They slept for a few hours that night, wrapped in their cloaks, and were up in the chill of dawn, reaching the well at Masturah in the mellow flush of early light. Some Bedu of the Masruh Harb were crouching under an awning of palm-fronds, and their eyes followed Lawrence’s party suspiciously as they passed. They dismounted by a ruined wall, and Lawrence sat down in the shade. Obeyd and his son took the camels off to water them at a stone shaft, twenty feet deep, with footholds built into its side. While Obeyd held the camels, ‘Abdallah tucked up his dishdashainto his cartridge-belt and slung a goatskin over his shoulder, then descended into the well, feeling for the footholds deftly with his bare feet. He filled the goatskin, shinned up again as surely as a lizard and poured the water into a stone basin. When the animals had drunk their fill, Obeyd carried over a bowl of water for Lawrence to drink. Finally, the two Bani Salem drank themselves. Then they sat down with Lawrence in the shade, to watch the Masruh watering a herd of thin she-camels. ‘Abdallah rolled himself a cigarette.
It was at this moment that Lawrence had a vision. As they watched, he wrote, two young riders came trotting in on richly caparisoned thoroughbred camels, and couched them by the well. One of them, dressed in a fine cashmere robe, tossed his headrope carelessly to the other and ordered him to water them. The young lord strutted arrogantly over to where Lawrence and his rafiqswere sitting, and sank down on his haunches next to them. He was a slim man, little more than a boy, with a slightly pugnacious, inquisitive face, his long hair dressed in plaits, Bedu style. He was powerful-looking and appeared supremely confident. He offered Lawrence a cigarette, freshly rolled and licked, and then inquired if he was from Syria. Lawrence left the question hanging in the air, and asked if the youth was from Mecca. His companion, meanwhile, was making little progress in watering his camels. The Masruh herd was pressing lustily around the stone basin, and the herdsmen had not given the youth a chance to water his beasts as the customary etiquette to travellers demanded. ‘What is it, Mustafa?’ the lord shouted. ‘Water them at once!’ ‘Mustafa’ approached him shamefacedly, and began to explain that the herdsmen would not let him, whereupon the other jumped up with an oath and beat him savagely three or four times about the shoulders with his camel-stick. ‘Mustafa’ looked resentful, but stayed silent. The Masruh, watching from the well, were embarrassed that their own lack of hospitality had caused the boy’s humiliation, and not only gave the young man a place at the water immediately, but offered his camels some fresh shoots to eat. After the animals had eaten and drunk, the young lord climbed upon his camel without couching her, simply pulling her head down gently and stepping on her neck. ‘God requite you!’ he told the Masruh, and rode off with his companion to the south.
No sooner had they gone than Obeyd started to chuckle. Later, after Lawrence and his rafiqshad mounted their camels and were riding north, he explained that the young ‘lord’ was Sharif ‘Ali ibn Hussain of the Harith, and ‘Mustafa’ actually his cousin, Sharif Muhsin. Sharif ‘Ali was a trusted lieutenant of Feisal’s, and despite his age had an outstanding reputation for courage. He had been one of Feisal’s picked bodyguard in Damascus, and had fought next to him on the bloody plains outside Medina at the beginning of June. Later, he had led the raids against the Turkish advance at Bir Darwish. The Harith and the Masruh were blood-enemies, and if the herdsmen at the well had suspected their identities, they might have been driven away. They had invented the charade of master and servant, Obeyd said, to deceive them. Lawrence was entranced by Sharif ‘Ali. For the rest of his time in Arabia, he would be captivated by the image of the ‘noble’ boy-warrior he had glimpsed at Masturah, on his first journey into the desert.
Like several of the questionable incidents in Lawrence’s story, the meeting with Sharif ‘Ali makes no appearance in any official report – though Lawrence often gives details of a far more minor nature. In Seven Pillars, 7this vision sets the scene for the world of deception, conflict and cruelty in which he now found himself: a world of handsome young men who resort frequently to the stick, a world in which the tribes are ancient blood-enemies that only an idea of great influence can unite. Since Obeyd knew the identities of the two Harith Sharifs, though, it seems unlikely that the Masruh at the well would not have recognized them. The Bedu were extremely observant, not missing a single detail – tribesmen who could remember the track of every camel they had ever seen, who could distinguish families and clans simply by the difference in the way they tied their headcloths, are unlikely to have been deceived by the rather amateurish performance, and it would have been obvious from ‘Mustafa’s’ appearance, bearing, clothing, saddlery, and a thousand other tiny details, that he was no servant or slave. Secondly, the story has a ring of familiarity common to many tales in Seven Pillars:the boyish pranks of the young Sharifs are a preview of the ‘naughtiness’ later practised by Lawrence’s servants ‘Farraj and Da’ud’, and the masochistic element – the ‘submission’, ‘humiliation’ and beating of one of the boys – is clear. Such flagellation and public humiliation also play a large role in the ‘Farraj and Da’ud’ story. Sharif ‘Ali emerges from Seven Pillarsas Lawrence’s beau ideal of the desert Arab – the aristocratic Bedui, counterpart of his pre-war love, Dahoum. It seems at least possible, though, that this vision of male beauty Lawrence claimed to have experienced at Masturah was no more than an interior one, since Sharif ‘Ali makes his first appearance in Lawrence’s field diary on 8 March 1917 – five months later – and in this hand-written entry Lawrence describes the Sharif as if seeing him for the first time.
From Masturah, they passed out of the territory of the Masruh and into that of the Bani Salem, to which Lawrence’s rafiqsbelonged. Obeyd showed Lawrence the stone which marked the frontier of his own tribal district. What struck Lawrence most forcibly was the thought that, though Europeans saw the desert as a barren wilderness, to the Bedu it was home. Every tree, rock, hill, well and spring had its owner, and while it was Bedu custom to allow a traveller to cut firewood and to draw water enough for their own use, woe betide any foreign spirit who tried to exploit it. By noon, Lawrence was beginning to feel the strain of the journey. His legs and back were raw and aching from the constant jolting of the camel, his skin blistered from the sun and his eyes painful from peering all morning into the glare of the burning flint. He had been two years in the city, commuting from hotel to office, he realized, and now had suddenly been dumped in the desert without the slightest preparation. As the sun dipped and melted into the west, they arrived at a village of grass huts called Bir ash-Sheikh, belonging to the Bani Salem. The Bedu couched their camels by one of the huts, and were greeted by a woman who showed them a place to sit, and kindled a fire for them outside. Obeyd went off and begged some flour, which he mixed with a little water in a bowl, and kneaded into a flat oval patty. He buried it carefully in the sand under the embers of the fire, waiting twenty minutes, then brushed them away, delved in the sand, and brought out a piping hot, hard-baked loaf. He clapped it with his hand to remove the last grains of sand and broke it into pieces, which the three of them shared. Although Lawrence later claimed that the Arabs thought it ‘effeminate’ to take provisions for a journey of less than 100 miles, this was untrue. The fact was that no Bedui would bother to take food while travelling in his own tribal district, since he could always be certain of obtaining nourishment from his fellow tribesmen on the way. The libbeh –unleavened bread baked in the sand – was the Bedu’s standard fare, and would soon become nauseatingly familiar to Lawrence. For now, though, he ate a little with the best grace he could muster. Afterwards, Obeyd invited him to look at some nearby wells, but he was so stiff after the ride that he declined.