Dreamers of the Day

“Of course,” I replied, getting to my feet and coming to his side.

“Too early for me, Shanklin!” Winston cried. “We must make our farewells now.”

Everyone rose to shake my hand cordially, and Clementine even urged me to visit her and Winston in England.

“Be sure to give Thompson a few days’ warning,” Winston rumbled cheerily. “He likes to prepare for the uprisings your presence seems to provoke.”

The detective sergeant himself surprised me almost speechless. He took my hand as Winston had, but bent very low to plant a kiss on my cheek. “Take care of yourself, miss.”

I was amazed at how fond of him I’d grown, despite his complaints and gruffness. “You do the same,” I told him, rising on tiptoes to return his gesture, and we bid each other both good night and good-bye.

I imagine you’ve had quite enough of my travelogues. Believe me, I felt the same way myself by the time we left Jerusalem. I was saturate with sites and sights, and felt quite unable to absorb a single additional fact, no matter how edifying.

Lawrence, too, was ready to blow off steam, and his means of doing so involved a borrowed army staff car with a Rolls-Royce engine and no springs. With our luggage secured, I climbed into the front seat and accepted a scarf he thoughtfully provided to tie over my hat. With that, he cranked the engine and, a moment later, yelled, “Hang on!”

During the hours that followed, I made my peace with death while Lawrence made a temporary peace with life. Gri

That was his only concession to a nervous passenger, but soon I was caught up in his frank and heedless joy. Flinging the car around rock-falls, lurching onto the sandy shoulders to avoid flocks of sheep and the occasional stray goat, flying past camels and donkeys laden with trade goods, swerving to provide wide berth to anyone wearing robes and sandals, he worked clutch and gearbox, wheel and brakes, all four limbs constantly engaged. If a sudden change in direction startled me, or a thumping bounce threatened to catapult me out of the seat, I got a grip on myself by watching him and admiring the sheer physical mastery required to dominate such speed and power.

Conversation was all but impossible over the roar of the unmuffled Rolls and the noise of the wind in our ears. Only once did I try to ask a question, when we passed the first of several startlingly green enclaves amid the scrub and thornbushes. “What’s that?” I yelled, pointing.

“Jewish settlement,” he yelled back.

Halfway up the coast, he pulled the car over and fishtailed to a pebble-scattering stop near the shade of an olive grove. For a while, there was no sound except the clicking of hot metal. His face alight, Lawrence turned to me expectantly, and to please him, I said, “That was fun!” To my surprise, I found that I meant it, and when he saw that, he gave a full-throated shout of laughter. That was when I realized that he had lost the giggle in my presence. It was the nicest moment of our time together.

Cross-legged on the ground and comfortable in khaki trousers and a white knit shirt, Lawrence shared out a picnic lunch. We ate flat bread, salty goat cheese, and succulent oranges while gazing at the waves of the Mediterranean as they raced one another up the beach below. If the low mountains and gaunt hills of Palestine were naked and stony, the soft green of the Lebanon reminded me of home. Much of the land around us was cultivated, and I could see why Lillian loved this place. Lemon and almond and fig trees scented the more prosaic stands of ash and cypress nearby, and there were flowers everywhere! Early spring anemones were just past, but lupines were in full bloom: blue and white and yellow. I picked out pink stock and mauve vetches. Blue borage and iris. Lavender clover, and alliums of many varieties. Blood-red poppies, with their sad associations. Pink bindweed, cheerful white daisies.

When he was finished, Lawrence wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and waved toward the countryside. “Your sister brought me here once,” he told me. “ ‘So many blossoms,’ she said, ‘seen in a single glance on a single hillside, with God alone the Gardener.’ She had a way with words.”

“And do you share her belief in the Gardener?” I asked.

“I did once.” After a while, he said, “Saint George slew his dragon here. Exactly when and where remains unknown, but no dragon has been seen since.”

“So George must have bagged him!” I agreed.

He smiled, his eyes on the sea. “This coast was Phoenician once. Then Greek, then Roman. That tower?” he asked, nodding toward a tall ruin across a broad ravine. “Crusader. Eleventh century.”

Larks were singing hard overhead, and we watched a cloud of martins gathering to nest in the shelter of the ancient walls.

“Fifty-second Lowland Division took that beach in ’17,” Lawrence told me. “It’s French now, I suppose.”

I could hear the resignation in his voice. “And who knows what comes next?” I remarked. “One thing about the Middle East seems certain: another army is always waiting, just around the bend.”

For a time I listened to the birdsong and enjoyed the scenery, but Lawrence was somewhere else. When he spoke again, his tone was strangely dispassionate. “When the war was over, a shepherd boy— eight years old—was brought before the military governor in Ramallah. He was charged with bomb throwing.”

“Good gracious! An eight-year-old?”

“His defense was that he found lots of those smooth round things out in the fields along the Nablus road—the place was littered with unexploded ordnance. One day when his sheep were loitering, the boy picked up one of the bombs and tossed it at them. The results were splendid. It made a big noise, he said, and the sheep hurried after that.”

Caught between amusement and horror, I asked, “Was he convicted?”

“Sent home with a warning.”

War after war, I thought. Generations of boys growing up with weapons as toys and no one but warriors to admire … “Where is Trans-Jordan?” I asked. “I heard the name mentioned last night, but I’ve never seen it on a map.”

“The maps haven’t been drawn yet,” he said. “We’re still sorting it out. Most likely, we’ll split the Palestine Protectorate. West of the Jordan River will be called Palestine, and it will include a national home for the Jews under Arab rule with British administration.” How will that work? I wondered, feeling like an old hand, but Lawrence continued, “Across the Jordan—Trans-Jordan, you see?—Feisal’s brother Abdullah will rule.”

“So much of what you hoped for has come to pass.”

“It might. Some of it.” He lay back, his long Nordic head cushioned on his hands. Watching the sky, he said, “Nothing here is easy. Blood feuds are never settled or forgotten. Compromise is all but impossible. If a tribe is weak, they say, How can we yield anything to our enemies? If a tribe is strong, they ask, Why should we yield anything to our enemies?”

“And where will the tribe of Israel fit, among so many foes?”

He sat up again, and when he spoke there was more energy in his voice. “I have great hopes for the Zionist influence in the region,” he said. “The Jews can be a bridge, I think, between East and West. They are an Oriental people with Occidental knowledge. And you saw their kibbutzim—their farm cooperatives, those green patches we passed?

Remarkable progress in a very short time. We visited a settlement a couple of days ago.”

Thompson had mentioned that to me. “Fine, clear-eyed men,” he’d reported. “Women of strength and calmness. Beautiful children.”