A Broken Citadel
by Nancy Kaminski
(c) May 1998
Foreword
There's a little story behind this story--or should I say, behind this
remarkable bit of history.
It all started when I received a call from a lawyer in Hoboken, New Jersey. He
informed me that a distant cousin of mine, Agnes Summerfield, had passed away at
the age of eighty-six and had left me her worldly goods. He wanted to verify my
address so he could ship everything to me.
This quite astonished me because I had met her only once, when my family had
gone East to visit the relatives. I had been quite young and didn't remember
much about her except that she had a pet cocker spaniel and made good cookies.
In later years, we had exchanged Christmas cards, but that was all. Then we had
lost track of each other, or so I thought.
"What exactly are we talking here?" I asked. It turned out that Cousin Agnes'
worldly goods consisted of a steamer trunk filled with who-knew-what; she had
died in a nursing home with only the trunk and her clothes to her name, and now
it was mine.
So in due course UPS delivered an enormous steamer trunk to my front hall. It
was the type I could envision on the Titanic, big enough to contain a wardrobe
for every occasion. It was black varnished wood with leather strapping and brass
fittings, much scuffed and scarred from its long life. The leather straps and
brass catches held it securely shut; thankfully, it wasn't locked. The big brass
padlock at the center of the lid swung loose.
I shoved the trunk into the center of the living room and struggled to unbuckle
the stiff leather straps. Finally they came undone; I pried up the catches,
lifted the lid, and peered into my treasure chest. Musty air wafted up and made
me sneeze.
My inheritance was filled three-quarters full with what looked like papers,
books, photos, some odd items of clothing, and a battered olive-green tin box.
"Oh, my," I said aloud, picking up a brittle stack of papers. I read the title
off the top one. 'New York Life Insurance Company'--it was a policy with an
expiration date of 1936. I flipped through the other papers. It looked like
Agnes kept all her important documents in the trunk and had never thrown any
away.
I picked up two of the dusty volumes and read the titles. One was a 1925 edition
of 'The Deerslayer.' The other was much more to my liking--'Tom Swift and His
Electric Runabout.' The cheap hard-covered book was the forerunner of the modern
Tom Swift series of boys' adventure stories--I had seen one before at an estate
sale. They were delightfully quaint and innocent, a reminder of a much gentler
time. I set it aside to read later that night.
I spent the next several hours slowly sorting through the stacks of old
documents so lovingly saved by Cousin Agnes. Most of them were really of no
interest except to someone who wanted to research old bills of sale, small stock
purchases, and defunct insurance policies.
I finally got down to the olive green tin box. It was about a foot long, eight
inches high, and eight inches wide. I lifted the hasp and found yet more papers,
along with a small bundle of photographs. I examined the top sheet. It was a
letter written in purplish ink in a flowing hand, and was dated June 20, 1920,
with a return address of All Souls College, Oxford.
I wondered who Cousin Agnes would have known in England, let alone at the
University of Oxford, and then realized that she had been only ten years old in
1920. This letter must have been to someone else. I began reading.
The letter read:
'Dear Summerfield,
'I received your comments on the manuscript yesterday with thanks. Your reaction
was much as I had expected--you are a sensible chap, after all, and I remember
your practical grasp of the world from our times together in Cairo. If I had not
witnessed what happened myself (even though my faculties were not at their best
at the time) I would scarcely believe it either.
'Nonetheless, the events I recounted did happen at Deraa, and I believe it is
important to the integrity of the manuscript (and indeed to my own sanity) that
most of it be left in the book. In the scale of the effort, it was a minor
thing; but you know how it left me. I think I will tell the tale with some facts
omitted, however, for I am reluctant to cast any doubts on the truth of what
happened during the Arab Revolt, both the good and the evil.
'You may keep the bit of writing I sent you, or burn it; it doesn't matter to
me. I shall write it again.
'Yours very truly,
'TEL
I read the letter through carefully twice more, unwilling to accept what I was
thinking. But I could reach no other conclusion than the one that had sprung
into my mind.
This was a letter written by Thomas Edward Lawrence, more familiarly known as
Lawrence of Arabia.
***********************
The clues were there--the initials of the sender, of course, but also the
references in the letter: to Cairo and the Arab Revolt, which Lawrence had
helped foment; the mention of Deraa, a town whose name I vaguely remembered in
connection with him, and of course the mention of a manuscript, which could only
be Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom,' which I had read long ago and of which
I only remembered the broad outline.
I looked through the box but there was no envelope to be found to help identify
the letter's recipient. The Summerfield the extraordinary letter was addressed
to must be one of Agnes' uncles, because her father had emigrated to America
from England in 1900--of that I was sure--and had not been in the war. It could
be one of his brothers; the dates were about right. It was possible one of them
served in the British Army during the First World War. I could probably check
that out somehow.
I got up from the floor where I had been sitting and wandered around the living
room clutching the precious letter in my hand and thinking. Finally I plopped
down on the sofa and stared at the single piece of cream-colored paper. This was
just too cool for words! I was holding a little piece of history in my hand,
something actually written by a truly extraordinary man. And to think, he knew
one of my relatives well enough to ask him to read his manuscript!
Wait a minute... The letter told Summerfield to keep the manuscript or burn
it...
What if he had kept it? What if it was in this olive-green box, which come to
think of it, looked rather like something someone in the military would have
possessed?
I dived back onto the floor and carefully spread out the contents of the box on
the carpet around me. My attention leaped to the small stack of photos that
slipped out from between some sheets of paper.
They were all unlabeled--apparently that was not a new sin--and were mostly
awkwardly self-conscious groups of young men in uniform smiling for the
photographer in what was obviously a Middle Eastern setting.
I studied the faces of men who must be long dead, perhaps in that almost
forgotten war. They looked to be mostly in their twenties, junior officers in
their tightly buttoned tunics, gleaming riding boots, Sam Browne belts, and
carefully groomed thin mustaches. They all looked so supremely confident and
indestructible.
Then I saw him. He was one of four men sitting at a table in a cafe, or perhaps
an officers club, his slightly sardonic gaze directed at the camera. I had seen
photos of Lawrence before; I recognized the long narrow face, the mobile mouth
quirked in amusement, the level eyes, the light-colored hair. He looked like he
had some secret knowledge, and the face turned to the camera showed both
intelligence and a sort of diffidence. Unlike Peter O'Toole, who had played him
in the epic movie, Lawrence was quite short, less than five and a half feet
tall. His three companions in the photo were noticeably taller.
I wondered if one of those companions was my relative, or if Summerfield was the
one behind the camera. Did he and Lawrence both work in Intelligence during the
war, or were they simply two junior officers thrown together in the same
posting, who found that they liked each other?
I shrugged off the questions, and setting aside the photos, quickly went through
the loose papers from the box. There were more letters, but none from Lawrence.
I finally came to the last item, a large brown envelope. I unwound the string
that fastened down the flap and slid the contents out. There were about twenty
handwritten pages--the same handwriting as the letter.
I had it. Summerfield hadn't burned the manuscript, he had saved it, bless him,
and I held in my hands a version of one of the chapters of Lawrence's epic work
that had been too--Controversial? Graphic? I didn't know what--to be published.
I resisted reading it for the moment, setting it carefully on the coffee table.
First I hunted through my bookshelves for my copy of 'Seven Pillars,' finally
finding it next to some other World War One histories.
I paged through it until I found the few pages in Book 6, Chapter 80, describing
the incident at Deraa. I set the book on the coffee table, opened to the start
of the chapter, and started to compare the unpublished text to the published.
To my disappointment the text followed the published account almost word for
word. As I read I began to wonder what Summerfield had found so objectionable
that he didn't think it should be published.
It was a horrible story, the kind of incident no one would ever want to
experience. It had happened in 1917, when Lawrence was trying to prevent Turkish
forces from retreating from Medina, which would free them to fight the British
in Syria. He and Feisal's Arab rebels started destroying the vital rail links
the Turks needed for supplies.
Lawrence decided that it was necessary to attack the railroads leading to Deraa,
a town about 150 miles east of the Red Sea in what was then Arabia. Accordingly,
Lawrence and a companion, an older 'respectable peasant' named Faris, walked
into Deraa to reconnoiter the rail junction and determine the best means of
attack.
Lawrence was dressed in the clothes of a Circassian Arab, and he spoke Arabic
well enough to carry off his disguise. As he and Faris observed the rail station
and the Turkish troops, he was approached by a Turkish soldier and told that the
Bey, the local commander, wanted him. Faris was left behind as Lawrence was
marched to the Turkish command post.
It soon became obvious that he was being pressed into the Turkish army, and that
as a young, fair man, he was expected to serve the Bey's desires. To that end he
was presented to the commander and ordered to undress. Lawrence resisted, and
even managed to knee the man in the groin. At that point the Bey, enraged, had
his sentries hold Lawrence while he beat, kicked, and even bit him, and then
forced a bayonet through a fold of flesh over his ribs.
Still Lawrence refused the Bey's advances. The Bey ordered his sentries to take
Lawrence away and 'teach him everything.' And this they did. They beat him
brutally, whipped him until the blood ran freely and he was almost unconscious
from the pain. They then stretched him over a bench, beat and kicked him
further, and then raped him, one after the other.
In the end he was dismissed as too bloody and broken for the Bey's pleasure, so
they dragged him to an outbuilding behind the Bey's residence, hastily bandaged
his wounds, and left him in an unconscious heap on the floor.
It was at this point that the stories began to diverge. In the published
account, Lawrence related that he was allowed to escape from the room, whereupon
he staggered out into the town and walked away, eventually meeting a man on a
camel who gave him a ride to Nisib, where his Arab compatriots were waiting for
him.
In the manuscript, though, the story was different. The following account is how
Lawrence's ordeal really ended, if we are to credit his letter. I myself find it
hard to believe, very much like Summerfield apparently did. I leave it up to you
to decide which version is true.
********************************
(Excerpted from the manuscript)
They took me over an open space, deserted and dark, and behind the Government
house to a lean-to wooden room, in which were many dusty quilts. An Armenian
dresser appeared, to wash and bandage me in sleepy haste. Then all went away,
the last soldier delaying by my side a moment to whisper in his Druse accent
that the door into the next room was not locked.
I lay there in a sick stupor, with my head aching very much, and growing slowly
numb with cold, till a locomotive whistled in the station. This brought me to
life, and I struggled nakedly to stand, every movement an anguish, and moaned in
wonder that it was not a dream, but had really happened.
I found a shoddy suit of clothes hanging on the door, and put them on slowly
because of my cracked ribs and swollen wrists. In the next room I found a window
looking out on a wall, and stiffly climbed out and went shakily towards the
village through the moonless night.
I was exceedingly thirsty, and could barely walk, such was my pain, and had to
stop frequently to muster my strength. After a while there was a roaring and my
eyes went black; I came back to myself lying in the mud of the road, unwilling
to think of moving, full of misery and pity for myself.
Then I felt a touch on my shoulder, and a voice asking in Arabic if I was ill. I
could only moan in reply. Then strong hands lifted me and I felt myself carried
like a child, and I was strangely comforted at this kindness.
I must have passed out again, for the next awareness I had was of lying on a
bed, naked, with a soft covering over me. I lay still and tried to see my
surroundings, and was astonished to see a European man sitting in a chair,
reading by the light of an oil lamp. The room was sparsely furnished, the main
feature being a trestle table laden with pottery shards, brushes, and a water
jar.
Then the man's eyes raised from his book and he looked to see me awake, and
asked again in Arabic how I was. I struggled to reply accordingly, my groggy
brain refusing to find the words, and the man, seeing my difficulty, seemed to
know the truth since he asked again in English.
I hesitated, not knowing if my act should be broken, but finally admitted to
being thirsty and in pain. Without a word my benefactor poured a cup of water
and held it to my lips, and waited until I drank it down before asking who I was
and how I had become so hurt.
I did not answer him, but instead, strengthened by the water, asked in turn his
own identity and what he was doing in a Turkish held town. He only smiled a bit
and said to call him Nicholas (although he never made clear if that was his
Christian or last name) and that he was excavating a Canaanite site in a cave
nearby, and that he had an arrangement with the authorities.
Seeing my discomfort he did not insist on interrogating me, but took a cloth and
a basin of water and proceeded to clean and re-dress my wounds, although he
seemed to hesitate at the sight of the blood that still oozed from them. His
touch was curiously cool and soothing so that I soon fell into a deep sleep.
Once again I awoke many hours later to find my host in his chair, this time
asleep. Feeling a little better, though still stiff and aching, I took the
moment to observe him. He was fair-haired and well-built, but seemed altogether
too pale and soft to be an archaeologist in the field, for no matter how many
workers one has, there is still fine digging to be done in the blazing sun.
The house I was in seemed to be of the typical mud-brick sort, with but a few
rooms and a cistern on the roof. The windows were heavily draped in the bedroom,
which apparently doubled as a work room, given the presence of the trestle
table, and it appeared I had been allotted the only bed. It seemed that Nicholas
favored austere surroundings, for there were few furnishings although many
books.
A plate of cheese, bread, and dates and a jug of water had been left by the side
of the bed. I attacked them voraciously, as it was my first meal in two days.
Then I lifted the curtain on the window to see outside; it was just coming dusk
and the quiet street was in shadows.
'My servant told me the soldiers are looking for a Circassian deserter. Would
that be you?' Nicholas had awakened and was looking at me quizzically.
I scoffed at the notion, saying that it could not be since I was English, at
which point my host remarked that then I must be that Major Lawrence who was
knocking over all the steam engines and being generally annoying to the Turks.
He took my silence as an assent and reassured me that he would not give me away,
but that he would not be drawn into the war either; he said he had had enough of
war, especially in Palestine.
I made as if to leave, but he restrained me, saying that I needed more rest
before resuming my duties. In truth, I made little resistance, for my maimed
will cared not a whit about the Arab revolt, or indeed, about anything except
mending itself. Instead, I retired to the bed and endured having my wounds
tended yet again. Nicholas was experienced in this, although strangely hesitant
at the sight of blood; I asked him if he had medical training, but he would say
nothing, only carried on in silence. Again he asked me what had happened, and
his sympathetic mien broke down my reluctance, and I told him all, falling into
exhausted silence in the end.
His face had remained expressionless during my recitation and revealed neither
revulsion nor pity (which would have been worse), but it seemed to me he
understood the horrors I had experienced in more than an abstract way. Finally
he reassured me again that I was safe in his house; but the way that he said it
made me wonder at the safety of those who had done the beastly deeds, for there
was an undercurrent of pent-up violence in his words.
I slept again for a little. When I awoke I sought to change the subject, and
asked Nicholas about his excavations. He told me that it was a small thing, and
there was only himself to do the work, which was digging out a cave floor in the
nearby hills. But he said he knew Woolley, with whom I had worked at Carchemish,
and was familiar with the work there. We had a pleasant conversation on the
subject, and also found a mutual interest in Crusader castles, on which he
seemed very knowledgeable.
Presently the situation seemed to me surreal, and after a while began to laugh
hysterically at the absurdity of carrying on a scholarly discussion under the
circumstances. Nicholas bade me rest again, and he left me alone. My broken body
could not get enough of sleep's oblivion, and so I did not awaken again until
the next evening, brought out of a dreamless sleep by a thunderous knocking on
the door.
I heard Nicholas answer it, and then there was an excited babble of Turkish
voices as two soldiers forced their way into the bedroom, Nicholas close behind.
They saw me on the bed, and shouted at me to get up. Nicholas was trying to
persuade them they were mistaken, but one prodded me roughly with his rifle and
grabbed at my arm to pull me to my feet, while the other swung his rifle butt at
Nicholas to punish him for lying.
The blow never landed, for Nicholas made a noise like an angry lion and,
grabbing the rifle, threw the soldier against the wall, where he slid down in a
heap, stunned. Nicholas somehow managed to pin the other soldier to the wall,
holding him off the floor with one hand, then tossing him aside like a rag doll.
I gaped in astonishment at this, for I had never seen anyone so strong or so
swift, and when he turned towards me his eyes were glowing a feral yellow like a
cat at night caught in the headlamps of an automobile, and his mouth seemed full
of teeth. 'Stay there,' he commanded me in a guttural voice, completely changed
from the pleasant tenor I had heard the night before. I obeyed him, fixed into
immobility by his terrible gaze.
He then crouched in front of the stricken soldiers, and I feared he was going to
kill them, but he only shook them to gain their attention, then gazed at them
intently whilst murmuring instructions to forget everything that had happened,
and to report that there was no-one hidden in his house. The soldiers nodded
their assent as if they were drugged, and sluggishly got to their feet and left
without a backward glance.
Nicholas then turned to me, and again I saw his horribly changed eyes and teeth.
I cringed in fear of him but mustered the courage to ask what manner of thing he
was, but to this he gave no answer and only stared at me.
'You must forget,' he said, as he had to the Turkish soldiers, but his eyes were
once again blue and he seemed as he had been the night before. I told him I
could not forget his nature, and asked again to understand.
His look was one of mixed self-loathing and sadness, and he told me again that I
must forget and that he was beyond understanding. He paced about the small room,
seeming to wrestle with himself about what he would do with me, for I had no
doubt he could take my life with no effort, to protect his secrets.
Finally he approached me, and I shrank back, cursing my shaking body, for I
could not help myself. But he did to me as he did to the Turkish soldiers,
staring at me intensely. His gaze burrowed deep into my soul; I heard my heart
pounding loudly, and his voice engulfed my consciousness. He commanded me to
forget him, and everything I saw; to only remember escaping from the Bey, and
walking to rejoin my companions. And for a while, I did forget, for the next
thing I remembered, I was standing a little way outside Nisib, with no
recollection of how I came to be there.
But within days bits and pieces did come back to me as I once again took up the
burden of leadership and the arts of warfare. My body healed slowly, as did my
memory, and finally I raised inquiries about the Englishman who lived in Deraa,
to see what the people said of him. I was told that he was regarded as a demon,
and left strictly alone; that he was never seen in the day and bought no food in
the market, and kept only old deaf Aziz to take care of his house. Beyond that,
no-one knew anything of him, except that even the Turks would have no business
with him. I kept my silence about what I saw as Nicholas had commanded, though
of my own volition and not because of what he had tried to do to my memory. He
had helped to heal me, and demon or no, he seemed to understand what had
happened; how in Deraa that night the citadel of my integrity had been
irrevocably lost.
The next month I heard that the Bey had met a bloody death, and that he had been
savaged as if by wild animals even though his house was well-guarded. The
mystery of his terrible demise was never solved, nor did I regret it. But my
mind turned to Nicholas, and what I had seen, and I wondered.
*************************
"Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph" by T.E. Lawrence, first published for
general circulation in 1926. A truly wonderful book by a fascinating man.
by Nancy Kaminski
(c) May 1998
Foreword
There's a little story behind this story--or should I say, behind this
remarkable bit of history.
It all started when I received a call from a lawyer in Hoboken, New Jersey. He
informed me that a distant cousin of mine, Agnes Summerfield, had passed away at
the age of eighty-six and had left me her worldly goods. He wanted to verify my
address so he could ship everything to me.
This quite astonished me because I had met her only once, when my family had
gone East to visit the relatives. I had been quite young and didn't remember
much about her except that she had a pet cocker spaniel and made good cookies.
In later years, we had exchanged Christmas cards, but that was all. Then we had
lost track of each other, or so I thought.
"What exactly are we talking here?" I asked. It turned out that Cousin Agnes'
worldly goods consisted of a steamer trunk filled with who-knew-what; she had
died in a nursing home with only the trunk and her clothes to her name, and now
it was mine.
So in due course UPS delivered an enormous steamer trunk to my front hall. It
was the type I could envision on the Titanic, big enough to contain a wardrobe
for every occasion. It was black varnished wood with leather strapping and brass
fittings, much scuffed and scarred from its long life. The leather straps and
brass catches held it securely shut; thankfully, it wasn't locked. The big brass
padlock at the center of the lid swung loose.
I shoved the trunk into the center of the living room and struggled to unbuckle
the stiff leather straps. Finally they came undone; I pried up the catches,
lifted the lid, and peered into my treasure chest. Musty air wafted up and made
me sneeze.
My inheritance was filled three-quarters full with what looked like papers,
books, photos, some odd items of clothing, and a battered olive-green tin box.
"Oh, my," I said aloud, picking up a brittle stack of papers. I read the title
off the top one. 'New York Life Insurance Company'--it was a policy with an
expiration date of 1936. I flipped through the other papers. It looked like
Agnes kept all her important documents in the trunk and had never thrown any
away.
I picked up two of the dusty volumes and read the titles. One was a 1925 edition
of 'The Deerslayer.' The other was much more to my liking--'Tom Swift and His
Electric Runabout.' The cheap hard-covered book was the forerunner of the modern
Tom Swift series of boys' adventure stories--I had seen one before at an estate
sale. They were delightfully quaint and innocent, a reminder of a much gentler
time. I set it aside to read later that night.
I spent the next several hours slowly sorting through the stacks of old
documents so lovingly saved by Cousin Agnes. Most of them were really of no
interest except to someone who wanted to research old bills of sale, small stock
purchases, and defunct insurance policies.
I finally got down to the olive green tin box. It was about a foot long, eight
inches high, and eight inches wide. I lifted the hasp and found yet more papers,
along with a small bundle of photographs. I examined the top sheet. It was a
letter written in purplish ink in a flowing hand, and was dated June 20, 1920,
with a return address of All Souls College, Oxford.
I wondered who Cousin Agnes would have known in England, let alone at the
University of Oxford, and then realized that she had been only ten years old in
1920. This letter must have been to someone else. I began reading.
The letter read:
'Dear Summerfield,
'I received your comments on the manuscript yesterday with thanks. Your reaction
was much as I had expected--you are a sensible chap, after all, and I remember
your practical grasp of the world from our times together in Cairo. If I had not
witnessed what happened myself (even though my faculties were not at their best
at the time) I would scarcely believe it either.
'Nonetheless, the events I recounted did happen at Deraa, and I believe it is
important to the integrity of the manuscript (and indeed to my own sanity) that
most of it be left in the book. In the scale of the effort, it was a minor
thing; but you know how it left me. I think I will tell the tale with some facts
omitted, however, for I am reluctant to cast any doubts on the truth of what
happened during the Arab Revolt, both the good and the evil.
'You may keep the bit of writing I sent you, or burn it; it doesn't matter to
me. I shall write it again.
'Yours very truly,
'TEL
I read the letter through carefully twice more, unwilling to accept what I was
thinking. But I could reach no other conclusion than the one that had sprung
into my mind.
This was a letter written by Thomas Edward Lawrence, more familiarly known as
Lawrence of Arabia.
***********************
The clues were there--the initials of the sender, of course, but also the
references in the letter: to Cairo and the Arab Revolt, which Lawrence had
helped foment; the mention of Deraa, a town whose name I vaguely remembered in
connection with him, and of course the mention of a manuscript, which could only
be Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom,' which I had read long ago and of which
I only remembered the broad outline.
I looked through the box but there was no envelope to be found to help identify
the letter's recipient. The Summerfield the extraordinary letter was addressed
to must be one of Agnes' uncles, because her father had emigrated to America
from England in 1900--of that I was sure--and had not been in the war. It could
be one of his brothers; the dates were about right. It was possible one of them
served in the British Army during the First World War. I could probably check
that out somehow.
I got up from the floor where I had been sitting and wandered around the living
room clutching the precious letter in my hand and thinking. Finally I plopped
down on the sofa and stared at the single piece of cream-colored paper. This was
just too cool for words! I was holding a little piece of history in my hand,
something actually written by a truly extraordinary man. And to think, he knew
one of my relatives well enough to ask him to read his manuscript!
Wait a minute... The letter told Summerfield to keep the manuscript or burn
it...
What if he had kept it? What if it was in this olive-green box, which come to
think of it, looked rather like something someone in the military would have
possessed?
I dived back onto the floor and carefully spread out the contents of the box on
the carpet around me. My attention leaped to the small stack of photos that
slipped out from between some sheets of paper.
They were all unlabeled--apparently that was not a new sin--and were mostly
awkwardly self-conscious groups of young men in uniform smiling for the
photographer in what was obviously a Middle Eastern setting.
I studied the faces of men who must be long dead, perhaps in that almost
forgotten war. They looked to be mostly in their twenties, junior officers in
their tightly buttoned tunics, gleaming riding boots, Sam Browne belts, and
carefully groomed thin mustaches. They all looked so supremely confident and
indestructible.
Then I saw him. He was one of four men sitting at a table in a cafe, or perhaps
an officers club, his slightly sardonic gaze directed at the camera. I had seen
photos of Lawrence before; I recognized the long narrow face, the mobile mouth
quirked in amusement, the level eyes, the light-colored hair. He looked like he
had some secret knowledge, and the face turned to the camera showed both
intelligence and a sort of diffidence. Unlike Peter O'Toole, who had played him
in the epic movie, Lawrence was quite short, less than five and a half feet
tall. His three companions in the photo were noticeably taller.
I wondered if one of those companions was my relative, or if Summerfield was the
one behind the camera. Did he and Lawrence both work in Intelligence during the
war, or were they simply two junior officers thrown together in the same
posting, who found that they liked each other?
I shrugged off the questions, and setting aside the photos, quickly went through
the loose papers from the box. There were more letters, but none from Lawrence.
I finally came to the last item, a large brown envelope. I unwound the string
that fastened down the flap and slid the contents out. There were about twenty
handwritten pages--the same handwriting as the letter.
I had it. Summerfield hadn't burned the manuscript, he had saved it, bless him,
and I held in my hands a version of one of the chapters of Lawrence's epic work
that had been too--Controversial? Graphic? I didn't know what--to be published.
I resisted reading it for the moment, setting it carefully on the coffee table.
First I hunted through my bookshelves for my copy of 'Seven Pillars,' finally
finding it next to some other World War One histories.
I paged through it until I found the few pages in Book 6, Chapter 80, describing
the incident at Deraa. I set the book on the coffee table, opened to the start
of the chapter, and started to compare the unpublished text to the published.
To my disappointment the text followed the published account almost word for
word. As I read I began to wonder what Summerfield had found so objectionable
that he didn't think it should be published.
It was a horrible story, the kind of incident no one would ever want to
experience. It had happened in 1917, when Lawrence was trying to prevent Turkish
forces from retreating from Medina, which would free them to fight the British
in Syria. He and Feisal's Arab rebels started destroying the vital rail links
the Turks needed for supplies.
Lawrence decided that it was necessary to attack the railroads leading to Deraa,
a town about 150 miles east of the Red Sea in what was then Arabia. Accordingly,
Lawrence and a companion, an older 'respectable peasant' named Faris, walked
into Deraa to reconnoiter the rail junction and determine the best means of
attack.
Lawrence was dressed in the clothes of a Circassian Arab, and he spoke Arabic
well enough to carry off his disguise. As he and Faris observed the rail station
and the Turkish troops, he was approached by a Turkish soldier and told that the
Bey, the local commander, wanted him. Faris was left behind as Lawrence was
marched to the Turkish command post.
It soon became obvious that he was being pressed into the Turkish army, and that
as a young, fair man, he was expected to serve the Bey's desires. To that end he
was presented to the commander and ordered to undress. Lawrence resisted, and
even managed to knee the man in the groin. At that point the Bey, enraged, had
his sentries hold Lawrence while he beat, kicked, and even bit him, and then
forced a bayonet through a fold of flesh over his ribs.
Still Lawrence refused the Bey's advances. The Bey ordered his sentries to take
Lawrence away and 'teach him everything.' And this they did. They beat him
brutally, whipped him until the blood ran freely and he was almost unconscious
from the pain. They then stretched him over a bench, beat and kicked him
further, and then raped him, one after the other.
In the end he was dismissed as too bloody and broken for the Bey's pleasure, so
they dragged him to an outbuilding behind the Bey's residence, hastily bandaged
his wounds, and left him in an unconscious heap on the floor.
It was at this point that the stories began to diverge. In the published
account, Lawrence related that he was allowed to escape from the room, whereupon
he staggered out into the town and walked away, eventually meeting a man on a
camel who gave him a ride to Nisib, where his Arab compatriots were waiting for
him.
In the manuscript, though, the story was different. The following account is how
Lawrence's ordeal really ended, if we are to credit his letter. I myself find it
hard to believe, very much like Summerfield apparently did. I leave it up to you
to decide which version is true.
********************************
(Excerpted from the manuscript)
They took me over an open space, deserted and dark, and behind the Government
house to a lean-to wooden room, in which were many dusty quilts. An Armenian
dresser appeared, to wash and bandage me in sleepy haste. Then all went away,
the last soldier delaying by my side a moment to whisper in his Druse accent
that the door into the next room was not locked.
I lay there in a sick stupor, with my head aching very much, and growing slowly
numb with cold, till a locomotive whistled in the station. This brought me to
life, and I struggled nakedly to stand, every movement an anguish, and moaned in
wonder that it was not a dream, but had really happened.
I found a shoddy suit of clothes hanging on the door, and put them on slowly
because of my cracked ribs and swollen wrists. In the next room I found a window
looking out on a wall, and stiffly climbed out and went shakily towards the
village through the moonless night.
I was exceedingly thirsty, and could barely walk, such was my pain, and had to
stop frequently to muster my strength. After a while there was a roaring and my
eyes went black; I came back to myself lying in the mud of the road, unwilling
to think of moving, full of misery and pity for myself.
Then I felt a touch on my shoulder, and a voice asking in Arabic if I was ill. I
could only moan in reply. Then strong hands lifted me and I felt myself carried
like a child, and I was strangely comforted at this kindness.
I must have passed out again, for the next awareness I had was of lying on a
bed, naked, with a soft covering over me. I lay still and tried to see my
surroundings, and was astonished to see a European man sitting in a chair,
reading by the light of an oil lamp. The room was sparsely furnished, the main
feature being a trestle table laden with pottery shards, brushes, and a water
jar.
Then the man's eyes raised from his book and he looked to see me awake, and
asked again in Arabic how I was. I struggled to reply accordingly, my groggy
brain refusing to find the words, and the man, seeing my difficulty, seemed to
know the truth since he asked again in English.
I hesitated, not knowing if my act should be broken, but finally admitted to
being thirsty and in pain. Without a word my benefactor poured a cup of water
and held it to my lips, and waited until I drank it down before asking who I was
and how I had become so hurt.
I did not answer him, but instead, strengthened by the water, asked in turn his
own identity and what he was doing in a Turkish held town. He only smiled a bit
and said to call him Nicholas (although he never made clear if that was his
Christian or last name) and that he was excavating a Canaanite site in a cave
nearby, and that he had an arrangement with the authorities.
Seeing my discomfort he did not insist on interrogating me, but took a cloth and
a basin of water and proceeded to clean and re-dress my wounds, although he
seemed to hesitate at the sight of the blood that still oozed from them. His
touch was curiously cool and soothing so that I soon fell into a deep sleep.
Once again I awoke many hours later to find my host in his chair, this time
asleep. Feeling a little better, though still stiff and aching, I took the
moment to observe him. He was fair-haired and well-built, but seemed altogether
too pale and soft to be an archaeologist in the field, for no matter how many
workers one has, there is still fine digging to be done in the blazing sun.
The house I was in seemed to be of the typical mud-brick sort, with but a few
rooms and a cistern on the roof. The windows were heavily draped in the bedroom,
which apparently doubled as a work room, given the presence of the trestle
table, and it appeared I had been allotted the only bed. It seemed that Nicholas
favored austere surroundings, for there were few furnishings although many
books.
A plate of cheese, bread, and dates and a jug of water had been left by the side
of the bed. I attacked them voraciously, as it was my first meal in two days.
Then I lifted the curtain on the window to see outside; it was just coming dusk
and the quiet street was in shadows.
'My servant told me the soldiers are looking for a Circassian deserter. Would
that be you?' Nicholas had awakened and was looking at me quizzically.
I scoffed at the notion, saying that it could not be since I was English, at
which point my host remarked that then I must be that Major Lawrence who was
knocking over all the steam engines and being generally annoying to the Turks.
He took my silence as an assent and reassured me that he would not give me away,
but that he would not be drawn into the war either; he said he had had enough of
war, especially in Palestine.
I made as if to leave, but he restrained me, saying that I needed more rest
before resuming my duties. In truth, I made little resistance, for my maimed
will cared not a whit about the Arab revolt, or indeed, about anything except
mending itself. Instead, I retired to the bed and endured having my wounds
tended yet again. Nicholas was experienced in this, although strangely hesitant
at the sight of blood; I asked him if he had medical training, but he would say
nothing, only carried on in silence. Again he asked me what had happened, and
his sympathetic mien broke down my reluctance, and I told him all, falling into
exhausted silence in the end.
His face had remained expressionless during my recitation and revealed neither
revulsion nor pity (which would have been worse), but it seemed to me he
understood the horrors I had experienced in more than an abstract way. Finally
he reassured me again that I was safe in his house; but the way that he said it
made me wonder at the safety of those who had done the beastly deeds, for there
was an undercurrent of pent-up violence in his words.
I slept again for a little. When I awoke I sought to change the subject, and
asked Nicholas about his excavations. He told me that it was a small thing, and
there was only himself to do the work, which was digging out a cave floor in the
nearby hills. But he said he knew Woolley, with whom I had worked at Carchemish,
and was familiar with the work there. We had a pleasant conversation on the
subject, and also found a mutual interest in Crusader castles, on which he
seemed very knowledgeable.
Presently the situation seemed to me surreal, and after a while began to laugh
hysterically at the absurdity of carrying on a scholarly discussion under the
circumstances. Nicholas bade me rest again, and he left me alone. My broken body
could not get enough of sleep's oblivion, and so I did not awaken again until
the next evening, brought out of a dreamless sleep by a thunderous knocking on
the door.
I heard Nicholas answer it, and then there was an excited babble of Turkish
voices as two soldiers forced their way into the bedroom, Nicholas close behind.
They saw me on the bed, and shouted at me to get up. Nicholas was trying to
persuade them they were mistaken, but one prodded me roughly with his rifle and
grabbed at my arm to pull me to my feet, while the other swung his rifle butt at
Nicholas to punish him for lying.
The blow never landed, for Nicholas made a noise like an angry lion and,
grabbing the rifle, threw the soldier against the wall, where he slid down in a
heap, stunned. Nicholas somehow managed to pin the other soldier to the wall,
holding him off the floor with one hand, then tossing him aside like a rag doll.
I gaped in astonishment at this, for I had never seen anyone so strong or so
swift, and when he turned towards me his eyes were glowing a feral yellow like a
cat at night caught in the headlamps of an automobile, and his mouth seemed full
of teeth. 'Stay there,' he commanded me in a guttural voice, completely changed
from the pleasant tenor I had heard the night before. I obeyed him, fixed into
immobility by his terrible gaze.
He then crouched in front of the stricken soldiers, and I feared he was going to
kill them, but he only shook them to gain their attention, then gazed at them
intently whilst murmuring instructions to forget everything that had happened,
and to report that there was no-one hidden in his house. The soldiers nodded
their assent as if they were drugged, and sluggishly got to their feet and left
without a backward glance.
Nicholas then turned to me, and again I saw his horribly changed eyes and teeth.
I cringed in fear of him but mustered the courage to ask what manner of thing he
was, but to this he gave no answer and only stared at me.
'You must forget,' he said, as he had to the Turkish soldiers, but his eyes were
once again blue and he seemed as he had been the night before. I told him I
could not forget his nature, and asked again to understand.
His look was one of mixed self-loathing and sadness, and he told me again that I
must forget and that he was beyond understanding. He paced about the small room,
seeming to wrestle with himself about what he would do with me, for I had no
doubt he could take my life with no effort, to protect his secrets.
Finally he approached me, and I shrank back, cursing my shaking body, for I
could not help myself. But he did to me as he did to the Turkish soldiers,
staring at me intensely. His gaze burrowed deep into my soul; I heard my heart
pounding loudly, and his voice engulfed my consciousness. He commanded me to
forget him, and everything I saw; to only remember escaping from the Bey, and
walking to rejoin my companions. And for a while, I did forget, for the next
thing I remembered, I was standing a little way outside Nisib, with no
recollection of how I came to be there.
But within days bits and pieces did come back to me as I once again took up the
burden of leadership and the arts of warfare. My body healed slowly, as did my
memory, and finally I raised inquiries about the Englishman who lived in Deraa,
to see what the people said of him. I was told that he was regarded as a demon,
and left strictly alone; that he was never seen in the day and bought no food in
the market, and kept only old deaf Aziz to take care of his house. Beyond that,
no-one knew anything of him, except that even the Turks would have no business
with him. I kept my silence about what I saw as Nicholas had commanded, though
of my own volition and not because of what he had tried to do to my memory. He
had helped to heal me, and demon or no, he seemed to understand what had
happened; how in Deraa that night the citadel of my integrity had been
irrevocably lost.
The next month I heard that the Bey had met a bloody death, and that he had been
savaged as if by wild animals even though his house was well-guarded. The
mystery of his terrible demise was never solved, nor did I regret it. But my
mind turned to Nicholas, and what I had seen, and I wondered.
*************************
"Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph" by T.E. Lawrence, first published for
general circulation in 1926. A truly wonderful book by a fascinating man.