They saw four more dead babies and scores of corpses, men and women obscenely mutilated. El Zaagi broke out in peals of hysterical laughter: Lawrence said, ‘The best of you are those who bring me the most Turkish dead.’ They rode after the Turks, killing stragglers and wounded without mercy. Tallal had seen all. He gave one moan, then rode to the upper ground and sat awhile on his mare, shivering and staring at the retreating Turks. Lawrence moved near to speak to him, but Auda restrained him with a hand on his reins.

Very slowly Tallal drew his headcloth about his face, then seemed to take hold of himself and galloped headlong, bending low and swaying in the saddle, right at the main body of the enemy. It was a long ride down a gentle slope and across a hollow. Both armies waited for him. Firing had stopped on both sides and the noise of his hooves sounded unnaturally loud as he rushed on. Only a few lengths from the enemy he sat up in the saddle and shouted his war-cry, ‘Tallal, Tallal!’ twice in a tremendous voice. Instantly the Turkish rifles and machine-guns crashed out and he and his mare fell riddled through and through among the lance-points.

Auda looked cold and grim. ‘God give him mercy,’ he said, ‘we will take his price.’ Then he slowly moved after the enemy. He took command of the Arabs, sending out parties of peasants this way and that and at last by a skilful turn drove the Turks into bad ground and split their force into three parts. The pursuit continued. The smallest section, consisting chiefly of German and Austrian machine-gunners grouped round three motor-cars, fought magnificently. The Arabs were like devils; hatred and revenge so shook them that they could hardly hold their rifles straight to fire. At last this section was left behind while Lawrence and his men galloped after the other two which were fleeing in panic. By sunset all but a few were destroyed. For the first time in the war Lawrence gave the order: ‘No prisoners.’ The peasants flocked to join in the attack. At first only one man in six had a weapon, but gradually they armed themselves from the fallen Turks until at nightfall every man had a rifle and a captured horse.

Just one group of Arabs who had not heard of the horror of Tafas took prisoners the last two hundred men. Lawrence went up to inquire why their lives had been spared, not unwilling to leave them alive as witnesses of Tallal’s price. But a man on the ground screamed out something to the Arabs and they turned to see who it was. It was one of their own men, his thigh shattered, left to die. But even so he had not been spared. In the manner of Tafas he had been further tormented with bayonets hammered through his shoulder and other leg, pinning him to the ground like a collector’s specimen. He was still conscious. They asked him, ‘Hassan, who did it?’ For answer he looked towards the prisoners huddled together near him. The Arabs shot them down in a heap and they were all dead before Hassan too died.

The killing and capturing of the retreating Turks went on all night. Each village, as the fight rolled towards it, took up the work. The main body of seven thousand men had tried to halt at sunset, but the Ruwalla had forced them on in a stumbling scattered mob through the cold and darkness. The Arabs, too, were scattered and nearly as uncertain and the confusion was indescribable. The only detachments that held together were the Germans. Lawrence for the first time felt proud of the enemy that had killed his two younger brothers. They went firmly ahead, proud and silent, steering like armoured ships through the wrack of Turks and Arabs. When attacked they halted, took position, fired at the word of command. It was glorious. They were two thousand miles from home, without hope and without guides, footsore, starving, sleepless: yet on they went, their numbers slowly lessening.

The Ruwalla took Deraa in a mounted charge that night; the garrison had been holding up the Indians at Remthe. Lawrence rode to Deraa to take charge of things, with his body-guard and Nuri Said. He was riding his grand racing-camel, Baha, so called from the bleat that she had from a bullet wound in her throat. He gave her liberty to stretch herself out, drawing ahead of the tired body-guard, so that he arrived alone at Deraa in the full dawn. Nasir was already there arranging for a military governor and police. Lawrence helped him by putting guards over the pumps and engine-sheds and what remained of the looted repair-shops and stores. Then he explained to Nasir what course had to be taken if the Arabs were not to lose hold of what they had won. Nasir, who now for the first time heard that there would be difficulty in persuading the English to take the Arabs seriously, was bewildered. But he soon grasped the point.

General Barrow, commanding the Indians, was advancing now to attack the town, not knowing that it was already captured. Some of his men began firing on the Arabs and Lawrence rode out with El Zaagi to stop them. A party of Indian machine-gunners was proud to capture such finely-dressed prisoners, but Lawrence explained himself to an officer and was allowed to hurry off to find General Barrow. His troops were already encircling the town and his aeroplanes bombed Nuri Said’s men as they entered from the north. Barrow seemed annoyed that the Arabs had got there first, but Lawrence was not sorry for him; particularly since he had delayed a day and a night watering at the poor wells at Remthe, though his map had showed the lake and river of Mezerib close ahead on the road by which the enemy was escaping. Barrow said that his orders were to take Deraa and he was going there anyhow, whoever was in possession. He asked Lawrence to ride beside him. But Baha’s smell disturbed the horses, so Lawrence had to take the centre of the road while the General and his staff rode their bucking horses in the ditch. Barrow said that he must put sentries in Deraa to keep the populace in order. Lawrence explained gently that the Arabs had appointed a military governor. When they reached the wells the General said that his engineers must inspect the pumps. Lawrence answered that he would welcome their assistance, but that the Arabs had already lit the furnaces and hoped to begin watering his horses in an hour’s time. Barrow snorted that Lawrence seemed to be at home; so he would only take charge of the railway station. Lawrence pointed to an engine moving out towards Mezerib and asked Barrow to instruct his sentries not to interfere with the proper working of the line by the Arabs.

LAWRENCE AND HIS BODYGUARD AT AKABA
Summer, 1918

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