Lawrence and the Arabs

by Robert Graves

XX

The next day, the fourth of November, they were off again, through rich pasture valleys where gazelle were shot. The flesh was toasted on ramrods over the fire until the outside of the lumps was charred but the inside was juicy and sweet. At this midday halt two of Lawrence’s body-guard quarrelled. One shot off the head-rope of the other, who fired back, putting a bullet through the assailant’s cloak. Lawrence sprang between them and knocked their weapons up, ordering in a loud voice that the right thumb and forefinger of each should be cut off. This had the desired effect; they violently embraced and their companions offered to answer with their own lives that the quarrel was ended. Lawrence called Ali ibn el Hussein in as judge and he bound them over to good behaviour. But first they must seal their promise by the curious old penance of striking their own heads sharply with the edge of a heavy dagger until the blood trickled down to the waist. The wounds were not dangerous but ached for some time as a reminder of the promise given.

At Abu Sawana they found a long pool of delicious rainwater where they filled their water-skins. In the distance they saw a retreating party of Circassian horsemen sent by the Turks to see if this water was occupied—the two parties had missed each other by five minutes; which was lucky for both. On the fifth of November they reached the railway and, Lawrence and Fahad scouting ahead, crossed at dusk without interruption and rode five miles beyond. They camped in a hollow fifteen feet deep where there was grazing for the camels, but it was inconveniently near the railway, and they had to keep a close watch on the camels to prevent them from straying into view, and on the tribesmen to make them keep their heads down when patrols passed along the line.

At sunset, Lawrence and Ali ibn el Hussein decided that they would have to reach Tell el Shehab, blow up the bridge and get back east of the railway by the next dawn. This meant a ride of eighty miles in the thirteen hours of darkness with an elaborate mining operation thrown in. It was too much for the Indians, whose camels were tired out by bad handling—the fault of the Indians’ cavalry training. So Lawrence only took the six best riders on the six best camels and Hassan Shah, their admirable officer, with a single machine-gun. The Serahin were doubtful fighters, so Ali and Lawrence decided, when the time came, to use them to guard the camels while a storming party of the Beni Sakhr, who could be trusted, went forward with the blasting gelatine to settle the bridge. The fighting force then consisted of Fahad and twenty Beni Sakhr, the seven Indians, forty Serahin, Ali ibn el Hussein with six slaves, Wood, and Lawrence with eight of his own men. The other two of Lawrence’s men developed sudden illnesses which prevented them coming: Lawrence excused them for the night and afterwards of all duties whatsoever. They and the rest of the party to be left behind were told to ride to Abu Sawana and wait there for news.

It was a nervous ride. First they stumbled on a terrified pedlar with two wives, two donkeys and a load of raisins, flour and cloaks on the way to the nearest Turkish railway station. One of the Serahin had to be left behind to guard them in case they gave the alarm. He was to release them at dawn and then escape over the line to Abu Sawana. Next a shepherd heard the party coming and fired shot after shot into the middle of them, but without hitting anybody. Then a dog barked. Then a camel loomed up suddenly on the track—but it was a stray and riderless. Then, in a hollow, they came on a woman, probably a gipsy, who ran off shrieking. They passed a village and were fired on while yet distant. These incidents delayed them and in any case the Indians, riding woodenly like cavalrymen, were going much too slowly. Lawrence and Ali rode behind urging on the lagging animals with camel-sticks.

Then it began to rain and the fertile soil of the plain grew slippery. A camel of the Serahin fell, then one of the Beni Sakhr, but the men had them up in a moment and trotted forward. One of Ali ibn el Hussein’s servants halted and dismounted. Ali hissed him on and, when the man mumbled, cut him across the head with his cane. The camel plunged forward and the man, snatching at the hinder girth, managed to swing himself into the saddle; Ali pursued him with the cane. At last the rain stopped and their pace increased as they trotted downhill. They heard a vague rushing sound in the distance; it would be Tell el Shehab waterfall. So they pressed forward confidently. A few minutes later they stopped on a grassy platform by a cairn of stones. Below them, in the darkness, lay the Yarmuk River in its deep gorge. The bridge would be on the right. They unloaded. The moon was not yet over Mount Hermon, which stood before them, but the sky was bright with its rising. Lawrence served out the gelatine—four hundred and fifty pounds in thirty-pound bags—to the Serahin porters. They then started down.

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

FAHAD OF THE BENI SAKHR

from a drawing by ERIC KENNINGTON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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