Just before noon, on the fifth day of their crossing of El Houl, one of the Arabs was found to be missing, his riderless camel led by one of the Howeitat. Surly and ill-natured, Gasim was unpopular with the other Arabs, and …

“… they did not greatly care …

“I looked weakly at my trudging men, and wondered for a moment if I could change with one, sending him back on my camel to the rescue. My shirking the duty would be understood, because I was a foreigner: but that was precisely the plea I did not dare set up, while I yet presumed to help these Arabs in their own revolt …

“So, without saying anything, I turned my unwilling camel round, and forced her, grunting and moaning for her camel friends, back past the long line of men, and past the baggage into the emptiness behind. My temper was very unheroic, for I was furious with my other servants, with my own play-acting as a Beduin, and most of all with Gasim … It seemed absurd that I should peril my weight in the Arab adventure for a single worthless man.”

Lawrence found Gasim, “nearly blinded and silly”, an hour and a half later. On the way back, they were met by Auda.

“Auda pointed to the wretched hunched-up figure and denounced me, ‘For that thing, not worth a camel’s price . . .’ I interrupted him with ‘Not worth a half-crown, Auda’, and he, delighted in his simple mind, rode near Gasim, and struck him sharply, trying to make him repeat, like a parrot, his price.”

That night, after five days crossing El Houl, the Arabs arrived in Wadi Sirhan. But another of their party was missing – a slave. Months later, Lawrence would learn that his dried-up body had been found, next to his camel, far out in the wilderness, having succumbed to heat and thirst.

Events of 24 May 1917 as recounted by T. E. Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926).