fakhri pasha was still playing our game. he held an entrenched line around medina, just far enough out to make it impossible for the arabs to shell the city. (such an attempt was never made or imagined. ) the other troops were being distributed along the railway, in strong garrisons at all water stations between medina and tebuk, and in smaller posts between these garrisons, so that daily patrols might guarantee the track. in short, he had fallen back on as stupid a defensive as could be conceived. garland had gone south-east from wejh, and newcombe north-east, to pick holes in it with high explosives. they would cut rails and bridges, and place automatic mines for running trains.
the arabs had passed from doubt to violent optimism, and were promising exemplary service. feisal enrolled most of the billi, and the moahib, which made him master of arabia between the railway and the sea. he then sent the juheina to abdulla in wadi ais.
he could now prepare to deal solemnly with the hejaz railway; but with a practice better than my principles, i begged him first to delay in wejh and set marching an intense movement among the tribes beyond us, that in the future our revolt might be extended, and the railway threatened from tebuk (our present limit of influence) northward as far as maan. my vision of the course of the arab war was still purblind. i had not seen that the preaching was victory and the fighting a delusion. for the moment, i roped them together, and, as feisal fortunately liked changing men’s minds rather than breaking railways, the preaching went the better.
with his northern neighbours, the coastal howeitat, he had already made a beginning: but we now sent to the beni atiyeh, a stronger people to the north-east; and gained a great step when the chief, asi ibn atiyeh, came in and swore allegiance. his main motive was jealousy of his brothers, so that we did not expect from him active help; but the bread and salt with him gave us freedom of movement across his tribe’s territory. beyond lay various tribes owning obedience to nuri shaalan, the great emir of the ruwalla, who, after the sherif and ibn saud and ibn rashid, was the fourth figure among the precarious princes of the desert.
nuri was an old man, who had ruled his anazeh tribesmen for thirty years. his was the chief family of the rualla, but nuri had no precedence among them at birth, nor was he loved, nor a great man of battle. his headship had been acquired by sheer force of character. to gain it he had killed two of his brothers. later he had added sherarat and others to the number of his followers, and in all their desert his word was absolute law. he had none of the wheedling diplomacy of the ordinary sheikh; a word, and there was an end of opposition, or of his opponent. all feared and obeyed him; to use his roads we must have his countenance.
fortunately, this was easy. feisal had secured it years ago, and had retained it by interchange of gifts from medina and yenbo. now, from wejh, faiz el ghusein went up to him and on the way crossed ibn dughmi, one of the chief men of the ruwalla, coming down to us with the desirable gift of some hundreds of good baggage camels. nuri, of course, still kept friendly with the turks. damascus and bagdad were his markets, and they could have half-starved his tribe in three months, had they suspected him; but we knew that when the moment came we should have his armed help, and till then anything short of a breach with turkey.
his favour would open to us the sirhan, a famous roadway, camping ground, and chain of water-holes, which in a series of linked depressions extended from jauf, nun’s capital, in the south-east, northwards to azrak, near jebel druse, in syria. it was the freedom of the sirhan we needed to reach the tents of the eastern howeitat, those famous abu tayi, of whom auda, the greatest fighting man in northern arabia, was chief. only by means of auda abu tayi could we swing the tribes from maan to akaba so violently in our favour that they would help us take akaba and its hills from their turkish garrisons: only with his active support could we venture to thrust out from wejh on the long trek to maan. since our yenbo days we had been longing for him and trying to win him to our cause.
we made a great step forward at wejh; ibn zaal, his cousin and a war-leader of the abu tayi, arrived on the seventeenth of february, which was in all respects a fortunate day. at dawn there came in five chief men of the sherarat from the desert east of tebuk, bringing a present of eggs of the arabian ostrich, plentiful in their little-frequented desert. after them, the slaves showed in dhaif-allah, abu tiyur, a cousin of hamd ibn jazi, paramount of the central howeitat of the maan plateau. these were numerous and powerful; splendid fighters; but blood enemies of their cousins, the nomad abu tayi, because of an old-grounded quarrel between auda and hamd. we were proud to see them coming thus far to greet us, yet not content, for they were less fit than the abu tayi for our purposed attack against akaba.
on their heels came a cousin of nawwaf, nuri shaalan’s eldest son, with a mare sent by nawwaf to feisal. the shaalan and the jazi, being hostile, hardened eyes at one another; so we divided the parties and improvised a new guest-camp. after the rualla, was announced the abu tageiga chief of the sedentary howeitat of the coast. he brought his tribe’s respectful homage and the spoils of dhaba and moweilleh, the two last turkish outlets on the red sea. room was made for him on feisal’s carpet, and the warmest thanks rendered him for his tribe’s activity; which carried us to the borders of akaba, by tracks too rough for operations of force, but convenient for preaching, and still more so for getting news.
in the afternoon, ibn zaal arrived, with ten other of auda’s chief followers. he kissed feisal’s hand once for auda and then once for himself, and, sitting back, declared that he came from auda to present his salutations and to ask for orders. feisal, with policy, controlled his outward joy, and introduced him gravely to his blood enemies, the jazi howeitat. ibn zaal acknowledged them distantly. later, we held great private conversations with him and dismissed him with rich gifts, richer promises, and feisal’s own message to auda that his mind would not be smooth till he had seen him face to face in wejh. auda was an immense chivalrous name, but an unknown quantity to us, and in so vital a matter as akaba we could not afford a mistake. he must come down that we might weigh him, and frame our future plans actually in his presence, and with his help.
except that all its events were happy, this day was not essentially unlike feisal’s every day. the rush of news made my diary fat. the roads to wejh swarmed with envoys and volunteers and great sheikhs riding in to swear allegiance. the contagion of their constant passage made the lukewarm billi ever more profitable to us. feisal swore new adherents solemnly on the koran between his hands, ‘to wait while he waited, march when he marched, to yield obedience to no turk, to deal kindly with all who spoke arabic (whether bagdadi, aleppine, syrian, or pure-blooded) and to put independence above life, family, and goods’.
he also began to confront them at once, in his presence, with their tribal enemies, and to compose their feuds. an account of profit and loss would be struck between the parties, with feisal modulating and interceding between them, and often paying the balance, or contributing towards it from his own funds, to hurry on the pact. during two years feisal so laboured daily, putting together and arranging in their natural order the innumerable tiny pieces which made up arabian society, and combining them into his one design of war against the turks. there was no blood feud left active in any of the districts through which he had passed, and he was court of appeal, ultimate and unchallenged, for western arabia.
he showed himself worthy of this achievement. he never gave a partial decision, nor a decision so impracticably just that it must lead to disorder. no arab ever impugned his judgements, or questioned his wisdom and competence in tribal business. by patiently sifting out right and wrong, by his tact, his wonderful memory, he gained authority over the nomads from medina to damascus and beyond. he was recognized as a force transcending tribe, superseding blood chiefs, greater than jealousies. the arab movement became in the best sense national, since within it all arabs were at one, and for it private interests must be set aside; and in this movement chief place, by right of application and by right of ability, had been properly earned by the man who filled it for those few weeks of triumph and longer months of disillusion after damascus had been set free.
