Lawrence was arranging other improvements when an Army Medical Corps major strode up and asked him shortly whether he spoke English. ‘Yes,’ said Lawrence. The Major looked with disgust at his skirts and sandals and asked: ‘You’re in charge?’ ‘In a way I am,’ Lawrence answered. ‘Scandalous, disgraceful, outrageous, ought to be shot ...’ the major bellowed. At this sudden attack Lawrence, whose nerves were very ragged, began to laugh hysterically; he had been so proud of himself for having bettered what was apparently past hope. The major had not seen the charnel-house of the day before, nor smelt it, nor helped in the burying of the putrefying corpses. He smacked Lawrence in the face and stalked off.
When Lawrence returned to the hotel he saw large crowds round a familiar grey Rolls-Royce: he ran in and found Allenby. Allenby welcomed him and approved the steps that he had taken for setting up Arab governments at Deraa and Damascus. He confirmed Ali Riza’s appointment as his military governor and regulated the spheres of interest for Feisal and Chauvel. He agreed to take over the barracks-hospital and the railway. In ten minutes all difficulties had slipped away: Allenby’s confidence and decision and kindliness were like a pleasant dream.
Then Feisal’s train arrived from Deraa and the rolling cheers as he came riding up could be heard louder and louder through the windows. He was coming to call on Allenby, and Lawrence was happy to be the interpreter between his two masters at their first meeting. Allenby gave Lawrence, for Feisal, a telegram just received from the British Government ‘recognizing to the Arabs their status as belligerents.’ But nobody knew what it meant in English, let alone in Arabic, so Feisal, smiling but still with tears in his eyes from his welcome by the crowd, put it aside to satisfy the ambition of a year—he thanked Allenby for the trust which had helped his Revolt to victory. ‘They were a strange contrast,’ writes Lawrence—‘Feisal large-eyed, colourless and worn, like a fine dagger; Allenby gigantic and red and merry, fit representative of the Power which had thrown a girdle of humour and strong dealing around the world.’
FEISAL JUST AFTER HIS MEETING WITH ALLENBY
Copyright Imperial War Museum
The interview lasted only a few minutes and when Feisal had gone Lawrence made Allenby the first and last request that he had ever made for himself—leave to go away. For a while Allenby would not give it, but Lawrence pointed out how much easier the change from war to peace conditions would be for the Arabs if his influence were removed. Allenby understood and gave his permission and then Lawrence at once realized how sorry he was to be going.
He took leave of his Arab friends. Among those others who came to say good-bye was Chauvel, who thanked Lawrence warmly for all he had done for him. He went off then in a Rolls-Royce. For more than a year after there were groups of his friends hanging about the aerodromes in hope of his return. It rather annoyed the Air Force officers when they landed from a flight that each time a small mob came pressing about the machine, to draw back always disappointed, crying: ‘No Aurans!’
XXIX
He returned to England, arriving in London, after four years’ absence, on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918. Feisal arrived a few weeks later and Lawrence, after first escorting him round England, accompanied him to Paris for the Peace Conference. Lawrence had been appointed by the British Foreign Office as a member of the British Delegation, and he now used the same extraordinary energy that had gone towards winning the war in the Desert for winning the war in the Council Chamber. But he knew well that it was a losing one.