July, 1917

The capture of Aqaba was unknown to the British--To preserve his prize, Lawrence
after making original dispositions for defence, rides across the Sinai desert to fetch
succour and supplies--His achievement coincides with the arrival in Egypt of a new
British commander--Allenby's promise of support inspires Lawrence to put forward
a new plan--The Drake of the desert, he would carry the war into the "Turkish
Main," and wage it on privateering methods

IT WAS over three years since Lawrence had seen Aqaba. He had
come back to it under strangely different conditions, that lent
piquancy to familiar landmarks. The Gulf of Aqaba may be pic-
tured as a croquet hoop laid flat. At the right-hand corner was the
little town, now tumbled in abject ruins by repeated naval bombard-
ments. At the left-hand corner was a clump of red rocks that caught
the eye from the sea, and, by so doing, had earlier saved the life
of a French air pilot who had staggered down to the shore after a
crash in the interior. A short way down the left-hand edge was Jebel
Faroun, the little island which long-dead Crusaders had garrisoned.
The gulf itself was prolonged by a great dry trough, the Wadi
Araba, that ran between high cliffs towards the Dead Sea. From
it on the right-hand side, a few miles behind Aqaba, diverged the
gorge of the Wadi Ithm, which led to Ma'an.

After his first splash of exultation, Lawrence suffered the sudden
disillusionment of a goal attained. The life that he had not expected
to keep lost the savour that it had borne while being risked. The
very drabness of the scene accentuated the barrenness of his satis-
faction.

Hunger called him out of this trance, back to the barrenness of
the cupboard. There were five hundred of his men, seven hundred
prisoners, a couple of thousand new allies to feed, and no supplies,
save for the green dates that the palms offered, and the meat that the
camels might afford at the price of mobility. He had proved his
generalship, but now he had to be a quartermaster-general. Partly

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