T. E. Lawrence | Autograph letter signed, to Leeson, on life in the Tank Corps, 28 September 1923

Property of a Distinguished Collector

T.E. Lawrence

Autograph letter signed ("R"), to B.E. Leeson

congratulating him on his engagement and settled life, but not his choice of motorcycle ("... [the Overland] does not go like my S.S. 80, which is the beloved of all the camp..."), which he contrasts to his own life ("...I'm not engaged, nor manager, nor official: but in the Tank Corps as a private. Employment exclusively fatigues. Today Sergts. Mess. Yesterday transport yard. Only flies in the pudding are the weekly or fortnightly guards. Guarding nothing without arms is amusing for about two hours, & then palls..."), 2 pages, 8vo, 14 Barton Street, London, 28 September 1923

"...I curse the RAF which kicked me out into this life. The little finger of the Air is better than all the Army..."

LAWRENCE ON LIFE IN THE TANK CORPS. As his letters to Leeson in February 1923 had made clear, Lawrence was desperate to re-enlist after being summarily dismissed from the RAF. The Tank Corps may have been a poor second to the RAF, but Lawrence's relief at the structure, discipline, and asceticism of military life is palpable in this letter. Although he now used the name T.E. Shaw, he continues to use his short-lived RAF name - Ross - when corresponding with Leeson.

B.E. Leeson was a veteran of the Arab Revolt. He had joined 14 Squadron of the RFC in January 1917 as an Observer with the rank of Lieutenant. The squadron was then providing aerial support to Arab and British forces from Rabigh, north of Mecca in the Hejaz, and later from Wejh. Leeson's personal connection with Lawrence came in late April, when the two men had been part of a small group who spent a week exploring a remote valley, Wadi Hamdh, to recover a crashed B.E.2c biplane. The temperature was 118° in the shade, the country was waterless, and their car constantly had to be cut free of thick dry brushwood. Leeson was subsequently invalided out of Arabia and by 1923 he was settling down with a professional job and even "a flapper typist". 

This letter appears to be unpublished

PROVENANCE:

Phillips, 14 March 1996, lot 395