This was Lawrence’s first major operation in the field. He was not a trained field-officer, as he had always insisted, but a political officer, and his proper place was by Feisal’s side. Garland and Newcombe, both Sappers, had preceded him in action against the railway. However, this was an emergency, and Lawrence felt that ‘Abdallah’s force, sitting in Wadi ‘Ais, had done little to justify its existence over the previous months. He would now act as a spur to Abdallah, as he had done so effectively with Feisal, and in the process would strike at the key point on the railway himself. As he rode out of Wejh with his escort, it must almost have seemed to Lawrence that the entire future of the Near East campaign rested on his shoulders. As soon as he was on the road, however, the old terror of being injured reasserted itself with a vengeance. Almost every moment of profound stress in Lawrence’s life is marked with illness: his journeys in Syria had ended in malaria and dysentery: at the crucial point on his mission to Kut in 1916 an attack of fever had laid him out. The malaria was genuine, but it returned at intervals when his fear brought his psychological defences down. His ride to Wadi Ais, the terrible responsibility of his position, the necessity of doing right both by the Arabs and by his British masters, and the prospect of standing between the Turkish wolf and its home ground, took their psychical toll. By the second evening, when his party camped at the pool of Abu Zeraybat, where Feisal had lingered on his march to Wejh, Lawrence was suffering from fever, boils and dysentery. The following day – 12 March – the party set out early. Lawrence’s companions – a Moroccan named Hamed, a Syrian cook, some ‘Agayl, Rifa’a, a Merawi and an ‘Utaybi – spent the day arguing continuously. The going was difficult, and for Lawrence agonizing. After a short break at mid-morning they rode up a narrow water-course towards the Sukhur – vast striated masses of cracked and faulted volcanic rock – where they were obliged to dismount and drag their camels up over rocky shelves and a knife-blade ridge. They descended into a valley, which opened into another, and another, until they strayed into an area of black basalt boulders known as a harra,where the camels tripped and stumbled. The sun came out with a vengeance, and twice during the day Lawrence fainted. It was all he could do to stay in the saddle. In the afternoon they were obliged to make two difficult and steep descents which only added to his fatigue. Finally, at 4.15 they halted for the night in a stony water-course called Wadi Khitan, where Lawrence unhitched his saddle-bags and threw himself into the shade of some rocks, exhausted, with a headache and raging fever. What happened next forms one of those mysterious hiatuses which feature so commonly in Lawrence’s life, when we seem to be passing from the realms of solid fact – times, distances, numbers and dates, with which he crammed his diaries and letters – into a subterranean world of nightmares and shadows.
According to Lawrence’s description in Seven Pillars,his feverish reveries were suddenly disturbed by a crisp gunshot at close quarters. This did not bother him, as he imagined one of his Bedu was shooting a hare for supper. Not so. He was shortly roused by Sulayman, the ‘Utaybi, who led him over to another gully to show him the dead body of an ‘Agayli called Salem, with a gaping bullet wound in the temple. Lawrence clearly saw that the skin was burned at the edges, suggesting a shot from close quarters. At once he suspected Sulayman himself, remembering the feud between the ‘Utayba and the ‘Agayl, but ‘Ali – the senior ‘Agayli – assured him that the murderer had been none other than Lawrence’s own servant, Hamed the Moor. Lawrence sent the men to search for Hamed, and had just crawled back under his cloak when he heard a rustle. Opening his eyes wide, he saw the Moor lifting some saddle-bags nearby, evidently intending to load his camel and make off. Lawrence drew his pistol and stopped him in his tracks. The other Arabs came rushing back, and at once held court. Hamed confessed that he and Salem had argued, and he had lost his temper and shot the ‘Agayli at point-blank range. ‘Ali and the other ‘Agayl demanded an eye for an eye. Lawrence knew that this was the ancient desert law, and was anyway too shattered to argue the case for clemency – he agreed that the murder of Salem had been an unforgivable crime. It was clear that Hamed had to die, but who would perform the execution? If he died at the hands of an ‘Agayli, this would start another blood-feud between the Agayl and the Moroccans, of whom there were many in Feisal’s army. Only Lawrence, who stood in the role of a Sharif, and above tribal feuds, could safely execute the condemned man. He made the Moor enter a sandy gully which shrank to a crack a few inches wide, and allowed him a brief pause to come to terms with himself. Hamed crouched sobbing on the ground. Then Lawrence ordered him to stand up, and shot him in the chest with a trembling hand. The Moor collapsed, coughing blood, and Lawrence shot him once more but only fractured his wrist. Hamed lay in the sand, screaming, and Lawrence stepped close to him, laid the muzzle of his pistol under his jaw, and shot him for the third time. The body shivered slightly. Lawrence called the ‘Agayl to bury him, staggered over to his baggage and collapsed in his sleeping space. His diary entry for 12 March consists of a rough sketch-map of the Wadi Khitan with an arrow pointing to a place labelled ‘deathcrack’, and – in very spidery writing – the words: ‘Slept here. Terrible night. Shot.’ 9