Some have maintained that this disorder was created by Lawrence’s experience at Dara’a. However, while we have no corroborating evidence that Lawrence was captured and beaten by the Turks in 1917, we do know for certain that he was beaten severely on the buttocks by Sarah as a child, and that he showed distinct masochistic tendencies as a youth. The flagellation disorder, indeed, was the culmination of a life which was dominated by masochistic and self-degrading fantasies both social and physical, and its foundations lie not in Dara’a – whatever did or did not happen there – but in Lawrence’s relationship with his mother during his earliest years. Dara’a – fantasy or reality – is simply one expression of a process which may be traced directly from Polstead Road in the 1890s to Clouds Hill in 1923. What is interesting about the Bruce story, however, is the light it sheds on some other aspects of Lawrence’s character. The edifice of fantasy he told Bruce was a calculated lie from beginning to end, yet he unfolded it in astonishing and consistent detail. He invented the ‘Old Man’ and had him ‘corresponding’ with Bruce, sending him dozens of letters which he had actually written himself. Bruce liked and admired Lawrence and was proud to have been able to help him. Even after Lawrence’s death the Scotsman refused to believe that he had ever told him a deliberate lie, and remained convinced, fifty years later, that the Old Man had actually existed. He was perhaps naпve and inexperienced, bemused by Lawrence’s rhetoric and dazzled by his intellect, but he was not stupid. It is a superlative comment on Lawrence’s powers of invention, manipulation and persuasion that he was able to convince another human being of the actual existence of a character he had simply made up, and maintain the fantasy over a period of thirteen years without once giving himself away. Of his ‘Old Man’ story, Arnie wrote to John Mack: ‘From my slight experience of psychological warfare (of which T.E. had plenty) an elaborate fiction is more plausible the nearer it comes to fact, although the fact is unknowable to the audience; hence he [Lawrence] gives his lies a garbled foundation of fact…’²⁵ It does not seem to have occurred either to Arnie or to his correspondent Mack that Lawrence may have told lies based on garbled fact at other times in his life too – for instance when describing the alleged Dara’a incident. Neither did it occur to Arnie that in this case Lawrence was not fighting the Turks, but taking in a good-natured and trusting young man, who believed him to be honest and devoted a major part of his life to helping him. Though, throughout these years, Lawrence had conspicuous, high-profile ‘friendships’ with famous men such as Thomas Hardy, Bernard Shaw, E. M. Forster, Robert Graves and many others, it was John Bruce, an uneducated young Scotsman, with whom he felt truly ‘safe’. Bruce remained close to Lawrence for the rest of his life, but after his death was sneered at by Arnie and Bob, and treated as if it was he who had victimized Lawrence. Even Charlotte Shaw joined in the conspiracy and tried to silence him: ‘they were prepared to go to any lengths,’ Bruce wrote, ‘to see that the reason for our association did not become public property … They were so impressed with their own importance, that they thought I was going to be an easy nut to crack … Had they been successful then this story would never have been told.’²⁶

Bruce was unhappy in the army and soon left, though he and Lawrence were to meet at intervals thereafter. Lawrence himself could not settle down in the Tanks, and pined for the RAF. He wrote letters to Trenchard and Hoare whose tone became increasingly strident, until he began to mention suicide. Once, while a guest at Trenchard’s house during his time in the Tank Corps, he threatened to ‘end it all’ there and then, upon which Trenchard smiled and asked him if he wouldn’t mind doing it in the garden as he did not want his carpets ruined. On another occasion at Clouds Hill, Bruce had to jerk a pistol out of Lawrence’s hand by banging it repeatedly against the wall, when he declared his intention to shoot himself. Afterwards, Bruce recalled, Lawrence burst into tears. His discontent was not with the army, but with himself, and his need always to ‘seek his pleasures downwards’. Nevertheless, he had his sights set on the RAF again, and in June 1925 he wrote to Edward Garnett: ‘I’m no bloody good on earth. So I’m going to quit: but in my usual comic fashion … I will bequeath you my notes on life in the recruits’ camp of the RAF. They will disappoint you.’²⁷ Garnett was alarmed and wrote to Bernard Shaw, who sent on the letter to the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, with his card, suggesting that Lawrence’s suicide would create a scandal, especially since Lowell Thomas’s book With Lawrence in Arabia had just appeared to popular acclaim. He was supported by John Buchan, whom Lawrence had once buttonholed in the street and asked for help. Baldwin intervened personally, and in early July Trenchard sent for Lawrence and informed him that he was to be transferred back to the RAF.

Lawrence felt that he now had all that he had ever wanted. He knuckled down to becoming ‘Ordinary’ and stuck it out more or less faithfully for the next ten years. He was posted to the RAF Cadet College at Cranwell in Lincolnshire – one of the most comfortable postings available – and continued to work on Seven Pillars and Revolt in the Desert and continuously revised his notes on the life of a recruit in the RAF which would eventually be published as The Mint. In 1926, he was transferred to Karachi in India at his own request, to avoid the publicity which would accompany the appearance of Revolt in the Desert and the subscribers’ edition of Seven Pillars. Although the books were a financial success, Lawrence had by now decided that he should not profit from the Arab Revolt, and donated the money to the RAF Memorial Fund. In November 1927 he was posted to a small hill station at Miranshah, near the border with Afghanistan. Unfortunately, however, there was a rebellion in Afghanistan during 1927-8, and a British newspaper, the Empire News, implicated him, stating that he was operating as British pro-consul in Afghanistan disguised as a holy man. The article was reprinted in India, and led to disturbances in which a genuine holy man was beaten almost to death under suspicion of being Lawrence. The situation had become embarrassing for the British government, and on 8 January 1929 he was flown back to Karachi and a few days later put aboard the S.S. Rajputana, bound for Plymouth. Lawrence’s homecoming from India was a matter of public knowledge: he was hounded by reporters from the moment he arrived back in Britain, and the fact that ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ was serving in the RAF remained well known for the rest of his service. Lawrence was aware that any further sensations in the press would be likely to scupper his career in the ranks for ever, and for a time made an attempt to lie low. Like many public personalities of the twentieth century, he detested the press only when he could not control it – as a gifted propagandist he had been aware of its power from an early age, and in 1911 had been quite happy to use The Times to manipulate public opinion, and incidentally to get himself a good job. In the immediate post-war period he had fought an energetic campaign in the newspapers to gain support for his views on the Middle East question. Following the dйbвcle in India, though, he began to see it as the double-edged blade it really was.

Lawrence’s last six years in the RAF were in many ways the most contented period of his life. He was now middle-aged, and had grown thick-set: there was no longer any trace of ‘girlishness’ about him. He continued to veer between elation and depression, continued to commute between the barrack-room and his rich, powerful and famous friends, continued to seek anonymity and yet make certain he was clearly seen hiding. In his more balanced moods, he felt that he had come to terms with the world: ‘I measure myself against the fellows I meet and work with,’ he wrote, ‘and find myself ordinary company, but bright and sensible. Almost, I would say, popular!’²⁸ He had, at least in part, found a sense of community, a sense of belonging among ‘ordinary mortals’. He no longer felt out of his depth with other men. He told an American correspondent that there were no real heroes in the world, and that instead of distinctions between human beings, he was coming to see only similarities. The man who had always been ashamed of his appearance now admitted that the difference between a ‘very big man’ and a ‘very small man’ was only a matter of a few inches, and this difference only appeared important to human beings.