Cтатья Дж.Н. Локмана, посвященная проблеме подлинности инцидента в Дераа (ч.2)

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9. Chapters 79 and 81 of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In Seven Pillars, there would appear to be circumstantial evidence against the truth of the Deraa incident, to be found not only in the Deraa chapter itself, 80 (see point 10), but also in the chapters bracketting it, 79 and 81. These relate events of the days immediately before and after the alleged incident, and contain details which tend to contradict its reality.
     In Chapter 79, Lawrence describes his sojourn at Azrak in mid-November 1917 using language strongly suggestive of a lengthy stay there, and thus consistent with his aforementioned "ten days" reference: "Then began our flood of visitors. All day and every day they came," "day after day," "at last," "these slow nights," etc. One or two such statements could perhaps be considered exaggerations by Lawrence, but the four or five such seem to reinforce one another. Yet, if the Deraa chapter is true, Lawrence spent only about five days at Azrak, November 12 — 16, before leaving it on the 17th on the Hauran reconnaissance ride which took him to Deraa on November 20. As previously mentioned, the entire ride would have taken him about five days, November 17 — 22. In fact, since the temporal references above occur in Seven Pillars only after the mention of Lieutenant Wood's departure from Azrak, which took place on November 14, the Seven Pillars time-line leaves just three days, November 14 — 16, for all the subsequent experiences of Chapter 79. This is rather odd.
     The only extant wartime evidence for Lawrence's whereabouts during that crucial week, apart from the problematic "ten days" passage previously quoted, is a mention, in his October 1918 report on "The Destruction of the Fourth Army," that "Talal... had come to me in Azrak in 1917." This meeting, according to the Seven Pillars account, occurred in the days after Lt. Wood left Azrak on November 14. The October 1918 mention thus apparently confirms Lawrence's Seven Pillars account of that meeting at Azrak, but not of the joint reconnaissance which in Seven Pillars follows it.
     Moreover, in Chapter 81 of Seven Pillars, Lawrence describes his return from Deraa to Azrak on November 22 and the factors then affecting his decision to ride south to Akaba the very next day. The bad weather, which discouraged further raids, and the unpleasant crowd of visitors are the main factors mentioned. His physical condition is not mentioned in this connection, though it would, of course, have been a major consideration if he had just been tortured. Indeed, his mention of the other factors seems superfluous, and could therefore be interpreted as a revealing admission.
     Remarkably, Chapters 79 and 81 flow together quite well without Chapter 80 placed between them, as indeed they appeared in the 1927 abridgement Revolt in the Desert, from which the Deraa chapter was removed. How could Lawrence have committed such telltale mistakes in Seven Pillars (if, in fact, they were such)? As literary critics have noted, he was an extremely "granular" writer, concentrating intensely on individual scenes, but rather neglecting to knit his narrative together. "It crawls," he himself once complained of Seven Pillars. His blindness to the larger context could well-have resulted in such Deraa oversights.

10. Deraa chapter details. The Deraa chapter in Seven Pillars of Wisdom has long been subject to analysis, but largely from a literary, psychological, or psycho-sexual perspective, not from a factual one. With regard to the latter, the wealth of detail Lawrence relates here undoubtedly seems, to most all readers, so convincingly real as to be beyond doubt. However, upon scrutiny it is not. Four separate points can be made. First, whether or not the incident as a whole is fictional, certain details must in any case be recognized as fictional. Second, all of the physical details Lawrence relates about Deraa station could easily derive from observations made by him on a later occasion. (5) Third, certain sentences he deleted from the 1922 Oxford text before publishing his 1926 Subscribers' edition are at least consistent with the notion of an extensive Deraa fiction. Fourth, Lawrence's anxiousness to explain the lack of any rumor of the incident seems apparent from one particular passage. Taking these points in order:
First, several details in Lawrence's Deraa narrative are clearly products of his imagination. When he writes, for example, of the whip having a point "finer than a pencil," this is sheer hyperbole. So, too, when he describes his head being pulled round to observe the lacerations, a physical impossibility. The two powerful slashes to his groin would, if real, have left his testes swollen, or worse, for several days afterward, making any riding extremely difficult. Then there is the Bey's merely vague identification of him in Seven Pillars, a direct contradiction to the more definite identification related in his 1919 letter to Stirling. Similarly, the guards' puzzlement over that vague identification in Seven Pillars would again have to be fictional according to the account given in the Stirling letter. Such demonstrably fictional details are not reassuring for the truth of the whole account.
     Second, all of the physical details, of things Lawrence observed in and around Deraa station, could easily be owed not to a November 1917 visit, but to his two-day stay at Deraa in late September 1918. So, for example, his descriptions of the aerodrome, the huts, the railway, (6) the square, the Bey's house (and furnishings within), the dispensary, the bridge, the wells, the valley, etc. All these places and objects were encompassed within a very small area, which Lawrence traversed repeatedly on those two days in late September 1918.
     Third, a couple of deletions made from the 1922 Oxford text are noteworthy. Despite Lawrence's later claim to have revised the Deraa chapter nine times, he actually did no major or even moderate "revision," but only some light pruning and polishing in which approximately ten percent of the text was affected: some superfluous words were deleted, choicer ones substituted, and a half-dozen full sentences were cut, notably the final three sentences comparing his masochistic fascination with whipping to a moth's striving toward its flame. Two deleted sentences earlier in the account are of particular relevance here: Lawrence's likening of his agony to a dream, and his comment on the convenience of his escape (see Knightley and Simpson). Apparently neither sentence sat well with him upon reflection, and so they were dropped.
     Fourth, in a passage whichrecalls that "hushed up" statement in his 1919 letter to Stirling, Lawrence seems at pains to explain the secrecy of the incident: "Halim had been up to Deraa in the night, and knew by lack of rumour that the truth had not been discovered. I told them a merry tale of bribery and trickery, which they promised to keep to themselves..."
     None of this, of course, renders his account downright unbelievable, but certainly less credible than might appear from a superficial reading.

11. Admissions of fiction. In one or two passages of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence may be hinting that his imagination has been largely applied in the writing of portions of the book. First, in Chapter 99, he writes that all his life he had wanted to create a work of art in some "imaginative form." Second, in Chapter 103, at the end of his disturbing self-analysis, he admits of "treating fellow-men as so many targets for intellectual ingenuity: until I could hardly tell my own self where the leg-pulling began or ended."

12. Lawrence's sexual masochism. Lawrence's voluntary postwar floggings were apparently all applied primarily to his buttocks. This implies a sexual masochism rather than its opposite, ascetic atonement, in which, presumably, his back would instead have been whipped. Such sexual masochism itself implies certain fantasies attending it. Upon Lawrence's own request, at least some of the floggings (and probably others) even induced a seminal emission. There is no doubt whatsoever about this crucial aspect, as Dr. Mack's biography and, especially, his personal notes on a 1968 interview (obtained by this writer only in January 1996) make clear, (7) although Mack himself rather questionably "sanctified" the floggings, and certain Lawrence biographers since him, notably Wilson, have largely evaded the issue. One could wish that those who have felt so protective of Lawrence would extend their protectiveness to the young men he thus misused. In any event, the fantasy element in Lawrence's mind must have been a poweful one.
     The earliest (to my knowledge) published doubt about the reality of the Deraa episode, voiced by the critic Burton Rascoe in the June 1936 issue of Esquire magazine, posits just such a sexual fantasy as its origin.

Possible Influences on a Deraa Fiction

1. Boyhood birchings. Lawrence's mother birched him often as a boy for misbehavior.

2. St. Lawrence. His surname, Lawrence, would certainly have developed in T.E. an identification with St. Lawrence, the most famous previous Lawrence in history, and led to his imagining the enduring of tortures similar to those of the martyred saint, who, tradition has it, was roasted over fire on a grill. Although this identification is (to my knowledge) nowhere so noted by Lawrence himself (except obliquely, and perhaps guiltily, at the very end of the Deraa chapter), and has not been strongly posited by previous Lawrence writers, it must have been a considerable one even after Lawrence "discarded" Christianity as a young man. One recalls his proud identification with Napoleon based merely on the coincidence of their birthdates. Many are the cases of individuals' psyches being strongly affected by the happenstance of their names. Charles Doughty is perhaps another such.

3. Flecker's whippings and the Khalfati incident. Lawrence's friendship with James Elroy Flecker, a bisexual flagellant (see Mack; James), during his Carchemish years 1911 — 14, and Lawrence's temporary arrest and imprisonment by the Turks during the reputed Khalfati incident of about 1912 — 13, would have further stimulated his mind toward storytelling of that sort. Or, if the Khalfati "incident" was itself a fiction or exaggeration, it would be even more consistent with a perverse urge in Lawrence to invent such fantasies, e.g., the Deraa episode.

4. Turkish prisoners. Lawrence's intelligence duties in Egypt 1915 — 16 included interrogating Turkish Army prisoners of war, from whom he would have learned of the sexual abnormalities sometimes forced upon them by their superiors (see Seven Pillars, Chapter 6). He could easily have drawn on these accounts in later fabricating the realistic details of the Deraa incident. In fact, in the Oxford text of Seven Pillars he even relates having himself inflicted a minor flogging on two Arabs just a week before the Deraa incident. The passage was later deleted.

5. Auda's yarns. Lawrence was evidently impressed in the spring of 1917 with Auda Abu Tayi's fondness for spinning yarns, including self-critical ones. He relates this trait admiringly in Chapter 38 of Seven Pillars: "... so sure of his fame that he loved to shout out stories against himself." Lawrence's own fabrication of one such selfcritical or degrading story in the form of a Deraa torture would therefore, in his own mind, have borne a certain noble pedigree.

6. Newcombe's capture. Stewart Newcombe's capture by the Turks in early November 1917 could easily have generated in Lawrence's mind a similar scenario involving himself. The two men were almost simultaneously engaged in operations behind enemy lines. Lawrence undoubtedly learned of Newcombe's capture from Joyce upon returning to Akaba in late November.

7. Lawrence's shame over the failure of the Yarmuk Valley bridge raid and his abandonment of the northern expedition. Lawrence clearly felt ashamed of his failure to demolish the Yarmuk Valley bridge during the raid of November 7, 1917 (see his letter to Joyce of November 13), and probably wished to excuse it somehow. He may also have sought an excuse, both to himself and to his superiors (including posterity), for his abandonment of the northern expedition on November 23, 1917, when he abruptly rode south to Akaba. He had actually planned to remain in the north for several more weeks conducting further raids, having asked Joyce, in a note appended to his letter of November 13, for large quantities of explosives (reduced in Seven Pillars to merely "a new caravan of stores, particularly comprising Indian ratians"). (8) His abrupt departure, if not precipitated by a Deraa torture, may have been motivated partly by fear for his life in conducting further raids. Evidence for such a pessimistic mood is found in George Lloyd's contemporary notes on a conversation with Lawrence in late October 1917 (see Wilson, pp. 451 — 52), which form a moving counterpoint to Lawrence's own more cheerful letters of mid-November. Such fear, while understandable, would have been difficult for him to admit to himself. Other units of the Arab Army continued to raid the railway throughout that winter.
     Lawrence's remorse over such an abandonment could then account for his appearing "distraught" upon returning to Akaba, as some of his comrades later recalled, or thought they recalled (see Mack, p. 233).

8. Rumors of the Bey. While at Azrak in November 1917, or elsewhere later, Lawrence probably obtained information about the Bey of Deraa, such as his appearance and his treatment of prisoners (see Essay 6). Such treatment certainly included floggings and perhaps even sexual abuses. Since the Turkish 4th Army was largely destroyed in September 1918, Lawrence would thereafter have believed that most of the Turks of Deraa who could have contradicted a capture and torture fiction by him had perished in the disaster. He would thus have felt safe from exposure.

9. Black humor and Lord Jim. Lawrence drafted his Seven Pillars of Wisdom during the Paris Peace Conference in the first half of 1919. His anti-French mood there is but one contemporary element mirrored in the work. Other such influences no doubt found their echo in its pages. It is therefore perhaps significant that, during this crucial composition period, Lawrence was once recorded as engaging in an extended fiction of the "black humor" variety; namely, in his interview with the American journalist Lincoln Steffens (Outlook and Independent, October 14, 1931; and letters in December). His suggestion to Steffens that the Americans settle the Armenian problem by massacring them was clearly a joke, as is evident fl'om Steffens' account of the conversation. Admittedly, Steffens himself did not fully understand or appreciate the joke, for it was a rather tasteless one (sanitized in Mack's summary). The Armenians had, since 1915, been half-exterminated by the Turks to the sum of nearly a million of them. It was the first genocide of the 20th century. Humor of such a morbid nature was thus quite within Lawrence's repertoire. Indeed, he teased Steffens, sustaining the joke in all its convolutions for several minutes. Presumably he enjoyed his success.
     Another revealing fact from Paris in 1919, this one an outside influence, was Lawrence's reading of Conrad's Lord Jim (9). The novel treats many important themes (guilt, honor, white men leading natives) which were later explored extensively in Seven Pillars, perhaps not coincidentally so. One event in Lord Jim's very plot may have found special resonance in Lawrence's mind, when Jim is captured, abused, and then escapes from a hostile chieftain's stronghold (Chapter 25).

10. Lawrence's homosexual nature. The longstanding controversy over Lawrence's sexual nature, in particular over whether or not he had a homosexual nature, can now, perhaps, be finally settled. The answer is yes, he did have a homosexual nature. As one of the few recent researchers who have resisted drawing that conclusion, I am perhaps best qualified to do so with some finality. And here, for it is of much relevance to Deraa.
     The issue has been terribly clouded by wrongful argumentation in the past from many of those who have considered Lawrence homosexual. They frequently offered weak and even offensive evidence for this belief, such as certain exotic passages in Seven Pillars or rumors among some of his associates, which might easily have been, respectively, a result of Lawrence's literary artistry (and honest reportage) or malicious gossip. Such writers, apparently believing that, "Where there is smoke, there must be fire," have failed to realize that, though the image is a fine one, the analogy is quite false. Mere rumor of scandal does not imply real scandal, though it does then often create one. Reputations are ruined in the process. It happens all the time.
     In my previous work, on Meinertzhagen and Lawrence, I therefore discounted the related testimony of people such as Woolley, Bremond, Vickery, Meinertzhagen, James (on Bilbo), and others. The intent was not to deny the possibility that Lawrence had a homosexual nature, but only to de-sensationalize it by exposing the falsity or doubtfulness of their particular allegations. Some evidence for heterosexual feelings, long ignored by Lawrence writers, was responsibly added to the equation.
     However, further study has led to certain undeniable insights. Lawrence's own words, or those reliably attributed to him, are the best testimony in this matter. And, on that basis, it can indeed be said that sufficient evidence — not overwhelming, but sufficient — now exists to confirm that Lawrence did indeed have, in agreement with at least some of those aforementioned rumors, a homosexual nature. In particular, the publication of a second Letters volume in 1988 has brought to light several illuminating, if still ambiguous, statements of his. Other ambiguous or suggestive statements can be found in Chapter 1 of Seven Pillars ("Several, thirsting "), and in The Mint, II, 2 ("they fight its expression"). Substitute a first person pronoun in such passages, and the meaning becomes clear. Comments by Lawrence to Robert Graves about "S.A.", and to Kathleen Scott ("Admitted his proclivities"; see James' revised 1995 edition) are also relevant, as is a private jotting to himself once ("men's bodies... appeal to me"; see Mack) None of these statements, considered alone, would warrant the conclusion that they are admissions of a homosexual nature, for Lawrence elsewhere (discreetly) contradicted the notion. Yet, when the ambiguities mount, they eventually reach a "critical mass" which simply cannot be denied. Add to the equation the additional factor that Lawrence would probably have admitted such a nature only ambiguously anyway, and the conclusion is almost inescapable. Moreover, the statistical possibility of his having been asexual, the only other apparent possibility and one he sometimes claimed, is extremely small. The condition is comparatively rare.
     Physical evidence fills out the picture. Despite denials by almost all of his friends, perfectly honest and understandable in view of the more masculine traits he exhibited, Lawrence occasionally did display mannerisms consistent with the known physiological traits of male homosexuals, e.g., a tendency, in speech, to linger on the sibilants (see TE. Lawrence by His Friends). He also had wide hips (see Images of Lawrence), another common physical trait among male homosexuals.
     Finally, there is his masochism. Dr. Mack, writing in the 1970s, only discreetly discussed this important subject. All three books on flogging or corporal punishment cited in his Bibliography are old works treating the subject of flogging very largely from a punitive perspective. More relevant works on voluntary flogging, treating it as masochism, that is, a sexual aberration, prove by numerous case histories that such sexual masochism in males is a strong indicator of latent homosexuality. This is not to say that all or even most of Lawrence's asceticism can be psychologically reduced to masochism. Much of it was more genuine.
Incidentally, since, in Lawrence's case, active homosexual behavior apparently never occurred, one should only speak of his "homosexual nature," not of his "homosexuality," a much more suggestive term. The public imagination needs no more prompting in this regard.
     The significance of all this with respect to Lawrence's personality is great. He must certainly have possessed that peculiar male-female mixture of traits which characterizes homosexuals and which often involves a craving for intrigue. His homosexual nature would therefore be consistent with a Deraa fiction in both content and form.

Possible Consequences

The foregoing points comprise some of the factors that might have led Lawrence to invent the Deraa incident, if he did so, and some of evidence that he may indeed have done just that. If he did not, and the Deraa incident is true, the coincidence of there being such a mass of apparent evidence against it (or alternately, a complete lack of probable evidence for it) is astounding.
     Although I personally remain undecided on the issue, I believe the hypothesis of a Deraa fiction can legitimately be pondered, including its consequences for Lawrence's historical significance. Such speculation is justified because Lawrence himself contributed greatly to the mystery, and apparently not innocently so, when he removed that key page from his diary. Anyone in future who discusses the Deraa question will have to weigh this, and the other points made above, in the balance.
     If Deraa proves to be a fiction, one must shudder for Lawrence's reputation. His other "embellishments" would pale in comparison with the enormity of this act. His postwar floggings would lack any tragically involuntary origin, and his "noble idealism" for the Arab cause would be hopelessly tarnished by yet another and ultimate hypocrisy, a selfish abuse of the Arab Revolt as a stage for his own perversion.
     Granted, such a development would not materially affect Lawrence's military achievements during the desert war, nor his political ones thereafter. Nor would it invalidate his great kindness and charm. He would remain important and appealing for these reasons. Even his "mystery man" aura would, for those still interested, not be much diminished, because, though the historical mystery be solved, the psychological one would deepen.
     A Deraa fiction would, however, have a considerable effect upon Lawrence's integrity as a man. It would have to be regarded as a gross miscalculation on his part, as black humor indulged in not once, impulsively in conversation, but cold-bloodedly planned for months or more. It would be an insult to the millions of soldiers who really were severely wounded in the First World War.
     Even as a fiction, the Deraa incident would deserve little credit as a piece of con-artistry, for telltale clues apparently abound, some left by Lawrence himself. There would be no "criminal professionalism" to admire even grudgingly, but, rather, only a sloppy trail to shake one's head over.
     Perhaps only Lawrence's personality has persuaded many that the incident was true. Gilman, a comrade, once wrote to Dr. Mack that, "Lawrence was far too gallant and honourable a man to invent this experience." That statement of trust innocently declares what is at stake.


5. Whether a Deraa chapter existed in the first, 1919, text of Seven Pillars (lost by Lawrence that November) and, if so, in what form, is an important but, to me at least, insoluble question. By Lawrence's own account, that original 1919 text was somewhat shorter than the 1926 Subscribers' edition. Only Meinertzhagen, Alan Dawnay, and Hogarth read it, or portions of it, but they left no record of reading any Deraa chapter (Meinertzhagen's Middle East Diary entries do not count). Hogarth's 1926 review of Seven Pillars mentions the Deraa incident in only half a sentence.
     However, that the second Seven Pillars text, written in 1920 (and later burned by Lawrence), did indeed contain a Deraa chapter seems indicated by a passage from one of its eight surviving chapters. The Deraa chapter itself is not included among them, but a later chapter in which Lawrence relates his visit to Deraa in September 1918 is included, and a single phrase in it, subsequently deleted from the later texts, mentions his passing "my old hospital" in the Deraa station area ("The Arab Revolt," p. 166, Humanities Research Center).

6. Deraa station in 1917 apparently had only four or five main railway tracks, not the "six" Lawrence so precisely describes (see Tourret, p. 30).

7. An RAF serviceman told Dr. Mack that, when witnessing the Bruce floggings in the 1930s, he twice "had to look at Ted's [...] to see if it liquidated, and it did" (Dr. Mack's notes on an interview of July 21, 1968).
     How Dr. Mack, having heard this testimony in July 1968, could then have presented the floggings as "ascetically" as he did in the February 1969 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, is difficult to fathom. Pressure by A.W. Lawrence cannot fully explain it.
     The single brief reference to a "seminal emission" in Mack's 1976 biography was similarly too discreet. Most readers will have failed to comprehend fully the clinical latinism, and instead thought Lawrence nearly a saint. So, apparently, did the Pulitzer Committee.

8. Lawrence's appended note consisted of seventeen lines requesting demolition materials and only two or three lines requesting supplies for the Indian unit.

9. Hoenselaars, Ton, and Gene M. Moore, "Joseph Conrad and T.E. Lawrence," in The Journal of the TE. Lawrence Society, Autumn 1995, p. 30.

Scattered Tracks on the Lawrence Trail: Twelve Essays on T.E. Lawrence by J. N. Lockman, Falcon Books, 1996, pp. 128-138.