Lawrence’s short stay at Rumm with Buxton’s men had made him home-sick for England. (It was an ideal England which he loved with a perverse Anglo-Irish sentiment which was quite compatible with being out of sympathy with most Englishmen.) So here at Jefer he accused himself of play-acting, of continuing his cruel fraud on the Arabs for the sake of England’s victory.
But then Nuri once more came to him with documents. The English Government had been working with its foreign departments still at odds together. Besides the original pledges to the Sherif promising Arab independence and the later Sykes-Picot treaty partitioning up the Arab area between England, France and Russia, there were now two more statements: a promise made to seven prominent Arabs at Cairo that the Arabs should keep such territory as they conquered from the Turks during the war, and a promise to the Zionists for a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Which of all these was Nuri to believe? Once more Lawrence smiled and said, ‘The latest in date.’ Nuri took it good-humouredly and ever afterwards helped Lawrence well, yet warned him with a smile: ‘But if ever henceforth I fail to keep a promise,’ said Nuri, ‘it will be because I have superseded it with a later intention.’
Lawrence’s loyalty was further tried by his discovery that negotiations had been begun between the British Government and the Conservative Turks about the terms of Turkey’s surrender. The news did not come to him officially but privately through friends in Turkey, and the Arabs had not been first consulted. This was most unfortunate because the Conservatives, unlike their powerful opponents the Nationalists (headed by Kemal, the present head of the Turkish Republic), were most unwilling to allow Arab governments to be set up in Syria. The British proposals would have been fatal to many of the Arabs already in arms for freedom. Lawrence therefore encouraged Feisal to begin a correspondence with the Kemalists, so that in case Allenby’s thrust failed and a separate peace were made by the British with the Conservative Turks, there might still be a chance of winning and holding Damascus by alliance with the Turkish Nationalists against the Conservatives.
It seems that after all this Lawrence did not quite know where he was, and the only relief as usual for his distress of mind was violent action and a longing for death to end his shame. Yet from actual suicide he shrank. That would be to take death far too seriously; it would not be cowardice but a flippancy unworthy of a serious person like himself. The most that he could allow himself was a constant exposure to danger, leaving himself only the narrowest margin of safety and always hoping for an accident. Accidents, however, though numerous were never fatal; he was too scrupulous about keeping the honourable margin. If he had not been so much in love with the idea of death, he would have been killed a hundred times over.
Nuri’s young nephew Bender begged Lawrence before all the chiefs to give him a place in the body-guard. He had heard wild tales of its excessive joys and sorrows from Rahail, his foster-brother, with whom Lawrence had made the ride from Azrak. Lawrence did not want Bender; a luxurious young man who was too much of a responsibility. But Lawrence could not shame him in front of the chiefs, so he turned the request by asking, ‘Am I a king to have Ruwalla princes as my servants?’ Nuri’s eye met Lawrence’s in silent approval.
From this meeting with Nuri he flew back to Guweira, and from there decided to go forward with the armoured cars as far as Azrak to prepare Buxton’s road. They crossed the railway safely and at Bair met Buxton coming up with his camel-corps from the attack on Mudowwara. He had captured the place and its garrison of about a hundred and forty men with a loss of four killed and ten wounded; destroyed the wells, the engine pumps and the great water-tower, and more than a mile of rails. The only trouble was that the supply-column that accompanied him had left the last stop, Jefer, half-mutinous with fear of the desert and had lost, stolen or sold a third of the rations which the baggage camels were carrying. So the force had to be reduced by fifty of Buxton’s least needed men, a hundred camels, and one of the two armoured cars. There was great delay at Bair, watering at the only two wells. At one of these there were six hundred camels of the Howeitat and Beni Sakhr, and at the other a mob of a thousand Druses, Syrian refugees, Damascus merchants and Armenians, all on their way to Akaba. Lawrence helped Buxton with the watering: the Howeitat were astonished at the English, never having imagined that there were so many of that tribe in the world.
It was Lawrence’s thirtieth birthday and he made it the occasion for a long self-examination, an inquiry into his personality, and his desire to understand his personality, and the difficulties and deceits arising from his desire to understand his personality by testing its effect on others. His desire to be liked and his ambition to be famous, and his cautious or shamefaced restraint of both these impulses. His refusal to believe good of himself or his works; his actual dislike of as much of himself as he could see and hear and feel.
At this point he was roused by shouts and shots. He was afraid that a quarrel had broken out between Buxton’s men and the tribesmen, but it was only an appeal for help against the Shammar who some miles away had driven off eighty Howeitat camels. By the time that he had sent in pursuit four or five relatives of the men robbed, his train of thought was broken. They went forward then. Lawrence’s body-guard were, for this ride, set to lead or drive the baggage camels carrying the six thousand pounds of gun-cotton for the blowing up of the bridge. They were disgusted at this unexciting and menial task, particularly as their charges were very slow Somali camels which could do no more than three miles an hour. El Zaagi urged them on, taunting them with being coolies and drovers, offering to buy their goods when they came to market, and made them laugh in spite of themselves. They kept up by lengthening the marches into the night and stealing time from the breakfast and midday halts. They brought the caravan through without the loss of a single beast, a fine performance for such gilded gentlemen; but then, they were the best camel-masters for hire in all Arabia.
Lawrence was delighted with the Imperial Camel-Corps. Buxton had revised all the hard-and-fast rules of march discipline. His men no longer rode in line but in irregular clumps, each man picking his easiest way over the bad ground. He had reduced and re-hung the loads, and broken the old clockwork system of halting once every hour. Each march his men became more workmanlike, more at home on their animals, tougher, leaner, faster. If only the Indian camel-men had learned to accommodate themselves in the same way to irregular fighting, the Yarmuk bridge raid of the previous autumn might have ended successfully.
