COLONEL LAWRENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17633, 20 November 1920, Page 1 (Supplement)

COLONEL LAWRENCE.

A PERSONAL SKETCH. 9 : ■/• ;v BI A 3COM AD. New Zealanders who fought , at Gaza, Bc-ersheba, and' Jericho, may care to know something more of * Colonel Lawrence! I first met him in 1903. His eldest brother : and I were freshmen at the same college at ,Oxford. His parents lived in. Oxford, and his four younger brothers, went to the , city high schcol. All five brothers served in the army during the war. Two were killed. ; I think Nedthe colonel- was late for tex the first time I went to the Lawrence's house. However, the next Sunday I went to church with the family, and" sat next to him. He was then about 14 years old. He followed the service devoutly, and even during the sermon kept his- eyes glued to what appeared to be -a prayer book. On the way home he told me that Ulysses was bis hero, and that led to the discovery that Homer, rather than Cran-' mer, was the compiler of his book of devotions. I don't know who prepared him for confirmation, but I imagine that' he asked more questions than he answered.

A Passion -for History. i His passion as a . schoolboy was for hist tory. While other boys were playing I games he was scouring the Berkshire and j Oxfordshire countryside in search of the remains of Roman camps, Norman churches, and . battlefields of the Wars of the Eoses. .1 remember one day being taken to his bedroom to see his treasures. In a chest of drawers, among shirts, stockings i; and ..ties, lay flint arrow-heads, Roman coins and spear-heads, burial urns, part of a suit of chain - armour, a Crusader's sword and stirrup, and tiles from. a Roman villa. •" ■ ' ' ■- - On many a summer . afternoon did : we : cycle together to take brass rubbings from the tombs of medueval knights which abound in , Oxfordshire churches. * • He would crawl- like a cat along the .'roofs of • the churches and up the towers, . and then, 5 . over tea in the village inn, he would pour forth the history of the village - and , the church, making the very stones speak. Tliere was ia nothing bookish about him.. He was no antiquarian, bred in a museum. Historical research was Zan > adventure ,to him. ; " - ■. ' Passion for the Past. It was said of J. R. Green, the historian, that on his arrival, in some old cathedral town in .France, he would run about like a dog sniffing for his prey. It is, perhaps, difficult . for an inhabitant of a new country to understand this passionate _ love of the past. The American tourist to Europe, with his guide-book and an umbrella, in his hand, affectsc this enthusiasm. He buys in antique shops - coats. of arms, and candlesticks which he fondly believes -to be of fourteenthcentury craftsmanship, but are more probably the offspring of Birmingham. I need hardly say that Lawrence had none of this sentimentality in his nature. , He loved t'he past because he loved to-day. He knew that it was impossible to understand to-day without a knowledge of the social | life of the past. -He 1 felt instinctively . that a; j' thousand yesterdays * v have created ; and are hidden lin ;• to-day"; • On one occasion he built himself a raft and explored an -ancient sewer which had been abandoned to the rats, and was flooded to within a few feet of its underground ceiling. - After following the> curves of this tunnel for half a mile, dry land was reached. Armed with a?, candle, Lawrence disembarked. -He" soon discovered that, he was " among .. the foundations Vof some building. I recollect making the same journey a, week later, by which time three more rafts had been made, one for a history lecturer, another for a schoolmaster— Lawrence was. this time fifteen years old —and one for myself. With the help of maps and compasses we discovered that we were underneath Oxford Castle., We set to work with pick and spade, and within an hour ;- were rewarded by the finding; iof a ; broken Saxon sword and three Norman arrows but that' was not all.-, We came upon a doorway which. had evidently been stoned up centuries,>go;^ : We broke into it and found ourselves in a dungeon of the castle. I think that was the - first k time s name appeared in print. The local + paper published -a- column "on"' the subject. Lawrence s photo, '-was asked for to appear at the top of the article." but he refused to give it. . Indeed, I doubt 'if he had then, or has; had since,' a photo, one ?>f of v.himself exCept the Swell-kho wn one in Arab costume. . ' . " >r.n ' " Tours in France. , ; ' ; ; After this adventure he turned his attention to . foreign fields. : ,S Every holiday of . more than a week's duration found'him on a bicycle in France or Italy. On three occasions I accompanied "hifti.,' The first time we went to Belgium. Landing at tbir t v cyde< T to Bruges and: from there to 1 pres. We stayed there 'three?i yS ™ S°?rn e ' re T el ! ed : in the beauty of the Cloth Hall and : the: cathedral ! When : we left there I think he knew more about that glorious mediaaval "town and its 'history than all .the' professional guides put together. I hardly r care to speak of therest of that tour. We cycled to Amiens by way of Arras., then on- to St". .Quentin, Laon and Eheims. ; How many of the best of our : race sleep on those tragic fields. Both of his younger brothers lie there. .. The .following, summer we went to .louraine and.,- roamed about the ruins of the castles of our.Plantagenet kings. " The next summer we cycled -through " Gascony. I remember letting" him downs: by a rope into a ■ well, which is to this • dav • called the English well. It was near Bordeaux and had been dug by the soldiers of the Black Prince. '. The . neighbouring farmcastle was all that was left of the original cattle. - &

The. "War and After. v ; I have c seen ; Lawrence .only twice since then. ■ He used .to write to me when I was living in Geneva and afterwards in; Russia-. He entered Jesus College and graduated ' with : first-class 'honours in history. Then he set. oat- for Egypt to ' excavate at his own expense. - Later on he was sent by j the British I .' Museum Archaeological Department ■ to. excavate on the ' supposed sites of Babylon .and ■ Nineveh. • I . suppose his discoveries there are the greatest that have as yet been made 3in Assy riologv. It was on account ' of this " work : that * he was made a Fellow of Magdalen College. - •. It was on his return to "England at the beginning of the war. that I saw him again for a few days. His room was 'littered with the implements 'of h the s excavator, brushes,; and "diminutive rates.-- Bricks ,with Assyrian inscriptions -on them lay • all over the floor. But- he was examining a map of Europe.' "The orslv 'thing the Turks respect is force," be said- "They'll come in . on our side if • w<j . send half-a-dozen ships up the Dardanelles.* J At pre.sent they've no, ammunition to speak of and are- quite unprepared. If we do. no" thing they 11; join .in with* Germany and Bulgaria'will follow suit." He was • honing that the ' War Office - would find some use for his knowledge of the Near East. However, ,our"' diplomats., thought they knew better.. ' -v a * - 1 aw , again four months ago II? . London. He " had . been demobilised. He is not much taller:than' when he was a {**&' in his Jf &t ° r€s bave "changed hardly at all and he is. as■; unassuming a 3 ?, ver " _ ? 'talked:about; Bolshevism, about its effect vcm .Asia, about ibe Treaty of Versailles— he had been in Paris with the Emir Feisul during the ; proceedings of the Peace _ Conference— and of a hundred other ejects till four in' the morning. He had just finished his book. It wSi soon be published, and if he says onetnenth ..what ho knows and one-fiftieth o! what he feels he will, perhaps, make Mrs. Asquith turn green with envv. But his book is not an autobiography."" It is men such as ; Lawrence, ;relentless -pursuers of truth, who are the hope of the ; Xew Europe,