by the tribesmen who were coming in daily to join Feisal's forces, and by the British technicians, instructors, and supply personnel, but Pisani's presence and the French tricolor were a daily reminder that France's claims in the Middle East were not about to go away as easily as Clayton predicted.

It is in this light that one must consider the ambitious plans Lawrence made to demonstrate the fighting power of the Bedouin-he could not determine British policy, but he could perhaps undermine it by demonstrating just how effective the Arabs could be in the field. By their achievements he would enforce their t.i.tle to the lands that they claimed-and that, at least in his own mind, he claimed for them. The sooner they moved north, into Syria, the better.

But "Syria" was, of course, merely "a geographical expression," as Metternich famously described Italy, and no two people agreed on what it was, or should be. Lawrence, for the moment stuck at Feisal's "base camp," now that Feisal had moved his headquarters to Aqaba, gave some serious thought to what lay ahead, and carefully studied the map. He had spent the better part of the war so far drawing up British army maps, and n.o.body was better at that most basic skill of warfare, the ability to look ata map and visualize what it means in terms of tactics, strategy, and lines of communication. He concluded that the war in the Hejaz had been won by the move to Wejh; that the threat to Mecca was over; and that the railway line to Medina should be cut just often enough to keep the Turks fully occupied repairing and defending it, but never so completely as to tempt them to abandon Medina, where they were, in effect, bottled up, half starved and reduced to eating their mules and camels, which might have carried them to Rabegh or Mecca. This was a program he could continue, and eventually delegate to others, as he moved north toward Maan, providing Allenby with the all-important flank on the right as he advanced on Jerusalem. At the same time, Lawrence needed to expand his contacts with anti-Turkish elements in Syria; the Hejaz was empty s.p.a.ce, crossed only by the nomadic Bedouin, but as Feisal's army moved north it would be entering areas that were cultivated, where peasants worked the land and clung to their villages, and relied on roads, however primitive, to sell their produce. These Arabs depended on some form of order, and recognized that in their region, unlike the Hejaz, not everyone was automatically, even unthinkingly, Muslim.

Syria held ancient and long-established communities of Christians-Maronite, Greek Orthodox, and Arab Christians-and of Druses, Circa.s.sians, Kurds, Jews, s.h.i.+a and Sunni Arabs, and many smaller, dissenting Arabic sects, as well as Algerian refugees who had fled from the violent French suppression of Abd el Kader's uprising in the mid-nineteenth century. While it was not exactly a melting pot so much as a mosaic of different groups, each with a unique ancient history of martyrdom, special privileges, and animosity toward neighbors in the next village or town, it was very unlike the Hejaz. Many of these Syrian communities-perhaps most of them-were unlikely to greet with enthusiasm the arrival of rapacious armed nomads led by a Meccan sharif.

Syria was also an area of great cities-Jerusalem, Beirut, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Damascus-each of which had an educated elite, or rather several competing elites, famous educational or religious inst.i.tutions, and a thriving commercial life. Chains of mountains further divided Syria. Also, the coastal areas of Palestine and Lebanon were sharply separated from the inland area, and indeed boasted of an entirely different culture and history; and the inland area was divided into smaller segments by rivers such as the Jordan and the Litani, and by valleys or wadis or by rugged hills. In the absence of paved roads (the small number of automobiles in the Ottoman Empire made it unrewarding to build paved roads, and much of Syria still depended on the remains of the roads the Romans had built), the railway system was the one link that made commerce other than the caravan and the mule train possible.

THE HEJAZ RAILWAY.

Reviewing all this from "a palm-garden" in Aqaba, Lawrence evolved a strategy, which was to move Feisal's army northwest into the desert beyond Wadi Sirhan, then directly north following the railway into the strategic heartland of Syria. Lawrence hoped to enlist along the way each of the tribes in the semi-cultivated area where the desert began, seventy-five miles east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan River, then climb 300 miles north up "a ladder of tribes," as he put it, until they reached Damascus, while at the same time constantly attacking the Turks' railway so that they could neither feed nor reinforce their troops.

Those who think of Lawrence merely as a das.h.i.+ng guerrilla leader overlook both the originality of his plan and his capacity for detail. He compared "camel raiding-parties" operating on the border between cultivated land and the desert to s.h.i.+ps, able to attack at will and by surprise, then break off the fight and retire into the desert, where the Turks could not follow them. He hit on the essential advantage of the guerrilla: "tip and run" tactics, "using the smallest force in the quickest time, at the furthest place." This would of course negate the Turks' superiority in numbers and heavy weapons-a lesson that would later be put to good use by the British Long Range Desert Group in the Libyan Desert in World War II (as well as by Mao in the Chinese civil war, and by the Vietcong in Vietnam). Rather than seek a decisive battle, Lawrence was determined at all costs to avoid avoid one; his object was to bleed the Turks to death by pinp.r.i.c.ks, while forcing them to waste their troops trying to defend nearly 800 miles of railway line. one; his object was to bleed the Turks to death by pinp.r.i.c.ks, while forcing them to waste their troops trying to defend nearly 800 miles of railway line.

He worked out with great precision exactly what his guerrillas needed. They would ride female camels, and each man would carry half a bag (forty-five pounds) of flour "slung on his riding saddle," enough for six weeks. A camel needed to drink every third day, and the rider would carry at most a pint of water, to see him through the second day of marching from one well to another. This would give the force the capability of riding "a thousand miles out and home," covering anywhere between fifty and 110 miles a day. It was Lawrence's idea to arm as many men as possible with Lewis light, drum-fed machine guns, to be used as long-range, automatic sniper rifles, rather than in their conventional role, as well as a rifle, and to keep those who had automatic weapons "ignorant of their mechanism." If the gun jammed, they were not to waste time trying to clear it but throw it away, and use their rifle instead-speed was essential; attacks should be over in minutes. (Lawrence himself rode with a Lewis gun, from which he had removed the bulky cooling shroud, the b.u.t.t secured in a leather bucket slung from his saddle, as well as the Lee-Enfield rifle that Feisal had presented to him, a bag containing 100 rounds, a pistol, and his dagger.) So far as possible, each man should be instructed in the basics of high explosives, though in practice it was usually Lawrence or one of the other British officers who did the delicate job of planting them and handling detonators.

The most difficult problem Lawrence faced he turned to his advantage. No tribe would fight in the territory of another, and it was impossible to mix men of different tribes in any raiding force. Instead, when he entered the territory of a new tribe, he would take on new men from that tribe, thus automatically giving himself a fresh force at regular intervals, and giving the men and their camels a chance to rest. A further benefit was that his force would change continually in size and composition, making it more difficult for the Turks to guess how strong it was or where it would strike. In every respect, this was the opposite of a well-trained, disciplined army of whatever size. Far from handling the weapons with respect, the men would toss them aside the moment they jammed; instead of being molded into a tightly bonded unit, the men would comeand go interchangeably; it would be an army without ranks or any visible chain of command, and without written orders, since the tribesmen were for the most part illiterate.

As the Turks, reinvigorated by new supplies and the sound advice of General Erich von Falkenhayn, moved south in an attempt to retake Aqaba, Lawrence showed his command of modern warfare while Feisal was at Aqaba by using bombing raids carried out by the RFC to slow the enemy down, while the Howeitat, under Auda, blew up railway bridges and culverts in the opposite direction to distract the Turks' attention.

As for Lawrence, he decided to carry out a raid on the "Mudawara, the great water station in the desert eighty miles south of Maan," sixty miles inland, directly to the east of Aqaba. If Lawrence could blow in the well, the Turks would need "to add so many more water wagons to their trains" that they would be hard pushed to supply the garrison at Medina at all. Since the insulated cable and the exploder sent from Cairo had arrived without the right kind of detonators, Lawrence borrowed three from the captain of HMS Humber Humber and successfully exploded one on the deck of the monitor, proving to himself that he had mastered the technique. Tinkering with explosive devices and mastering the art of demolition by trial and error would be one of Lawrence's more dangerous activities over the next two years. and successfully exploded one on the deck of the monitor, proving to himself that he had mastered the technique. Tinkering with explosive devices and mastering the art of demolition by trial and error would be one of Lawrence's more dangerous activities over the next two years.

Mudawara was guarded by a substantial Turkish garrison, so Lawrence added to his Arab forces "two forceful sergeant-instructors," one to display the capabilities of the Lewis gun and the other to do the same for the Stokes trench mortar. "Lewis," as the Lewis gun instructor was nicknamed, was an Australian; "Stokes," also nicknamed after his weapon, was "a placid English yeoman." It is a tribute to Lawrence's skill at leaders.h.i.+p that he was able to persuade the Arabs to accept two red-faced uniformed European unbelievers as fighting companions, and also that he was also able to steer Lewis and Stokes through the hards.h.i.+ps of living like Bedouin.

Lawrence and his small party rode out of Aqaba on September 7, in a temperature of 123 degrees, measured in the shade of palm trees by the sea. Inland, on the yellowish sand that reflected the sun, and among the red sandstone rocks, the temperature quickly rose far higher. They rode for two days at a slow pace, to accustom the sergeants to camel riding in the desert, and arrived at Auda's camp in Guweira just in time for the daily Turkish bombing raid-an occurrence not to be taken lightly, given the amount of high explosives Lawrence's camels carried, all of which could be detonated by a single red-hot bomb fragment.

Guweira was a small village, the site of an abandoned Ottoman fort, a few miserable buildings in a sea of fine yellow sand and small hillocks, set next to a black volcanic rock. Auda's encampment, however, was a ma.s.s of people and camels shaded only by a huge cloud of swarming flies, a gathering of hundreds of the Howeitat, many of them discontented with the fact that Auda kept for himself most of the money he was now receiving from the British. It was impossible even for Auda, who was in any case enjoying himself in his tent with a new young wife, to gather enough of the Howeitat for Lawrence's purpose.

Lawrence decided to go forward on his own, with his two sergeants and the small party of Arabs with whom he had left Aqaba, riding south to Wadi Rumm, where a party of Arabs friendly to Feisal was said to be encamped. The sun was so ferocious that even the Bedouin complained, so Lawrence "played about," pretending to enjoy himself, to keep their spirits up. But when they camped for the night one of the Arabs, a Harithi sharif named Aid, came to Lawrence, who lay sleeping on the ground wrapped in his robe, to say, "in a chilled voice, 'Lord I am gone blind.' " The sun reflecting off the sand had been so intense as to burn out his retinas.

With this grim reminder of the desert's danger, they rode on the next day through a steep valley with rose-colored cliffs 1,000 feet high, sometimes even rising to 2,000 feet, between great boulders the size of houses that had fallen from the heights. They crossed a valley so broad that in it "a squadron of airplanes could have wheeled in formation"; then, at sunset,they climbed a zigzag trail up the cliff to a ledge where they halted, near a spring around which were placed several villages of tents. Wadi Rumm was as beautiful as Petra, but the little party was not cheered by it. With the blinded Aid sunk in misery, Lawrence sought to persuade the other chiefs to join him, but such was their resentment of Auda that they refused. Lawrence decided to leave his two sergeants behind when one of the Arabs sympathetic to Lawrence guaranteed their life with his own-a necessary precaution, for feelings were running high and two infidels with not a word of Arabic between them were at grave risk without Lawrence to look after them. Having done his best for the sergeants, he rode back with one companion all the way to Aqaba, where he obtained from Feisal the promise of twenty more camels to carry the explosives, and the help of Sharif Abdulla el Feir, "his best man present," who would ride back to Rumm with Lawrence to quell the mutiny in Feisal's name.

Over the next few days Sharif Abdulla succeeded in patching things up, and the extra camels arrived, accompanied by four of Feisal's enormous black Sudanese slaves, each armed with a rifle, sword, dagger, and pistol. These slaves were fanatically loyal to their master, and were intended to protect Lewis and Stokes, two to each sergeant, until they returned safely to Aqaba.

This precaution shows the degree to which clan and tribal animosities threatened to undo the capture of Aqaba, as well as the degree to which the different tribes and clans were sensitive to their own feuds and rivalry, and always subject to the ever-present temptation to test whether the Turks, who were at least fellow Muslims, might outbid the British for their support. Lawrence, who would be remembered generations later as "the Englishman who brought the gold," distributed it lavishly, but that inevitably had the effect of making the Bedouin ever more greedy, a reality of desert warfare which he tried scrupulously to hide from his superiors.

On September 16 Lawrence led a motley and ill-a.s.sorted group of men out of Rumm, about 120 in all, including the two saddle-sore sergeants and their bodyguards, and the blind Sharif Aid, who was determined to go on. They camped for the night on a "strange flat of yellow mud," and ate"gazelle meat and hot bread," as Lawrence made his plans for the attack on Mudawara, which he expected to reach at the end of the next day.

In the morning they rode across a wide and varied plain of sand, limestone, and flint, only to find, when they halted, that the Turks had fouled the pool by throwing dead camels into it a few months ago. The water was covered in thick, oily green slime, and disgusting to smell or taste, but there was no help for it but to fill their water skins, despite the stench. If they took Mudawara, they would have access to water, but if they did not, they could not retreat without having first watered their camels and provided a water supply for themselves.

At dusk, they arrived close to the station at Mudawara, and Lawrence, the two sergeants, and the Arab leaders dismounted and crawled forward from sand mound to sand mound and through the deserted Turkish trench lines to a point from which they could see the buildings and the tents of the Turkish garrison. To Lawrence's disappointment, he did not see any way of rus.h.i.+ng the station with his mixed force, in whose reliability he had been rapidly losing confidence. There was no good cover for Stokes and the mortar, or for Lewis and the machine gun, within the range of their weapons, and it seemed to Lawrence very likely that an attack would fail. There was never anything amateurish about Lawrence's battle craft. It is a measure of his innate professionalism that he never allowed enthusiasm or his gift for improvisation to cloud his judgment. He did not trust his force in a pitched fight with superior numbers, and with Sharif Aid blinded, he did not have an Arab leader who could rally the men once they started to suffer casualties, as they surely would. He decided to withdraw, blow up a Turkish train, and let his Arabs loot it; this, if nothing else, might raise their morale a bit, and lower that of the Turks.

The next morning he found a convenient spot along the line to lay the mine. At this spot, a short two-arched bridge crossed a gulley, about 200 yards from a ledge on which Stokes and Lewis could place "their toys" with a good field of fire in whichever direction the train approached, and from which they could retreat under cover if necessary. Lawrence wasalways careful with the lives of his men, Arab or British, and disliked spending them unnecessarily. The swashbuckling, "romantic" picture of Lawrence charging on his camel, along with his Bedouin tribesmen in their flowing robes wielding their gleaming curved sabers, caught the public imagination once he became famous, but he was first and foremost a gifted, practical soldier who knew what he was doing. Although his military training was minimal (unlike his omnivorous reading of cla.s.sics ancient and modern about strategy), Lawrence might as well have attended Sandhurst as an officer cadet-from the very first he displayed the instincts of a born soldier. However wild and undisciplined the Arabs might be, Lawrence was as careful as any professional in choosing the right ground, selecting a field of fire, working out his logistics down to the last bullet and pint of water, and preparing an avenue of retreat in case it proved necessary. Guerrilla warfare it might be, with all the messiness that such warfare entails, but he waged it with the care and instincts of an exceptionally capable regular officer. He left nothing to chance, right down to the smallest detail; what is more, he served in the field as his own adjutant, regimental sergeant major, and quartermaster sergeant. This is all the more impressive when one considers that he had n.o.body to advise him, n.o.body on whom he could call for reinforcements, and no a.s.surance that the Bedouin would obey him. There was also the certainty that if he was seriously wounded, he would die, and if he was captured alive in Arab dress by the Turks, he would be tortured, then executed as a spy.

He had the camels unloaded and led away to a position where they could graze unseen (first making sure that the Arabs sc.r.a.ped salt from an overhanging limestone ledge for them-Lawrence had the Napoleonic eye for detail that makes a great commander), then kneaded his blocks of gelignite into a viscous lump that half-filled a sandbag, and buried it in the stone ballast under the tracks. He then had to replace the stones carefully one by one, brush the whole area clean of footprints with the hem of his cloak, and unroll the heavy insulated cables. These turned out to be an unexpected headache-burying them left a break in the sand's thin,wind-created crust, and the stiff cables tended to rise in one place when they were buried in another. In the end, Lawrence had to weight the cables down with heavy stones to flatten them out, fill in the long trenches and smooth out the sand by brus.h.i.+ng an empty sandbag over the surface, then use a bellows and his own cloak to create ripples in the sand that matched the rest. Finally, he had to remove every footprint for 200 yards from the mine to the ledge where the sergeants had placed their weapons. It took him two hours to lay the charge, and five hours to render everything invisible to the naked eye.

Salem, the most senior of Feisal's slaves, was given the honor of wielding the exploder, and Lawrence spent the afternoon teaching him how-it required a firm but not overhasty push to produce the right spark. As the sun began to set, they returned to where the camels should have been, only to find that the Arabs had moved up to a high ridge, where they were clearly outlined against the setting sun, attracting the attention of the Turkish outposts, and drawing a certain amount of nervous rifle fire. Lawrence seldom complained about the Bedouin-it was in their interest and his to portray them as natural fighting men with a born talent for desert warfare-but later, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom Seven Pillars of Wisdom, he noted with disapproval how their contempt for the Turks made them incautious, and that unlike British soldiers they were restless and noisy while waiting, without the patience to stay put and remain quiet.

In the morning, as Lawrence had feared, a Turkish patrol marched out of the station in search of them. Lawrence ordered thirty of the Arabs to open fire and then lead the Turks as slowly as possible away from the railway tracks, where they might discover the mine, and into the surrounding sand hills. At noon, a stronger patrol appeared, and Lawrence was just about to order his party to pack up and retreat, leaving the mine behind in the hope of returning another day and setting it off under a train, when he saw the smoke of a locomotive in the distance. In an instant, he placed his Arabs behind a long ridge running parallel to the track, from which they could fire at the train at a distance of about 150 yards once it was derailed. He left one man standing up to watch the train's progress, incase it was full of troops and should suddenly stop to let them off for a rush attack, but to his relief, the train did nothing of the sort. Drawn by two locomotives-a welcome bonus for Lawrence-the train kept on coming. Turkish soldiers stuck the muzzles of their rifles out of the open windows, or sheltered on the roof of each carriage behind sandbags, prepared to fend off an Arab attack, but they clearly did not antic.i.p.ate the full magnitude of what was to come.

As the second locomotive began to cross the bridge, Lawrence raised his hand and Salem the slave pushed the exploder. With a mighty roar, the entire train vanished in a huge explosion of black dust, 100 feet high and equally wide. "Out of the darkness came a series of shattering crashes, and long loud metallic clangings of ripped steel, while many lumps of iron and plate, with one wheel of a locomotive, whirled up suddenly black out of the cloud against the sky, and sailed musically over our heads to fall slowly into the desert behind." For a few moments there was absolute silence as the cloud of smoke drifted away; then the Arabs opened fire on the shattered carriages, while Lawrence, dodging under their bullets, ran back to join the two sergeants on their ledge. By the time Lawrence got to them, the Arabs were leaving their positions to rush for the train and loot it, while those Turks who had survived the explosion fired back desperately. He found Lewis and Stokes calmly going about their work, Lewis sweeping the Turks off the roofs of the carriages with his machine gun, and Stokes firing his mortar bombs over the carriages to the far side, where the Turks huddled on the embankment. Stokes's second shot made "a shambles of the group, and the survivors broke eastward as they ran. ... The sergeant grimly traversed with drum after drum into their ranks till the open sand was littered with dead bodies," while the Bedouin "were beginning like wild beasts to tear open the carriages and fall to plunder. It had taken nearly ten minutes."

Lawrence had destroyed the bridge completely. All the carriages were smashed, including one that contained sick and wounded Turks, some of them dying of typhus. Lawrence found that the Turks "had rolled dead and dying into a bleeding heap at the splintered end" of this carriage. One locomotive was smashed beyond repair; the other was less seriously damaged, but Lawrence calmly finished this one off by attaching explosive to its boiler and detonating it. The train had been full of troops, civilian refugees, and the families of Turkish officers. The Bedouin, "raving mad ... were rus.h.i.+ng about at top-speed bare-headed and half-naked, screaming, shooting in the air, clawing one another nail and fist," as they looted the living and the dead. The wives and the children of the Turkish officers gathered around Lawrence begging for mercy, and were then pushed out of the way by their husbands, who tried to seize and kiss Lawrence's feet. He kicked them away "in disgust," and went on to accept the surrender of a group of Austro-Hungarian officers and NCOs, artillery instructors, one of whom was seriously wounded. Lawrence, who had seen a large Turkish patrol leaving the station, promised that the Turks would be there with help in an hour, but the man died of his wounds, and Lawrence went on to deal with other problems, including a dignified and infirm old Arab woman, whose servant he managed to find-the old woman would later send him a valuable carpet from Damascus as a token of her grat.i.tude. In the meantime, the Bedouin killed all but "two or three" of Lawrence's Austrian prisoners.

The raiding force evaporated into the desert, each man loading his camel with as much booty as it could carry. In the aftermath of the destruction of the train, Lawrence was obliged to go back and try to rescue Salem, who had been hit by a Turkish bullet, then stripped and left for dead by his Howeitat allies. Lawrence also attempted to retrieve the kits of the two sergeants, and with their help stalled the Turks by blowing up the remaining ammunition. He took care to finish off "out of mercy" those of the Arabs who were badly wounded, since "the Turks used to ki