Angel of Babylon

[Steven Hunley]

Angel of Babylon

by

Steven Hunley


Looking out over the desert revealed a clear and cold morning, the nearby hills ambered by the sun’s early rays. The track lead off into the distance and everywhere else was sand and rock. It was all very pretty. But to Lawrence it looked dangerous.

‘It’s the wires. All I notice are the bloomin’ wires.’

“Ali, I bid you; help the men with the wires.”

Ali obeyed and nodded back at blond Lawrence with smoldering kohl-darkened eyes. Ali pried open his Webley. The gun-metal blue cylinder was as smoke-stained as his teeth and full of bright brass bullets. He clicked it shut.

“At once.”

That was the problem with cold desert mornings. The insulation on the wire stiffened and gave away its position in the sand, bending up here and there. The two Turkish look-outs riding on the cow-catcher would certainly notice. Then they’d trace the wire straight to the detonator. That would never do.

It seemed a travesty to break the morning desert silence with an oversized explosion of TNT, like setting off a bomb in a cathedral. But trains are so heavy and mechanical and stuffed with troops. A few well-placed pounds of explosive could make them go wrong easily. There’s was nothing else to be done but follow orders.

Metal parts would fly every which way and litter the pristine desert. Now it was like a dry slice of heaven, beautiful, contemplative, even spiritual. In mere seconds it would be the smoke and flames of a Turkish Hell.

It took a military decision to break the silence. Like most military decisions, a horrid sin.

Mahmood, laying close to the track, had an ear to the rail.

He stood up and reflected the brilliant blade of his rinocerous-horn dagger in the sun. Ali acknowledged the signal.

“It’s coming, Aurens, it’s coming.”

Lawrence screwed the brass contacts down, pinching the copper wires methodically, one at a time.

Puffs of smoke appeared between the hills.

He raised the plunger. The mechanical steaming monster drew nearer, belching smoke and sparks into the azure sky. The terrible weight of its’ metal, verbally assaulting the tracks, roared like a hungry lion. Grinding and clattering over the spaces, rendering rhythm from the iron tracks beneath it’s weighty wheels. Screaming with its whistle, rounding the bend, racing towards an appointment... in Paradise.

Like Death came to Bagdad, a tale of a wandering Sufi.

Instead, Death would come to a stretch of sand miles from the Wadi Safra, at the bidding of a man from a cold green island in the North Sea, at the hands of lowly Arab who meant less than nothing to troopers of the Ottoman Turks outfitted with Austrian armament.

Hook-nosed dark Ali. Eyes-like-a-hawk, Ali.

Death has some sense of humor.

The dunes overlooking the track hung dangerously close like yellow desert-blown shrouds with tiny pins piercing their seams and shadows. Hardly noticeable really, in the early morning light.

And every one of those pins was a tribesman’s rifle, bearing down on its target with terrible pressure, predicting the newborn should know only death. Each shot carried a newborn soul to Paradise. Praise be to the warrior who has a sharp eye and a steady hand and shows no mercy to his enemies.

The monster was breaking the silence. Lawrence’s men would break the mechanical monster.

They readied their guns.

Lawrence learned his manners in Surrey.

“Here, Ali," he said deferentially. “It’s your turn.”

Ali moved his hands from under the folds of his kaftan and rubbed them together like an expectant child, smiling, a gleam in his eye, singing softly in the still desert air,

“Down goes the plunger!"

The noise!

Iron rails twisted and smoked. The huge engine lifted into heaven like an angel’s feather. Confusion and chaos reigned supreme. The men broke cover, rushing the stunned and blackened Turks, their tattered uniforms still smoking. Lawrence’s men plundered and robbed the train from one end to the other. Within minutes they disappeared back into the desert, their pockets stuffed with worthless Ottoman piasters and livres, and valuable cartons of Murad cigarettes.

Ali, reporting to Lawrence, showed him a brushed gold Cartier lighter he took from an officer.

“Besides this, there wasn’t enough gold to fill a tooth.”

It wasn’t the pilfering and looting Lawrence minded. That’s how the men expected to be paid. It was the wholesale slaughter that went with it. At this point, he was more a man than a soldier.

“Then we’ll pay the men when we take Aqaba.”

Aqaba was a complete success. They had a port and a bridgehead, extending the line of supply. How they loved Aqaba. After the action the men raced their camels in the surf like children. One success followed another. Seasons changed and the men returned to their farms and flocks. Lawrence and Ali hid out in caves near Deraa with a few lieutenants, bored out of their minds, waiting for the weather to change and with it the resumption of hostilities.

Ali paced restlessly back and forth.

Lawrence sat reading an ancient copy of the Times from the third of April, 1895. The Crown vs. Wilde, something about Oscar Wilde having an affair with the son of the Count of Queensbury, Alfred Douglas.

Under his breath he whispered, “...and Gomorrah.”

Lawrence wondered.

“ Ali, you miss home, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, don’t you?”

“I’m not comfortable there. I feel stifled, restricted. They don’t much care for men like me. You learn early never to be flamboyant or insolent or get out of line. Heavens no. They prefer you regimented. They passed laws against men like me ages ago.”

“We’re both going crazy here. We need to get out.”

“I agree, I’m going to Deraa,”

“Don’t talk foolishly, Aurens. Your Arabic is good and your skin has burnt many times in the sun, but your eyes will give you away.”

Then they’ll have to assume I’m Circasian.”

“You may pass for a Circasian man. You’re certainly not pretty enough to pass as one of their women.”

Lawrence agreed. He’d read Byron’s Don Juan, in which the tale of a slave auction is told. Looking at Ali he quoted:

“ For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given,
Warranted virgin. Beauty's brightest colours
Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven.
Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers,
Who bade on till the hundreds reached the eleven,
But when the offer went beyond, they knew
‘Twas for the Sultan and at once withdrew.
- Don Juan, canto IV, verse 114“

Ali, the desert fox, Oxford-educated, khol-eyed Ali quoted back,

“I’ll do you one better Aurens, and farther back than that in the literature.The legend of Circassian women in the western world is at least as old as 1734. That’s when, in his Letters on the English, Voltaire alludes to the beauty of Circassian women:

‘The Circassians are poor, and their daughters are beautiful, and indeed it is in them they chiefly trade. They furnish with those beauties the seraglios of the Turkish Sultan, of the Persian Sophy, and of all of those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise. These maidens are very honorably and virtuously instructed how to fondle and caress men; are taught dances of a very polite and effeminate kind; and how to heighten by the most voluptuous artifices the pleasures of their disdainful masters for whom they are designed.’

It’s from his Letter XI, On Inoculation.”

Damn Ali and his Oxford education and his double bandoleers of ammunition. He was always so prepared.

“Ali, you’re frightfully amusing, but I feel like walking through streets packed with common men, listening to them grumbling about their taxes, their wives, or the war, or about the various virtues of opium vs. drink, not well-educated banter. I’ll go alone, and don’t worry, I’ll be safe.”

Ali looked after his friend. The heat shimmered across the figure walking down the mountain, like lakes of sparkling water, separating first his feet from the ground, then his knees, and finally his trunk and head disappeared into the heavens.

'Why should I worry?' thought Ali, 'The man lives a charmed life.'

to be continued...

©Steven Hunley2011

[Steven Hunley]

***

Two days later he still hadn’t returned. Ali came down the mountain with his lieutenants began to search. They found a figure of a man laying face-down in the mud behind the police station, alone in the alley near a smoldering trash heap. He’d been tortured. Bloody lines crossed his back, spelling out false pride with vermillion streaks, resembling Arabic script.

To Ali it looked like the Arabic word nafs, which in English means psyche or ego.

They turned the body over. It was Lawrence, just barely conscious. They loaded what was left of him on a cart and escaped the town under cover of darkness. Winding their way back to the cave they passed a spectacled scholar on the road with a donkey. Ali was reminded of the saying by Rumi.

"The nafs has a rosary and a Koran in its right hand, and a scimitar and dagger in the sleeve."

Lawrence’s ego was certainly proving to be a two-edged sword.

Pulling off fabric clotted with blood wasn’t easy. Lawrence was racked with fever and drifting in and out of consciousness. As if the pain wasn’t enough, infection set in. He needed professional help. Finally Ali gave in and ordered a lieutenant,

“Get a doctor. One that can keep his mouth shut.”

Two nights later out of the darkness a woman appeared in the light of the fire. A nurse from a small village where the doctor was taken away, she was no friend of the Turks.

“She was all I could find,” said the lieutenant.

She sat down and unpacked bandages, disinfectant and packets of herbs. Not saying a word, she sat by the fire and began warming her hands.Then she put a kettle on the fire and added the herbs as if it were tea-time in Ashford or Haslemere.

“What’s her name?” Ali asked the lieutenant.

“I hadn’t bothered to ask, Sherif.”

“Ennigaldi,” answered the girl to them both. “Ennigaldi’s my name.”

Ali was surprised to notice that when she finally spoke, her name sounded more like a melody than a word.

She took complete control of the patient. She bathed him and made all his meals. Ennigaldi dressed his wounds and no other. Yet the fever remained and hung onto his mind and body with a passion. While he slipped in and out of consciousness his mind picked up fragments of what was happening in the cave and other fragments from his dreams, and shuffled them together like cards, until they were mixed so well he could hardly tell one from the other.

These fragments interlocked so closely he was left with seamless impressions and because of his fever, impressions so vivid, his brain was unable to separate illusion from reality.

He dreamt one night he was climbing a library ladder to a high row of books. When he got to the top, the books he wanted were still not within reach. There stood staring spellbound at the wonderful books bound in red Morrocan leather with gold-embossed titles. He stretched and brought a small volume down. It was Ozymandius by Shelly,

‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

The inside page was inscribed by a quill in India ink,

“To Lawrence.”

He replaced it and brought down a second. It was Colleridge’s Kubla Khan.

‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome did decree.’

The page was signed again, “To Lawrence”

A third volume, larger yet, was Ur of the Chaldees, by Sir Charles Leonard Woolley and inscribed, “ Thank you Lawrence for your invaluable help.”

The last book was the fattest of all. The title was familiar and yet not familiar.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

It reminded him of a passage from the Book of Proverbs, 9:1: "Wisdom hath built her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars"

When he looked for the inscription he found it was not written in India ink, and not with a quill or a pen. The dedication was lying on the page, made of fine black sand, like a sand painting. When he tilted the book to examine it closer, the sand fell down from the page, then onto his shoes, then off the rungs of the ladder, then all the way to the floor. He’d climb down to scoop it up, fill his pockets and climb the ladder again. But by the time he got to the top he’d forget what he came for and the sequence would start over.

Fever and opium had his mind all a jumble.

to be continued...

[Steven Hunley]

The herbs needed time to work. Ennigaldi wet a small towel and placed it on his forehead. His raging temperature required she do it over and over. She gazed at his fevered face, pushing a wet lock of hair away from his eyes, touching him gently with a mother’s touch.

She didn’t expect him to look this way, this sensitive face, this blond hair. He resembled her son who would have been twelve next month. Her husband thought she couldn’t have babies, so when she was finally with child contrary to his medical opinion, they named the child Bashir in celebration, meaning bringer of good tidings.

Bashir died during a cholera epidemic two years ago. Now her husband the doctor was gone too, taken away by the Turks. The village was no place for a woman alone, far from home. War, disease, and pestilence had left her life in shambles. To help forget she kept herself busy.

But this face...

It was best to forget about it, to distance herself. But how can a nurse distance herself from her patient? It proved impossible.

Later the next night when the were all asleep, his fever grew to a crisis. He sat up, his eyes opened, yet he could not see and cried out,

“Mother!”

His hands reached into the darkness. He began to claw at his eyes, trying to wipe away the madness. Ennigaldi awoke and rushed to his side. She held his wrists and made him lie down again, whispering,

“You’re going to be alright, Aurens. You’re going to be alright, go back to sleep.”

Her voice, her touch, had a calming effect. Her voice and her words, raced through his mind, raced through his veins, into his heart, into his soul. No escape. Suddenly he went limp and relaxed.

He couldn’t explain, but out of the darkness--- sunlight again.

When Lawrence awoke the next morning, it was if a veil had been lifted from his eyes.The desert had come alive. Black-winged crows circling overhead, grey-tarnished scrub, even the sun-burnt rocks and yellow sand--all alive.The sun was low on the horizon, highlighting the hair of a woman boiling a kettle of water on the fire, facing away from him. When she turned he saw her face. He’d never seen a woman so fair.
Lawrence took note of her eyes. They were the same as her face which is to say...incomparable. She looked up, and her eyes, brown and wild like a young desert gazelle, and his, blue and stormy as the North Sea in winter, met.

She smiled.

“You’re awake.”

“I am.”

“The tea can wait. Let’s see how you’re doing.”

Placing her hand on his forehead, he recognized the caring touch. Then she touched his cheek and looked in his eyes.

“The worse part,” she said, “is over.”

As the days passed Ennigaldi would change his bandages, fix herb tea, help him take his first few steps until his strength came back. His talk, where he’d been, what he’d seen, fascinated her.
He thought her soft bed-side manner might be just for him, some sort of professional demeanor. One night when the fire outside was casting light on the walls of the cave, making ever-changing patterns, Ali decide to smoke hashish. Lawrence asked him,

“Is she that way with us all, or is it just me?”

Ali was smoking and lost in thought. His pipe filled with smoke and bubbled. He put down the mouth piece of the hooka and turned the question over in his mind.

“If one of my wives heard this, I’d never hear the end of it, but the men have been talking and we all agree. She’s a woman among women. Pretty too, that cannot be denied. She is a gift from Allah. She has eyes for you alone, Aurens, and what eyes they are!”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I believe that it must be true. Something about you strikes her fancy.”

Ali took another long draw on the pipe. Intoxicating smoke formed rings as he puffed and drifted lazily upward in ever-widening circles.The fire outside crackled and sputtered. Patterns danced on the walls. Ennigaldi came in and glanced at them both, and covered her mouth with her hand.

Lawrence was not blind. She’d failed to cover her eyes and gave her smile away.

“My father smoked hashish on special occasions,” she stated. “The Koran forbids alcohol.”

“War is a special occasion,” replied Ali brightly.

Ennigaldi laughed and then questioned, “And you, Aurens?”

“I’m a gin and tonic man myself, but that’s probably because I’m English.”

She nodded her head with resignation. “All men have their vices, no matter what their color or creed or religion.”

“And their virtues,” answered Lawrence. He got up and turned Ennigaldi around.

“Let’s take a walk. This is no place for a woman.”

He found out what he wanted to know from Ali, the rest he’d find out from her.

continued...

©Steven Hunley2011

[Steven Hunley]

They walked together to the edge of the escarpment. The desert below lay before them like a painting. The moon was a silver shimmering orb, bathing the scene in its light. Both looked out over the trackless desert, its dunes revealed by moon shadows rippling off into distance like a rare well defined dream.

“Ennigaldi, what was it you did before the war?”

“I was a nurse in my husband’s clinic. A nurse, a mother, a wife. And you?”

“I studied languages. Later, I helped an archaeologist dig in a city in Mesopotamia. I kept busy. Then the war came...”

A hyena near the escarpment howled at the moon for its mate. Lawrence wondered what married life was like for the woman sitting beside him.

“Were you happy?”

“Not often, she reflected. “There are moments when I think I’m unhappy by nature.”

“The war doesn’t help. It’s chaos, pure chaos. It tears people apart.”

She turned to him and riveted him with her eyes.

“Or it pushes people together that would have never met. Total strangers meet for mere seconds, revealing things that could never be said by lovers tossing intimate words back and forth between rose-scented pillows, not in a thousand and one nights.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. When there’s a chance you may never see someone again you don't hesitate. There’s no time to waste.”

“Because there’s no future.”

“Yes.”

Clouds drifted across the face of the moon. The first cool breeze of night rearranged a wisp of her fragrant hair. He drew closer and pulled a frayed string from her sleeve.

“You miss your husband and son, don’t you?”

“My son, yes, my husband---not at all. Our marriage was pre-arranged when we were young by our parents. My father, although he was a learned man, still had many traditional beliefs. I thought with time I could learn to love my husband. I didn’t. He had women on the side. He promised he’d stop. He couldn’t. But anyone who can take an oath before God and witnesses and brakes it can easily brake a promise made to a woman he hardly knows. He was a good provider and a companion but never a lover, not to me anyway.”

Lawrence looked up. The sky was overflowing with a thousand twinkling stars.

“Sometimes marriages that start off good don’t always work out. My father and mother never married. You know what that makes me.”

She placed her hand over his.

“It makes you what you are, a very special man.”

He shrugged, “Perhaps.”

“Lawrence, do you believe in love?”

“I can’t really say. I don’t know much about it. It seems to me that love is a business you have to work out for yourself. Everyone has their own definition and meaning.”

“I agree. But we can always consult the scholars, like Rumi.

“Explanation by the tongue makes most things clear, but love unexplained is clearer.”

Lawrence was not to be outdone. He was too well read for that.

“However much we describe and explain love, when we fall in love we are ashamed of our words.”

She broke out with a peal of laughter.

“You beat me at my own game, Lawrence! Now let’s get back. It’s time for your herb tea and something more to eat. You must regain all your strength. Strength is a prerequisite for a warrior.”

“That, and cunning.”

Grasping her hand he helped her up. They started the walk back to camp. Lawrence didn’t tell her the next quote from Rumi that shot through his head. He’d told her too much already.
Something about this woman made him want to tell her everything. He saw this as weakness.
Yet he was not weak and Ennigaldi was more than a woman.

Perhaps Rumi was more accurate than Lawrence imagined. Truth spoken by a Sufi mystic in the thirteenth century is still truth.

“Woman is a ray of God, not a mere mistress, the Creator’s self, as it were, not a mere creature.”

***


to be concluded in the next part....

©Steven Hunley2011.

[Jack of Hearts]

Eagerly awaiting. What's coming down the pipeline?


This is hardly normal Hunley and the opening scene was a great way to start the story. But now that we've got Lawrence healed and presumably the weather right, where are you going to take him?






J

[Steven Hunley]

Next was Allenby’s push on Damascus. Lawrence recovered, and was in the process of breaking camp. They’d agreed that Ennigaldi would return to her village. His lieutenants found a donkey and she and Lawrence were packing supplies on its back. He stood on one side and she on the other.They were nearing completion of the task of securing the ropes. Neither one wanted to face the other, knowing full well that as Shakespeare once stated, expressed through the lips of Juliet,

“Parting is such sweet sorrow..”

But at one point their eyes met.

“Take care now,” said Lawrence. “Your village is still in the hands of Turkish troops. Don’t get in their way. Keep your head. We don’t want them carting you off to prison.”

Her dark eyes flashed.

“You must take care too.You have a price on your head. You could end up in jail beside me.”

“That may not be so bad. ‘With thee a prison would be a rose garden.”

“Always quoting Rumi! Aurens, you’re over-read! You may be the last of the warrior-poets but my father has been schooling me in Rumi since I was a child. Warrior that you are, you’ll never win a battle of words when quoting Rumi against me. I can always do you one better.

‘With thee hell would be a mansion of delight.’

How’s that?”

Lawrence laughed. How could he not? The war, the desert, the most unlikely of times and places to quote Sufi mystics, back and forth like Islamic scholars, sitting on Samarkan rugs, or college-student lovers, over too many bottles of wine and picnic baskets stuffed with dark Swiss chocolates sitting under tall Eucalyptus.

It was patently absurd.

Lawrence unbuttoned two buttons of his shirt and .took something off his neck. He placed the chain with his identity disc and small gold cross around her neck and fastened it.

“What’s this now?”

“Those numbers are mine and the cross was my mother’s. Allow it protect you.”

“I can’t take it. It’s too valuable...I can’t...”

“Yes, you can. And don’t worry. I’ll come back for it after the war. It’s nearly over.”

“You’ll come back?”

“Of course.”

He helped her onto the donkey,checked the ropes and the saddle and looked to Ali to see if the road below was clear. Ali nodded. Everything was ready.

Ennigaldi reach out to Lawrence and began buttoning up his shirt

“Lawrence, I have nothing to give you in return but this...”

Grasping his collar, she pulled him nearer and kissed him. Only lasting a second, only a taste of her beauty expressed through her lips, only... everything about her he ever wanted to know.

“Now you’ll have two reasons to return.”

As he watched her ride into the distance, he quoted Romeo,

“O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?”

And with Ali and his men, he rode north towards Damascus, their Martini- Enfields 303s slung over their saddles, high in spirits, ready to make an end to the hated Turks and be done with them once and for all.

***

The Arab army headed north. More trains and skirmishes along the way. Finally they were within a day’s ride of Damascus. Stopping for water and rest, they pitched their tents in a secure spot and rested for the next day. Damascus was almost surrounded. It was up for grabs who would get there first, the regular British troops under Allenby, or Lawrence’s Arab army.

Lawrence sat next to Ali by the fire discussing strategy, examining the map laying between them. Ali was slicing up pieces of beek-jerky with his knife. Lawrence pointed at the map with a unsharpened pencil.

“The only way that’s open for their escape is north.”

“If we set off tonight, we can catch them by dawn and cut them off,” said Ali. “Like this!”

He sliced off a piece and gave it to Lawrence.

“They’ll never expect us to make it in time,” returned Lawrence. “And besides, they’ll imagine we’re too small a force to engage them at any rate.”

“That will be their mistake, Aurens. You know, I have hunted with falcons many times. As birds go, they’re not very big. But they excell as hunters.

“Because they are swift and silent.”

“Yes, and therefore deadly,” agreed Ali. “That’s it, Aurens. They make up for their size.”

“So will we, my friend. Now sleep.”

Lawrence returned to his tent to sleep. He’d grown weary, just not of the war but of his place in the scheme of things. He dreamed of returning to Dorset, for an opportunity to be different, for a chance at a new future. Time to have a wife and small children that ran about the rose garden skinning their knees, their mother applying skin plasters, negating the stinging Mercurochrome with soft tender kisses.

Two hours before dawn a messenger arrived from headquarters carrying a leather dispatch case.

It was unusual. They were out of touch usually with the British command and didn’t mind, it gave them more freedom to maneuver.
Therefore Lawrence opened the case with great interest. Inside was a letter and an small sealed envelope. The letter read.

“Major Lawrence,

You will most likely be interested in this strange occurrence. As you might know, the Turks have been ruthless in their treatment of civilians. As our Commonwealth troops approach many villages they’ve held, they needlessly shoot civilians, to avoid being identified for their crimes.
This has happened again and again. It may be of no consequence to you, but as we retook a small village near Deraa, and burying the bodies of one hundred or so villagers, the men in a burial detail found something most curious. It looks to be your identity tag and a small gold cross.
Please identify and confirm.

Captain John Forseith

Lawrence tore open the envelope and out dropped the chain and tag and cross. He covered his face with his hands... and wept.

***
.

Their camels and horses approached the ridge with caution, attracted by the dust of the retreating Turkish column. One could hardly call it a column. The troopers, once proud and mighty in crisp uniforms with sparkling bayonets and rifles no longer looked as they did during the invasion.

They composed a ragged mass. Together in two and threes, unsure of their direction, not sure of their officers or sergeants either, who’s decisions and orders had led into this mess. Only one priority. Trying to get out, to escape, to survive. Hundreds drug their feet, and they were the ones who could walk.

Others, the wounded, were stacked like cord-wood on bullock carts. Trickles of blood from the men on top ran down from their wounds, each man on the pile adding more blood of his own, and the luckless laying on the bottom, the dregs of the wounded, mouths open, thirsting for water, sputtering,choking...and in the end drowning...in the blood of the their comrades in arms. Inevitable liquid scarlet suffocation.

They posed no threat.

“Go ‘round Aurens,” cautioned Ali. “This can be avoided.”

Just then Kasim, a lieutenant, pulled back the bolt of his Enfield. Lawrence heard the click and looked over. Kasim tucked his scarf over his face and looked up to heaven.

“What’s he doing?”

“They decimated his village, Aurens. Those whores war for money.”

Kasim kicked his horse in its sides and bolted forward. All the men looked on. Like lightning, he shot over the uneven ground and straight towards the Turks.

All the men watched his noble charge. Faster and faster horse and rider sped ahead.

Lawrence’s blue eyes widened. His pupils blackened and dilated in anticipation.

Noticing the dust, the Turks readied their rifles and within seconds, the man, the horse, the valorous act itself was cut short, save two crumpled figures, one man, one beast, laying quiet on the sand.

The men looked to Lawrence. He turned right and left and casting his vision like a net, gathered their eyes and emotions.

“Go ‘round Aurens. Go ‘round.”

Lawrence pulled his Webley from its holster and raised it high in the air for all to see.

“No prisoners!” he shouted, turning to the men on the left. Then he turned to the right and bellowed the order,

“No prisoners!”

The entire Arab Army was away like a shot.

Within the time it takes for the sun to move one diameter it was over.

Lowell Thomas arrived with his camera to record the carnage. Turkish bloodied bodies lay everywhere, in heaps, in piles, or singly, in various awkward attitudes that only the dead can assume. Smoking heaps of humanity rested on yellow verigated patches of scarlet-stained sand.

Lawrence had emptied every chamber of his Webley, and all the bright brass in his bandolier. His deadly-curved dagger was dulled from Turkish bone and clotted to the hilt in warm Turkish blood. His arm...soaked to the elbow and dripping.

This was a new dangerous Lawrence. Step lightly in front of the soldier.

He used to be a man.





©Steven Hunley 2011

[Jack of Hearts]

That was some pretty high-falutin' adventure Steven. This reader's favorite part was the opening. The description of the desert was well done.

Our poor nurse met a quick end though.

This had all the makings of a blockbuster movie- romance, action, humor and some meticulously staged scenes. What a good read to spread across a few days.









J

[kittypaws]

One of your best writes, Steven.

congrats on a story well told.

kittypaws

[kangels4ever]

Hi Steven.

First, I'm delighted to see another historical fiction fan/writer here and I'm impressed by your passion for the story of T.E. Lawrence, a man I am fascinated by as well.

But, well-written as it is, in my opinion your story unwittingly rehashes on two key points the T. E. Lawrence created by the script writers for David Lean's admittedly magnificent film Lawrence of Arabia when it comes to your own characterization of the man.
They are:

1. Lawrence as driven by an overweening ego.

2. Lawrence as driven by sudden blood lust at Tafas.

Also, your depiction of Sherif Ali struck me as another unwitting replay of an element of Lean's movie; your Ali and Omar Sharif's Ali seem pretty similar.

Beyond that, I also found this line disturbing as far as Lawrence's characterization goes:

“Then we’ll pay the men when we take Aqaba.”

Is this an implication of the "there's gold in Aqaba" claim Peter O'Toole's Lawrence makes to Anthony Quinn's Abu Tayi? If so, it is off the mark; Lawrence never made such a claim. That's just Hollywood.

This scene too casued me concern:

The men looked to Lawrence. He turned right and left and casting his vision like a net, gathered their eyes and emotions.

“Go ‘round Aurens. Go ‘round.”

Lawrence pulled his Webley from its holster and raised it high in the air for all to see.

“No prisoners!” he shouted, turning to the men on the left. Then he turned to the right and bellowed the order,

“No prisoners!”

The entire Arab Army was away like a shot.

Within the time it takes for the sun to move one diameter it was over.

Lowell Thomas arrived with his camera to record the carnage. Turkish bloodied bodies lay everywhere, in heaps, in piles, or singly, in various awkward attitudes that only the dead can assume. Smoking heaps of humanity rested on yellow verigated patches of scarlet-stained sand.

Lawrence had emptied every chamber of his Webley, and all the bright brass in his bandolier. His deadly-curved dagger was dulled from Turkish bone and clotted to the hilt in warm Turkish blood. His arm...soaked to the elbow and dripping.

Substitute the real-life Lowell Thomas for the fictional Jackson Bently and we have something of a "fan fiction" of the admittedly cool scene in the film where the Turks at Tafas get their just desserts. Also, Thomas did not do what his fictional counterpart did -tag after Lawrence for months at a time. He barely spent much with T.E. and was nowhere near Tafas unlike his cinema counterpart. And while T.E. Lawrence later recounted "by my orders we took no prisoners", another Britisher who arrived at Tafas later in the fight -Peake I think his name was- swore in his own account he saw Lawrence trying to reign in his men as they killed and killed, not encourage it. If this story is true, perhaps Lawrence realized that enough blood had been shed to avenge the village and that it was time to stop?

Finally, who is "Ennigaldi" based on and what is her purpose to the story? Is she a way to humanize Lawrence and provide a reason for his Tafas blood lust? If so, we are again treading ground David Lean had already traveled. Arriving by a different route, certainly -Tafas happens because Lawrence loved this woman vs. out of hate for the Turks after his rape at Derra in Lean's version- but arriving at the same place: revenge.

I hate to sound hyper-critical, but my comments above stem from study of the writings of Lawrence scholar Jeremy Wilson, in particular this piece he wrote on the David Lean movie:

http://telawrencestudies.org/telawrencestudies/reviews/lofa_or_sid_1.htm

and having read T.E. Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

In closing, in my opinion a serious revamp of Lawrence, Ali, and the battle of Tafas would be in order so your story is your own interpretation, not one that unintentionally stands in the shadow of Hollywood's. A goal I strive for in my own historical fiction writings.

[Steven Hunley]

I'm so impressed you read Seven Pillars, as I've never read it. It was too long for me!
Ennigaldi is the name of the last Babylonian princess, who possibly established the world's first museum near Ur. If I have my facts right, her museum was dug up by Lawrence and Woolsey, the year (1913) before the start of the war. That's the Ennigaldi connection.

I knew there would be readers who could point out holes in the story, as once I did a Holmes story, and Doyle fans saw it for what it was...a piece of Swiss cheese.

It was never by any means ever intended to be historical fact.

So now you've got Lawrence's version. Lean's version, history's version, and my version.

My theme was simple and nothing as complex as real life.

Revenge can cause a man to loose his humanity.

[kangels4ever]

What Lawrence books did you read? And I take it you've seen the David Lean film?

Putting the ficticious Ennigaldi into the mix is interesting in that it touches upon Lawrence being hetro as opposed to homosexual. Not that it would matter to me if he was the latter, it's just that A. there's no convincing evidence as to his being gay and B. the homosexual rape he suffered at Derra made him, if anything, totally asexual. Indeed, in Jeremy Wilson's authorized biography of T.E. he quotes a letter from when Lawrence was in the Royal Tank Corps after WWI in which he expresses disgust with the "fleshy" (T.E.'s words) discussions going on amongst the troops in the hut he was billeted in. Poor Lawrence; my heart aches for him over what he suffered during WWI.

Still, I am very concerned you didn't make Lawrence more sympathetic than David Lean did. It would take nothing away from a tale of revenge to have a character be decent only to cut loose with dark anger in the end.

[Steven Hunley]

I had a collection of stories about WW1. In it was a section by Lawrence by the title of something like "Blowing up Trains in the Desert" or something close to that. That's where I read about the problem with the wires and covering them up.

Naturally I saw Lean's work. There's a good interview on U-tube by Steven Spielberg on how the film effected him too.

I decided to allow him to play it both ways. If he was homosexual, then like Maugham, he might view Ennigaldi as a way to return to England and appear to lead the life of a "normal" family man. They were so oppressive of gays at the time.

If he was straight, then he'd lose out too. Either way it's revenge.

I think a good story could come of how he tried to re-enlist, twice was it? Both times of men with no rank.

As you say, and I think is probably the case, he was asexual.

Fascinating too, that he lost the original of Seven Pillars in a train station or something and had to re-write it? 250,000 words? Oh my!

Homosexual or straight, asexual or not, the man was a leader of men, and was enigmatic as all get out. His layers had layers.

[kangels4ever]

Yes, Lawrence lost most of the original Seven Pillars at a train station. Despite pleas from newspapers for anyone who might have it to turn it in, it didn't show.

[kangels4ever]

One more historical tidbit: Lawrence did not know he was illegitamit until 1919, one year after the war. A minor detail, yes, but having Lawrence tell Ennigaldi about his status during wartime might strike some editors as simply copying Lean's movie (just remove Ali and add Ennigaldi) and reject it on that and the other smiliarities I highlighted in my first post.
As a story goes, I conceed your vision to you and am impressed by your zeal, but by tweaking a few details so it doesn't visibly copy the film would ensure editors of magazines or ezines will see the originality in it and be agreeable to possible publication.

Also, you get yourself away from being potentially slapped by plagarisim charges from whoever owns the rights to the film, a fate no writer deserves if you ask me.

[Steven Hunley]

I decided to re-tweak the ending. Show that Lawrence did, at first, want to avoid the conflict. I'll put it here, so that readers will understand the problems and our comments. Gee, good ideas! Now I know what technical advisors are all about!

They posed no threat.

“We can go around Aurens,” cautioned Ali. “This can be all be avoided.”

“You’re right, Ali. Give the men the signal to remain steadfast.”

The waving standard was dipped. The column of wounded and retreating would pass unmolested.

Then Kasim, a lieutenant, pulled back the bolt of his Enfield. Lawrence heard the click and looked over. Kasim tucked his scarf over his face and directed his eyes towards the heavens.

“What’s he doing?”

“They decimated his village, Aurens, those soldier-whores that war for money.”

Kasim kicked his horse in its sides and bolted forward. All of the men gave him their eyes. Like lightning, he shot over the uneven ground and straight towards the Turks.

The horsemen and others on camels watched his noble charge. Faster and faster sped rider and horse. Lawrence’s blue eyes widened. His pupils blackened, dilating in anticipation.

Noticing the dust, the Turks readied their rifles and within seconds, the man, the horse, the valorous act was cut short, save two crumpled figures, one man, one beast, lying silent on the sand.

All eyes looked to Lawrence. He turned right and left and casting his vision like a net, gathered their eyes and emotions. The men could barely contain themselves.

Emotion, not logic, took over.

“Aurens, this can be avoided,” pleaded Ali.

Lawrence pulled his Webley from its holster and raised it high in the air for all to see. Its cold gun-metal blue flashed in the sunlight. He raised himself from the saddle and shouted,

“For Kasim’s village, for your wives, sons and daughters. Let this be an end. Take no prisoners!”

The standard dipped again.

The entire Arab Army was away like a shot. In the time it took the sun to move one diameter it was all over.

Turkish bloodied bodies lay everywhere, in heaps, in piles, or singly, in various awkward attitudes that only the dead can assume. Smoking heaps of humanity, resting on yellow variegated patches of scarlet-stained sand.

Lawrence had emptied every chamber of his Webley, and all the bright brass in his bandoleer. His deadly-curved dagger dulled from bone and clotted to the hilt in ripe Turkish blood. His arm...soaked to the elbow and dripping.

This was a new and dangerous Lawrence. Step lightly in front of this soldier, or he’ll surely dispatch your soul to heaven.

He used to be a man.



©Steven Hunley 2011

[kangels4ever]

Bravo! Excellent re-write, Steven. :-)

[Steven Hunley]

Here's an oldie (2011) but goody! You write an historical piece and readers get on your case. I loved it. Thanks, guys. I needed that.

[kiz_paws]

Absolutely mesmerizing read, Steven.
Enjoyed it completely.

[Steven Hunley]

So glad you liked it. After I saw Lawrence of Arabia I must have eaten in middle eastern restaurants for 2 or 3 years. Made hummus at home. Ate Baklava for desert.

[Pompey Bum]

I decided to re-tweak the ending.

Ah, it was [re]written, then.