It was at this point, Lawrence claimed, that Feisal invited him to wear Arab dress, and presented him with a gold-laced dishdasha his aunt had recently sent him from Mecca. Feisal’s reason for this move, Lawrence said, was because the Bedu did not feel at ease with khaki uniforms which hitherto they had only seen being worn by the Turks. It is doubtful if Feisal ever used this argument, because the Egyptian artillerymen and the Arab regular officers such as Maulud al-Mukhlis, Nuri as-Sa’id and Aziz ‘Ali al-Masri all wore khaki. It is more likely that the idea was Lawrence’s own. He had become accustomed to wearing native dress in Syria, and his natural sense of empathy, now applied to Feisal in particular, demanded that he wear the same clothes. Not only was it a compliment to the Arabs, it also gave him a psychological advantage, for by wearing the rich robes of a Sharif of Mecca, his status would be more obvious to the rank and file. In Syria he had escaped notice in local dress among the plethora of races, but not even Lawrence believed that anyone would mistake his rosy, clean-shaven English face for that of an Arab. There was also a practical element: Arab clothes were far more comfortable for camel-riding and living in the desert than anything Europeans had designed. The long, loose shirt enabled a layer of cool air to circulate around the body, and the thick headcloth, which could be knotted around the head, or across the face in a sandstorm, used as a towel, a blanket, a rope, a water-strainer, or a bandage, was eminently versatile. The long skirts also provided a screen when answering the call of nature, often necessary in the open desert. In sum, the adoption of Arab clothes was in both practical and ideological senses an excellent idea.

Lawrence remained with Feisal long enough to lay out a crude runway near his camp for the RFC flight which would shortly be operating out of Yanbu’. The Turks were on their way, and he was convinced that Feisal’s shaken army would not stand and fight. They would have no alternative but to flee to Yanbu’ port, where Major Herbert Garland of the Royal Engineers was busy training the Bedu for attacks on the railway. The port was poorly defended, and if it was to be held at all, Lawrence knew, it could only be with the aid of the Royal Navy. On 4 December he mounted his camel and rode back to Yanbu’, arriving at half past three in the morning, exhausted after three almost sleepless nights. At once, he cabled to Captain Boyle of the Red Sea Patrol Squadron, and finally he wired Clayton in Cairo, blaming his pessimistic tone on his tiredness, but adding, ‘All the same, things are bad.’⁵

Garland, whom he had hoped to find in Yanbu’, was sleeping aboard a ship in the harbour, but Lawrence found his house anyway, and fell asleep on a hard bench. He was up in time to see Zayd’s defeated column of 500 troops from Wadi Safra marching in, and thought it remarkable that they displayed no obvious shame at having endangered the future of the revolt. Zayd himself seemed ‘finely indifferent’, he thought. Within twenty-four hours, five ships of the Red Sea Patrol steamed into harbour, including the battleship Dufferin, and M.31 – an amphibious assault vessel with a shallow draught, specially designed for offshore bombardment. They arrived none too soon, for on the 9th Feisal’s ‘Agayl, Bishah and Hudheil – his household troops – came streaming into the town having withdrawn from Nakhl Mubarak. Lawrence went to take a photograph of the defeated Sharif riding in, and noticed that the Juhayna irregulars were not with him. Wondering if they had finally gone over to the Turks, he hurried to meet Feisal, who told him that the enemy had arrived suddenly the previous day, with three battalions of infantry, some Mule Mounted companies, a host of Bedu camelry, and a guide from the Juhayna’s ruling family, Dakhilallah ibn Baydawi. They had shelled Nakhl Mubarak with seven field-guns, he said, against which Feisal’s tiny battery of two archaic German fifteen-pounders without sights or range-finders had been powerless, except to encourage the tribesmen by their noise. His Syrian chief of artillery, Rasim Sardast, had blasted off salvo after useless salvo with profligate abandon, and the din alone had sent the Bedu forward. Things had been looking well, Feisal claimed, when the Juhayna on his left flank had turned tail and retreated until they were behind his household forces, for no obvious reason. Scenting treachery, Feisal had ordered Rasim to save the guns, and had pulled back with his own troops – the ‘Agayl, Bishah, and others – all the way to the sea. Lawrence wrote that a Sheikh arrived at Feisal’s house in Yanbu’ the following day, though, to report that his Juhayna had only retired to ‘make themselves a cup of coffee’, and had fought on for another twenty-four hours after Feisal had left. Feisal and Lawrence had rolled with laughter when they heard the story, though whether it was the irony of the defeat or the lameness of the excuse which amused them, Lawrence does not say. Certainly, it was the kind of aristocratic tale that he loved: the Bedu had not fled the Turks, but had been so unruffled in the face of the enemy that they had merely taken a coffee-break when it suited them. It was a very English tale – Aubrey Herbert fighting at Mons with an alpenstock, and taking charge of a Turkish company that had lost its way – but was it the truth?

The Egyptian artillery officers who had been eye-witnesses to the battle at Nakhl Mubarak told a different story. They said that the Turks had not come in force, and had opened fire with only three mountain-guns and a machine-gun battery. The Bedu, they reported, had put up no fight at all, and many of the Juhayna had simply fled back to their villages in the Wadi Yanbu’ without firing a shot. Having taken Feisal’s shilling, they had evaporated at the first sign of trouble, just as the Bani Salem had done before them in the Wadi Safra. This story must have been generally known at the time, for when Ronald Storrs met Feisal a few days later, he countered his complaint about the lack of artillery by suggesting that ‘the courage of his Arab tribesmen stood in some need of vindication in the eyes of the world; even if they were for the moment unable to face their foes in the open field, their intimate knowledge of their own mountainous country would surely render them more redoubtable enemies in guerrilla warfare’.⁶ Storrs was looking at the situation, however, as if the Juhayna and Harb were British regiments under a rigid chain of command. As Feisal well knew, the Bedu were far from being cowards. In fact, when they felt their tribal honour to be at stake, they were capable of the most heroic valour. In the Arab Revolt, though, they were fighting as mercenaries: their aim was simply to be on the winning side. To Englishmen like Storrs this might not seem quite honourable, but to the Bedui, whose whole world was his tribe, it was eminently so. What mattered to the Juhayna was the survival of the Juhayna, not the survival of the Hashemites, who were – in the end – just another tribe. Feisal knew that Storrs credited his family with more control over the tribes than they actually had – the Bedu would always suit themselves. In fact, he was now virtually bereft of tribal support, and despaired for the future of the revolt, which he thought would peter out within three weeks. He wrote a bitter note to General Murray, stating that many of the Turkish units that had come against him had been withdrawn from the Sinai front, in the British zone of operations: ‘The relief to you should be great,’ the message ran, ‘but the strain upon us too great to endure. I hope your situation will permit you to press sharply towards Beersheba, or feign landing in Syria, as seems best, for I think the Turks hope to crush us soon, and then return against you.’⁷ In forwarding the message, Lawrence added as a postscript, ‘I infer Sharif had been offended.’⁸