T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 623

To Mrs Leslie-Smith, Felwood Lodge, Elm Place, S.W. 7. 21.1.20 Checked by mjmal 7 Dover Street Piccadilly 21. 1. 20. Dear Madam I received your letter of the 13th this morning by way of ... Foreign Office, and I wish I could help you in your trouble. ... it is ... Arab affairs about a year ago, and have since had no correspondence or contact with them; and (for reasons which I will not go into) it is not possible for me to write to them again. It seems to me very extraordinary that you have not been able to get into touch with Dr Muzaffer, who has the key to the mystery. He must be easily traceable, either by our people in Bagdad, or through the Turkish officials in Constantinople. If wounded and left on the field, your husband would certainly have been handed over to the Turkish authorities. I do not think there is any possibility of his having remained with the Arabs. Arabs do not usually do such things, nor have they any special prisons - as such - for people who have lost their wits. In any case Mesopotamia has now been for nearly three years a British-administered province, and no British officer could remain unknown with any tribe there. The marsh Arabs in particular are quite in hand, and it is certain that no European lives with them. I do not think there is any peculiarity of colour or dress marking off one tribe from another. Usually only women wear blue. Marsh Arabs generally wear nothing at all. I always found them hospitable, but as you know the relations between them and our army in Mesopotamia were not good. If you know the exact place where your husband was fighting when he was hit, the political officer there ought to be able, by asking the local Arabs, to obtain details of our casualties, and what happened to them. It was presumably not a large affair, and Arabs have long memories, and an officer captured or killed would be an event of great importance to them.