* * *
1 Anyone who is interested in the pre-war source of Lawrence’s military ideas will find a fuller study of them in my book, The Ghost of Napoleon (published in 1933).
CHAPTER X
SPREADING THE INFECTION
April–June, 1917
Lawrence raids the railway from Abdulla’s camp—He returns to Feisal’s camp to find a plan in development for a narrowly concentrated attack on the railway—Disliking this plan, he privately concerts a long-range alternative—He sets off with a few Arab chiefs on a ride to the Syrian desert—While a force is being raised in the Sirhan, Lawrence makes a still more daring ride through Syria itself past Baalbek and Damascus
AS SOON as Lawrence was well enough he began to discuss future action with Abdulla. Instead of suggesting an attack on the Medina garrison, still safely there, he proposed a series of raids on the railway, and offered to show the way himself. The kind he had in mind would be “enough to annoy the enemy without making him fear its final destruction.” But he found that he had no need to dissuade Abdulla from more severe measures.
Abdulla’s theory of war seemed to be that the tongue is mightier than the sword, and although he revealed a fluidity of thought that should have pleased Lawrence, it never crystallized into positive action. He was certainly full of projects. In a conversation on March 20th with Lawrence and Captain Raho, an officer from French Africa, he spoke of moving into the Yemen, to free it from the Turkish yoke, but apparently it was only another of his verbal smoke-screens to hide his real intention—of sitting still. He was, however, definite in rejecting French demands for a bombardment of Medina, saying that he would reduce it by famine. From Lawrence’s new point of view Abdulla’s evasions were most reassuring; they were, also, a practical confirmation that his new theory was in accord with reality.
There was, however, among Abdulla’s assistants a more energetic warrior in Sherif Shakir, “a very centaur on horseback,” who, despite great wealth, affected a nomadic simplicity of life to match his reckless disposition. Shakir needed little prompting to make a raid against the railway; and promised to bring eight or nine hundred of the Ateiba and a mountain-gun. Lawrence, although still unfit, went ahead on March 26th with a small advance party, including Ratio, to look for a suitable target. He found it at Aba el Naam, a station garrisoned by some four hundred Turks—“and twenty-five goats.” But when Shakir arrived, he brought only three hundred men, too few to storm the station. So Lawrence decided to occupy the attention of the garrison by a direct bombardment, while he aimed to blow up the railway to north and south, and thus trap a train which had halted there. This gave Lawrence the opportunity of laying his first mine—“the Martini lock to fire it was a device used by the Boers in South Africa against us!” Then he went back to rejoin the force and wait for morning. The action opened by a bombardment of the station; a shell hit the train and caused the engine to uncouple and steam off towards Lawrence’s mine. But the charge exploded late, and the crew were allowed the chance of repairing the slight damage to the engine owing to the sudden disappearance of the machine-gunners who had been posted to open fire on it. Meantime Shakir’s men, covered by smoke from the burning trucks, had captured two of the enemy’s outlying posts. But they hesitated to assault the station, and retired content, taking some thirty prisoners, and leaving a battered station.
MAP 5
THE NORTHERN THEATRE
Lawrence lost no time in making a fresh effort. He set out again two days later from Abdulla’s camp with a party of Juheina tribesmen and buried a Garland mine near Madahrij station to catch a train coming north from Medina. This time the train passed over the mine without exploding it—owing apparently to a slight ground subsidence, caused by a heavy storm, that prevented contact between rail and trigger mechanism. But the failure this time was a relief, not a disappointment, to Lawrence; for, when seemingly too late, he had seen that the train was full of women and children who were being evacuated from Medina. Later, when electric mines became the rule, Lawrence, according to other officers, took extreme precautions to avoid wrecking any refugee train, and, if in any doubt as to whether a train contained women and children, gave it the benefit of the doubt.
But he also took care to turn this lucky failure to profit. After dark he went out to reset the mine. Searching for the hair-trigger buried in the ballast was hazardous work, and he had visions of blowing up his own party instead. In his report he remarked—“Laying a Garland mine is shaky work, but scrabbling along a line for 100 yards in the ballast looking for a trigger that is connected with two powerful charges must be a quite uninsurable occupation.” But at last after an hour, he found the trigger and fixed it afresh. Then he blew up a small bridge and cut the rails at numerous points as a bait for the Turkish breakdown-train from Hedia which duly hurried to the scene and was caught by the mine.
Having done something to develop the pin-prick strategy, and growing tired of Abdulla’s evasions, Lawrence returned to Feisal’s camp early in April to preach his new gospel there. Since the move to the advanced bases, the British officers together with Sharraf, Maulud, and a large force of Billi had been amplifying the attacks on the railway. They were becoming too serious for Lawrence’s taste, and looked like becoming more so since more machine-guns, and even two armoured cars, had arrived. Newcombe was planning to move Feisal’s whole force astride the railway near Medain Saleh, and thus cut off Medina definitely. Lawrence, in contrast, now deemed it wiser to restore the Turk’s confidence by reducing the enterprises against him, so as to “keep him in his present absurd position—all flanks and no front.”
“In detail I criticized the ruling scheme. To hold a middle point of the railway would be expensive, for the holding force might be threatened from each side. The mixture of Egyptian troops with tribesmen was a moral weakness. If there were professional soldiers present, the Bedouin would stand aside and watch them work . . . Jealousy, super-added to inefficiency, would be the outcome. Further, the Billi country was very dry, and the maintenance of a large force up by the line was technically difficult.”
“Neither my general reasoning, however, nor my particular objections had much weight. The plans were made, and the preparations advanced. Everyone was too busy with his own work to give me specific authority to launch out on mine. All I gained was a hearing and a qualified admission that my counter-offensive might be a useful diversion.”
What he had in mind was far more than an alternative offensive—I presume “counter-offensive” is a slip of the pen—to the one aimed at Medain Saleh. In fulfilment of his theory his idea was to spread the infection of revolt over as wide a space as possible. That meant spreading it northward. And for this a more northerly base was needed. His aim thus coincided with the long-cherished project of occupying Aqaba—but with the vital difference that in his design it was to be taken by the Arabs from the interior instead of by a Franco-British force from the sea.
OUTSIDE FEISAL’S TENT AT WEJH
The venture was in the true Elizabethan tradition—a privateer’s expedition. When it succeeded, authority would hail it with delight and reap its fruits. later still, official narratives would even refer, disingenuously, to the “mission entrusted to Captain Lawrence.” But, in truth, it was a purely private venture, undertaken without orders and even without assistance from any British source. Feisal provided the money, camels, stores and explosives for the scheme.
For its execution Lawrence had found not merely an ally but a blood-brother in Auda, an inverted Crusading baron who seemed to have marched straight out of Lawrence’s former mediæval dreamworld to greet him. With Auda, he concerted a plan. Accompanied by Sherif Nasir, as Feisal’s deputy, they would set out to find the eastern Howeitat in their spring pastures of the Syrian desert, raise a mobile camel-force among them, and bring this down south for an attempt to seize Aqaba by surprise from the east—a pounce on its back. “The eastern was the unguarded side, the line of least resistance, the easiest fo
r us. Our march would be an extreme example of a turning movement, since it involved a desert journey of six hundred miles to capture a trench within gunfire of our ships; but there was no practicable alternative.” Lawrence was convinced that the longest way round would prove the shortest way there—his mind was ever on the mountain wall that towered behind Aqaba and could be so easily used by the Turks to block any advance from a landing. But he also looked beyond, to the issue. He had pledged himself to fight for Arab independence, not for the enlargement of the British Empire.
The venture was launched on May 9th. It was a small party that Nasir led forth that afternoon. Besides Lawrence and Auda, it included Nesib, who was to be Feisal’s envoy to the Syrian peasants, Zeki, a Syrian officer, and an escort of some two score camelry. Baggage was light—each man carried a 45 lb. bag of flour as his rations for six weeks; there were six camel-loads of explosive for demolition work en route, and twenty thousand pounds in gold to encourage recruiting.
The first stage was a short one, to the little fort of Sebeil, on the old pilgrim route from Egypt. They started again after dark, towelling more comfortably in the comparative coolness of the night than, after a bare two hours’ rest before dawn, they did during the following day. This was a foretaste of ordeals in store. The white sand reflected a cruel glare from the summer sun and the bare rocks on either side of the path threw off waves of heat that made heads ache and swim. They could have crossed this torrid zone more rapidly but for the baggage camels, which grazed all day as they went along. Auda, anxious about their poor condition, would not allow them to be hurried. The hours lingered interminably but relief came at last when towards evening they reached the oasis of El Kurr, where they met Maulud and others. From these they learnt that Sharraf, whom they wanted to meet at their next stopping place, was away on a raid.
The news caused them to rest in the shade of the palmtrees for a couple of nights, a welcome excuse for some. “To townsmen this garden was a memory of the world before we went mad with war and drove ourselves into the desert: to Auda there was an indecency of exhibition in the plant-richness, and he longed for an empty view. So we cut short our second night in paradise, and at two in the morning went on up the valley,” On the second morning out from El Kurr the narrowing valley converged to precipitous cliffs up which they had to climb by a mere goat-track, so steep and treacherous that only by dint of pulling and pushing were the camels enabled to reach the top. Even so, they lost two camels in the pass. Lawrence himself was suffering from a fresh access of fever, made worse by boils, and was thankful when, dipping down into the sun-sheltered Wadi Jizil gorge, they came in sight of Sharraf s encampment. He was still away, so that they enjoyed three more days’ rest.
During it Lawrence unwillingly acquired two devoted servants. Lying in a day-dream, he was suddenly disturbed by an Ageyli youth named Daud who had come to intercede with him for a beloved friend who was in trouble with the captain of Sharraf s Ageyl, and had been sentenced to a beating for his mischief. Lawrence made inquiries, but found the captain of the Ageyl adamant and only secured the offer that Baud might take a share ol his Mend Farraj’s punishment if he liked. This concession Baud joyfully accepted. Next day two youthful figures, bent with pain, hobbled up to Lawrence and declared themselves his servants. He promptly rejected the offer, whereupon Farraj, not to be spurned, went down on his knees to Nasir in almost girlish appeal that he would soften Lawrence’s heart. And in the end Lawrence accepted Nasir’s advice to take them.
Sharraf at last arrived, with news of a fresh rail-breaking success and, better still, of new pools of rain-water near the railway. “This would shorten our waterless march to Fejr by fifty miles.” Next day they left Abu Raga, and had only gone a short way when they sighted five or six camel-riders coming from the direction of the railway. Were they friend or foe? Auda and Lawrence, who were ahead, moved so as to be ready to fire. The doubt was soon quenched and at the head of the approaching party Lawrence saw a “fair-haired, shaggy-bearded Englishman in tattered uniform.” it was Hornby, returning from another of the lone-hand expeditions in which he shared the honours with Newcombe. After a greeting, and a brief exchange of news, the march was continued. Mile after mile of it lay over a lava-field that was trying for the soft feet of the camels and meant a tediously slow gait for their riders, scorched by the sun overhead but afraid to go faster lest their mounts should go lame. To add anxiety the camels were all sick with mange, picked up in the infected ground of Wejh. If they were to break down in the forced march that lay ahead the party would be stranded in the desert. The services of Baud and Farraj now proved a boon by their assiduous care of Lawrence’s mount, whose itching face they soothed with butter as an ointment.
On the eleventh day out from Wejh they at last reached the railway near Dizad, some fifty miles south of Tebuk. A few of the party crawled up a sand-peak to reconnoitre it unobserved. To their relief, it looked quiet and deserted, with no sign of the Turkish patrols of which they had been warned. Under Lawrence’s guidance the Ageyl fixed gun-cotton and gelatine charges to the rails and lighted the fuses, while Auda was inspired to poetic improvisation by the thunderous proof of the dynamic power of dynamite. As a parting gesture they cut three telegraph wires, fastened the ends to half a dozen camels, and drove them forward, to drag a growing tangle of wire and broken poles behind them, until the accumulated weight brought the camels to a halt. Then “we cut them loose and rode in the falling dusk laughing after the caravan.”
Now they had come to a vast desert plain, sloping downward to the east, that was called El Houl, “the desolate,” because it was so utterly void of the least trace of life. On the twelfth day they rode in the teeth of a desert wind of such intensely dry heat that their shrivelled lips cracked open and the skin of their faces chapped. For three days after Lawrence’s throat was so dry that eating was painful. But they pushed on relentlessly, driven by the thought of the next water ahead, and the thought of their fate if they failed. By sunset they had covered fifty miles and, starting again before dawn, at noon reached “the well of our desire.” For danger of raiding parties they had to retire to a hidden spot half a mile from the well, putting out sentries.
A fourteenth day’s ride over the interminable plain brought them to another pool. On the fifteenth they sighted a corner of the Great Nefudh, the famous belts of sand-dunes which cut off Jebel Shammar from the Syrian Desert. “Palgrave, the Blunts and Gertrude Bell amongst the storied travellers had crossed it, and I begged Auda to bear off a little and let us enter it, and their company: but he growled that men went to the Nefudh only of necessity, when raiding, and that the son of his father did not raid on a tottering, mangy camel. Our business was to reach Arfaja alive.”
So they marched on over monotonous sun-reflecting sand and the still worse stretches of polished mud, stabbed in the eyelids and stabbed in the back of the head till they nearly swooned from an eddying pain that only relaxed as if to let them “store new capacity for suffering.”
That night Auda became anxious lest another hot headwind might delay them a third day in the desert, for they had no water left. So they started again earlier than ever, and when morning came the Ageyl dismounted and led their camels on foot to eke out the poor beasts’ remaining strength. Lawrence suddenly noticed that one of his men, Gasim, was missing. The loaded camel, riderless, was being led by one of Auda’s Howeitat. No one seemed to care much what had happened to Gasim who, besides being surly, was a stranger from Ma‘an. The man’s own road-fellow was a Syrian peasant who knew nothing of the desert and had a foundered camel.
Lawrence felt that he must take the duty of rescue on himself if he was to establish his claim to be a leader of the Arabs, not merely an attached foreigner. So he rode back alone in the emptiness. “My temper was very unheroic, for I was furious with my other servants, with my own play-acting as a Bedouin, and most of all with Gasim . . . It seemed absurd that I should peril my weight in the Arab adventure for such a worthless fellow
.” Lawrence had ridden for about an hour and a half when at last through the shifting mirage he saw an object that might be a man or might be a bush. He turned off the track, and moving nearer, saw that it was Gasim, a pitiable figure stumbling painfully along. Lawrence hauled him pillion-wise on to the camel’s rump, stirred her up and turned about. Gasim’s moaning wails spurred the camel on, so that Lawrence was afraid she might founder. As Gasim would not stop, Lawrence ferociously threatened to throw him off—the threat seemed so genuine that it quieted him.
After nearly four miles a jumping black bubble in the mirage ahead split into three, and became palpable as Auda and two other men. “I yelled jests and scoffs at them for abandoning a friend in the desert. Auda pulled at his beard and grumbled that had he been present I would never have gone back.” When, however, they had rejoined the caravan and Nesib showed vexation at the way Lawrence had risked his own life and Auda’s “for a whim,” Auda promptly turned on him, “glad to rub into a townsman the paradox of tribe and city; the collective responsibility and group-brotherhood of the desert, contrasted with the isolation and competitive living of the crowded districts.”
The excitement followed by the argument helped to distract their thoughts from the pain of the journey until a few hours later they saw sand-hills fringed sparsely with tamarisk. It was the promised land, the Sirhan—and safety.
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