WHY did Sir Winston Churchill, a great warrior and writer himself, refer to Col. T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, as “one of the greatest men that ever lived”? In his recently published history, “Lawrence of Arabia, Writer and Warrior,” M.O. Chamberlain gives vividly dramatized reasons why. Based on four years of research in Saudi Arabia, the book traces Lawrence’s life from his rigidly self-controlled childhood, through his glory days in his adopted land, to his tragic untimely death.
To justify the title “Writer and Warrior”, Chamberlain gives a nostalgic quote from Lawrence’s masterpiece “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” at the beginning of each chapter. Young Lawrence’s self-discipline was instinctive. He would, for example, go without food and water for days just to test how long he could survive without either, or try to get by without sleeping. On his landing in Arabia he was asked by his friend Prince Faisal to go to Wadi Ais on a camel given to him by Faisal, even though he had never ridden a camel before. Around the campfires that night, the tribesmen who rode with him were at first surprised to see this strange Englishman dressed as an Arab in a white thobe and a ghutra with golden braiding, and then they were surprised by his stamina. “He has no fear of the desert,” they said. “He rides all day on a camel and never complains when he is sick. He drinks only when we drink. He is like one of us.”
After his victory over the Turks at Akaba, everyone knew he was a great warrior. They called him the wolf, the brave and daring one. His success was due to two things: he had brought all the warring tribes together and he was also a master strategist comparable to Napoleon Bonaparte. Victory after victory followed till he was able to wrest Damascus from the Turks. He did this with only 200 men, as against 3,000 mustered by the Turks. His victories were won by tactics, not numbers.
In course of time the Arabs were completely won over. They pronounced his name “Aurens”. It didn’t matter to them that he was the illegitimate son of an Englishman. He fell in love, not with a woman, but with this strange new land that had taken him to its heart. He was not interested in money, nor did he crave publicity. In fact, when he returned to England in 1918, every newspaper in the country wanted to interview him. But he was unapproachable. He disappeared and kept disappearing again and again. What needed to be written he wrote himself, famously, as in his best-selling “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.”
While in England he learnt that Damascus, which he had been largely responsible for winning for Arabia, had, under tremendous pressure, been given to the French. In anguish he wrote letters of protest to the “Sunday Times” and the “Observer”. He worked for some time with the RAF, then returned to his cottage at Clouds Hill near Bonington. With his usual austerity, he continued to use a sleeping bag even at home.
One fatal day he was on his motorcycle when, in trying to avoid a bicyclist ahead of him, he jerked his handlebars to the right to swerve past, lost control and was tossed head-first onto the road. Bleeding profusely, he was rushed to King George V Hospital, where he did not regain consciousness.
He died on May 19, 1935 and was buried in the cemetery of St. Nicholas’s Church at Moreton. Characteristically, the funeral was closed to the public.
The journalist who was trying to find the right words to do justice to this great man imagined, in Chamberlain’s words, “hundreds upon hundreds of men riding horses and camels, led by King Faisal himself, coming to Lawrence’s grave to pay their last respects. They were Arabs in flowing cloaks and head cloths, their arms raised above their heads grasping Lee Enfield rifles. Their approach was like the dull rumble of thunder and as they approached nearer one heard the trill sound of their women saluting a brave man. A hundred meters from Lawrence’s grave they stopped and one of them moved forward. King Faisal himself on a handsome white Arabian horse. He dismounted and swept across the ground with authority and majesty and stopped at Lawrence’s grave. For a long time he stared down into the grave. There was silence all around. Then, in a booming voice, Faisal cried out: ‘Aurens, you have gone to Allah. May Allah greet you, great desert warrior and friend, and favor you.’”
This was in imagination, but several Arab friends did send a telegram to London: “Tell them in England his heart was steel. Of manhood the man. In freedom free. A mind without an equal.” At St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Lawrence’s statue stands alongside those of Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. These are monuments in stone and marble. Chamberlain’s is a monument in evocative words, enriched by the accomplished Abeera Atique’s illustrations.
