Lawrence and the Arabs

by Robert Graves

from a drawing by ERIC KENNINGTON

Lawrence did not like the idea of sending troops to Rabegh, and replied that there were difficulties about providing shipping for a whole brigade. There were no wholly Mohammedan regiments in the British Army, and a brigade was not large enough anyhow. Ships’ guns would defend the beach, which was all that the brigade could defend, just as well as men on the shore. Moreover, if Christian troops were sent to the assistance of the Holy City against the Turks, it would cause bad feeling in India, where the action would be misunderstood; already there had been great excitement in India when a small British Fleet had bombarded the Turks at Jiddah, the port of Mecca. Still, he would do his best and tell the British in Egypt what Abdulla’s views were. Meanwhile might he go to Rabegh, see what the country was like and also talk with Feisal? He could find out from Feisal whether the hills could be held against the Turks if more help in arms and stores were sent from Egypt.

Abdulla consented but had to get permission from his father; which after some difficulty (for Hussein was very suspicious) was given. Abdulla wrote to his brother Ali telling him to mount Lawrence well and convey him safely and speedily to Feisal’s camp. This was all that Lawrence wanted. That night a sad-looking brass band, in tattered Turkish uniforms, whom Abdulla had captured at Taif played them Turkish and German tunes, and Abdulla told Lawrence of the plans he had made some time before for winning freedom from the Turks by the simple method of detaining important pilgrims to Mecca and holding them as hostages: but Feisal had disagreed. Then Abdulla asked Lawrence how many generations back King George could trace his ancestry: Lawrence replied, ‘Twenty-six generations; to Cedric the Saxon.’ (Or however many it was: I have forgotten, but of course Lawrence knew.) Abdulla proudly remarked that this was not bad, but that he could go seventeen better. Clearly Abdulla was not the prophet. Next day Lawrence took boat to Rabegh and there gave the letter to Ali.

Lawrence took a fancy to Ali, who was the eldest of the four brothers, a man of thirty-seven: he was pleasant-mannered, well read in Arabic literature, pious, conscientious; but he was a consumptive and his weakness made him nervous and moody. If Feisal was not what Lawrence hoped him to be, Ali would perhaps lead the revolt very fairly well. With Ali was another brother, Zeid, a boy of nineteen. He was calm and flippant and not zealous for the Revolt. He had been brought up in the harem and had not yet found himself as a man of action; but Lawrence liked him and he was more pleasant than Ali who did not like the idea of a Christian, even with the permission of the Sherif, travelling in the Holy Province. Ali did not allow Lawrence to start until after sunset lest any of his followers, whom he could not trust, should see him leave the camp. He kept the journey a secret even from his slaves, gave Lawrence an Arab cloak and headcloth to wrap round his uniform and told the old guide who was to go with him to keep his charge from all questioning and curiosity by the way, and to avoid all camps. The Arabs in Rabegh and the district were of the Harb tribe whose chief was pro-Turkish and had fled to the hills when Ali came to Rabegh with his army. They owed this chief obedience, and if he heard of Lawrence’s journey to Feisal, a band of them might be sent to stop him.

Lawrence could count on his guide: a guide had to answer with his life for that of his charge. Some years before a Harb tribesman had promised to take the traveller Huber to Medina by this very road (which was the pilgrims’ road between Medina and Mecca), but finding that he was a Christian had killed him. The murderer relied on public opinion to excuse him, but it went against him in spite of Huber having been a Christian. He had ever since lived alone in the hills without any friends to visit him and had been refused permission to marry any woman of the tribe. It was a warning to Lawrence’s guide and the guide’s son who went with them.

Lawrence, out of training after two years of office work in Cairo, found the journey trying, though the experience of riding a first-class camel of the sort trained in its paces for Arab princes was new and delightful. There were no good camels in Egypt, or in the Sinai desert where the animals though hardy and strong had not been properly trained. The party rode all night except for a short rest and sleep between midnight and the grey dawn. The road was at first over soft flat sand, along the coast between the beach and the hills. After some hours they struck the bed of what in the short rainy season of Arabia is a broad flood-river, but now was merely a wide field of stones, with here and there clumps of thorn bushes and scrub. Here the going was better for the camels and in the early sunlight they made a steady trot towards Masturah, where was the next watering-place out from Rabegh on the pilgrims’ road. Here the guide’s son watered the camels, climbing twenty feet down the side of the stone well and drawing up water in a goatskin, which he poured into a shallow trough. The camels drank about five gallons each, while Lawrence rested in the shade of a ruined stone wall, and the son smoked a cigarette.

Presently some Harb tribesmen came up and watered their she-camels. The guide did not speak to them, for they belonged to a clan with whom his own people, their neighbours, had until recently been at war and even now had little friendship. As Lawrence watched the watering two more Arabs arrived from the direction in which he was bound. Both were young and well mounted; but one was dressed in rich silk robes and embroidered headcloth, the other more plainly in white cotton with a red cotton head-dress, evidently his servant. They halted beside the well and the more splendid one slipped gracefully to the ground without making his camel kneel and said to his companion: ‘Water the camels while I go over there and rest.’ He strolled over to the wall where Lawrence was sitting and pretended to be at his ease, offering a cigarette just rolled and licked. ‘Your presence is from Syria?’ he asked. Lawrence politely parried the question, not wishing to reveal himself, and asked in turn: ‘Your presence is from Mecca?’ The Arab also was unwilling to reveal himself.

Then there a comedy was played which Lawrence did not understand until the guide explained it later. The servant stood holding the camels’ halters waiting for the Harb herdsmen to finish their watering. ‘What is it, Mustafa?’ said his richly-dressed master, ‘Water them at once!’ ‘They will not let me,’ said the servant dismally. The master grew furious and struck his servant about the head and shoulders with his riding stick. The servant looked hurt, astonished and angry, and was about to hit back when he thought better of it and ran to the well. The herdsmen were shocked and out of pity made way for him. As his camels drank from their trough they whispered, ‘Who is he?’ The servant answered, ‘The Sherif’s cousin, from Mecca.’ The herdsmen at once untied bundles of green leaves and buds from the thorn trees and fed the camels of this honourable visitor. He watched them contentedly and called God’s blessing on them: soon he and his servant rode away south along the road to Mecca, while Lawrence and his guides went off in the opposite direction.

The old guide began to chuckle and explain the joke. The two men were both of noble birth. The one who played the part of master was Ali ibn el Hussein, a sherif, the other was his cousin. They were nobles of the Harith tribe and blood enemies of the Harb clan to which these herdsmen belonged. Fearing that they would be delayed or driven off the water if they were recognized, they pretended to be master and servant from Mecca. Ali ibn el Hussein afterwards became Lawrence’s best friend among the Arab fighting men and at one time saved his life: he had already made a name for himself in the fighting at Medina and had been the leader of the Ateiba tribesmen in much camel-fighting with the Turks. Ali had run away from home at the age of eleven to his uncle, a famous robber chieftain, and lived by his hands for months until his father caught him. The old guide grew enthusiastic in his account of Ali, ending with the local proverb, ‘The children of Harith are children of battle.’

The day’s ride which began over shingle continued over pure white sand. The glare dazzled the eyes, so that Lawrence had to frown hard and pull his headcloth forward as a peak over his eyes and beneath them too. The heat beat up in waves from the ground. After awhile the pilgrims’ road was left and a short cut was taken inland over a gradually rising ground of rock ridges covered with drift sand. Here grew patches of hard wiry grass and shrubs, on which a few sheep and goats were pasturing. The guide then showed Lawrence a boundary stone and said with some relief that he was now at home in his own tribal ground and might come off his guard.