Few authors are so little known as Lewen Weldon.
He kept diaries throughout the First World War and late in life turned them into an (unpublished) account of his war. This was finally published by Eland earlier this year and a friend thought I might enjoy it – he was spot on. I could try and describe the book but the blurb on the back page does a better job than could I.
”Lewen Weldon was mapping the desert of Egypt when the First World War broke out. A fluent Arab speaker, he was recruited to run a network of spies and confidential agents from a steam yacht onto the Syrian coast behind Turkish lines. He took his men ashore in small boats at night, which also allowed him to land and conduct personal interviews before returning back through the surf.
This vivid tale of adventure becomes eyewitness history as we encounter Armenians escaping the massacres, passionate Arab nationalists, resolute Turkish soldiers and a heroic network of Jewish volunteers. Weldon’s modesty and self-deprecating Irish wit, complete with a few prejudices, take us to the vivid heart of his experience. This is a story that simply had to be told.”
Others enjoyed the book too.
”A Lawrence of the sea, Weldon’s memoirs (sic) are vivid, spiced with courage, knowledge and humanity; a gripping read, as well as a core document of British intelligence in the Levant …” (T J Gorton)
”… a gripping yarn of derring-do …” (Charles Glass)
”… a perilous undertaking, described with becoming modesty … a side of the war that has hitherto been veiled in silence.” (Scotsman)
To begin with Lewen shares offices in the Intelligence Department in Cairo with TE Lawrence among others. TEL appears just once in the memoir turning up with Emir Feisal too late to participate in the capture of the Turkish held port and town of Wejj.
”Then in the evening up came Feisal, Lawrence, and about 6,000 Arabs. Of course they were too late to do any fighting, but they were in heaps of time to loot – I mean the army, not Feisal and Lawrence – and loot they did, most enthusiastically.” (Hard Lying)
He also runs into Erskine Childers.
”The Intelligence Officer in the Ben-my-chree was Erskine Childers, author of The Riddle of the Sands. It was just typical of our authorities at home. Here they had a man who, I should have thought, would have been invaluable to them on account of his knowledge of the North Sea, and they had promptly sent him out as an intelligence officer to a ship working on the coasts of Sinai, Syria and Asia Minor.” (Hard Lying)
I cannot thank my friend enough for giving me such an absorbing book. I expect you might enjoy it too and if you don’t know why it is called Hard Lying you haven’t read yesterday’s post.
Fascinating to have met Lawrence as well as Childers. As Lewen wrote thoughtless not using the latter in the North Sea.
My grandfather served on Allenby’s staff in Cairo after he was too badly wounded at the Somme to return to the trenches. He met TEL and I suppose might have met Weldon.
Does my great aunt, Gertrude Bell, feature?
As I recall, no. The only women are his agents or those he meets on clandestine visits ashore behind Turkish lines.