Max Markham is the author of Indigo Bird – An Erotic Novel. For more information on the author and his work, please visit Max Markham’s Section on this website.
[Read Part 1 of T. E. Lawrence, Gay Murder Victim?...]
The official version of Lawrence of Arabia’s death is that, riding home fast on 13 May 1935 on his Brough Superior motorcycle, he found two boys riding on pushbikes ahead of him. He was travelling at speed, so he pulled out to overtake them. While doing so, he lost control of the motorbike, which ran off the road. Lawrence was thrown clear but hit his head against a tree. He was not wearing a helmet and suffered concussion and severe brain damage. Although he received prompt medical attention, he never regained consciousness. He lingered for six days and then died. This is the version that is portrayed at the start of David Lean’s film Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole as Lawrence. Like everything connected with Lawrence, the reality is more complicated.
Lawrence was a careful rider, although care did not extend to wearing a crash helmet, which was not at that time compulsory. He had had only two minor accidents, “spills”, since he began riding. George Brough, who manufactured a whole series of motor cycles for Lawrence, said that he was “one of the finest riders I have ever met. In the several runs that I took with him, I am able to state with conviction that T.E.L. was most considerate to every other road user. I never saw him take a single risk nor put any other rider or driver to the slightest inconvenience.” He was also a creature of habit: he always changed gear at exactly the same point on the road back to Clouds Hill, his Dorset cottage. At the time of his accident he was not travelling fast. A Brough travelling at speed was almost soundless; but the two boy cyclists said that they heard the motorcycle behind them. After the accident, the gears were found to be jammed in second gear. None of the witnesses who were present on 13 May 1935, and who gave evidence afterwards, saw the exact moment of the accident, which took place in a hollow. These witnesses were:
A) Corporal Ernest Catchpole, who was walking his dog. He saw parts of Lawrence’s last ride but the hilly nature of the terrain meant that he could not follow his entire course. He saw, in this order: Lawrence, proceeding towards Clouds Hill; a black, private motor car proceeding in the opposite direction; the motor cycle swerving, possibly after it had passed the car, at a point that he could not see; then two pedal-cyclists ahead of Lawrence proceeding towards Clouds Hill. Finally, he saw the motorbike twisting and turning over and over on the road. He saw nothing of the rider. He ran to the scene and found Lawrence, whom he did not know, lying on the road. His face was covered with blood. Although a civilian, Lawrence was taken immediately to Bovington camp and placed in the military hospital there. He remained there until his death. The inquest into Lawrence’s death was also conducted at Bovington Camp.
B) The two boys, Frank Fletcher and Albert Hargreaves, who were both the sons of serving soldiers. They had both recently left school. As they were facing in the same direction as Lawrence, they saw nothing, although they apparently heard his engine behind them. Albert was admitted to the RAMC hospital, but had not been seriously hurt. He might have been hit by Lawrence’s cycle. His friend Frank Fletcher was also knocked off his cycle, by Albert.
Bovington Camp reacted as though this was more than just a road traffic accident. All ranks were warned that they came under the provisions of the Official Secrets Act. The boys’ fathers were told to make them stay silent. It is fairly clear that they were instructed not to mention the black car, and they did not. Corporal Catchpole was also told that he should not mention the black car, but refused to change his story. Two plain clothes detectives were assigned to Lawrence. One sat by his bed, while the other rested on a cot outside the door. The Press was effectively muzzled: all news had to come through the War Office Press Office. No newspaper proprietor felt like defying this ruling. Yet Lawrence was by this time a civilian, and had been for several months.
It now emerged that some of Lawrence’s closest friends and relations were conveniently absent. Arnold Lawrence returned from a holiday in Spain to be greeted by the news of his brother’s death and the discovery that officials from the Air Ministry had removed “secret papers” from Clouds Hill. A special guard had been placed over the cottage, apparently to keep sightseers at bay. Mr and Mrs Bernard Shaw were on holiday in South Africa. His brother Bob and his mother were in China.
The coroner, Mr L. E. N. Neville-Jones, had a difficult task. The boys’ and Corporal Catchpole’s evidence conflicted: the main point of conflict being the existence of the black car. One of the jury also found this odd. The coroner’s court was conducted in a small dining room in an officers’ mess at Bovington. Few members of the public were able to obtain admission; it was held almost in camera.
What seems to have happened in reality is that Lawrence saw the two boys ahead and prepared to overtake. As he did so, he saw the black car coming towards him, fast. He tried to avoid it in the only possible way; to swerve off the road, but he did not succeed. He was hit and fatally injured. The car may also have hit the cycle of one of the boys; a glancing blow. It then continued on its way. A student of the case, Colin Graham, claims that a week before the accident Lawrence and one of his visiting airman friends, both on motor-bikes, had noticed a black car apparently being test-driven along the lonely road leading past his cottage. The unfrequented road was a good place for such tests. Others recalled seeing a large black car in the area more than once before the accident, but never after it. It was never identified: it was not a regular delivery van that passed Clouds Hill most days, nor was it a taxi belonging to a local firm, both of which have been suggested. Some accounts suggest that the number plate may have been hidden or removed. Even in 1935 this would have been very illegal. If the car was being test-driven by a local garage, why did not the garage owner come forward and clear up the mystery? If it was simply on its way from A to B, why did not the driver and the passengers, if there were any, come forward after the news of the accident became public knowledge? The story had been carried on the radio and in the local and national Press. Why, indeed, did they not stop immediately to offer assistance to the accident victim? Why were they not sought by the police? Likewise, Lawrence’s airman friend was not invited to give evidence, nor did he try. He, like the boys, may have been silenced by his superiors.
On the day of his death Lawrence had travelled to a nearby village to send a telegram to a man who had written to him requesting a meeting. The inward letter has disappeared but Lawrence’s reply survives:
“Williamson, Shallowleigh, Filleigh. Lunch Tuesday wet fine cottage 1 mile north Bovington Camp.
SHAW”
Henry Williamson, the author of Tarka the Otter, was one of Sir Oswald Mosley’s most devoted disciples. Mosley was the leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). He had conceived the notion of recruiting Lawrence to the Fascists. Lawrence was obviously interested. His potential value to the Fascists is clear; a hero can confer respectability on a political movement. Gabriele D’Annunzio; a brilliant poet, author, journalist and World War I soldier, had conferred his lustre on Mussolini’s Italy. Petain, the hero of Verdun, was to lend the French Vichy Government, at least for a time, a respectability that it would otherwise have lacked. Marshal Ludendorff had lent his name to the early Nazi Party. Lawrence could have done the same for Mosley’s British Fascists. In 1935 Fascism must have seemed to be on the crest of a wave: Mussolini was preparing to invade Abyssinia in defiance of international opinion; Hitler had come to power three years earlier in Germany and in 1936 would preside at the Berlin Olympic Games. They already had a number of minor imitators. In the late 1930s they would be joined by General Franco in Spain. Two months earlier In the UK, in March 1935, an enthusiastic audience of 8,000 had heard Oswald Mosley address his largest-ever indoor rally in the Albert Hall.
Then there is the matter of the “secret papers” that were removed from Clouds Hill. It is unlikely that Lawrence held any official papers. However papers were unquestionably removed; some personal items as well. Henry Williamson’s letter was removed. At any rate, it has never turned up anywhere. There were others letters too: from his friend John Bruce, a young Scotsman and former soldier who used to flog Lawrence; letters from other young men; a diary in which Lawrence recorded his flogging sessions; and a collection of whips. The investigators, whoever they were, would have found a lot of potentially embarrassing material. The evidence of Lawrence’s unusual pastimes would have been enough to silence most of his Army and RAF friends.
As for that black car: it is The Hound of the Baskervilles in mechanical guise. The hound, a real ferocious dog, made up to resemble the demonic hound in the family legend, was used to frighten Sir Charles Baskerville, an elderly man with a heart condition, so that he had a heart attack and died. As Sherlock Holmes pointed out, the hound was seen several times before the murder as the owner, Stapleton, sought a chance to unleash it at the frail Sir Charles, but it was not seen again after it had served its purpose. It looks suspiciously as though the driver of the car had been based in the area, studying Lawrence’s habits and seeking an opportunity to engineer an ‘accident’ that would kill him. The speed with which the Army reacted, and the way in which they reacted, suggests that some officers at Bovington at least were in on the plan and were expecting this to happen. It might be reasonable for the Army to have offered first aid to a civilian injured on its doorstep; but thereafter he would normally have been removed for intensive care in some large civilian hospital; probably in Dorchester. This did not happen. The tight official control exerted over the flow of news, and over the coroner’s court, is deeply suspicious. Someone wanted Lawrence dead. That someone was in the Government, or closely connected with it.
Is this far-fetched? I do not think so. The following year the same British establishment would manage an even more remarkable coup; one which, if one were to introduce it in a novel, would be regarded as unrealistic. But it happened: they managed what amounted to a palace coup, to unseat the worryingly unconventional King Edward VIII and install his compliant, conventional brother George VI on the throne. King Edward too was thought to have an unhealthy interest in fascism.
For more information on the subject see:
The Indigo Bird
An Erotic Novel by Max Markham
James Graveney, a young Major in a respectable regiment, is outwardly conventional. In private James is bisexual, with a strong urge for his own sex. Gay sex, however, is illegal in the Army, so he is discreet about this.
James’ world is turned upside-down when he meets Lieutenant Richard Finch. Richard is intelligent, charismatic and exceptionally handsome. He doesn’t mess around. He gets what he wants, and is completely unscrupulous about how he gets it. Richard will stop at nothing to achieve this, including Machiavellian deception and a cunning and brutal murder. James starts responding to Richard, cautiously at first, then gets swept along on the great love affair of his life.
The Indigo Bird is a rollercoaster of surprises set against backdrops varying from the jungles of Belize to London, the English countryside, and Ireland, and the scene is set for more shocks and adventures. [Read more...]
