Hero_ The Life And Legend Of Lawrence Of Arabia Part 10

At last we left this stern section behind us, though they said it held Sherif Bey, commanding the lancers: and pursued the faster two. They were in panic, and by sunset we had destroyed the smallest pieces of them, gaining as and by what they lost. Parties of peasants flowed in on our advance, each man picking up his arms from the enemy. At first there were five or six to every rifle: then one would put forth a bayonet; another a sword; a third a pistol. An hour later, those who had been on foot would be on donkeys. Afterwards every man would have a rifle, and the most other arms as well. At last all were on captured horses. Before nightfall the horses were heavy-laden, and the rich plain behind us was scattered over with the dead bodies of men and animals.

There lay on us a madness, born of the horror of Tafas or of its story, so that we killed and killed, even blowing in the heads of the fallen and of the animals, as though their death and running blood could slake the agony in our brains.

Just one group of Arabs, who had been to the side all day, and had not heard our news, took prisoners, the last two hundred men of the central section. That was all to survive, and even their respite was short. I had gone up to learn why it was, not unwilling that this remnant be let live as witnesses of Talal's price: but while I came, a man on the ground behind them screamed something to the Arabs who with pale faces led me down to see. It was one of us, his thigh shattered. The blood had rushed out over the red soil, and left him dying, but even so he had not been spared. In the fas.h.i.+on of today's battle he had been further tormented, bayonets having been hammered through his shoulder and other leg into the ground, pinning him out like a collected insect.

He was fully conscious, and we said, "Ha.s.san, who did it?" He dropped his eyes towards the prisoners, standing there so hopelessly broken. We ranged our Hotchkiss on them, and pointed to him silently. They said nothing in the moment before we opened fire: and at last their heap ceased moving, and Ha.s.san was dead, and we mounted again and rode home slowly (home was just my carpet at Sheikh Saad) in the gloom which felt so chill now that the sun had gone down.

However, I found that I could not rest or speak or eat for thinking of Talal, the splendid leader, the fine horseman, the courteous and strong companion of the road: and after a while had my other camel brought, and, with one of my bodyguard, rode out in the night towards Sheikh Miskin, to join our men who were hunting the great Deraa column, and learn how they had fared.

It was very dark with a wind beating in great gusts from the south and east, and only by the noise of shots it tossed across to us, and by occasional gun-flashes did we at length come to the fighting. Every field and valley had its Turks, stumbling blindly northward. Our men were clinging on tenaciously. The fall of night had made them bolder, and they were closing with the enemy, firing into them at short range. Each village as its turn came took up the work, and the black icy wind was wild with rifle shots and shoutings, volleys from the Turks, and gallops as small parties of one or other side crashed frantically together.

The enemy had tried to halt and camp at sunset, but Khalid had shaken them into movement again. Some had marched, some had stayed. As they went many dropped asleep in their tracks with fatigue: They had lost all order and coherence, and were drifting through the storm in lost packets, ready to shoot and run, at every contact with us or with each other, and the Arabs were as scattered, and nearly as uncertain.

Exceptions were the German detachments, and here for the first time I grew proud of the enemy who had killed my brothers. They were marching for their homes two thousand miles away, without hope and without guides, in conditions mad enough to break the bravest nerves. Yet each section of them held together, marching in firm rank, sheering through the wrack of Turk and Arab like an armoured s.h.i.+p, dark, high set, and silent. When attacked they halted, faced about, took position, fired to order. There was no haste, no crying, no hesitation. They were glorious.

After many encounters at last I found Khalid, and asked him to call off all possible Rualla, and leave this routed enemy to time and the peasantry. Heavier work, perhaps lay to the southward. There had been a rumour, at dusk, that Deraa was empty, and Trad with the rest of the Anazeh had ridden off to make sure. I feared a reverse for him, since there must still be men in the place, and more struggling towards it up the railway and through the Iibid hills, in hope of safety there. Indeed unless Barrow had lost contact with his enemy there must be that fighting rearguard yet to follow. Disaster in this eleventh hour was possible:-almost likely for the Arabs in their distracted situation, and I wanted Khalid to go help his brother with what fellows he could collect from the night battle.

He agreed at once, and after an hour or two of shouting his message down the wind, hundreds of hors.e.m.e.n and camel-men had rallied to him. On his way to Deraa he charged through and over several formed detachments of Turks, in the star-blink, and arrived to find Trad in secure possession. He had won it at dusk, taking the station at a whirlwind gallop, jumping the trenches, and blotting out the scanty elements that still tried to resist.

Then, with the help of the local people, they had plundered all the camp, especially finding booty in the fiercely burning storehouses, which the German troops had fired when they left. They entered them and s.n.a.t.c.hed goods from beneath their flaming roofs at peril of their lives: but this was one of the nights in which mankind went crazy, when death seemed impossible however many died to the right and left, and when others' lives seemed just toys to break and throw away.

Meanwhile Sheikh Saad pa.s.sed a troubled evening, all alarms and shots and shouts, threatenings to murder the prisoners of the day as added price of Talal and his village. The active Sheikhs were out with me or hunting the Turks, and their absence and the absence of their retainers deprived the Arab camp of its chiefs and of its eyes and ears. The sleeping clan-jealousies had come to life in the blood-thirst of the afternoon of killing, and Nasir and Nuri Said, Young and Winterton, were up nearly all the time, keeping the peace.

I got in long after midnight, and found Trad's messengers just arrived with news of Deraa. Nasir left at once to join him. I had wished to sleep, for this was my fourth night of riding: but my mind would not be still enough to feel how tired my body was; so about two in the morning I mounted a third camel, and splashed out towards Deraa, down the Tafas track again, pa.s.sing to windward of the dark village and its plangent, miserable women.

Nuri Said and his Staff were riding the same road, and our parties hurried along together till the half-light came. Then my impatience and the cold would not let me travel horse-pace any longer. I gave liberty to my camel, the grand but rebellious Baha, and she stretched herself out against all the field, racing the other camels for mile upon mile with great piston-strides like an engine, so I entered Deraa quite alone in the full dawn. There have been disputes from time to time over whether Lawrence actually ordered the Arabs to take no prisoners, or was merely unable to stop them from killing the Turks and Germans they found, but the text makes it clear that he gave the order. Once this order was given, it became difficult, if not impossible, to rein in the tribesmen, and the killing was soon beyond his control. The bloodletting reawakened the feuds and the hostility between Arab clans and tribes, so that Young and Winterton had their hands full attempting to maintain peace at the encampment, while Lawrence rode on through the night to Deraa.

His bodyguard soon joined him there, and shortly afterward he ran into the first of Allenby's troops, Indian cavalry troopers of the Fourth Cavalry Division manning a neatly ordered machine gun post, who at first wanted to take Lawrence prisoner. This was the first significant meeting of Allenby's troops advancing eastward from Palestine and the Arab army marching north toward Damascus, and neither force was impressed with the other. To the British, the Arab irregulars seemed like armed and "liberated" natives running amok, while the Arabs were not impressed by the spit and polish of the Indian troopers or the severe discipline imposed on them by their officers. Lawrence remembers that when he rode on to meet Major-General Barrow, the meeting was something less than a success. To begin with, Barrow was a confirmed believer in strict discipline, who had published an article before the war in which he argued that fear of his superior officers was the best motivating force for a soldier, a point of view to which Lawrence was temperamentally opposed. Then, Lawrence thought Barrow had advanced too cautiously, stopping to water his horses too often, and saw no reason why Barrow should think it was his job to take Deraa when the Arabs already had possession of it. He took a certain pleasure in the fact that the presence of his camel made Barrow's horse "plunge and buck" as they rode together into Deraa.

Barrow's own memory of meeting Lawrence was dramatically different. First of all, Barrow denies that he rode into town with Lawrence at all, and says they met for the first time at the railway station, opposite the sharifian headquarters. Wherever they met, Barrow was already in a state of high indignation. He was shocked by the condition of the town and the Arabs' open looting. "The whole place," he wrote, "was indescribably filthy, defiled and littered with smouldering cinders and the soiled leavings of loot. Turks, some dead and some dying, lay about the railway station or sat propped against the houses. Those still living gazed at us with eyes that begged for a little of the mercy of which it was hopeless of them to ask of the Arabs, and some cried feebly for water.... In all this there was nothing that was uncommon in war. But a revolting scene was being enacted at the moment when we entered, far exceeding in its savagery anything that has been known in the conflicts between nations during the past 120 years and happily rare even in earlier times.

"A long ambulance train full of sick and wounded Turks was drawn up in the station. In the cab of the engine was the dead driver and a mortally wounded fireman. The Arab soldiers were going through the train, tearing off the clothing of the groaning and stricken Turks, regardless of gaping wounds and broken limbs, and cutting their victims' throats.... It was a sight that no average civilised human being could bear unmoved.

"I asked Lawrence to remove the Arabs. He said he couldn't 'as it was their idea of war.' I replied 'It is not our idea of war, and if you can't remove them, I will.' He said, 'If you attempt to do that I shall take no responsibility as to what happens.' I answered 'That's all right; I will take responsibility,' and at once gave orders for our men to clear the station. This was done and nothing untoward happened."

Lawrence seems to have felt that he got the best of Barrow, and thought he had confused the general by his "exotic dress and Arab companions." Reading Barrow's account of Deraa in the hands of the Arab army, one is not so sure. Barrow knew that Lawrence enjoyed Allenby's confidence, but his feeling seems to have been basically that of a major-general who thinks a temporary lieutenant-colonel is not doing his job properly. As for Lawrence's att.i.tude toward Barrow, it may have been at least in part colored by his dislike of Indian troops; he confessed to sharing the Arabs' disdain for them: "At least my mind seemed to feel in the Indian troops something puny and confined ... so unlike the abrupt, wholesome Beduin of our joyous Army," he wrote. But his "joyous Army" was busy looting and cutting the throats of the Turkish wounded, and what Lawrence dismissed as "subservience" may merely have been the behavior of trained, professional troops who knew the meaning of the phrase "good order and discipline." However, allowance should probably be made for what Lawrence had gone through in the past forty-eight hours.

Years later, after the war, when Barrow and Allenby were chatting in the study of Allenby's London house, Allenby, according to Barrow, "tapped The Seven Pillars of Wisdom The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in his bookshelf and said: 'Lawrence goes for you in his book, George.' I replied to the effect that I was not taking any notice of it, and he said, 'No, that would be a mug's game. Besides, we know Lawrence. He thinks himself a h.e.l.l of a soldier and loves posturing in the limelight.' " Of course we have no way of knowing if this conversation took place in exactly those words, or the degree to which Allenby was merely putting Barrow, a fellow general who was a guest in his home, at ease; but one suspects it is another example of the fact that Lawrence's dislike of regular soldiers was reciprocated to some degree by most of them, and that even Allenby's unwavering support may have faded ever so slightly after the taking of Damascus. in his bookshelf and said: 'Lawrence goes for you in his book, George.' I replied to the effect that I was not taking any notice of it, and he said, 'No, that would be a mug's game. Besides, we know Lawrence. He thinks himself a h.e.l.l of a soldier and loves posturing in the limelight.' " Of course we have no way of knowing if this conversation took place in exactly those words, or the degree to which Allenby was merely putting Barrow, a fellow general who was a guest in his home, at ease; but one suspects it is another example of the fact that Lawrence's dislike of regular soldiers was reciprocated to some degree by most of them, and that even Allenby's unwavering support may have faded ever so slightly after the taking of Damascus.

In any case, the conversation between Barrow and Lawrence at the railway station in Deraa set the tone for the future relations.h.i.+p between the British and Arab armies now that they had at last met east of the Jordan. Lawrence left Deraa and camped out in the open for the night with his bodyguard, for the last time; then at dawn he set out for Damascus in his Rolls-Royce with Major W. F. Stirling, who was wearing khaki and an Arab headdress. The road was blocked by Barrow's rear guard, so Lawrence had Rolls, his driver, take the car to the old French railway, from which the Turks had stripped the rails, and they drove over the gravel ballast as fast as they could. At noon, Lawrence saw Barrow and his staff watering their horses, so he switched from the Rolls-Royce to a camel and rode over to annoy Barrow further. Barrow, it seemed, had expressed the natural belief of a cavalryman that the horse travels faster than the camel, and was astonished to see that Lawrence's camel had caught up with him. He asked when Lawrence had left Deraa. "I said, 'This morning,' and his face fell. 'Where will you stop tonight?' was his next question. 'Damascus,' said I gaily and rode on, having made another enemy."* Lawrence was perfectly right about that. Barrow would not forget him, and since he survived Lawrence long enough to serve in the Home Guard in 1940, and did not write his memoirs until the end of World War II, he managed to have the last word. In any case, Lawrence was about to infuriate a good many more people on his way to Damascus, and after he arrived there. Lawrence was perfectly right about that. Barrow would not forget him, and since he survived Lawrence long enough to serve in the Home Guard in 1940, and did not write his memoirs until the end of World War II, he managed to have the last word. In any case, Lawrence was about to infuriate a good many more people on his way to Damascus, and after he arrived there.

Lawrence continued to be irked by the methodical advance of Barrow's division, with forward scouts and a cavalry screen thrown out in the regulation positions, since he had been told there were no cohesive Turkish forces between here and Damascus-information which, even if he considered it true, he apparently did not pa.s.s on to Barrow. That it was actually not not true seems borne out by the fact that about halfway to Damascus Lawrence found Nasir, Nuri Shaalan, Auda, and their tribesmen attacking a large column of Turks, who were putting up an orderly resistance. Since the Turks had mountain guns and machine guns, Lawrence drove back to seek support from Barrow's leading cavalry regiment. He encountered an "ancient, surly" colonel of the Indian army who very reluctantly "upset the beautiful order of his march" by sending a squadron to attack the Turks, only to withdraw them when the Turks opened fire. Since he had promised the Arabs British support, Lawrence was furious, and turned back to find one of Barrow's brigadier-generals, who sent in the horse artillery and the Middles.e.x Yeomanry, which succeeded in making the Turks abandon their guns and transport, and stream into the desert. There, "Auda was waiting for them, and in that night of his last battle against the Turks the deadly old man killed and killed, plundered and plundered, captured and captured, till dawn came and showed him his work was finished." These were the last remnants of the Turkish Fourth Army, and when Auda had put an end to them, all meaningful Turkish resistance from Damascus south ceased. true seems borne out by the fact that about halfway to Damascus Lawrence found Nasir, Nuri Shaalan, Auda, and their tribesmen attacking a large column of Turks, who were putting up an orderly resistance. Since the Turks had mountain guns and machine guns, Lawrence drove back to seek support from Barrow's leading cavalry regiment. He encountered an "ancient, surly" colonel of the Indian army who very reluctantly "upset the beautiful order of his march" by sending a squadron to attack the Turks, only to withdraw them when the Turks opened fire. Since he had promised the Arabs British support, Lawrence was furious, and turned back to find one of Barrow's brigadier-generals, who sent in the horse artillery and the Middles.e.x Yeomanry, which succeeded in making the Turks abandon their guns and transport, and stream into the desert. There, "Auda was waiting for them, and in that night of his last battle against the Turks the deadly old man killed and killed, plundered and plundered, captured and captured, till dawn came and showed him his work was finished." These were the last remnants of the Turkish Fourth Army, and when Auda had put an end to them, all meaningful Turkish resistance from Damascus south ceased.

Lawrence spent the night in Kiswe, only a few miles from Damascus; and the next day he consulted with Nasir and Nuri Shaalan, and "decided to send the Rualla horse galloping into town," to alert Feisal's supporters and Ali Riza Pasha, the governor of Damascus, who was a secret supporter of Feisal's, that the Arab army was on its way. Allenby had told Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Chauvel, who commanded the Desert Mounted Corps, to let the Arabs go into Damascus first if possible, and with that in mind Chauvel had ordered the Australian Mounted Division to swing around the city and cut the railway line leading to Aleppo in the north and to Beirut in the west. During the day British and Arab forces mixed together outside the city, and Lawrence was anxious that an Arab government should be in place before any British troops entered Damascus. That night he succeeded in sending another 4,000 mounted tribesmen into the city, to support the Rualla sheikhs; then he waited, sleepless, through a breathlessly hot night, illuminated by fires and explosions in Damascus as the Germans blew up their ammunition dumps and stores. At dawn he drove to a ridge and looked out over the city, afraid that he would see it in ruins. Instead, he saw a green oasis of silent gardens shrouded in early morning mist, with only a few columns of black smoke rising from the night's explosions. As he drove down toward the city, through green fields, a single horseman galloped up the road toward him. Seeing Lawrence's head cloth, the horseman held out "a bunch of yellow grapes, shouting: 'Good news: Damascus salutes you,' " and told him that his friends held the city.

Lawrence had urged Nasir and Nuri Shaalan to ride into the city before him. He was then temporarily halted by an importunate Indian army NCO who attempted to take him prisoner, and finally drove into Damascus along the long boulevard on the west bank of the Barada River toward the government buildings. People were packed solid along the road, on the pavement, on the roofs and balconies of the houses, and at every window. Many shouted Lawrence's name as they glimpsed the small Englishman in a dark cloak and a white robe and headdress with a golden agal, agal, seated beside his driver in the dusty open Rolls-Royce. "A movement like a breath, in a long sigh from gate to heart of the city, marked our course," Lawrence wrote, and it was perhaps the proudest moment of his life, the culmination of what had begun just two years earlier when he set out to meet Feisal in the desert. seated beside his driver in the dusty open Rolls-Royce. "A movement like a breath, in a long sigh from gate to heart of the city, marked our course," Lawrence wrote, and it was perhaps the proudest moment of his life, the culmination of what had begun just two years earlier when he set out to meet Feisal in the desert.

Whatever pleasure Lawrence may have allowed himself to feel at the taking of Damascus, or at the cheers from those in the crowds who recognized him, was soon erased by the scene that met him at the town hall. The building was mobbed by people dancing, weeping, and shouting for joy; but once he had pushed his way inside to the antechamber, he found a noisy chaos of political rivalry and old feuds boiling over. The leading figures among the Damascenes and the Bedouin were seated at a crowded table, with their followers behind them, all of them armed, all in furious dispute. Seated at the center of the table was Lawrence's old enemy Abd el Kader and his brother Mohammed Said, on either side of the respected old anti-Turk hero Shukri Pasha el Ayubi, who had been arrested and tortured by Jemal Pasha in 1916. Abd el Kader was shouting at the top of his voice that he, Shukri, and his brother had formed a provisional government and proclaimed Hussein king of the Arabs, even though until yesterday the brothers had been with the Turks. The two brothers had brought their Algerian followers with them and used them to break into the meeting and seize control of it.* Since Lawrence believed that Abd el Kader had betrayed his attempt to destroy the bridge over the Yarmuk and also given the Turks a description of himself that had led to his being stopped at Deraa, he was infuriated; but before he could do anything about it, a furious fight broke out in front of the table, chairs went flying, and a familiar voice shouted in such violent rage that it silenced the whole room. In the center of an angry mob of their followers Auda Abu Tayi and the Druse chieftain Sultan el Atrash, old enemies, tore and clawed at each other until Lawrence "jumped in to drive them apart." Sultan el Atrash was pushed into another room, while Lawrence dragged Auda, "blind with rage," into the empty state room of the town hall. Sultan el Atrash had hit Auda in the face with a stick, and Auda was determined "to wash out the insult with Druse blood." Lawrence managed to calm Auda down, and to hustle Sultan el Atrash out of town. He then decided to make Shukri the temporary military governor of Damascus until Ali Riza Rejabi returned and Feisal arrived and sorted matters out. When he announced this to Abd el Kader and his brother, they "took it rather hard, and had to be sent home," though not before Abd el Kader "in a white heat of pa.s.sion" had lunged at Lawrence with a drawn dagger, only to be stopped from using it by the intervention of Auda. Lawrence briefly contemplated having the two brothers arrested and shot, but decided that it would be a mistake to begin Arab rule in Syria with a political execution. The entire town was now in a combination of frenzied celebration and open political agitation, with the two brothers and their Algerian followers clearly bent on seizing control before Feisal or the British reached Damascus. Since Lawrence believed that Abd el Kader had betrayed his attempt to destroy the bridge over the Yarmuk and also given the Turks a description of himself that had led to his being stopped at Deraa, he was infuriated; but before he could do anything about it, a furious fight broke out in front of the table, chairs went flying, and a familiar voice shouted in such violent rage that it silenced the whole room. In the center of an angry mob of their followers Auda Abu Tayi and the Druse chieftain Sultan el Atrash, old enemies, tore and clawed at each other until Lawrence "jumped in to drive them apart." Sultan el Atrash was pushed into another room, while Lawrence dragged Auda, "blind with rage," into the empty state room of the town hall. Sultan el Atrash had hit Auda in the face with a stick, and Auda was determined "to wash out the insult with Druse blood." Lawrence managed to calm Auda down, and to hustle Sultan el Atrash out of town. He then decided to make Shukri the temporary military governor of Damascus until Ali Riza Rejabi returned and Feisal arrived and sorted matters out. When he announced this to Abd el Kader and his brother, they "took it rather hard, and had to be sent home," though not before Abd el Kader "in a white heat of pa.s.sion" had lunged at Lawrence with a drawn dagger, only to be stopped from using it by the intervention of Auda. Lawrence briefly contemplated having the two brothers arrested and shot, but decided that it would be a mistake to begin Arab rule in Syria with a political execution. The entire town was now in a combination of frenzied celebration and open political agitation, with the two brothers and their Algerian followers clearly bent on seizing control before Feisal or the British reached Damascus.

Triumph: Lawrence, in the Blue Mist, arrives in Damascus.

The arrival of Lieutenant-General Chauvel added to Lawrence's burdens. Like General Barrow at Deraa, Chauvel was shocked and appalled by the disorder in Damascus, anxious to a.s.sert order as quickly as possible, and infuriated to discover that the city appeared to be in the hands of a comparatively junior officer dressed in Arab clothing. Some of Chauvel's Australian hors.e.m.e.n had entered the city the day before, on October 1, despite Allenby's order, and Chauvel therefore believed that he, not Lawrence and the Arabs, had taken Damascus. He expected to make "a formal entry" into the city, with a parade the next day; and it is clear enough from Lawrence's account of their conversation that Lawrence not only attached no great importance to Chauvel's wish, but was pulling his leg-something that Chauvel no doubt recognized, though he was not amused. He considered himself honor-bound to receive the formal surrender of the city from the wali, wali, the Turkish military governor. Lawrence told him that Shukri Pasha was the man, but did the Turkish military governor. Lawrence told him that Shukri Pasha was the man, but did not not tell him, until later in the day, that the "original" Turkish tell him, until later in the day, that the "original" Turkish wali wali had fled and that he, Lawrence, had only just appointed Shukri to replace this man. When Chauvel learned this, he felt that he had been tricked, and warned Lawrence that he "could not recognize the King of the Hedjaz in this matter without further instructions." had fled and that he, Lawrence, had only just appointed Shukri to replace this man. When Chauvel learned this, he felt that he had been tricked, and warned Lawrence that he "could not recognize the King of the Hedjaz in this matter without further instructions."

In retrospect, it might have been wiser to bring Feisal into Damascus sooner, but there was also something to be said for Lawrence's idea of keeping him away while the local politicians and the tribesmen fought it out. Feisal's object was to make his entrance only after Lawrence and those political figures Feisal trusted had (to paraphrase Isaiah 40) prepared the way. The Turks' neglect of the city had to be put right; an effort had to be made to clean up garbage, round up and disarm the remaining Turkish soldiers, remove the signs of widespread looting and the corpses in the streets, and restore such vital public services as electricity, fire brigades, and hospitals. Above all, the activities of Abd el Kader and Mohammed Said, now amounting to a small-scale rebellion, had to be dealt with, since they were exhorting people to reject a government contaminated by its relations.h.i.+p with a Christian power-the British. The fact that Syria was going to be taken by the French was not yet widely known.

On October 2, Chauvel marched some of his troops into the city and placed a company of Australian light hors.e.m.e.n at the railway station and the town hall. Their presence was enough to restore a certain degree of order to the city, though it left Lawrence with the problem of finding forage for 40,000 horses. Still, the political situation remained obscure. Ali Riza Rejabi, a more energetic figure altogether, replaced Shukri as military governor, and promptly sided with Abd el Kader and his brother. Lawrence thought this was likely to give rise to trouble with both the British and the French.

That evening, as Lawrence heard the muezzins recite the call to evening prayer, he thought about the falseness of his position: "I had been born free, and a stranger to those whom I had led for two years, and tonight it seemed that I had given them all my gift, this false liberty drawn down to them by spells and wickedness, and nothing was left me but to go away." His departure would be sooner than he may have expected. In the meantime, Abd el Kader and his brother Mohammed Said staged their rebellion at midnight, encouraging their followers and dissident Druses to arm themselves and "burst open shops." At first light, Mohammed Said was arrested, but Abd el Kader fled into the countryside, to hide among his followers. Lawrence "itched to shoot him," but decided to wait until both brothers were in custody.*

At lunchtime, an Australian army doctor complained to Lawrence of the appalling conditions in the Turkish military hospital. Lawrence thought he had covered all three hospitals in Damascus-the civil, the military, and the missionary-but the Turks had used their barracks as a hospital as well, and this had been overlooked. He rushed to the barracks-where the Australian guard at first refused to let him enter, thinking he was an Arab-then walked through the huge area "squalid with rags and rubbish." He eventually found a room crammed with dead Turkish soldiers: "There might be thirty there, and they crept with rats who had gnawed red galleries into them.... Of some the flesh, just going putrid, was yellow and blue and black. Others were already swollen.... Of others the softer parts were fallen in, while the worst had burst open, and were liquescent with decay." Beyond this room was a large ward, into which Lawrence had to advance over "a soft ma.s.s of bodies," a worse place of horror, in which long lines of men lay in their beds, dying of disease, thirst, and hunger and crying out softly, Aman, aman Aman, aman ("Pity, pity"). Most of them had dysentery, and their few clothes and dressings were stiff with caked filth. Lawrence tried, but failed, to interest the Australians in helping, then went upstairs into the barracks and found the Turkish commandant and a few doctors "boiling coffee over a spirit stove." He forced them, and a few of the less seriously sick of the Turkish soldiers, to dig a six-foot-deep trench in the garden, gather up the corpses, and dump them one by one into it. Some of the corpses could be lifted and carried on stretchers; others had to be sc.r.a.ped up off the floor with shovels. He finally left another British officer in charge of the work and went back to the Hotel Victoria at midnight, ill and exhausted. He had slept less than three hours before leaving Deraa four days ago. At the hotel, the first thing to greet him was a reprimand from General Chauvel because the Arabs had failed to salute Australian officers properly. ("Pity, pity"). Most of them had dysentery, and their few clothes and dressings were stiff with caked filth. Lawrence tried, but failed, to interest the Australians in helping, then went upstairs into the barracks and found the Turkish commandant and a few doctors "boiling coffee over a spirit stove." He forced them, and a few of the less seriously sick of the Turkish soldiers, to dig a six-foot-deep trench in the garden, gather up the corpses, and dump them one by one into it. Some of the corpses could be lifted and carried on stretchers; others had to be sc.r.a.ped up off the floor with shovels. He finally left another British officer in charge of the work and went back to the Hotel Victoria at midnight, ill and exhausted. He had slept less than three hours before leaving Deraa four days ago. At the hotel, the first thing to greet him was a reprimand from General Chauvel because the Arabs had failed to salute Australian officers properly.

The next morning, October 3, he went back to the Turkish barracks and found that conditions were improving. The dead were buried; lime had been spread everywhere; the living were being washed, put into clean s.h.i.+rts, and given water-it was still a charnel house, but a measure of order and humanity was being restored. Just as Lawrence was leaving, a major of the Royal Army Medical Corps, an Englishman, strode up to him and "asked [him] shortly if he spoke English." Lawrence said he did, and "with a glance of disgust at my skirts and sandals" the major asked whether Lawrence was in charge. Lawrence said that in a way he was, and the major began to shout at him indignantly and almost incoherently: "scandalous, disgraceful, outrageous, ought to be shot." Taken aback by this onslaught, just as he was about to congratulate himself on having taken care of a hopeless situation, Lawrence involuntarily laughed, "cackled like a duck, with the wild laughter that often took me at moments of strain." He was unable to stop laughing, and the major, wild with anger, slapped him hard across the face "and stalked off, leaving me more ashamed than angry, for in my heart I felt that he was right, and that anyone who had, like me, pushed through to success a rebellion of the weak against their master, must come out of it so stained that nothing in the world would make him clean again."

In essence this was the feeling that would motivate Lawrence throughout the rest of his life: the belief not just that he had failed the Arabs by not getting them the state and the independence they had fought for, but that he was rendered, by what he had done, seen, and experienced, permanently unclean, unfit for the society of decent people, a kind of moral leper. It is important to realize that while Lawrence's behavior after the war seemed strange to many people, it is not at all unfamiliar to those who have fought in a war.

Lawrence was always able to function; indeed in many respects his greatest achievements were still ahead of him-but in some way he took on the guilt and the shame of everything he, and millions of others, had done. His wild, manic laughter in Damascus took place, perhaps appropriately, on the day he would leave behind the role of "Colonel Lawrence," which he had come to despise, and begin, with halting steps, a new life, under a variety of new names.

Early the same morning, Allenby arrived in Damascus at last, and stopped briefly at the Victoria Hotel with his staff. Feisal was due to arrive the same day by train, and at first there was some doubt about whether he and Allenby, who was anxious to push on and take Aleppo and Beirut, could meet. Feisal was planning a "triumphal entry" into Damascus, and the streets were already packed with people antic.i.p.ating his arrival. Allenby was not interested in ceremonies, and ordered Major Young to find Feisal and tell him "to come and see me at once." Young went off to intercept Feisal in General Liman von Sanders's huge red Mercedes Roi des Belges Roi des Belges limousine, which had been captured in Nazareth. By the time Young found him, Feisal had already left the train and mounted his horse, ready to ride into the city at the head of the mounted Arab regulars. When Young told Feisal that Allenby had only a few minutes and wished to see him, he rode off at the canter at once, so Young was obliged to trail after him in the big car. We have no way of knowing what Feisal thought at having his plans disrupted, but whatever his feelings were, Feisal must have realized that meeting Allenby was more important. Young took him up to Allenby's suite; Allenby and Lawrence were on the balcony awaiting Feisal's arrival, and when Allenby walked back into the room he and Feisal met for the first time. limousine, which had been captured in Nazareth. By the time Young found him, Feisal had already left the train and mounted his horse, ready to ride into the city at the head of the mounted Arab regulars. When Young told Feisal that Allenby had only a few minutes and wished to see him, he rode off at the canter at once, so Young was obliged to trail after him in the big car. We have no way of knowing what Feisal thought at having his plans disrupted, but whatever his feelings were, Feisal must have realized that meeting Allenby was more important. Young took him up to Allenby's suite; Allenby and Lawrence were on the balcony awaiting Feisal's arrival, and when Allenby walked back into the room he and Feisal met for the first time.

Allenby's mood was far from cheerful; he had hoped to avoid the meeting until he received definite instructions from London about the political arrangements for Syria, and after the polite greetings, it was his unwelcome task to give Feisal the bad news that the Sykes-Picot agreement was by no means dead. Using Lawrence as his interpreter-though it appears likely that Feisal understood a good deal more English and a lot more French than he thought it politic to admit-Allenby plunged right in with the bad news: France "was to be the Protecting Power over Syria"; Feisal was to have "the Administration of Syria" on behalf of his father, but under French "guidance," and was not "to have anything to do" with Lebanon, which was reserved to France; and perhaps most unwelcome of all, Feisal was to exchange Lawrence as his liaison officer for "a French Liaison Officer at once."

Feisal objected "very strongly." He said that he preferred British to French a.s.sistance; that if Lebanon was not joined to Syria, "a country without a port was no good to him"; and that he "declined to have a French Liaison Officer or to recognize French guidance in any way."

Allenby then "turned to Lawrence and said: 'But did you not tell him that the French were to have the Protectorate over Syria?' Lawrence said: 'No Sir, I know nothing about it.' [Allenby] then said: 'But you knew definitely that he, Feisal, was to have nothing to do with the Lebanon?' Lawrence said: 'No Sir, I did not.' "

After this embarra.s.sing exchange, Allenby laid down the law. Feisal, he pointed out, was a lieutenant-general under his command, and would have to obey his orders. After some further discussion, Feisal took his leave. It is possible that he and Lawrence may not have known of some of the more humiliating details of the French "protectorate," but Lawrence certainly knew all about the Sykes-Picot agreement and had pa.s.sed on what he knew to Feisal. Indeed Feisal could have read the agreement for himself, once the Bolsheviks had published the doc.u.ment. Feisal understandably found it more diplomatic to deny any knowledge of a doc.u.ment which he had supposed was a "dead letter," and whose legitimacy he was bound to oppose. Given his admiration for Allenby, Lawrence must have found it difficult to say with a straight face that he knew nothing of the terms, which differed so dramatically from promises made to the Arabs.

That perhaps explains the bluntness of his dismissal. After Feisal's departure, Lawrence told Allenby that "he would not work with a French Liaison Officer and that since he was due for leave and thought he had better take it now and go off to England. [Allenby] said, 'Yes! I think you had!' and Lawrence left the room."

The next evening, Lawrence left Damascus, driven, for the last time, in the Blue Mist. His ambitions for the Arabs would have to be fought out in London and Paris now.

By October 24, he was home in Oxford, for the first time since 1914.

*The Army Service Corps (ASC) dealt with transport, supply, and vehicles; it became the royal Army Service Corps (rASC) in 1918.

*Lawrence spells it Tafileh; Liddell Hart spells it Tafila.

*About 35,000 today.

*"one attacks, then waits to see what happens."

*Lawrence measured the distance at 3,100 yards by counting his paces; some of his critics have objected that the sights of a British Vickers machine gun were calibrated only up to 2,000 yards, but this ignores the fact that the Vickers was "effective" up to 4,500 yards, and like the British SMLE rifle of World War I, was designed to provide "long range volley firing" (also known as "indirect" or "plunging" fire) when needed. That is, the Vickers could be aimed and fired high in the air, so that the rounds would cover a great distance in an arc or parabola and plunge down on the enemy from directly above. Lawrence's text makes it clear that this was what he had in mind, and did.

*Scipio's decisive victory over Hasdrubal's Carthaginians in Spain.

*Thirty thousand gold sovereigns would be worth about $9.6 million today.

*By the time the Kaiserschlact, as Field Marshal Hindenberg and General Ludendorff had named their offensive (thus shrewdly saddling the kaiser with the responsibility for it), ground to an end in June, it had cost the Germans nearly 700,000 casualties, and the British and French almost 500,000 each.

* Jeremy Wilson points out that Lawrence changed their names in Seven Pillars of Wisdom-they were actually Othman (Farraj) and Ali (Daud). Jeremy Wilson points out that Lawrence changed their names in Seven Pillars of Wisdom-they were actually Othman (Farraj) and Ali (Daud).

*From 1922, when Shaw first met him, Lawrence floats eerily into and out of Shaw's plays: not only as Saint Joan, but elsewhere: as Private Meek in Too True to Be Good,and even as Adolphus Cusins, Barbara's fiance in Major Barbara. Cusins is a slight,una.s.suming Greek scholar who in the end decides to become an armaments king, and hisdescription again might also serve for Lawrence: he is afflicted with a frivolous sense of humor ... a most implacable, determined, tenacious, intolerant person who by mere force of character presents himself as and indeed actually is considerate,gentle, explanatory ... capable possibly of murder, but not of cruelty or coa.r.s.eness.(New York: random house, 1952, 228.) *Even in the United Kingdom there was doubt. Asquith, the prime minister, noted in his diary on March 13, 1915, that "the only other partisan of this proposal [the Balfour Declaration] is Lloyd George who, i need not say, does not care a d.a.m.n for the Jews or their past or their future." (earl of oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections,1928.) *There are conflicting accounts of Lawrence's camel borne field library, but Liddell hart, who got the information from Lawrence himself, reports that he carried with him Malory's Morte d'Arthur, the Oxford Book of English Verse, and the comedies of Aristophanes * This is the same place as Abu el Lissal. Transliterations of Arabic place names into English were, and remain, idiosyncratic. This is the same place as Abu el Lissal. Transliterations of Arabic place names into English were, and remain, idiosyncratic.

* A tender was an open car converted into the equivalent of what Americans call a pickup truck. A tender was an open car converted into the equivalent of what Americans call a pickup truck.

*his position was not unique. Captain J. r. Shakespear played much the same role toward ibn Saud on behalf of the government of india. When Shakespear was killed in a desert skirmish, he was replaced by St. John Philby, the noted Arabist, ornithologist,and convert to islam, and father of the master spy and traitor Kim Philby.

* Wavell meant, in modern terms, 12,000 cavalrymen, 57,000 infantrymen, and an artillery strength of 540 guns. Wavell meant, in modern terms, 12,000 cavalrymen, 57,000 infantrymen, and an artillery strength of 540 guns.

*These were the standard "bangers" of the British army. Lawrence occasionally ate meat, when it was a question of being polite to his Arab hosts, or when there was nothing else to eat but camel meat. on at least one occasion he expressed pleasure at a piece of gazelle roasted over an open fire. his vegetarian bent was not dogmatic *The famous term describing non upper cla.s.s usage that is, lower middle cla.s.s and middle cla.s.s usage that Nancy Mitford enshrined in the english language when she wrote "The english Aristocracy" for Encounter in 1954. Whatever else he was, Lawrence was an oxonian who spoke impeccable upper cla.s.s english. The word "powwow"from a fellow officer would grate on his nerves as much as "serviette" for "napkin."

*in his memoir, The Fire of Life, General Barrow a.s.serts he had no such conversation with Lawrence, and that since indian cavalry regiments on the Northwest Frontier always had a certain number of riding camels attached to them, he was as familiar with camels as Lawrence was. on the otherhand, Barrow may not have realized only a fewhours after the scene between them at Deraa that Lawrence was pulling hisleg.

* To put this in perspective, the number of the brothers' Algerian followers in and around Damascus may have been as high as 12,000 to 15,000 people (David Fromkin,A Peace to End All Peace, New York: holt, 1989, 336). To put this in perspective, the number of the brothers' Algerian followers in and around Damascus may have been as high as 12,000 to 15,000 people (David Fromkin,A Peace to End All Peace, New York: holt, 1989, 336).

*Abd el Kader would eventually be shot by sharifian police outside his home in Damascus on September 3, 1919 a cla.s.sic instance of the clich "shot while attempting to escape." Mohammed Said lived on to become a supporter of French rule in Syria.

CHAPTER NINE.

In the Great World.

... that younger successor of Mohammed, Colonel Lawrence, the twenty-eight-year-old conqueror of Damascus, with his boyish face and almost constant smile-the most winning figure ... of the whole Peace Conference.-James T. Shotwell, At the Paris Peace Conference Despite General Allenby's abruptness, he and Lawrence had not lost their esteem for each other. Allenby may well have felt that Lawrence's departure from Syria would make it easier for Feisal to get used to the inevitable, in the form of a French replacement, but if so he was wrong. Throughout the coming peace talks in Paris Lawrence would remain-to the fury of the French, and the occasional exasperation of the British Foreign Office-Feisal's confidant, constant companion, interpreter, and adviser, the only European with whom Feisal could let his guard down. In Cairo, Lawrence gave Lady Allenby one of his most treasured mementos, the prayer rug from his first attack on a Turkish train. Allenby not only wrote to Clive Wigram,* a.s.sistant private secretary to King George V, asking him"to arrange for an audience with the King" for Lawrence, but at Lawrence's request made him "a temporary, special and acting full colonel," a rank that ent.i.tled Lawrence to take the fast train from Taranto to Paris instead of a slower troop train, and to have a sleeping berth on the journey. Allenby also wrote to the Foreign Office to say that Lawrence was on his way to London to present Feisal's point of view on the subject of Syria. a.s.sistant private secretary to King George V, asking him"to arrange for an audience with the King" for Lawrence, but at Lawrence's request made him "a temporary, special and acting full colonel," a rank that ent.i.tled Lawrence to take the fast train from Taranto to Paris instead of a slower troop train, and to have a sleeping berth on the journey. Allenby also wrote to the Foreign Office to say that Lawrence was on his way to London to present Feisal's point of view on the subject of Syria.

Lawrence's return therefore had a semiofficial gloss-far from coming home to shed his rank and be "demobilized," in the military jargon of the day, Lawrence arrived with the crown and two stars of a colonel on his shoulders and a string of interviews arranged at the very highest level of government. Although Lawrence claimed to have felt like "a man dropping a heavy load," there seems to have been no doubt in his mind, or Allenby's, that he was returning to Britain to take up the Arab cause.

Lawrence was exhausted, thin almost to emaciation, weighing no more than eighty pounds, as opposed to his usual 112. This is borne out both by Lawrence's older brother Bob, who was shocked by his appearance when he arrived home, and by James McBey's startling portrait of him, painted in Damascus, in which his face is as thin and sharp as a dagger, and his eyes are enormous and profoundly sad. It is the face of a man worn out by danger, stress, responsibility, and disappointment. The faintly ironic smile on his lips seems to suggest that he already suspects nothing he fought for is likely to happen. The confusion, chaos, jealousies, and violence in Damascus may already have convinced him that there was not going to be a n.o.ble ending to his adventures.

On the s.h.i.+p from Port Said to Taranto, Italy, Lawrence persuaded his fellow pa.s.senger and former fellow soldier, Lord Winterton, a member of Parliament, to write on his behalf requesting interviews with Lord Robert Cecil (the undersecretary of state for foreign affairs*) and A. J. Balfour (the foreign secretary). Lawrence also interrupted his journey in Rome for a talk with Georges-Picot about the French position in Syria. During the course of this discussion Picot made it very clear, if there had been any doubt in Lawrence's mind, that France remained determined to have Lebanon and Syria, and rule them from Paris in much the same way as Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. There was a place for Prince Feisal as the head of a government approved by France, and under the tutelage of a French governor-general and a French military commander, but he should have no illusions about creating an independent sovereign state.

Tragedy: Lawrence, exhausted, emaciated, and shorn of illusions. Damascus, 1918.

There occurred on this journey an incident that puzzled Lawrence's biographers while he was still alive and provided material for them long after his death. Either at Taranto, between the s.h.i.+p and the train, or at Ma.r.s.eille, where the train presumably stopped before going on to Paris, Lawrence saw a British major dressing down a private for failing to salute, and humiliating the private by making him salute over and over again. Lawrence intervened, and when the major asked him what business it was of his, he removed his uniform mackintosh, which had no epaulets and hence no badges of rank; revealed the crown and two stars of a full colonel on his shoulders; pointed out that the major had failed to salute him him; and made the major do so several times. Lowell Thomas's version of this incident differs radically from Liddell Hart's: according to Thomas, Lawrence asks the railway transport officer (RTO) at the Ma.r.s.eille station, a lieutenant-colonel ("a huge fellow, with a fierce moustache"), what time his train leaves, is snubbed, and then takes off his raincoat to show that he outranks the pompous RTO. In Robert Graves's biography, Lawrence sees "a major ... bullying two privates ... for not saluting him," and neglects to return their salute until Lawrence appears and makes him do so. Whichever one of these stories is true, they all ill.u.s.trate the same point, which is Lawrence's dislike of conventional discipline and of officers' abusing their power over "other ranks."

One point that the indefatigable Jeremy Wilson has clearly demonstrated in his exhaustive authorized biography is that there is always a germ of truth in every story Lawrence told about himself, though over the years Lawrence sometimes improved and embellished such stories. Taranto seems much more likely as the place where this occurred, first of all because there were more British troops at Taranto, but also because it had been only a matter of days then since General Chauvel's inopportune complaint in Damascus about the Arabs' failing to salute British officers, so the subject of saluting may still have been very much on Lawrence's mind. This was also the first time in more than two years that Lawrence was dressed in a British uniform and found himself among British officers and men. In the desert, he had neither saluted nor encouraged British personnel below his rank to salute him. Now he was back in the army. He was returning to a world where rank mattered and cla.s.s distinctions were absolute, a world very different from the rough simplicity of desert warfare.

He arrived home "on or about October 24th," but spent only a few days with his family in Oxford before getting down to the business of securing Syria for Feisal and the Arabs. Only four days later, thanks to Winterton's letter of introduction, he had a long interview with Lord Robert Cecil, perhaps the most eminent, respectable, and idealistic figure in Lloyd George's government. Cecil was a son of the marquess of Salisbury, the Conservative prime minister who had dominated late Victorian politics; the Cecil family traced its tradition of public service back to 1571, when Queen Elizabeth I made William Cecil her lord treasurer. Robert Cecil was an Old Etonian, an Oxonian, a distinguished and successful lawyer, an architect of the League of Nations, and a firm believer in Esperanto as a universal common language. He would go on to win the n.o.bel Peace Prize, among many other honors. The fact that he was willing to see Lawrence on such short notice is a tribute not only to Lord Winterton's reputation, but to Lawrence's growing fame as a hero. Of course he was not yet the celebrity he would become when Lowell Thomas had established him in the public mind as "Lawrence of Arabia," but his service in the desert was already sufficiently well known to open doors that would surely have remained closed to anyone else. Cecil's notes on the meeting-in which he shrewdly comments that Lawrence always refers to Feisal and the Arabs as "we"-make it clear that Lawrence's ideas on the future of the Middle East were both intelligent and far-reaching, and were viewed with sympathy by one of the most influential figures in what would later come to be called "the establishment." The next day, Lawrence had an equally long and persuasive discussion with Lieutenant-General Sir George Macdonogh, GBE, KCB, KCMG, adjutant-general of the British army, and creator of MI7, an intelligence unit intended to sabotage German morale. Macdonogh, who was very well informed about the Middle East, afterward circulated to the war cabinet a long and admiring report on his discussion with Lawrence, the gist of which was that the Sykes-Picot agreement should be dropped, Syria should be "under the control" of Feisal, Feisal's half brother Zeid should rule northern Mesopotamia, and Feisal's brother Abdulla should rule southern Mesopotamia-in short, Lawrence converted Macdonogh.

Perhaps as a result of the "Macdonogh memorandum," Lawrence was invited to address the Eastern Committee of the war cabinet on October 29, only five days after he had arrived back in Britain. Deducting two days for the time he had spent with his family in Oxford, Lawrence had reached the highest level of the British government in seventy-two hours. Judging from Macdonogh's memorandum, he did so first by the lucidity and intelligence of his ideas, and second because what he had to say was viewed with intense sympathy. The British government believed, like Lawrence, that the Sykes-Picot agreement should be discarded; that Arabs and Zionists should cooperate in Palestine under the protection of a British administration; that Mesopotamia should be an Arab "protectorate," ruled from Cairo, not from Delhi; and that Arab ambitions (and British promises) in Syria should be respected. If Lawrence was not quite preaching to the converted, he was at any rate preaching to those who were prepared to convert. On the other hand, since there were still few signs that the war was about to end suddenly-in twenty-three days, in fact-the general feeling was that there was still plenty of time to bring the French around to this point of view. The British also believed that Woodrow Wilson would certainly denounce the Sykes-Picot agreement as a perfect example of secret diplomacy, which he wanted to end once and for all. Lawrence, who had after all stopped in Rome to talk directly to Picot, had a good idea of just how intransigent the French were likely to be; but perhaps sensibly, he does not seem to have raised this with either Cecil or Macdonogh.

In any event, Lawrence's appearance at the Eastern Committee of the war cabinet is almost as much of a puzzle for biographers as the story about the saluting incident at Taranto or Ma.r.s.eille. He himself once said that he "was more a legion than a man," a reference to the man from Gadara whose name was "Legion" because he was possessed by so many demons. Lawrence found no difficulty in presenting different versions of himself to people throughout his lifetime, hence the often wildly conflicting reactions to him.

The meeting was chaired by the Rt. Hon. the Earl Curzon, KG, GSCI, GCIE, PC, former viceroy of India, leader of the House of Lords, one of the most widely traveled men ever to sit in a British cabinet, and perhaps one of the most formidable and hardworking political figures of his time. A graduate of Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, he was in some respects everything that Lawrence was not: his career at Oxford had been glittering, both academically and socially; he was renowned for his arrogance and inflexibility (caused in part by the fact that a riding injury in his youth obliged him to wear a steel corset that inflicted on him unceasing, lifelong pain, and made his posture seem unnaturally stiff and straight). His att.i.tude toward life was grandly aristocratic, so that he sometimes seemed more appropriate to the eighteenth than to the twentieth century.

As Lawrence later told the story, he sat before the committee while Curzon made a long speech, outlining and praising Lawrence's feats-a speech that for some reason Lawrence "chafed at." Lawrence may, as he later complained, have found this speech patronizing, particularly since he knew most of the members of the committee, but it is more likely that Curzon's grandiloquent manner simply rubbed him the wrong way. In any case, once Curzon finished, he asked if Lawrence wished to say anything, and Lawrence answered: "Yes, let's get to business. You people don't understand yet the hole you have put us all into."

Lawrence, writing to Robert Graves in 1927, added: "Curzon burst promptly into tears, great drops running down his cheeks, to an accompaniment of slow sobs. It was horribly like a mediaeval miracle, a lachryma Christi, happening to a Buddha. Lord Robert Cecil, hardened to such scenes, presumably, interposed roughly, 'Now old man, none of that.' Curzon dried up instanter." Lawrence then warned Graves, "I doubt if I'd publish it, if you do, don't put it on my authority. Say a late member of the F.O. [Foreign Office] Staff told you."

There are many questions about this account, some of which are obvious. First, why would Curzon ask if there was anything Lawrence wished to say, since Lawrence's whole reason for being there was to speak to the committee? Second, it is hard to imagine Lord Robert Cecil, the most gentlemanly of men, speaking to anyone "roughly." The spectacle of Curzon sobbing at a meeting of a committee of the war cabinet would certainly have startled the other members, and in fact, after Graves's biography of Lawrence was published, Cecil wrote to Curzon's daughter, Lady Cynthia Mosley,* denying that the incident had ever happened: "I feel quite certain that your father never burst into tears, and I am even more certain that I have never addressed him in the way described under any circ.u.mstances." As for Curzon's speech about Lawrence, Cecil wrote: "Colonel Lawrence listened with the most marked attention, and spoke to me afterwards in the highest appreciation of your father's att.i.tude." denying that the incident had ever happened: "I feel quite certain that your father never burst into tears, and I am even more certain that I have never addressed him in the way described under any circ.u.mstances." As for Curzon's speech about Lawrence, Cecil wrote: "Colonel Lawrence listened with the most marked attention, and spoke to me afterwards in the highest appreciation of your father's att.i.tude."

Of course Cecil may have felt it was his obligation to be polite to Lady Cynthia about her father, but n.o.body else who was present at the meeting seems to have commented on the incident, and this fact raises a certain amount of doubt about Lawrence's story. Indeed, given how influential Curzon was, and the importance of Lawrence's meeting with the committee, why on earth would Lawrence have gone out of his way to attack him?

Against this must be set the rumor that Curzon burst into tears in 1923 when Lord Stamfordham, the king's private secretary, informed him that George V had decided to choose Stanley Baldwin instead of Curzon as prime minister, after Bonar Law announced his retirement. If Curzon could burst into tears on that occasion, then he could presumably have burst into tears in front of Lawrence and the members of the Eastern Committee of the war cabinet; but even so there is a certain gloating quality in Lawrence's letter to Graves, which makes one uncomfortable. In addition, Lawrence's suggestion that Graves should attribute the story to "a late member of the F.O. Staff" when he himself is the source of it seems rather devious for a man who set such high standards for himself.

In Scottish courts there used to be a verdict falling between "guilty" and "not guilty," namely "not proven." Lawrence's story about Curzon bursting into tears seems to fit into that category perfectly.

The day after Lawrence's appearance before the Eastern Committee of the war cabinet, he was involved in an even more controversial meeting at a much higher level. Allenby's letter to Clive Wigram had produced a private audience with the king, who was in any case, given his interest in military affairs, curious to meet young Colonel Lawrence. Allenby had also recommended Lawrence for the immediate award of a knighthood, a Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath (KCB), which was one step up in the senior of the two orders that Lawrence had already been awarded. Lawrence had already made it clear to the king's military secretary that he did not wish to accept this honor, and that he merely wished to inform the king about the importance of Britain's living up to the promises made to King Hussein, but whether this information was pa.s.sed on accurately is uncertain. It seems unlikely that two men as realistic as General Allenby and Lord Stamfordham would have hidden from the king Lawrence's unwillingness to receive any form of decoration-perhaps the most important part of Stamfordham's job as a courtier was to ensure that the king was spared any kind of surprise or embarra.s.sment, and Allenby was an ambitious man who would not have wished to offend his sovereign.

Once Lawrence arrived at Buckingham Palace, he learned that the king intended to hold a private invest.i.ture, and present him with the insignia of his CB and his DSO. It seems very likely that this was the king's own idea, that he intended it as a thoughtful gesture toward a hero. Once he made up his mind to do it, neither Stamfordham nor the military secretary attempted to confront him over the matter-George V's stubbornness and sharp temper were well known, and when he had