It is not given to every man to realize his life’s fantasy, but then the fantasies of many men revolve around dreams of grandeur, wealth and success. Lawrence’s curious psychology – the ‘reverse exhibitionism’ which was the social expression of his masochism – made sure that his fantasies always extended in the opposite direction – towards degradation, poverty, self-denial and enslavement. Short of being an actual slave or a prisoner in jail, the situation which best allowed Lawrence to experience such degradation was in the ranks of the armed forces. He later said that it had been his wartime experience with army and RAF personnel which had encouraged him to join the ranks: ‘These friendly outings with the armoured car and Air Force fellows were what persuaded me that my best future, if I survived the war, was to enlist,’ he wrote. 3In January 1922, though, while still working for the Colonial Office, he had written to Trenchard, Chief of the Air Staff – whom he had met at the Cairo Conference in 1921 – that he would like to join the RAF ‘in the ranks, of course’. He told Trenchard that his reason for enlisting was to obtain material for a book about the Royal Air Force ‘from the ground’. When Trenchard – with Churchill’s agreement – finally issued the order that John Hume Ross’ should be admitted to the RAF as ‘AC 2’ (Aircraftman 2nd Class) No. 352087 on 16 August, he wrote, ‘He is taking this step to learn what is the life of an airman.’ 4He later wrote to an acquaintance that he had joined up because he had found himself destitute, and enlisting in the ranks was a quick and easy way of staying alive.
None of these explanations was the complete truth, as Lawrence himself admitted: ‘Honestly I couldn’t tell you exactly why I joined up,’ he wrote Robert Graves; ‘… it was a necessary step, forced on me by an inclination towards ground leveclass="underline" by a despairing hope that I’d find myself on common ground with men: by a little wish to become a little more human …’
5If Lawrence’s enlistment in the ranks seems perverse, then it must be remembered that he had run away from home to do exactly that at seventeen, and had fantasized about serving in the ranks, or being a deserter from them, all his life. He inhabited a masochistic world of reverse values – for him pain was pleasure, servitude freedom, and self-denial orgiastic self-indulgence: as he was to tell Charlotte Shaw later, ‘
Il faut souffrir pour etre content.’
6
Great secrecy and a conspiratorial air accompanied his enlistment, but it is clear that he took few pains to conceal his true identity. Before he had left the recruitment office that first day, Johns already knew who he was: ‘Lawrence knew that I knew,’ said Johns, ‘because I had a long talk with him while he was waiting for the train to take him to Uxbridge.’ 9Johns had also telephoned through to the Recruit Depot at Uxbridge to warn his opposite number there, Flight-Lieutenant Nelson, that Lawrence of Arabia was on the way incognito,so his ‘secret’ was well known from the moment he arrived at the Depot, to almost everyone except the ordinary Aircraftmen and NCOs with whom he shared his life. Lawrence spent two months at Uxbridge and found the life one of drudgery, alternating between kitchen fatigues, drill and PT. In an exhausted and malnourished state when he joined up, he was also deeply depressed and drained of energy after writing Seven Pillars,and hoped the RAF would help bring him out. He was older than most of the recruits and physically debilitated. He could not keep up with them during PT, fumbled his drill, and was victimized by the Adjutant, ‘Stiffy’ Breese, to whom he had unfortunately had the cheek to apply for a private room in which to pursue his writing – a clear indication that he had not yet wholeheartedly adopted his role of ordinary airman – almost, perhaps, a deliberate attempt to bait authority. Breese wrote later that ‘Ross’ had been constantly ‘up’ for dirtiness, insubordination, refusing to obey direct orders, and being late on parade. Breese recalled that in his defence ‘Ross’ had simply remarked with Oxford hauteur that ‘he had always felt a little tired in the early morning’. 10His fellow Aircraftmen thought him ‘a queer sort ofbloke’:’… the erks (Aircraftmen) found him useful,’ one of his room-mates recalled; ‘… he was always good for half-crowns, books, technical advice etc.’ 11Although, on one level, Lawrence sought acceptance by the ‘erks’, he also purposely retained his oddness, writing to Edward Garnett that in the barrack-room he was ‘apart’ and felt like a ‘dragon-fly among wasps’ or a ‘wasp among dragon-flies’. 12His old propensity for fitting into a community without belonging to it quickly reasserted itself.
If Lawrence had really desired anonymity, he could have found it. If he had really meant to leave ‘Colonel Lawrence’ behind and find the shape of the ‘worm inside the caddis shell’, as he put it, it would have been possible. As Bernard Shaw so acutely observed, though, Lawrence sought to hide always in full spotlight on mid-stage. Anonymity was not really his objective: his purpose in joining up was to abase himself and be seen to abase himself: to suffer and be seen to suffer. Just as his night expeditions to dive through the ice on the Cherwell in his college days had been made with the object of shocking ‘orthodox folk’, so his service as a ‘beast’ in the ranks had to be communicated to the exalted personages among whom Lawrence would otherwise have lived. They must be enjoined to share in his degradation. It had been his own choice to join the RAF as a ranker: indeed, most of his acquaintances including Winston Churchill and Lord Trenchard had tried to dissuade him from it. Yet once he had chosen his path, he proceeded to write sheaves of letters to the great and powerful of the land, wallowing in the self-abasement he had opted for voluntarily. Lawrence’s desire to exhibit the disgusting conditions of his life can be felt almost palpably in his letter to Bernard Shaw: ‘You ask for details of what I’m doing in the RAF,’ he wrote. ‘Today I scrubbed the kitchen out in the morning … Yesterday I washed up the dishes in the sergeants’ mess in the morning (messy feeders, sergeants: plates were all butter and tomato sauce, and the washing water was cold) … I’ve been dustman, and clerk, and pig-stye cleaner, and housemaid and scullion … but the life isn’t so bad …’ 13There is a curious parallel between Lawrence’s service life and his attitude to Seven Pillars,which he was revising during his first weeks in the RAF. Once again, it was a book no one had obliged him to write, revealing ‘secrets’ and ‘private matters’ no one had asked him to reveaclass="underline" yet once it was completed and coyly passed around his inner circle, he continually bemoaned and bewailed its inadequacy: ‘if you say it’s rot,’ he wrote Shaw, who had received one of the original bound copies, ‘I’ll agree with you and cackle with pleasure at finding my judgement doubled.’ 14‘I wish the beastly book had never been written,’ he wrote Edward Garnett, almost as though he had had no hand in it. 15Lawrence’s attitude to the publication of Seven Pillarsis also a perfect showcase of his personality – the personality Liddell Hart described as that of ‘a woman wearing a veil while exposing the bosom’. The book was completed in 1922, and Lawrence might well have published it then and simply forgotten about it. Instead, he proceeded to waft it enticingly under the noses of the public for the rest of his life – first releasing eight copies to privileged friends, then, four years later, a limited edition for subscribers and an abridged version with most of the controversial material removed. He continued to rework the text for years, thus ensuring that interest in the book and consequently in himself, the author, was never allowed to subside. This is not the behaviour of someone who genuinely seeks anonymity.