Текст книги "Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph"

Автор книги: Thomas Edward Lawrence

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Текущая страница: 48 (всего у книги 48 страниц)

Even the hospital was better. I had urged Chauvel to take it over, but he would not. At the time I thought he meant to overstrain us, to justify his taking away our government of the town. However, since, I have come to feel that the trouble between us was a delusion of the ragged nerves which were jangling me to distraction these days. Certainly Chauvel won the last round, and made me feel mean, for when he heard that I was leaving he drove round with Godwin and thanked me outright for my help in his difficulties. Still, the hospital was improving of itself. Fifty prisoners had cleaned the courtyard, burning the lousy rubbish. A second gang had dug another great grave-pit in the garden, and were zealously filling it as opportunity offered. Others had gone through the wards, washing every patient, putting them into cleaner shirts, and reversing their mattresses to have a tolerably decent side up. We had found food suitable for all but critical cases, and each ward had some Turkish-spoken orderly within hearing, if a sick man called. One room we had cleared, brushed out and disinfected, meaning to transfer into it the less ill cases, and do their room in turn.

At this rate three days would have seen things very fit, and I was proudly contemplating other benefits when a medical major strode up and asked me shortly if I spoke English. With a brow of disgust for my skirts and sandals he said, 'You're in charge? Modestly I smirked that in a way I was, and then he burst out, 'Scandalous, disgraceful, outrageous, ought to be shot . . .' At this onslaught I cackled out like a chicken, with the wild laughter of strain; it did feel extraordinarily funny to be so cursed just as I had been pluming myself on having bettered the apparently hopeless.

The major had not entered the charnel house of yesterday, nor smelt it, nor seen us burying those bodies of ultimate degradation, whose memory had started me up in bed, sweating and trembling, a few hours since. He glared at me, muttering 'Bloody brute'. I hooted out again, and he smacked me over the face and stalked off, leaving me more ashamed than angry, for in my heart I felt he was right, and that anyone who pushed through to success a rebellion of the weak against their masters must come out of it so stained in estimation that afterward nothing in the world would make him feel clean. However, it was nearly over.

When I got back to the hotel crowds were besetting it, and at the door stood a grey Rolls-Royce, which I knew for Allenby's. I ran in and found him there with Clayton and Cornwallis and other noble people. In ten words he gave his approval to my having impertinently imposed Arab Governments, here and at Deraa, upon the chaos of victory. He confirmed the appointment of Ah' Riza Rikabi as his Military Governor, under the orders of Feisal, his Army Commander, and regulated the Arab sphere and Chauvel's.

He agreed to take over my hospital and the working of the railway. In ten minutes all the maddening difficulties had slipped away. Mistily I realized that the harsh days of my solitary battling had passed. The lone hand had won against the world's odds, and I might let my limbs relax in this dreamlike confidence and decision and kindness which were Allenby.

Then we were told that Feisal's special train had just arrived from Deraa. A message was hurriedly sent him by Young's mouth, and we waited till he came, upon a tide of cheering which beat up against our windows. It was fitting the two chiefs should meet for the first time in the heart of their victory; with myself still acting as the interpreter between them.

Allenby gave me a telegram from the Foreign Office, recognizing to the Arabs the status of belligerents; and told me to translate it to the Emir: but none of us knew what it meant in English, let alone in Arabic: and Feisal, smiling through the tears which the welcome of his people had forced from him, put it aside to thank the Commander-in-Chief for the trust which had made him and his movement. They were a strange contrast: 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 round the world.

When Feisal had gone, I made to Allenby the last (and also I think the first) request I ever made him for myself–leave to go away. For a while he would not have it; but I reasoned, reminding him of his year-old promise, and pointing out how much easier the New Law would be if my spur were absent from the people. In the end he agreed; and then at once I knew how much I was sorry.

EPILOGUE

DAMASCUS HAD NOT SEEMED A SHEATH FOR MY SWORD, WHEN I LANDED IN ARABIA: BUT ITS CAPTURE DISCLOSED THE EXHAUSTION OF MY MAIN SPRINGS OF ACTION. THE STRONGEST MOTIVE THROUGHOUT HAD BEEN A PERSONAL ONE, NOT MENTIONED HERE, BUT PRESENT TO ME, I THINK, EVERY HOUR OF THESE TWO YEARS. ACTIVE PAINS AND JOYS MIGHT FLING UP, LIKE TOWERS, AMONG MY DAYS: BUT, REFLUENT AS AIR, THIS HIDDEN URGE RE-FORMED, TO BE THE PERSISTING ELEMENT OF LIFE, TILL NEAR THE END. IT WAS DEAD, BEFORE WE REACHED DAMASCUS.

NEXT IN FORCE HAD BEEN A PUGNACIOUS WISH TO WIN THE WAR: YOKED TO THE CONVICTION THAT WITHOUT ARAB HELP ENGLAND COULD NOT PAY THE PRICE OF WINNING ITS TURKISH SECTOR. WHEN DAMASCUS FELL, THE EASTERN WAR–PROBABLY THE WHOLE WAR–DREW TO AN END.

THEN I WAS MOVED BY CURIOSITY. 'SUPER FLUMINA BABYLONIS', READ AS A BOY, HAD LEFT ME LONGING TO FEEL MYSELF THE NODE OF A NATIONAL MOVEMENT. WE TOOK DAMASCUS, AND I FEARED. MORE THAN THREE ARBITRARY DAYS WOULD HAVE QUICKENED IN ME A ROOT OF AUTHORITY.

THERE REMAINED HISTORICAL AMBITION, INSUBSTANTIAL AS A MOTIVE BY ITSELF. I HAD DREAMED, AT THE CITY SCHOOL IN OXFORD, OF HUSTLING INTO FORM, WHILE I LIVED, THE NEW ASIA WHICH TIME WAS INEXORABLY BRINGING UPON US. MECCA WAS TO LEAD TO DAMASCUS; DAMASCUS TO ANATOLIA, AND AFTERWARDS TO BAGDAD; AND THEN THERE WAS YEMEN. FANTASIES, THESE WILL SEEM, TO SUCH AS ARE ABLE TO CALL MY BEGINNING AN ORDINARY EFFORT.