GREEN -
MANTLE
JOHN BUCHAN
62%


NOVELS BY
JOHN BUCHAN
The Thirty-Nine Step:
Greenmantle
Mr. Stand/art
The Path of the King
Huntingtower
Illidwinter
The Three Hoxtage:
70hr: Maenah
The Daming Floor
W iteh Wood
The Runagate: Club
also
The Half-Hearted
The Moon Endureth
Tales and F ancies
l
‘63
HODDER AND
STOUGHTON
LTD.,LONDON







[

l







'r
%]GREENMANTLE[




; 4 | I





,b
BY
JOHN BUCHAN '

<€--
L
QAP



fl r-
CL/ LLZLJ \4)
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LIMITED LONDON













11]


F1Rs-r PRINTED
Reprinted . . . October,
Reprinted . . . October,
Reprinted . . . December,
Reprinted . . . A pril,
Reprinted . . . lune,
Reprinted . . . November,
Reprinted . . . March,
Reprinted . . . December,
Reprinted . . . M arch,
Reprinted . . . March,
Reprinted . . . October,
Reprinted . . . December,
Reprinted . . , bl arch,
Reprinted . , . November,
Reprinted . . . February,
Reprinted . . . january,
Reprinted . . . A pril,
Reprinted . . . Gatober,
Reprinted . . . February,
Reprinted . . . December,
Reprinted . . . ]uly,
Reprinted . . . A pril,
Reprinted . . . September,
Reprinted . . . February,
Ihqwfiflad . . . [and
Made and Printed in Great Britain.
1916
1916
1916
1916
1917
1917
1917
1918
1918
1919
1919
1919
1919
1920
1920
1921
1923
1923
1923
1924
1924
1925
1926
1926
1928
1929
Huell, Watson 6 Viney, Ltd., London and Aylesbury.


CHAPTER I
a MISSION rs PROPOSED
I HAD just finished breakfast and was filling my pipe
when I got Bullivant’s telegram. It was at F urling,
the big country house in Hampshire where I had
come to convalesce after Loos, and Sandy, who was
in the same case, was hunting for the marmalade. I
flung him the flimsy with the blue strip pasted down
on it, and he whistled.
“ Hullo, Dick, you’ve got the battalion. Or maybe
it’s a staff billet. You’ll be a blighted brass-hat,
coming it heavy over the hard-working regimental
officer. And to think of the language you’ve wasted
on brass-hats in your time i ”
I sat and thought for a bit, for that name “ Bulli-
vant ” carried me back eighteen months to the hot
summer before the war. I had not seen the man
since, though I had read about him in the papers.
For more than a year I had been a busy battalion
officer, with no other thought than to hammer a lot
of raw stuff into good soldiers. I had succeeded
pretty well, and there was no prouder man on earth
than Richard Hannay when he took his Lennox
Highlanders over the parapets on that glorious and
bloody 25th day of September. Loos was no picnic,
and we had had some ugly bits of scrapping before
that, but the worst bit of the campaign I had seen
was a tea-party to the show ' I had been in with
Bullivant before the war started.
l Major Hannay’s narrative of this afiair has boonpublilhed undo!
the title of The Tbirty-Nim Steps,


2 A MISSION IS PROPOSED
The sight of his name on a telegram form seemed
to change all my outlook on life. I had been hoping
for the command of the battalion, and looking for-
ward to being in at the finish with Brother Boche.
But this message jerked my thoughts on to a new road.
There might be other things in the war than straight-
forward fighting. Why on earth should the Foreign
Office want to see an obscure Major of the New
Army, and want to see him in double-quick time?
“ I’m going up to town by the ten train,”- I an-
nounced; “ I’ll be back in time for dinner."
“ Try my tailor,” said Sandy. “ He’s got a very
nice taste in red tabs. You can use my name."
An idea struck me. “ You’re pretty well all right
now. If I wire for you, will you pack your own kit
and mine and join me 7 "
“ Right-o! I’ll accept a job on your staff if they
give you a corps. If so be as you come down to-night,
be a good chap and bring a barrel of oysters from
Sweeting’s.”
I travelled up to London in a regular November
drizzle, which cleared up about Wimbledon to watery
sunshine. I never could stand London during the
war. It seemed to have lost its bearings and broken
out into all manner of badges and uniforms which
did not fit in with my notion of it. One felt the
war more in its streets than in the field, or rather one
felt the confusion of war without feeling the purpose.
I dare say it was all right; but since August 1914
I never spent a day in town without coming home
depressed to my boots.
I took a taxi and drove straight to the Foreign
Oflice. Sir Walter did not keep me waiting long.
But when his secretary took me to his room I would
not have recognised the man I had known eighteen
months before.
His big frame seemed to have dropped flesh and
there was a stoop in the square shoulders. His face


A MISSION IS PROPOSED 8
had lost its rosiness and was red in patches, like that of
a man who gets too little fresh air. His hair was much
greyer and very thin about the temples, and there
were lines of overwork below the eyes. But the eyes
were the same as before, keen and kindly and shrewd,
and there was no change in the firm set of the jaw.
“ We must on no account be disturbed for the next
hour,” he told his secretary. When the young man
had gone he went across to both doors and turned
the keys in them.
“ Well, Major Hannay,” he said, flinging himself
into a chair beside the fire. “ How do you like
soldiering T ”
“ Right enough," I said, “ though this isn’t just
the kind of war I would have picked myself. It’s a
comfortless, bloody business. But we’ve got the
measure of the old Boche now, and it’s dogged as
does it. I count on getting back to the Front in a
week or two.”
“ Will you get the battalion T ” he asked. He
seemed to have followed my doings pretty closely.
“ I believe I’ve a good chance. I’m not in this
show for honour and glory, though. I want to do
the best I can, but I wish to Heaven it was over. All
I think of is coming out of it with a whole skin.”
He laughed. “ You do yourself an injustice.
What about the forward observation post at the
Lone Tree ? You forgot about the whole skin then."
I felt myself getting red. “That was all rot,” I
sai , “ and I can’t think who told you about it. I
hated the job, but I had to do it to prevent my subal-
terns going to glory. They were a lot of fire-eating
young lunatics. If I had sent one of them he’d have
gone on his knees to Providence and asked for trouble."
Sir Walter was still grinning.
“ I’m not questioning your caution. You have the
rudiments of it, or our friends of the Black Stone
would have gathered you in at our last merry meeting.


l A MISSION IS PROPOSED
I would question it as little as your courage. What
exercises my mind is whether it is best employed in the
trenches." .
“ Is the War Office dissatisfied with me ‘I " I asked
sharply.
“ They are profoundly satisfied. They propose to
give you command of your battalion. Presently, if
you escape a stray bullet, you will no doubt be a
Brigadier. It is a wonderful war for youth and
brains. But . . . I take it you are in this business to
serve your country, Hannay T ”
“ I reckon I am,” I said. “ I am certainly not in
it for my health."
He looked at my leg, where the doctors had dug
out the shrapnel fragments, and smiled quizzically.
“ Pretty fit again ‘3 " he asked.
“ Tough as a sjambok. I thrive on the racket and
eat and sleep like a schoolboy.”
He got up and stood with his back to the fire, his
eyes staring abstractedly out of the window at the
wintry park.
“ It is a great game, and you are the man for it,
no doubt. But there are others who can play it, for
soldiering to-day asks for the average rather than the
exception in human nature. It is like a big machine
where the parts are standardised. You are fighting.
not because you are short of a job, but because you
want to help England. How if you could help her
better than by commanding a battalion—or a brigade
—0r, if it comes to that, a division ? How if there is
a thing which you alone can do ‘2 Not some embusque
business in an office, but a thing compared to which
your fight at Loos was a Sunday-school picnic. You
are not afraid of danger ? Well, in this job you would
not be fighting with an army around you, but alone.
You are fond of tackling difficultti Well, I can
give you a task which will try all your powers. Have
you anything to say 1!!


A MISSION IS PROPOSED 5
My heart was beginning to thump uncomfortably.
Sir Walter was not the man to pitch a case too
high.
“ I am a soldier,” I sai , “ and under orders."
“ True; but what I am about to propose does not
come by any conceivable stretch within the scope of
a soldier’s duties. I shall perfectly understand if you
decline. You will be acting as I should act myself—
as any sane man would. I would not press you for
worlds. If you wish it, I will not even make the
proposal, but let you go here and now, and wish you
good luck with your battalion. I do not wish to
perplex a good soldier with impossible decisions.”
This piqued me and put me on my mettle.
“ I am not going to run away before the guns fire.
Let me hear what you propose.”
Sir Walter crossed to a cabinet, unlocked it with a
key from his chain, and took a piece of paper from a
drawer. It looked like an ordinary half-sheet of
note-paper.
“ I take it,” he said, “ that your travels have not
extended to the East.”
“ No,” I said, “ barring a shooting trip in East
Africa.”
“ Have you by any chance been following the
present campaign there ‘1’ ”
“ I’ve read the newspapers pretty regularly since
I went to hospital. I’ve got some pals in the Meso-
potamia show, and of course I’m keen to know what
is going to happen at Gallipoli and Salonika. I
gather that Egypt is pretty safe.”
“ If you will give me your attention for ten minutes
I will supplement your newspaper reading.”
Sir Walter lay back in an arm-chair and spoke to
the ceiling. It was the best story, the clearest and
the fullest, I had ever got of any bit of the war. He
told me just how and why and when Turkey had left
the rails. I heard about her grievances over our


6 A MISSION IS PROPOSED
seizure of her ironclads, of the mischief the coming of
the Goeben had wrought, of Enver and his precious
Committee and the way they had got a cinch on the
old Turk. When he had spoken for a bit, he began
to question me.
“ You are an intelligent fellow, and you will ask
how a Polish adventurer, meaning Enver, and a
collection of Jews and gipsies should have got
control of a proud race. The ordinary man will tell
you that it was German organisation backed up with
German money and German arms. You will inquire
again how, since Turkey is primarily a religious
power, Islam has played so small a pan. in it all.
The Sheikh-ul-Islam is neglected, and though the
Kaiser proclaims a Holy War and calls himself Hadji
Mohammed Guilliamo, and says the Hohenzollerns are
descended from the Prophet, that seems to have fallen
pretty flat. The ordinary man again will answer
that Islam in Turkey is becoming a back number, and
that Krupp guns are the new gods. Yet—I don’t
know. I do not quite believe in Islam becoming a
back number.”
“ Look at it in another way,” he went on. “ If it
were Enver and Germany alone dragging Turkey into
a European war for purposes that no Turk cared a
rush about, we might expect to find the regular army
obedient, and Constantinople. But in the provinces,
where Islam is strong, there would be trouble. Many
of us counted on that. But we have been disap-
pointed. The Syrian army is as fanatical as the
hordes of the Mahdi. The Senussi have taken a hand
in the game. The Persian Moslems are threatening
trouble. There is a dry wind blowing through the
East, and the parched grasses wait the spark. And
the wind is blowing towards the Indian border.
Whence comes that wind, think you 1’?
Sir Walter had lowered his voice and was speaking
very slow and distinct. I could hear the rain dripping


A MISSION IS PROPOSED 7
from the eaves of the window, and far off the boot of
taxis in Whitehall.
“ Have you an explanation, Hannay T” he asked
am.
“ It looks as if Islam had a bigger hand in the thing
than we thought,” I said. “ I fancy religion is the
only thing to knit up such a scattered empire.”
“ You are right,” he said. “ You must be right.
We have laughed at the Holy War, the Jehad that
old Von der Goltz prophesied. But I believe that
stupid old man with the big spectacles was right.
There is a Jehad preparing. The question is, How ‘I ”
“ I’m hanged if I know,” I said; “but I’ll bet it
won’t be done by a pack of stout German officers in
pickelhaubes. I fancy you can’t manufacture Holy
Wars out of Krupp guns alone and a few staff officers
and a battle-cruiser with her boilers burst]?
“ Agreed. They are not fools, however much we
try to persuade ourselves of the contrary. But
supposing they had got some tremendous sacred
sanction—some holy thing, some book or gospel or
some new prophet from the desert, something which
would east over the whole ugly mechanism of German
war the glamour of the old torrential raids which
crumpled the Byzantine Empire and shook the walls
of Vienna 7 Islam is a fighting creed, and the mullah
still stands in the pulpit with the Koran in one hand
and a drawn sword in the other. Supposing there is
some Ark of the Covenant which will madden the
remotest Moslem peasant with dreams of Paradise?
What then, my friend ? ”
“ Then there will be hell let loose in those parts
pretty soon.”
“ Hell which may spread. Beyond Persia, re-
member, lies India.”
“ You keep to suppositions. How much do you
know I ” I asked.
“ Very little, except the fact. But the fact is


A MISSION IS PROPOSED 9
him would be that he had a nose for finding gold
and knew his business. That is the position now.
I believe that you have a nose for finding out what
our enemies try to hide. I know that you are brave
and cool and resourceful. That is why I tell you
the story. Besides . . .”
He unrolled a big map of Europe on the wall.
“ I can’t tell you where you’ll get on the track of
the secret, but I can put a limit to the quest. You
won’t find it east of the Bosporus—not yet. It is
still in Europe. It may be in Constantinople, or in
Thrace. It may be farther west. But it is moving
eastwards. If you are in time you may cut into its
march to Constantinople. That much I can tell you.
The secret is known in Germany, too, to those whom
it concerns. It is in Europe that the seeker must
search—at present.”
“Tell me more,” I said. “ You can give me no
details and no instructions. Obviously you can give
me no help if I come to grief.”
He nodded. “ You would be beyond the pale.”
“ You give me a free hand.”
“ Absolutely. You can have what money you
like, and you can get what help you like. You can
follow any plan you fancy, and go anywhere you
think fruitful. We can give no directions.”
“ One last question. You say it is important.
Tell me just how important.”
“ It is life and death,” he said solemnly. “ I can
put it no higher and no lower. Once we know what
is the menace we can meet it. As long as we are in
the dark it works unchecked and we may be too
late. The war must be won or lost in Europe. Yes ;
but if the East blazes up, our effort will be distracted
from Europe and the great coup may fail. The
stakes are no less than victory and defeat, Hannay.”
I got out of my chair and walked to the window.
It was a difficult moment in my life. I was happy


10 A MISSION IS PROPOSED
in my soldiering; above all, happy in the company of
my brother officers. I was asked to go off into the
enemy’s lands on a quest for which I believed I was
manifestly unfitted—a business of lonely days and
nights, of nerve-racking strain, of deadly peril shroud-
ing me like a garment. Looking out on the bleak
weather I shivered. It was too grim a business, too
inhuman for flesh and blood. But Sir Walter had
called it a matter of life and death, and I had told
him that I was out to serve my country. He could
not give me orders, but was I not under orders—higher
orders than my Brigadier’s? I thought myself in-
competent, but cleverer men than me thought me
competent, or at least competent enough for a
sporting chance. I knew in my soul that if I declined
I should never be quite at peace in the world again.
And yet Sir Walter had called the scheme madness,
and said that he himself would never have accepted.
How does one make a great decision? I swear
that when I turned round to speak I meant to refuse.
But my answer was Yes, and I had crossed the
rubicon. My voice sounded cracked and far away.
Sir Walter shook hands with me and his eyes
blinked a little.
“ I may be sending you to your death, Hannay.—
Good God, what a damned task-mistress duty is i—
If so, I shall be haunted with regrets, but you will
never repent. Have no fear of that. You have
chosen the roughest road, but it goes straight to the
hill-tops.”
He handed me the half-sheet of note-paper. On it
were written three words—“ Kasredin,’! “ cancer}?
md “ v. I",
“ That is the only clue we possess," he said. “ I
cannot construe it, but I can tell you the story. We
have had our agents working in Persia and Mesopo-
tamia for years—mostly young officers of the Indian
Army. They carry their lives in their hand, and


CHAPTER I]
run oA'mnanzo or run MISSIONABIEI
I wanna out a wire to Sandy, asking him to come up
by the two-fifteen train and meet me at my flat.
“ I have chosen my colleague,” I said.
“ Billy Arbuthnot’s boy? His father was at
Harrow with me. I know the fellow—Harry used to
bring him down to fish—tallish, with a lean, high-
boned face and a pair of brown eyes like a pretty
girl’s. I know his record too. There’s a good deal
about him in this office. He rode through Yemen,
which no white man ever did before. The Arabs let
him pass, for they thought him stark mad and argued
that the hand of Allah was heavy enough on him
without their efforts. He’s blood-brother to every
kind of Albanian bandit. Also he used to take a
hand in Turkish politics, and got a huge reputation.
Some Englishman was once complaining to old
Mahmoud Shevkat about the scarcity of statesmen
in Western Europe, and Mahmoud broke in with,
‘ Have you not the Honourable Arbuthnot Y ' You
say he’s in your battalion. I was wondering what
had become of him, for we tried to get hold of him
here, but he had left no address. Ludovick Arbuth-
not—yes, that’s the man. Buried deep in the com-
missioned ranks of the New Army ‘3 Well, we’ll get
him out pretty quick ! ’-’
“ I knew he had knocked about the East, but I
didn’t know he was that kind of swell. Sandy’s not
the chap to buck about himself?!
ll


GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES 13
“ He wouldn’t,” said Sir Walter. “ He had always
a more than Oriental reticence. I’ve got another col-
league for you, if you like him.”
He looked at his watch. “ You can get to the
Savoy Grill Room in five minutes in a taxi-cab. Go
in from the Strand, turn to your left, and you will
see in the alcove on the right-hand side a table with
one large American gentleman sitting at it. They
know him there, so he will have the table to himself.
I want you to go and sit down beside him. Say you
come from me. His name is Mr. John Scantlebury
Blenkiron, now a _citizen of Boston, Mass., but
born and raised in Indiana. Put this envelope in
your pocket, but don’t read its contents till you have
talked to him. I want you to form your own opinion
about Mr. Blenkiron.”
I went out of the Foreign Office in as muddled a
frame of mind as any diplomatist who ever left its
portals. I was most desperately depressed. To
begin with, I was in a complete funk. I had always
thought I was about as brave as the average man,
but there’s courage and courage, and mine was cer-
tainly not the impassive ldnd. Stick me down in
a trench and I could stand being shot at as well as
most people, and my blood could get hot if it were
given a chance. But I think I had too much im-
agination. I couldn’t shake off the beastly forecasts
that kept crowding my mind.
In about a fortnight, I calculated, I would be dead.
Shot as a spy—a rotten sort of ending! At the
moment I was quite safe, looking for a taxi in the
middle of Whitehall, but the sweat broke on my
forehead. I felt as I had felt in my adventure before
the war. But this was far worse, for it was more
cold-blooded and premeditated, and I didn’t seem to
have even a sporting chance. I watched the figures
in khaki passing on the pavement, and thought what
a nice safe prospect they had compared to mine.
2 J


14 GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES
Yes, even if next week they were in the Hohenzollern,
or the Hairpin trench at the Quarries, or that ugly
angle at Hooge. I wondered why I had not been
happier that morning before I got that infernal wire.
Suddenly all the trivialities of English life seemed
to me inexpressibly dear and terribly far away. I
was very angry with Bullivant, till I remembered
how fair he had been. My fate was my own choos-
mg.
When I was hunting the Black Stone the interest
of the problem had helped to keep me going. But
now I could see no problem. My mind had nothing
to work on but three words of gibberish on a sheet
of paper and a mystery of which Sir Walter had been
convinced, but to which he couldn’t give a name.
It was like a story I had read of St. Theresa setting
off at the age of ten with her small brother to con-
vert the Moors. I sat huddled in the taxi with my
chin on my breast, wishing that I had lost a leg at
Loos and been comfortably tucked away for the rest
of the war.
Sure enough I found my man in the Grill Room.
There he was, feeding solemnly, with a napkin tucked
under his chin. He was a big fellow with a fat,
sallow, clean-shaven face. I disregarded the hover-
ing waiter and pulled up a chair beside the American
at the little table. He turned on me a pair of full
sleepy eyes, like a ruminating ox.
“ Mr. Blenldron ? ” I asked.
“ You have my name, sir,” he said. “ Mr. John
Scantlebury Blenkiron. I would wish you good
morning if I saw anything good in this darned British
weather.”
“ I come from Sir Walter Bullivant," I said, speak-
ing low.
“So?” said he. “Sir Walter is a very good
friend of mine. Pleased to meet you, Mr.—-or I
guess it’s Colonel—’5


GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES 15
“ Hannay,” I said; “ Major Hannay.” I was won-
dering what this sleepy Yankee could do to help me.
“ Allow me to offer you luncheon, Major. Here,
waiter, bring the carte. I regret that I cannot join
you in sampling the efforts of the management of
this ho-tel. I suffer, sir, from dyspepsia—duo-denal
dyspepsia. It gets me two hours after a meal and
gives me hell just below the breast-bone. So I am
obliged to adopt a diet. My nourishment is fish, sir,
and boiled milk and a little dry toast. It’s a melan-
choly descent from the days when I could do justice
to a lunch at Sherry’s and sup off oyster-crabs and
devilled bones.” He sighed from the depths of his
capaeious frame.
I ordered an omelette and a chop, and took another
look at him. The large eyes seemed to be gazing
steadily at me without seeing me. They were as
vacant as an abstracted child’s; but I had an un-
comfortable feeling that they saw more than mine.
“ You have seen fighting, Major T The Battle of
Loos Y Well, I guess that must have been some
battle. We in America respect the fighting of the
British soldier, but we don’t quite catch on to the
de-vices of the British Generals. We opine that
there is more bellicosity than science among your
highbrows. That is so ? My father fought at
Chattanooga, but these eyes have seen nothing gorier
than a Presidential election. Say, is there any way
I could be let into a scene of real bloodshed T’?
His serious tone made me laugh. “ There are
plenty of your countrymen in the present show," I
said. “ The French Foreign Legion is full of young
Americans, and so is our Army Service Corps. Half
the chauffeurs you strike in France seem to come
from the States."
He sighed. “ I did think of some belligerent stunt
1 year back. But I reflected that the good God
had not given John S. Blenkiron the kind of martial


16 GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES
figure that would do credit to the tented field. Also
I recollected that we Americans were nootrals— ~bene-
Volent nootrals—and that it did not become me to
be butting into the struggles of the effete monarchies
of Europe. So I stopped at home. It was a big
renunciation, Major, for I was lying sick during the
Philippines business, and I have never seen the law-
less passions of men let loose on a battlefield. And,
as a stoodent of humanity, I hankered for the ex-
perience.”
“ What have you been doing ‘1’" I asked. The
calm gentleman had begun to interest me.
“ Waal,” he said, “ I just waited. The Lord has
blessed me with money to burn, so I didn’t need to
go scrambling like a wild cat for war contracts. But
I reckoned I would get let into the game somehow,
and I was. Being a nootral, I was in an advan-
tageous position to take a hand. I had a pretty hectic
time for a while, and then I reckoned I would leave
God’s country and see what was doing in Europe.
I have counted myself out of the bloodshed business,
but, as your poet sings, peace has its victories not
less renowned than war, and I reckon that means
that a nootral can have a share in a scrap as well
as a belligerent.”
“ That’s the best kind of neutrality I’ve ever heard
of,” I said.
“ It’s the right kind,” he replied solemnly. “ Say,
Major, what are your lot fighting for ‘I For your own
skins and your Empire and the peace of Europe.
Waal, those ideals don’t concern us one cent. We’re
not Europeans, and there aren’t any German trenches
on Long Island yet. You’ve made the ring in Europe,
and if we came butting in it wouldn’t be the rules of
the game. You wouldn’t welcome us, and I guess
you’d be right. We’re that delicate-minded we can’t
interfere, and that was what my friend, President
Wilson, meant when he opined that America was too


GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES 17
proud to fight. So we’re nootrals. But likewise
we’re benevolent nootrals. As I follow events, there’s
a skunk been let loose in the world, and the odour of
it is going to make life none too sweet till it is cleared
away. It wasn't us that stirred up that skunk, but
we’ve got to take a hand in disinfecting the planet.
See? We can’t fight, but, by God! some of us are
going to sweat blood to sweep the mess up. Officially
we do nothing except give off Notes like a leaky boiler
gives off steam. But as individooal citizens we’re
in it up to the neck. So, in the spirit of Jefferson
Davis and Woodrow Wilson, I’m going to be the
nootralist kind of nootral till Kaiser will be sorry
he didn’t declare war on America at the beginning.”
I was completely recovering my temper. This
fellow was a perfect jewel, and his spirit put purpose
into me.
“ I guess you British were the same kind of nootral
when your Admiral warned off the German fleet from
interfering with Dewey in Manila Bay in ’98.” Mr.
Blenkiron drank up the last drop of his boiled milk,
and lit a thin black cigar.
I leaned forward. “ Have you talked to Sir
Walter ? ’9 I asked.
“ I have talked to him, and he has given me to
understand that there’s a deal ahead which you’re
going to boss. There are no flies on that big man,
and if he says it’s good business then you can count
me m.”
“ You know that it’s uncommonly dangerous T ”
“ I judged so. But it don’t do to begin counting
risks. I believe in an all-wise and beneficent Provi-
dence, but you have got to trust Him and give Him a
chance. What’s life anyhow T For me, it’s living
on a strict diet and having frequent pains in my
stomach. It isn’t such an almighty lot to give up,
provided you get a good price in the deal. Besides,
how big is the risk Y About one o’clock in the mom-


18 GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES
ing, when you can’t sleep, it will be the size of Mount
Everest, but if you run out to meet it, it will be a
hillock you can jump over. The grizzly looks very
fierce when you’re taking your ticket for the Rockies
and wondering if you’ll come back, but he’s just an
ordinary bear when you’ve got the sight of your rifle
on him. I won’t think about risks till I’m up to my
neck in them and don’t see the road on .’F
I scribbled my address on a piece of paper and
handed it to the stout philosopher. “ Come to dinner
to-night at eight,” I said.
“ I thank you, Major. A little fish, please, plain-
boiled, and some hot milk. You will forgive me if I
borrow your couch after the meal and spend the
evening on my back. That is the advice of my n00
doctor.”
I got a taxi and drove to my club. On the way I
opened the envelope Sir Walter had given me. It
contained a number of jottings, the dossier of Mr.
Blenkiron. He had done wonders for the Allies in
the States. He had nosed out the Dumba plot, and
had been instrumental in getting the portfolio of Dr.
Albert. Von Papen’s spies had tried to murder him,
after he had defeated an attempt to blow up one of
the big gun factories. Sir Walter had written at the
end: “ The best man we ever had. Better than
Scudder. He would go through hell with a box of
bismuth tablets and a pack of Patience cards.”
I went into the little back smoking-room, borrowed
an atlas from the library, poked up the fire, and sat
down to think. Mr. Blenkiron had given me the
fillip I needed. My mind was beginning to work now,
and was running wide over the whole business. Not
that I hoped to find anything by my cogitations. It
wasn’t thinking in an arm-chair that would solve the
mystery. But I was getting a sort of grip on a plan
of operations. And to my relief I had stopped
thinking about the risks. Blenkiron had shamed me


20 GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES
from the ends of the earth may be seen on the London
pavements now and then in creased clothes, walking
with the light outland step, slinking into clubs as if
they could not remember whether or not they belonged
to them. From them you may get news of Sandy.
Better still, you will hear of him at little forgotten
fishing ports where the Albanian mountains dip to
the Adriatic. If you struck a Mecca pilgrimage the
odds are you would meet a dozen of Sandy’s friends
in it. In shepherds' huts in the Caucasus you will
find bits of his cast-off clothing, for he has a knack
of shedding garments as he goes. In the caravan-
serais of Bokhara and Samarkand he is known, and
there are shikaris in the Pamirs who still speak of him
round their fires. If you were going to visit Petrograd
or Rome or Cairo it would be no use asking him for
introductions ; if he gave them, they would lead you
into strange haunts. But if Fate compelled you to
go to Llasa or Yarkand or Seistan he could map out
your road for you and pass the word to potent friends.
We call ourselves insular, but the truth is that we are
the only race on earth that can produce men capable
of getting inside the skin of remote peoples. Perhaps
the Scots are better than the English, but we’re all
a thousand per cent. better than anybody else.
Sandy was the wandering Scot carried to the pitch
of genius. In old days he would have led a crusade
or discovered a new road to the Indies. To-day he
merely roamed as the spirit moved him, till the war
swept him up and dumped him down in my battalion.
I got out Sir Walter’s half-sheet of note-paper. It
was not the original—naturally he wanted to keep
that—but it was a careful tracing. I took it that
Harry Bullivant had not written down the words as
a memo. for his own use. People who follow his
career have good memories. He must have written
them in order that, if he perished and his body was
found, his friends might get a clue. Wherefore, I


GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES 21
argued, the words must be intelligible to somebody
or other of our persuasion, and likewise they must be
pretty well gibberish to any Turk or German that
found them.
The first, “ Kasredin,” I could make nothing of.
I asked Sandy.
“ You mean Nasr-ed-din,” he said, still munching
crumpets.
“ What’s that T” I asked sharply.
“ He’s the General believed to be commanding
against us in Mesopotamia. I remember him years
ago in Aleppo. He talked bad French and drank
the sweetest of sweet champagne.”
I looked closely at the paper. The “ K” was
unmistakable.
“ Kasredin is nothing. It means in Arabic the
House of Faith, and might cover anything from Hagia
Sofia to a suburban villa. What’s your next puzzle,
Dick 1 Have you entered for a prize competition in
a weekly paper ? ”
“ Cancer,” I read out.
“ It is the Latin for a crab. Likewise it is the
name of a painful disease. It is also a sign of the
Zodiac.”
“ There you have me. It sounds like the number
of a motor-car. The police would find out for you.
I call this rather a difficult competition. What’s the
prize Y ”
I passed him the paper. “Who wrote it? It
looks as if he had been in a hurry.”
“ Harry Bullivant,” I said.
Sandy’s face grew solemn. “ Old Harry. He was
at my tutor’s. The best fellow God ever made. I
saw his name in the casualty list before Kut . . . Harry
didn’t do things without a purpose. What’s the
story of this paper ? ”
“ Wait till after dinner,” I said. “ I’m going to


22 GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES
change and have a bath. There’s an American
coming to dine, and he’s part of the business.”
Mr. Blenkiron arrived punctual to the minute in a
fur coat like a Russian prince’s. Now that I saw him
on his feet I could judge him better. He had a fat
face, but was not too plump in figure, and very
muscular wrists showed below his shirt-cuffs. I
fancied that, if the occasion called, he might be a
good man with his hands.
Sandy and I ate a hearty meal, but the American
picked at his boiled fish and sipped his milk a drop
at a time. When the servant had cleared away, he
Was as good as his word and laid himself out on my
sofa. I offered him a good cigar, but he preferred one
of his own lean black abominations. Sandy stretched
his length in an easy chair and lit his pipe. “ Now
for your story, Dick," he said.
I began, as Sir Walter had begun with me, by
telling them about the puzzle in the Near East. I
pitched a pretty good yarn, for I had been thinking a
lot about it, and the mystery of the business had
caught my fancy. Sandy got very keen.
“ It is possible enough. Indeed, I’ve been expect-
ing it, though I’m hanged if I can imagine what card
the Germans have got up their sleeve. It might be
any one of twenty things. Thirty years ago there
was a bogus prophecy that played the devil in Yemen.
Or it might be a flag such as Ali Wed Helu had, or a
jewel like Solomon’s necklace in Abyssinia. You
never know what will start off a J ehad 1 But I rather
think it’s a man.”
“ Where could he get his purchase ? ” I asked.
“ It’s hard to say. If it were merely wild tribesmen
like the Bedawin he might have got a reputation as
a saint and miracle-worker. Or he might be a fellow
that preached a pure religion, like the chap that
founded the Senussi. But I’m inclined to think he
must be something extra special if he can put a spell


GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES 28
on the whole Moslem world. The Turk and the
Persian wouldn’t follow the ordinary new theology
game. He must be of the Blood. Your Mahdis and
Mullahs and Imams were nobodies, but they had only
a local prestige. To capture all Islam—and I gather
that is what we fear—the man must be of the Koreish,
the tribe of the Prophet himself.”
“ But how could any impostor prove that? for I
suppose he’s an impostor.”
“ He would have to combine a lot of claims. His
descent must be pretty good to begin with, and there
are families, remember, that claim the Koreish blood.
Then he’d have to be rather a wonder on his own
account—saintly, eloquent, and that sort of thing.
And I expect he’d have to show a sign, though what
that could be I haven’t a notion.”
“ You know the East about as well as any living
man. Do you think that kind of thing is possible ? ’3
I asked.
“ Perfectly,” said Sandy, with a grave face.
“ Well, there’s the ground cleared to begin with.
Then there’s the evidence of pretty well every secret
agent we possess. That all seems to prove the fact.
But we have no details and no clues except that bit
of paper.” I told them the story of it.
Sandy studied it with wrinkled brows. “ It beats
me. But it may be the key for all that. A clue may
be dumb in London and shout aloud at Bagdad.”
“ That’s just the point I was coming to. Sir
Walter says this thing is about as important for our
cause as big guns. He can’t give me orders, but he
offers the job of going out to find what the mischief
is. Once he lmows that, he says he can checkmate
it. But it’s got to be found out soon, for the mine
may be sprung at any moment. I’ve taken on the
job. Will you help ‘1’?
Sandy was studying the ceiling.
“ I should add that it’s about as safe as playing


GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES 27
meanest kind of cur. You may trust me to make a
good impression. After that I’ll move eastwards, to
see the de-molition of the British Empire in those
parts. By the way, where is the rendeZVOus ? ”
“ This is the 17th day of November. If we can’t
find out what we want in two months we may chuck
the job. On the,17th of January we should for-
gather in Constantinople. Whoever gets there first
waits for the others. If by that date we’re not all
present, it will be considered that the missing man
has got into trouble and must be given up. If ever
we get there we’ll be coming from different points
and in different characters, so we want a rendezvous
where all kinds of odd folk assemble. Sandy, you
know Constantinople. You fix the meeting-place.”
“ I’ve already thought of that,” he said, and going
to the writing-table he drew a little plan on a sheet
of paper. “ That lane runs down from the Kurdish
Bazaar in Galata to the ferry of Ratchik. Half-way
down on the left-hand side is a café kept by a Greek
called Kuprasso. Behind the café is a garden, sur-
rounded by high walls which were parts of the old
Byzantine Theatre. At the end of the garden is a
shanty called the Garden-house of Suliman the Red.
It has been in its time a dancing-hall and a gambling
hell and God knows what else. It’s not a place for
respectable people, but the ends of the earth con-
verge there and no questions are asked. That’s the
best spot I can think of for a meeting-place.”
The kettle was simmering by the fire, the night
was raw, and it seemed the hour for whisky-punch.
I made a brew for Sandy and myself and boiled
some milk for Blenkiron.
“ What about language 7 '3 I asked. “ You’re all
right, Sandy ? ’-'
“ I know German fairly well ; and I can pass any-
where as a Turk. The first will do for eavesdropping
and the second for ordinary business.”


28 GATHERING OF THE MISSIONARIES
“ And you 't ” I asked Blenkiron.
“ I was left out at Pentecost,” he said. “ I regret
to confess I have no gift of tongues. But the part
I have chosen for myself don’t require the polyglot.
Never forget I’m plain John S. Blenkiron, a citizen
of the great American Republic.”
“ You haven’t told us your own line, Dick,"
Sandy said.
“ I am going to the Bosporus through Germany,
and, not being a neutral, it won’t be a very cushioned
journey.”
Sandy looked grave.
“ That sounds pretty desperate. Is your German
good enough T”
“ Pretty fair; quite good enough to pass as a
native. But officially I shall not understand one
word. I shall be a Boer from Western Cape Colony:
one of Maritz’s old lot who after a bit of trouble has
got through Angola and reached Europe. I shall
talk Dutch and nothing else. And, my hatl I shall
be pretty bitter about the British. There’s a power-
ful lot of good swear-words in the Taal. I shall
know all about Africa, and be panting to get another
whack at the verdommt rooinelc. With luck they may
send me to the Uganda show or to Egypt, and I
shall take care to go by Constantinople. If I’m to
deal with Mohammedan natives they’re bound to
show me what hand they hold. At least, that’s the
way I look at it.”
We filled our glasses—two of punch and one of
milk—and drank to our next merry meeting. Then
Sandy began to laugh, and I joined in. The sense
of hopeless folly again descended on me. The best
plans we could make were like a few buckets of water
to ease the drought of the Sahara or the old lady
who would have stopped the Atlantic with a broom.
I thought with sympathy of little Saint Theresa.


CHAPTER III
rn'raa PIENAAB
OUR various departures were unassuming, all but
the American’s. Sandy spent a busy fortnight in his
subterranean fashion, now in the British Museum,
now running about the country to see old exploring
companions, now at the War Office, now at the
Foreign Office, but mostly in my flat, sunk in an
arm-chair and meditating. He left finally on
December 1 as a King’s Messenger for Cairo.
Once there I knew the King’s Messenger would dis-
appear, and some queer Oriental ruffian take his
place. It would have been impertinence in me to
inquire into his plans. He was the real professional,
and I was only the dabbler.
Blenkiron was a different matter. Sir Walter told
me to look out for squalls, and the twinkle in his eye
gave me a notion of what was coming. The first
thing the sportsman did was to write a letter to the
papers signed with his name. There had been a
debate in the House of Commons on foreign policy,
and the speech of some idiot there gave him his cue.
He declared that he had been heart and soul with
the British at the start, but that he was reluctantly
compelled to change his views. He said our blockade
of Germany had broken all the laws of God and
humanity, and be reckoned that Britain was now the
worst exponent of Prussiaan going. That letter
made a fine racket, and the paper that printed it
had a row with the Censor.
3 :9


80 PETER PIENAAR
But that was only the beginning of Mr. Blenkiron's
campaign. He got mixed up with some mountebanks
called the League of Democrats against Aggression,
gentlemen who thought that Germany was all right
if we would only keep from hurting her feelings. He
addressed a meeting under their auspices, which Was
broken up by the crowd, but not before John S. had
got off his chest a lot of amazing stuff. I wasn’t
there, but a man who was told me that he never
heard such clotted nonsense. He said that Germany
was right in wanting the freedom of the seas, and that
America would back her up, and that the British
Navy was a bigger menace to the peace of the world
than the Kaiser’s army. He admitted that he had
once thought differently, but he was an honest man
and not afraid to face facts. The oration closed
suddenly, when he got a brussels-sprout in the eye,
at which my friend said he swore in a very unpacifist
style.
After that he wrote other letters to the press, say-
ing that there was no more liberty of speech in
England, and a lot of scallywags backed him up.
Some Americans wanted to tar and feather him, and
he got kicked out of the SaVOy. There was an agita-
tion to get him deported, and questions were asked
in Parliament, and the Under-Secretary for Foreign
Affairs said his department had the matter in hand.
I was beginning to think that Blenkiron was carry-
ing his tomfoolery too far, so I went to see Sir Walter,
but he told me to keep my mind easy.
“ Our friend’s motto is ‘ Thorough,’ ’? he said, “ and
he knows very well what he is about. We have
officially requested him to leave, and he sails from
Newcastle on Monday. He will be shadowed wherever
he goes, and we hope to provoke more outbreaks.
He is a very capable fellow)?
The last I saw of him was on the Saturday after-
noon when I met him in St. James’s Street and offered


PETER PIENAAR 81
to shake hands. He told me that my uniform was
a pollution, and made a speech to a small crowd about
it. They hissed him and he had to get into a taxi.
As he departed there was just the suspicion of a wink
in his left eye. On Monday I read that he had gone
off, and the papers observed that our shores were well
quit of him.
I sailed on December 8 from Liverpool in a boat
bound for the Argentine that was due to put in at
Lisbon. I had of course to get a Foreign Office
passport to leave England, but after that my con-
nection with the Government ceased. All the details
of my journey were carefully thought out. Lisbon
would be a good jumping-off place, for it was the
rendezvous of scallywags from most parts of Africa.
My kit was an old Gladstone bag, and my clothes
were the relics of my South African wardrobe. I let
my beard grow for some days before I sailed, and,
since it grows fast, I went on board with the kind of
hairy chin you will see on the young Boer. My name
was now Brandt, Comelis Brandt—at least so my
passport said, and passports never lie.
There were just two other passengers on that beastly
boat, and they never appeared till we were out of the
Bay. I was pretty bad myself, but managed to move
about all the time, for the frowst in my cabin would
have sickened a hippo. The old tub took two days
and a night to waddle from Ushant to Finisterre.
Then the weather changed and we came out of snow-
squalls into something very like summer. The hills
of Portugal were all blue and yellow like the Kalahari,
and before we made the Tagus I was beginning to
forget I had ever left Rhodesia. There was a Dutch-
man among the sailors with whom I used to patter
the taal, and but for “ Good morning ” and “ Good
evening ” in broken English to the captain, that was
about all the talking I did on the cruise.
We dropped anchor off the quays of Lisbon on s


33 PETER PIENAAR
shiny blue morning, pretty near warm enough to wear
flannels. I had now got to be very wary. I did not
leave the ship with the shore-going boat, but made a
leisurely breakfast. Then I strolled on deck, and
there, just casting anchor in the middle of the stream,
was another ship with the blue and white funnel I
knew so well. I calculated that a month before she
had been smelling the mangrove swamps of Angola.
Nothing could better answer my purpose. I proposed
to board her, pretending I was looking for a friend,
and come on shore from her, so that any one in Lisbon
who chose to be curious would think I had landed
straight from Portuguese Africa.
I hailed one of the adjacent rufiians, and got into
his row-boat, with my kit. We reached the vessel—-
they called her the Henry the Navigator—just as the
first shore-boat was leaving. The crowd in it were
all Portuguese, which suited my book.
But when I went up the ladder the first man I met
was old Peter Pienaar.
Here was a piece of sheer monumental luck. Peter
had opened his eyes and his mouth, and had got as
far as “ Allemadatig,” when I shut him up.
“ Brandt,” I said, “ Cornelis Brandt. That’s my
name now, and don’t you forget it. Who is the
captain here T Is it still old Sloggett ? ”
“ Ja,” said Peter, pulling himself together. “ He
was spealn'ng about you yesterday.”
This was better and better. I sent Peter below
to get hold of Sloggett, and presently I had a few
words with that gentleman in his cabin with the door
shut.
“ You’ve got to enter my name on the ship’s books.
I came aboard at Mossamedes. And my name’s
Cornelis Brandt.”
At first Sloggett was for objecting. He said it was
a felony. I told him that I dared say it was, but
he had got to do it, for reasons which I couldn’t give,


PETER PIENAAR 88
but which were highly creditable to all parties. In
the end he agreed and I saw it done. I had a pull
on old Sloggett, for I had known him ever since he
owned a dissolute tug-boat at Delagoa Bay.
Then Peter and I went ashore and swaggered into
Lisbon as if we owned De Beers. We put up at the
big hotel opposite the railway station, and looked
and behaved like a pair of low-bred South Africans
home for a spree. It was a fine bright day, so I hired
a motor-car and said I would drive it myself. We
asked the name of some beauty-spot to visit, and were
told Cintra and shown the road to it. I wanted a
quiet place to talk, for I had a good deal to say to
Peter Pienaar.
I christened that car the Lusitanian Terror, and it
was a marvel that we did not smash ourselves up.
There was something immortally wrong with its
steering-gear. Half a dozen times we slewed across
the road, inviting destruction. But we got there in
the end, and had luncheon in an hotel opposite the
Moorish palace. There we left the car and wandered
up the slopes of a hill, where, sitting among scrub
very like the veld, I told Peter the situation of affairs.
But first a word must be said about Peter. He was
the man that taught me all I ever knew of veld-craft,
and a good deal about human nature besides. He
was out of the Old Colony—Burgersdorp, I think—but
he had come to the Transvaal when the Lydenburg
goldfields started. He was prospector, transport-
rider, and hunter in turns, but principally hunter.
In those early days he was none too good a citizen.
He was in Swaziland with Bob Macnab, and you
know what that means. Then he took to working
off bogus gold propositions on Kimberley and Jo-
hannesburg magnates, and what he didn’t know about
salting a mine wasn’t knowledge. After that he was
In the Kalahari, where he and Scotty Smith were
familiar names. An era of comparative respectability


84 PETER PIENAAR
dawned for him with the Matabele War, when he did
uncommon good scouting and transport work. Cecil
Rhodes wanted to establish him on a stock farm
down Salisbury way, but Peter was an independent
devil and would call no man master. He took to
big-game hunting, which was what God intended him
for, for he could track a tsessebe in thick bush, and
was far the finest shot I have seen in my life. He
took parties to the Pungwe flats, and Barotseland,
and up to Tanganyika. Then he made a speciality
of the Ngami region, where I once hunted with him,
and he was with me when I went prospecting in
Damaraland.
When the Boer War started, Peter, like many of the
very great hunters, took the British side and did
most of our intelligence work in the North Transvaal.
Beyers would have hanged him if he could have
caught him, and there was no love lost between Peter
and his own people for many a day. When it was
all over and things had calmed down a bit, he settled
in Bulawayo and used to go with me when I went on
trek. At the time when I left Africa two years before,
I had lost sight of him for months, and heard that he
was somewhere on the Congo poaching elephants.
He had always a great idea of making things hum
so loud in Angola that the Union Government would
have to step in and annex it. After Rhodes Peter
had the biggest notions south of the Line.
He was a man of about five foot ten, very thin and
active, and as strong as a buffalo. He had pale blue
eyes, a face as gentle as a girl’s, and a soft sleepy voice.
From his present appearance it looked as if he had
been living hard lately. His clothes were of the cut
you might expect to get at Lobito Bay, he was as lean
as a rake, deeply browned with the sun, and there was
a lot of grey in his beard. He was fifty-six years old,
and used to be taken for forty. Now he looked about
his age.


PETER PIENAAR 85
I first asked him what he had been up to since the
war began. He spat, in the Kaffir way he had, and
said he had been having hell’s time.
“ I got hung up on the Kafue,” he said. “ When I
heard from old Letsitela that the white men were
fighting I had a bright idea that I might get into
German South West from the north. You see I knew
that Botha couldn’t long keep out of the war. Well,
I got into German territory all right, and then a
skellum of an officer came along, and commandeered
all my mules, and wanted to commandeer me with
them for his fool army. He was a very ugly man
with a yellow face.” Peter filled a deep pipe from a
kudu-skin pouch.
“ Were you commandeered ? ” I asked.
“ No. I shot him—not so as to kill, but to wound
badly. It was all right, for he fired first on me.
Got me too in the left shoulder. But that was the
beginning of bad trouble. I trekked east pretty fast,
and got over the border among the Ovamba. I have
made many journeys, but that was the worst. Four
days I went without water, and six without food.
Then by bad luck I fell in with ’Nkitla—you re-
member, the half-caste chief. He said I owed him
money for cattle which I bought when I came there
with Carowab. It was a lie, but he held to it, and
would give me no transport. So I crossed the Kala-
hari on my feet. Ugh, it was as slow as a vrouw
coming from nachtmaal. It took weeks and weeks,
and when I came to Lechwe’s kraal, I heard that
the fighting was over and that Botha had con-
quered the Germans. That, too, was a lie, but it
deceived me, and I went north into Rhodesia, where
I learned the truth. But by then I judged the war
had gone too far for me to get any profit out of it,
so I went into Angola to look for German refugees.
By that time I was hating Germans worse than
hell.”


86 PETER PIENAAR
“ But what did you propose to do with them 7 "
I asked.
“ I had a notion they would make trouble with the
Government in those parts. I don’t specially love
the Portugoose, but I’m for him against the Germans
every day. Well, there was trouble, and I had a
merry time for a month or two. But by and by it
petered out, and I thought I had better clear for
Europe, for South Africa was settling down just as
the big show was getting really interesting. So here
I am, Cornelis, my old friend. If I shave my beard
will they let me join the Flying Corps T”
I looked at Peter sitting there smoking, as im-
perturbable as if he had been growing mealies in Natal
all his life and had run home for a month’s holiday
with his people in Peckham.
“ You’re coming with me, my lad,” I said. “ We’re
going into Germany."
Peter showed no surprise. “ Keep in mind that
I don’t like the Germans,” was all he said. “ I’m
a quiet Christian man, but I’ve the devil of a
temper.”
Then I told him the story of our mission.
“ You and I have got to be Maritz’s men. We went
into Angola, and now we’re trekking for the Father-
land to get a bit of our own back from the infernal
English. Neither of us knows any German—pub-
licly. We’d better plan out the fighting we were
in—Kakamas will do for one, and Schuit Drift. You
were a Ngamiland hunter before the war. They
won’t have your dossier, so you can tell any lie you
like. I’d better be an educated Afrikander, one of
Beyers’s bright lads, and a pal of old Hertzog. We
can let our imagination loose about that part,
but we must stick to the same yarn about the
fighting.”
“ Ja, Cornelis,” said Peter. (He had called me
Cornelis ever since I had told him my new name. He


PETER PIENAAR 87
was a wonderful chap for catching on to any game.)
“ But after we get into Germany, what then T There
can’t be much difficulty about the beginning. But
once we’re among the beer-swillers I don’t quite see
our line. We’re to find out about something that’s
going on in Turkey 'i When I was a boy the predikant
used to preach about Turkey. I wish I was better
educated and remembered whereabouts in the map
it was.”
“ You leave that to me,” I said; “ I’ll explain it all
to you before we get there. We haven’t got much of
a spoor, but we’ll cast about, and with luck will pick it
up. I’ve seen you do it often enough when we
hunted kudu on the Kafue.”
Peter nodded. “ Do we sit still in a German
town ‘3 ” he asked anxiously. “ I shouldn’t like that,
Cornelis.”
“ We move gently eastward to Constantinople,” I
aid.
Peter grinned. “ We should cover a lot of new
country. You can reckon on me, friend Cornelis.
I’ve always had a hankering to see Europe.”
He rose to his feet and stretched his long arms.
“ We’d better begin at once. God, I wonder what’
happened to old Solly Maritz, with his bottle face 1'
You was a fine battle at the drift when I was sitting
up to my neck in the Orange praying that Brits’ lads
would take my head for a stone.”
Peter was as thorough a mountebank, when he got
started, as Blenkiron himself. All the way back to
Lisbon he yarned about Maritz and his adventures
in German South West till I half believed they were
true. He made a very good story of our doings, and
by his constant harping on it I pretty soon got it
into my memory. That was always Peter’s way.
He said if you were going to play a part, you must
think yourself into it, convince yourself that you were
it, till you really were it and didn’t act but behaved


88 PETER PIENAAR
naturally. The two men who had started that
morning from the hotel door had been bogus enough,
but the two that returned were genuine desperadoes,
itching to get a shot at England.
We spent that evening piling up evidence in our
favour. Some kind of republic had been started in
Portugal, and ordinarily the cafés would have been
full of politicians, but the war had quieted all these
local squabbles, and the talk was of nothing but what
was doing in France and Russia. The place we went
to was a big, well-lighted show on a main street, and
there were a lot of sharp-eyed fellows wandering
about that I guessed were spies and police agents.
I knew that Britain was the one country that doesn’t
bother about this kind of game, and that it would be
safe enough to let ourselves go.
I talked Portuguese fairly well, and Peter spoke
it like a Lourenco Marques bar-keeper, with a lot of
Shangaan words to fill up. He started on curacoa,
which I reckoned was a new drink to him, and pre-
sently his tongue ran freely. Several neighbours
pricked up their ears, and soon we had a small crowd
round our table.
We talked to each other of Maritz and our doings.
It didn’t seem to be a popular subject in that cafe.
One big blue-black fellow said that Maritz was a
dirty swine who would soon be hanged. Peter
quickly caught his knife-wrist with one hand and his
throat with the other, and demanded an apology.
He got it. The Lisbon boulevardiers have not lost
any lions.
After that there was a bit of a squash in our corner.
Those near us were very quiet and polite, but the
outer fringe made remarks. When Peter said that
if Portugal, which he admitted he loved, was going
to stick to England she was backing the wrong
horse, there was a murmur of disapproval. One
decent-looking old fellow, who had the air of a ship’s


PETER PIENAAR 89
captain, flushed all over his honest face, and stood
up looking straight at Peter. I saw that we had
struck an Englishman, and mentioned it to Peter in
Dutch.
Peter played his part perfectly. He suddenly
shut up, and, with furtive looks around him, began to
jabber to me in a low voice. He was the very pic-
ture of the stage conspirator.
The old fellow stood staring at us. “ I don’t very
well understand this damned lingo,” he said; “but
if so be you dirty Dutchmen are sayin’ anything
against England, I’ll ask you to repeat it. And if
so be as you repeats it I’ll take either of you on and
knock the face off him.”
He was a chap after my own heart, but I had to
keep the game up. I said in Dutch to Peter that
we mustn’t get brawling in a public house. “ Re-
member the big thing,” I said darkly. Peter nodded,
and the old fellow, after staring at us for a bit, spat
scornfully, and walked out.
“ The time is coming when the Englander will
sing small,” I observed to the crowd. We stood
drinks to one or two, and then swaggered into the
street. At the door a hand touched my arm, and,
looking down, I saw a little scrap of a man in a fur
coat.
“ Will the gentlemen walk a step with me and
drink a glass of beer ? ’3 he said in very stiff
Dutch.
“ Who the devil are you T” I asked.
“ Gott stra/e England!” was his answer, and, turn-
ing back the lapel of his coat, he showed some kind
of ribbon in his buttonhole.
“ Amen,” said Peter. “ Lead on, friend. We
don’t mind if we do.”
He led us to a back street and then up two pairs
of stairs to a very snug little flat. The place was
filled with fine red lacquer, and I guessed that art-


40 PETER PIENAAR
dealing was his nominal business. Portugal, since the
republic broke up the convents and sold up the big
royalist grandees, was full of bargains in the lacquer
and curio line.
He filled us two long tankards of very good Munich
beer.
“ Prosit,” he said, raising his glass. “ You are
from South Africa. What make you in Europe T "
We both looked sullen and secretive.
“That’s our own business,” I answered. “You
don’t expect to buy our confidence with a glass of
beer.”
“ So ? " he said. “ Then I will put it differently.
From your speech in the café I judge you do not love
the English.”
Peter said something about stamping on their
grandmothers, a Kaflir phrase which sounded grue-
some in Dutch.
The man laughed. “ That is all I want to know.
You are on the German side Y ”
“ That remains to be seen,” I said. “ If they
treat me fair I’ll fight for them, or for anybody else
that makes war on England. England has stolen
my country and corrupted my people and made me
an exile. We Afrikanders do not forget. We may
be slow but we win in the end. We two are men
worth a great price. Germany fights England in
East Africa. We know the natives as no English-
men can ever know them. They are too soft and
easy and the Kaflirs laugh at them. But we can
handle the blacks so that they will fight like devils
for fear of us. What is the reward, little man, for
our services? I will tell you. There will be no
reward. We ask none. We fight for hate of Eng-
land.”
Peter grunted a deep approval.
“ That is good talk,” said our entertainer, and his
close-set eyes flashed. “ There is room in Germany


PETER PIENAAR 41
for such men as you. Where are you going now, I
beg to lmow."
“ To Holland,” I said. “Then maybe we will go
to Germany. We are tired with travel and may
rest a bit. This war will last long and our chance
will come.”
“ But you may miss your market,” he said signifi-
cantly. “ A ship sails to-morrow for Rotterdam. If
you take my advice, you will go with her.”
This was what I wanted, for if we stayed in Lisbon
some real soldier of Maritz might drop in any day
and blow the gaff.
“ I recommend you to sail in the Mackado,” be
repeated. “ There is work for you in Germany—oh
yes, much work; but if you delay the chance may
pass. I will arrange your journey. It is my busi-
ness to help the allies of my fatherland.”
He wrote down our names and an epitome of our
doings contributed by Peter, who required two mugs
of beer to help him through. He was a Bavarian, it
seemed, and we drank to the health of Prince Rup-
precht, the same blighter I was trying to do in at
Loos. That was an irony which Peter unfortunately
could not appreciate. If he could he would have
enjoyed it.
The little chap saw us back to our hotel, and was
with us next morning after breakfast, bringing the
steamer tickets. We got on board about two in the
afternoon, but on my advice he did not see us off.
I told him that, being British subjects and rebels
at that, we did not want to run any risks on board,
assuming a British cruiser caught us up and searched
us. But Peter took twenty pounds off him for
travelling expenses, it being his rule never to miss
an opportunity of spoiling the Egyptians.
As we were dropping down the Tagus we passed
the old Henry the Navigator.
“ I met Sloggett in the street this morning,” said


CHAPTER IV
snvmn'rmms on TWO DUTCHMEH on ma L008]
THE Germans, as Peter said, are a careful people
A man met us on the quay at Rotterdam. I was a
bit afraid that something might have turned up in
Lisbon to discredit us, and that our little friend
might have warned his pals by telegram. But
apparently all was serene.
Peter and I had made our plans pretty carefully
on the voyage. We had talked nothing but Dutch,
and had kept up between ourselves the role of
Maritz’s men, which Peter said was the only way to
play a part well. Upon my soul, before we got to
Holland I was not very clear in my own mind what
my past had been. Indeed the danger was that the
other side of my mind, which should be busy with
the great problem, would get atrophied, and that I
should soon be mentally on a par with the ordinary
backveld desperado. We had agreed that it would
be best to get into Germany at once, and when the
agent on the quay told us of a train at midday we
decided to take it.
I had another fit of cold feet before we got over
the frontier. At the station there was a King’s
messenger whom I had seen in France, and a war
correspondent who had been trotting round our part
of the front before Loos. I heard a woman speak-
ing pretty clean-cut English, which amid the hoarse
Dutch jabber sounded like a lark among crows.
There were copies of the English papers for sale.
a


fl ADVENTURES OF TWO
and English cheap editions. I felt pretty bad about
the whole business, and wondered if I should ever
see these homely sights again.
But the mood passed when the train started. It
was a clear blowing day, and as we crawled through
the flat pastures of Holland my time was taken up
answering Peter’s questions. He had never been in
Europe before, and formed a high opinion of the
farming. He said he reckoned that such land would
carry four sheep a morgen. We were thick in talk
when we reached the frontier station and jolted over
a canal bridge into Germany.
I had expected a big barricade with barbed wire
and entrenchments. But there was nothing to see
on the German side but half a dozen sentries in the
field-grey I had hunted at Loos. An under-officer,
with the black-and-gold button of the Landsturm,
hoicked us out of the train, and we were all shep-
herded in a big bare waiting-room, where a large stove
burned. They took us two at a time into an inner
room for examination. I had explained to Peter all
about this formality, but I was glad we went in
together, for they made us strip to the skin, and I
had to curse him pretty seriously to make him keep
quiet. The men who did the job were fairly civil,
but they were mighty thorough. They took down
a list of all we had in our pockets and bags, and all
the details from the passports the Rotterdam agent
had given us.
We were dressing when a man in a lieutenant’s
uniform came in with a paper in his hand. He was a
fresh-faced lad of about twenty, with short-sighted
spectacled eyes.
“ Herr Brandt,” he called out.
I nodded.
“ And this is Herr Pienaar T " he asked in Dutch.
He saluted. “ Gentlemen, I apologise. I am late
because of the slowness of the Herr Commandant’s


DUTCHMEN ON THE LOOSE 45
motor-car. Had I been in time you would not have
been required to go through this ceremony. We have
been advised of your coming, and I am instructed to
attend you on your journey. The train for Berlin
leaves in half an hour. Pray do me the honour to
join me in a book.”
With a feeling of distinction we stalked out of the
ordinary ruck of passengers and followed the lieu-
tenant to the station restaurant. He plunged at
once into conversation, talking the Dutch of Holland,
which Peter, who had forgotten his schooldays, found
a bit hard to follow. He was unfit for active service,
because of his eyes and a weak heart, but he was a
desperate fire-eater in that stuffy restaurant. By
his way of it Germany could gobble up the French
and the Russians whenever she cared, but she was
aiming at getting all the Middle East in her hands
first, so that she could come out conqueror with the
practical control of half the world.
“ Your friends the English,” he said grinning,
“ will come last. When we have starved them
and destroyed their commerce with our under-sea
boats we will show them what our navy can do.
For a year they have been wasting their time in
brag and politics, and we have been building great
ships—oh, so many! My cousin at Kiel ” and
he looked over his shoulder.
But we never heard about that cousin at Kiel.
A short sunburnt man came in and our friend sprang
up and saluted, clicking his heels like a pair of
tongs.
“These are the South African Dutch, Herr Cap-
tain,” he said.
The new-comer looked us over with bright intelli-
gent eyes, and started questioning Peter in the taal.
It was well that we had taken some pains with our
story, for this man had been years in German South
West, and knew every mile of the borders Zorn

4


46 ADVENTURES OF TWO
was his name, and both Peter and I thought we
remembered hearing him spoken of.
I am thankful to say that we both showed up
pretty well. Peter told his story to perfection, not
pitching it too high, and asking me now and then for
a name or to verify some detail. Captain Zorn
looked satisfied.
“ You seem the right kind of fellows," he said.
“But remember”— and be bent his brows on us—
“ we do not understand slimness in this land. If you
are honest you will be rewarded, but if you dare to
play a double game you will be shot like dogs. Your
race has produced over many traitors for my taste.”
“ I ask no reward,” I said gruffly. “ We are not
Germans or Germany’s slaves. But so long as she
fights against England we will fight for her.”
“ Bold words,” he said; “ but you must bow your
stiff necks to discipline first. Discipline has been the
weak point of you Boers, and you have suffered for
it. You are no more a nation. In Germany we put
discipline first and last, and therefore we will con-
quer the world. Off with you now. Your train
starts in three minutes. We will see what von Stumm
will make of you.”
That fellow gave me the best “ feel” of any Ger-
man I had yet met. He was a white man and I
could have worked with him. I liked his stiff chin
and steady blue eyes.
My chief recollection of our journey to Berlin was
its commonplaceness. The spectacled lieutenant fell
asleep, and for the most part we had the carriage to
ourselves. Now and again a soldier on leave would
I drop in, most of them tired men with heavy eyes.
No wonder, poor devils, for they were coming back
from the Yser or the Ypres salient. I would have
liked to talk to them, but oflicially of course I knew
no German, and the conversation I overheard did not
signify much. It was mostly about regimental de-


DUTCHMEN ON THE LOOSE 47
tails, though one chap, who was in better spirits
than the rest, observed that this was the last Christ-
mas of misery, and that next year he would be
holidaying at home with full pockets. The others
assented, but without much conviction.
The winter day was short, and most of the journey
was made in the dark. I could see from the window
the lights of little villages, and now and then the
blaze of ironworks and forges. We stopped at a
town for dinner, where the platform was crowded
with drafts waiting to go westward. We saw no
signs of any scarcity of food, such as the English
newspapers wrote about. We had an excellent dinner
at the station restaurant, which, with a bottle of
white wine, cost just three shillings apiece. The
bread, to be sure, was poor, but I can put up with the
absence of bread if I get a juicy fillet of beef and as
good vegetables as you will see in the Savoy.
I was a little afraid of our giving ourselves away in
our sleep, but I need have had no fear, for our escort
slumbered like a hog with his mouth wide open. As
we roared through the darkness I kept pinching
myself to make me feel that I was in the enemy’s
land on a wild mission. The rain came on, and we
passed through dripping towns, with the lights
shining from the wet streets. As we went eastward
the lighting seemed to grow more generous. After
the murk of London it was queer to slip through
garish stations with a hundred are lights glowing,
and to see long lines of lamps running to the horizon.
Peter dropped off early, but I kept awake till mid-
night, trying to focus thoughts that persistently
strayed. Then I too dozed, and did not awake till
about five in the morning, when we ran into a great
busy terminus as bright as midday. It was the
easiest and most unsuspicious journey I ever made.
The lieutenant stretched himself and smoothed his
rumpled uniform. We carried our scanty luggage to


DUTCHMEN ON THE LOOSE 4.9
cousin from some one-horse dorp who had been to
school and thought himself the devil of a fellow. We
fairly reeked of the sub-continent, as the papers
call it.
It was a fine morning after the rain, and we wan-
dered about in the streets for a couple of hours. They
were busy enough, and the shops looked rich and
bright with their Christmas goods, and one big store
where I went to buy a pocket-knife was packed with
customers. One didn’t see very many young men,
and most of the women wore mourning. Uniforms
were everywhere, but their wearers generally looked
like dug-outs or office fellows. We had a glimpse of
the squat building which housed the General Staff
and took off our hats to it. Then we stared at the
Marinamt, and I wondered what plots were hatching
there behind old Tirpitz’s whiskers. The capital gave
one an impression of ugly cleanness and a sort of
dreary effectiveness. And yet I found it depressing——
more depressing than London. I don’t know how
to put it, but the whole big concern seemed to have
no soul in it, to be like a big factory instead of a city.
You won’t make a factory look like a house, though
you decorate its front and plant rose-bushes all
round it. The place depressed and yet cheered me.
It somehow made the German people seem smaller.
At three o’clock the lieutenant took us to a plain
white building in a side street with sentries at the
door. A young Staff officer met us and made us
wait for five minutes in an ante-room. Then we were
ushered into a big room with a polished floor on which
Peter nearly sat down. There was a log fire burning,
and seated at a table was a little man in spectacles
with his hair brushed back from his brow like a popular
violinist. He was the boss, for the lieutenant saluted
him and announced our names. Then he disappeared,
and the man at the table motioned us to sit down in
two chairs before him.


50 ADVENTURES OF TWO
“ Herr Brandt and Herr Pienaar ? " he asked,
looking over his glasses.
But it was the other man that caught my eye. He
stood with his back to the fire leaning his elbows on
the mantelpiece. He was a perfect mountain of a
fellow, six and a half feet if he was an inch, with
shoulders on him like a shorthorn bull. He was in
uniform, and the black-and-white ribbon of the Iron
Cross showed at a buttonhole. His tunic was all
wrinkled and strained as if it could scarcely contain
his huge chest, and mighty hands were clasped over
his stomach. That man must have had the length
of reach of a gorilla. He had a great, lazy, smiling
face, with a square cleft chin which stuck out beyond
the rest. His brow retreated and the stubbly back
of his head ran forward to meet it, while his neck
below bulged out over his collar. His head was
exactly the shape of a pear with the sharp end top-
most.
He stared at me with his small bright eyes and I
stared back. I had struck something I had been
looking for for a long time, and till that moment I
wasn’t sure that it existed. Here was the German of
caricature, the real German, the fellow we were up
against. He was as hideous as a hippopotamus, but
effective. Every bristle on his odd head was effective.
The man at the table was speaking. I took him
to be a civilian ofiicial of sorts, pretty high up from
his surroundings, perhaps an Under-Secretary. His
Dutch was slow and careful, but good—too good for
Peter. He had a paper before him and was asking us
questions from it. They did not amount to much,
being pretty well a repetition of those Zorn had
asked us at the frontier. I answered fluently, for I
had all our lies by heart.
Then the man on the hearthrug broke in. “ I’ll
talk to them, Excellency,” he said in German. “ You
are too academic for these outland swine?!


DUTCHMEN ON THE LOOSE 51
He began in the taal, with the thick guttural accent\
that you get in German South West. “ You have
heard of me,” he said. “ I am the Colonel von Stumm
who fought the Hereros.”
Peter pricked up his ears. “ Ja, Baas, you cut off
the chief Baviaan’s head and sent it in pickle about
the country. I have seen i .”
The big man laughed. “ You see I am not for-
gotten,” he said to his friend, and then to us: “ So
I treat my enemies, and so will Germany treat hers.
You, too, if you fail me by a fraction of an inch.”
And he laughed loud again. /
There was something horrible in that boisterousness.
Peter was watching him from below his eyelids, as I
have seen him watch a lion about to charge.
He flung himself on a chair, put his elbows on the
table, and thrust his face forward.
“ You have come from a damned muddled show.
If I had Maritz in my power I would have him flogged
at a wagon’s end. Fools and pig-dogs, they had the
game in their hands and they flung it away. We
could have raised a fire that would have burned the
English into the sea, and for lack of fuel they let it
die down. Then they try to fan it when the ashes
are cold.”
He rolled a paper pellet and flicked it into the
air. “That is what I think of your idiot general,”
be said, “and of all you Dutch. As slow as a fat
vrouw and as greedy as an aasvogel.”
We looked very glum and sullen.
“A pair of dumb dogs," he cried. “ A thousand
Brandenburgers would have won in a fortnight.
Seitz hadn’t much to boast of, mostly clerks and
farmers and half-castes, and no soldier worth the
name to lead them, but it took Botha and Smuts and
a dozen generals to hunt him down. But Maritz l ’9
His scorn came like a gust of wind.
“ Maritz did all the fighting there was,” said Peter


62 ADVENTURES OF TWO
sulkily. “ At any rate he wasn’t afraid of the sight
of khaki like your lot.”
“Maybe he wasn’t,” said the giant in a cooing
Voice; “maybe he had his reasons for that. You
Dutchmen have always a feather-bed to fall on.
You can always turn traitor. Maritz now calls
himself Robinson, and has a pension from his friend
Botha.”
“ That,” said Peter, “is a very damned lie.’I
“ I asked for information,” said Stumm with a
sudden politeness. “ But that is all past and done
with. Maritz matters no more than your old Cronjes
and Krugers. The show is over, and you are looking
for safety. For a new master perhaps 7 But, man,
what can you bring T What can you offer? You
and your Dutch are lying in the dust with the yoke
on your necks. The Pretoria lawyers have talked
you round. You see that map,” and he pointed to
a big one on the wall. “ South Africa is coloured
green. Not red for the English, or yellow for the
Germans. Some day it will be yellow, but for a
little it will be green—the colour of neutrals, of
nothings, of boys and young ladies and chicken-
hearts.” /
I kept wondering what he was playing at.
Then he fixed his eyes on Peter. “ What do you
come here for T The game’s up in your own country.
What can you offer us Germans? If we gave you
ten million marks and sent you back you could do
nothing. Stir up a village row, perhaps, and shoot a
policeman. South Africa is counted out in this war.
Botha is a cleverish man and has beaten you calves’-
heads of rebels. Can you deny it 7 ”
Peter couldn’t. He was terribly honest in some
things, and these were for certain his opinions
“ No,” he said, “ that is true, Baas.”
“ Then what in God’s name can you do 7 " shouted
Stumm.


DUTCHMEN ON THE LOOSE 58
Peter mumbled some foolishness about nobbling
Angola for Germany and starting a revolution among
the natives. Stumm flung up his arms and cursed,
and the Under-Secretary laughed.
It was high time for me to chip in. I was beginning
to see the kind of fellow this Stumm was, and as he
talked I thought of my mission, which had got over-
laid by my Boer past. It looked as if he might be
useful.
“ Let me speak,” I said. “ My friend is a great
hunter, but he fights better than he talks. He is no
politician. You speak truth. South Africa is a
closed door for the present, and the key to it is
elsewhere. Here in Europe, and in the East, and in
other parts of Africa. We have come to help you to
find the key.”
Stumm was listening. “ Go on, my little Boer.
It will be a new thing to hear a taakhaar on world-
politics.”
“You are fighting,” I said, “in East Africa; and
soon you may fight in Egypt. All the east coast
north of the Zambesi will be your battle-ground. The
English run about the world with little expeditions.
I do not know where the places are, though I read of
them in the papers. But I know my Africa. You
want to beat them here in Europe and on the seas.
Therefore, like wise generals, you try to divide them
and have them scattered throughout the globe while
you stick at home. That is your plan ?’3
“ A second Falkenhayn,” said Stumm, laughing.
“ Well, England will not let East Africa go. She
fears for Egypt and she fears too for India. If you
press her there she will send armies and more armies
till she is so weak in Europe that a child can crush
her. That is England’s way. She cares more for
her Empire than for what may happen to her allies.
So I say press and still press there, destroy the railway
_ to the Lakes, burn her capital, pen up every English-


54 ADVENTURES OF TWO
man in Mombasa island. At this moment it is worth
for you a thousand Damaralands."
The man was really interested and the Under-
Secretary too pricked up his ears.
“ We can keep our territory,” said the former;
“ but as for pressing, how the devil are we to press 1
The accursed English hold the sea. We cannot ship
men or guns there. South are the Portuguese and
west the Belgians. You cannot move a mass without
a lever.”
“ The lever is there, ready for you," I said.
“ Then for God’s sake show it me,” he cried.
I looked at the door to see that it was shut, as if
what I had to say was very secret.
“ You need men, and the men are waiting. They
are black, but they are the stuff of warriors. All
round your borders you have the remains of great
fighting tribes, the Angoni, the Masai, the Man-
yumwezi, and above all the Somalis of the north, and
the dwellers on the Upper Nile. The British recruit
their black regiments there, and so do you. But
to get recruits is not enough. You must set whole
nations moving, as the Zulu under Tchaka flowed
over South Africa.”
“ It cannot be done,” said the Under-Secretary.
“ It can be done,” I said quietly. “ We two are
here to do i .”
This kind of talk was jolly difficult for me, chiefly
because of Stumm’s asides in German to the official.
I had above all things to get the credit of knowing
no German, and, if you understand a language well,
it is not very easy when you are interrupted not to
show that you know it, either by a direct answer, or
by referring to the interruption in what you say
next. I had to be always on my guard, and yet
it was up to me to be very persuasive and convince
these fellows that I would be useful. Somehow or
other I had to get into their confidence.


DUTCHMEN ON THE LOOSE 55
“ I have been for years up and down in Africa——
Uganda and the Congo and the Upper Nile. I know
the ways of the Kaflir as no Englishman does. We
Afrikanders see into the black man’s heart, and
though he may hate us he does our will. You
Germans are like the English; you are too big
folk to understand plain men. ‘ Civilise,’ you cry.
‘ Educate,’ say the English. The black man
obeys and puts away his gods, but he worships
them all the time in his soul. We must get his
gods on our side, and then he will move mountains.
-—We must do as John Laputa did with Sheba’s
necklace.”
“ That’s all in the air,” said Stumm, but he did
not laugh.
“ It is sober common sense,” I said. “But you
must begin at the right end. First find the race that
fears its priests. It is waiting for you—the Mussul-
mans of Somaliland and the Abyssinian border and
the Blue and White Nile. They would be like dried
grasses to catch fire if you used the flint and steel
of their religion. Look what the English suffered
from a crazy Mullah who ruled only a dozen villages.
Once get the flames going and they will lick up the
pagans of the west and south. That is the way of
Africa. How many thousands, think you, were in
the Mahdi’s army who never heard of the Prophet
till they saw the black flags of the Emirs going into
battle ‘3 ”
Stumm was smiling. He turned his face to the
official and spoke with his hand over his mouth, but
I caught his words. They were: “ This is the man for
Hilda.” The other pursed his lips and looked a
little scared.
Stumm rang a bell and the lieutenant came in and
clicked his heels. He nodded towards Peter. “ Take
this man away with you. We have done with him.
The other fellow will follow presently.”


DUTCHMEN ON THE LOOSE 57
her that for the first time in my life I had been bullied
without hitting back. When I realised it I nearly
choked with anger. But I thanked Heaven I had
shown no temper, for I remembered my mission
Luck seemed to have brought me into useful com-
pany.


CHAPTER V
FURTHER ADVENTURES or rm: em
Nzx'r morning there was a touch of frost and a nip
in the air which stirred my blood and put me in
buoyant spirits. I forgot my precarious position
and the long road I had still to travel. I came
down to breakfast in great form, to find Peter’s even
temper badly ruffled. He had remembered Stumm
in the night and disliked the memory; this he mut-
tered to me as we rubbed shoulders at the dining-
room door. Peter and I got no opportunity for
private talk. The lieutenant was with us all the
time, and at night we were locked in our rooms.
Peter discovered this through trying to get out to
find matches, for he had the bad habit of smoking
in bed.
Our guide started on the telephone, and announced
that we were to be taken to see a prisoners' camp.
In the afternoon I was to go somewhere with Stumm,
but the morning was for sightseeing. “ You will
see,” he told us, “ how merciful is a great people.
You will also see some of the hated English in our
power. That will delight you. They are the fore-
runners of all their nation.”
We drove in a taxi through the suburbs and then
over a stretch of flat market-garden-like country to
a low rise of wooded hills. After an hour’s ride we
entered the gate of what looked like a big reforma-
tory or hospital. I believe it had been a home for
destitute children. There were sentries at the gate
as


FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME 59
and massive concentric circles of barbed wire through
which we passed under an arch that was let down
like a portcullis at nightfall. The lieutenant showed
his permit, and we ran the car into a brick-paved
yard and marched through a lot more sentries to
the office of the commandant.
He was away from home, and we were welcomed
by his deputy, a pale young man with a head nearly
bald. There were introductions in German which
our guide translated into Dutch, and a lot of elegant
speeches about how Germany was foremost in
humanity as well as martial valour. Then they
stood us sandwiches and beer, and we formed a pro-
cession for a tour of inspection. There were two
doctors, both mild-looking men in spectacles, and a
couple of warders—under-oflficers of the good old
burly, bullying sort I knew well. That was the cement
which kept the German Army together. Her men
were nothing to boast of on the average; no more
were the officers, even in crack corps like the Guards
and the Brandenburgers; but they seemed to have
an inexhaustible supply of hard, competent N.C.O.’s.
We marched round the wash-houses, the recreation-
ground, the kitchens, the hospital—with nobody in
it save one chap with the “ flu.” It didn’t seem to
be badly done. This place was entirely for officers,
and I expect it was a show place where American
visitors were taken. If half the stories one heard
were true there were some pretty ghastly prisons
away in South and East Germany.
I didn’t half like the business. To be a prisoner
has always seemed to me about the worst thing that
could happen to a man. The sight of German
prisoners used to give me a bad feeling inside,
whereas I looked at dead Boches with nothing but
satisfaction. Besides, there was the off-chance that
I might be recognised. So I kept very much in the
shadow whenever we passed anybody in the corridors


60 FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME
The few we met passed us incuriously. They
saluted the deputy-commandant, but scarcely wasted
a glance on us. No doubt they thought we were
inquisitive Germans come to gloat over them. They
looked fairly fit, but a little puffy about the eyes, like
men who get too little exercise. They seemed thin,
too. I expect the food, for all the commandant’s
talk, was nothing to boast of. In one room people
were writing letters. It was a big place with only a
tiny stove to warm it, and the windows were shut so
that the atmosphere was a cold frowst. In another
room a fellow was lecturing on something to a dozen
hearers and drawing figures on a blackboard. Some
were in ordinary khaki, others in any old thing they
could pick up, and most wore greatcoats. Your
blood gets thin when you have nothing to do but
hope against hope and think of your pals and the
old days.
I was moving along, listening with half an ear to
the lieutenant’s prattle and the loud explanations of
the deputy-commandant, when I pitchforked into
what might have been the end of my business. We
were going through a sort of convalescent room,
where people were sitting who had been in hospital.
It was a big place, a little warmer than the rest of
the building, but still abominably fuggy. There
were about half a dozen men in the room, reading
and playing games. They looked at us with lack-
lustre eyes for a moment, and then returned to their
occupations. Being convalescents I suppose they
were not expected to get up and salute.
All but one, who was playing Patience at a little
table by which we passed. I was feeling very bad
about the thing, for I hated to see these good fellows
locked away in this infernal German hole when they
might have been giving the Boche his deserts at the
front. The commandant went first with Peter, who
had developed a great interest in prisons. Then


62 FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME
part where prisoners were kept as a punishment for
some breach of the rules. They looked cheerless
enough, but I pretended to gloat over the sight, and
said so to the lieutenant, who passed it on to the
others. I have rarely in my life felt such a cad.
On the way home the lieutenant discoursed a lot
about prisoners and detention-camps, for at one
time he had been on duty at Ruhleben. Peter, who
had been in quod more than once in his life, was
deeply interested and kept on questioning him.
Among other things he told us was that they often
put bogus prisoners among the rest, who acted as
spies. If any plot to escape was hatched these fellows
got into it and encouraged it. They never interfered
till the attempt was actually made and then they
had them on toast. There was nothing the Boche
liked so much as an excuse for sending a poor devil
to “ solitary."
That afternoon Peter and I separated. He was
left behind with the lieutenant and I was sent off to
the station with my bag in the company of a Land-
sturm sergeant. Peter was very cross, and I didn’t
care for the look of things; but I brightened up
when I heard I was going somewhere with Stumm.
If he wanted to see me again he must think me of
some use, and if he was going to use me he was
bound to let me into his game. I liked Stumm
about as much as a dog likes a scorpion, but I han-
kered for his society.
At the station platform, where the ornament of
the Landsturm saved me all trouble about tickets,
I could not see my companion. I stood waiting,
while a great crowd, mostly of soldiers, swayed past
me and filled all the front carriages. An officer
spoke to me gruflly and told me to stand aside
behind a wooden rail. I obeyed, and suddenly found
Stumm’s eyes looking down at me.


64 FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME
Stumm had risen with a brow of wrath, and looked
as if he were going to pitch the intruder off the train.
Then he seemed to halt and collect himself, and the
other’s face broke into a friendly grin.
“ Why, it’s Colonel Stumm,” he cried. (He pro-
nounced it like the first syllable in “ stomach ”.)
“ Very pleased to meet you again, Colonel. I had
the honour of making your acquaintance at our
Embassy. I reckon Ambassador Gerard didn’t
cotton to our conversation that night.” And the
new-comer plumped himself down in the corner
opposite me.
I had been pretty certain I would run across
Blenkiron somewhere in Germany, but I didn’t think
it would be so soon. There he sat staring at me with
his full unseeing eyes, rolling out platitudes to Stumm,
who was nearly bursting in his effort to keep civil.
I looked moody and suspicious, which I took to be the
right line.
“ Things are getting a bit dead at Salonika,” said
Mr. Blenkiron by way of a conversational opening.
Stumm pointed to a notice which warned officers to
refrain from discussing military operations with mixed
company in a railway carriage.
“ Sorry,” said Blenkiron, “ I can’t read that tomb-
stone language of yours. But I reckon that that
notice to trespassers, whatever it signifies, don’t apply
to you and me. I take it this gentleman is in your
party.”
I sat and scowled, fixing the American with sus-
picious eyes.
“ He is a Dutchman,” said Stumm; “ South African
Dutch, and he is not happy, for he doesn’t like to hear
English spoken.”
“ We’ll shake on that,” said Blenkiron cordially.
“ But who said I spoke English ‘i It’s good American.
Cheer up, friend, for it isn’t the call that makes the
big wapiti, as they say out west in my country. I


FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME 65
hate John Bull worse than a poison rattle. The
Colonel can tell you that.”
I dare say he could, but at that moment we slowed
down at a station and Stumm got up to leave.
“ Good-day to you, Herr Blenkiron," he cried over
his shoulder. “ If you consider your comfort, don’t
talk English to strange travellers. They don’t dis-
tinguish between the different brands.”
I followed him in a hurry, but was recalled by
Blenkiron’s voice.
“ Say, friend,” he shouted, “ you’ve left your grip,"
and he handed me my bag from the luggage rack.
But he showed no sign of recognition, and the last I
saw of him was sitting sunk in a corner with his head
on his chest as if he were going to sleep. He was a
man who kept up his parts well.
There was a motor-car waiting—one of the grey
military kind—and we started at a terrific pace over
bad forest roads. Stumm had put away his papers
in a portfolio, and flung me a few sentences on the
journey.
“ I haven’t made up my mind about you, Brandt}!
he announced. “ You may be a fool or a knave or a
good man. If you are a knave, we will shoot you."
“ And if I am a fool T ” I asked.
“ Send you to the Yser or the Dvina. You will be
respectable cannon-fodder.”
“ You cannot do that unless I consent," I said.
“ Can’t we Y ” he said, smiling wickedly. “ Re-
member you are a citizen of nowhere. Technically
you are a rebel, and the British, if you go to them, will
hang you, supposing they have any sense. You are
in our power, my friend, to do precisely what we like
with you.”
He was silent for a second, and then he said medita-
tively :
“ But I don’t think you are a fool. You may be


66 FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME
a scoundrel. Some kinds of scoundrel are useful
enough. Other kinds are strung up with a rope. Of
that we shall know more soon.”
“ And if I am a good man 7 ”
“ You will be given a chance to serve Germany, the
proudest privilege a mortal can have.” The strange
man said this with a ringing sincerity in his voice
that impressed me.
The car swung out from the trees into a park lined
with saplings, and in the twilight I saw before me a
biggish house like an overgrown Swiss chalet. There
was a kind of archway, with a sham portcullis, and a
terrace with battlements which looked as if they were
made of stucco. We drew up at a Gothic front door,
where a thin middle-aged man in a shooting jacket
was waiting.
As we moved into the lighted hall I got a good look
at our host. He was very lean and brown, with the
stoop in the shoulder that one gets from being
constantly on horseback. He had untidy grizzled
hair and a ragged beard, and a pair of pleasant, short-
sighted brown eyes.
“ Welcome, my Colonel,” he said. “ Is this the
friend you spoke of 'P "
“ This is the Dutchman," said Stumm. “ His name
is Brandt. Brandt, you see before you Herr Gaudian.”
I knew the name of course ; there weren’t many in
my profession that didn’t. He was one of the biggest
railway engineers in the world, the man who had built
the Bagdad and Syrian railways, and the new lines
in German East. I suppose he was about the greatest
living authority on tropical construction. He knew
the East and he knew Africa; clearly I had been
brought down for him to put me through my paces.
A blonde maidservant took me to my room, which
had a bare polished floor, a stove, and windows that,
unlike most of the German kind I had sampled, seemed
made to open. When I had washed I descended to


FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME 67
the hall, which was hung round with trophies of travel,
like Dervish jibbahs and Masai shields and one or two
good buffalo heads. Presently a bell was rung.
Stumm appeared with his host, and we went in to
supper.
I was jolly hungry and would have made a good
meal if I hadn’t constantly had to keep jogging my
wits. The other two talked in German, and when
a question was put to me Stunun translated. The
first thing I had to do was to pretend I didn’t lmow
German and look listlessly round the room while they
were talking. The second was to miss not a word,
for there lay my chance. The third was to be ready
to answer questions at any moment, and to show
in the answering that I had not followed the previous
conversation. Likewise I must not prove myself
a fool in these answers, for I had to convince them
that I was useful. It took some doing, and I felt like
a witness in the box under a stiff cross-examination,
or a man trying to play three games of chess at
once.
I heard Stumm telling Gaudian the gist of my plan.
The engineer shook his head.
“ Too late,” he said. “ It should have been done
at the beginning. We neglected Africa. You know
the reason why.”
Stumm laughed. “ The von Einem! Perhaps,
but her charm works well enough.”
Gaudian glanced towards me while I was busy with
an orange salad. “ I have much to tell you of that.
But it can wait. Your friend is right in one thing.
Uganda is a vital spot for the English, and a blow
there will make their whole fabric shiver. But how
can we strike Y They have still the coast, and our
supplies grow daily smaller.”
“ We can send no reinforcements, but have we
used all the local resources Y That is what I cannot
satisfy myself about. Zimmerman says we have, but


68 FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME
Tressler thinks differently, and now we have this
fellow coming out of the void with a story which
confirms my doubt. He seems to know his job.
You try him."
Thereupon Gaudian set about questioning me, and
his questions were very thorough. I knew just
enough and no more to get through, but I think I came
out with credit. You see I have a capacious memory,
and in my time I had met scores of hunters and
pioneers and listened to their yarns, so I could pretend
to knowledge of a place even when I hadn’t been there.
Besides, I had once been on the point of undertaking
a job up Tanganyika way, and I had got up that
country-side pretty accurately.
“ You say that with our help you can make trouble
for the British on the three borders ? ” Gaudian asked
at length.
“ I can spread the fire if some one else will kindle
it," I said.
“ But there are thousands of tribes with no affini-
ties.”
“ They are all African. You can bear me out. All
African peoples are alike in one thing—they can go
mad, and the madness of one infects the others. The
English know this well enough.”
“ Where would you start the fire 7 ” he asked.
“ Where the fuel is dryest. Up in the North
among the Mussulman peoples. But there you must
help me. I know nothing about Islam, and I gather
that you do.”
“ Why ? ” he asked.
“ Because of what you have done already," I
answered.
Stumm had translated all this time, and had given
the sense of my words very fairly. But with my last
answer he took liberties. What he gave was :
“Because the Dutchman thinks that we have some
big card in dealing with the Moslem worl .” Then,


FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAML 69
lowering his voice and raising his eyebrows, he said
some word like “ Uhnmantl.”
The other looked with a quick glance of appre-
hension at me. “ We had better continue our talk
in private, Herr Colonel,” he said. “ If Herr Brandt
will forgive us, we will leave him for a little to enter-
tain himself.” He pushed the cigar-box towards me
and the two got up and left the room.
I pulled my chair up to the stove, and would have
liked to drop off to sleep. The tension of the talk at
supper had made me very tired. I was accepted by
these men for exactly what I professed to be. Stuinm
might suspect me of being a rascal, but it was a Dutch
rascal. But all the same I was skating on thin ice.
I could not sink myself utterly in the part, for if I
did I would get no good out of being there. I had
to keep my wits going all the time, and join the
appearance and manners of a back-veld Boer with
the mentality of a British intelligence-officer. Any
moment the two parts might clash and I would be
faced with the most alert and deadly suspicion.
There would be no mercy from Stumm. That
large man was beginning to fascinate me, even though
I hated him. Gaudian was clearly a good fellow, a
white man and a gentleman. I could have worked
with him, for he belonged to my own totem. But
the other was an incarnation of all that makes Ger-
many detested, and yet he wasn’t altogether the
ordinary German, and I couldn’t help admiring him
I noticed he neither smoked nor drank. His grossness
was apparently not in the way of fleshly appetites.
Cruelty, from all I had heard of him in German South
West, was his hobby; but there were other things
in him, some of them good, and he had that kind of
crazy patriotism which becomes a religion. I won-
dered why he had not some high command in the
field, for he had had the name of a good soldier. But
probably he was a big man in his own line, whatevcr


70 FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME
it was, for the Under-Secretary fellow had talked
small in his presence, and so great a man as Gaudian
clearly respected him. There must be no lack of
brains inside that funny pyramidal head.
As I sat beside the stove I was casting back to
think if I had got the slightest clue to my real job.
There seemed to be nothing so far. Stumm had
talked of a von Einem woman who was interested in
his department, perhaps the same woman as the
Hilda he had mentioned the day before to the Under-
Secretary. There was not much in that. She was
probably some minister’s or ambassador’s wife who
had a finger in high politics. If I could have caught
the word Stumm had whispered to Gaudian which
made him start and look askance at me i _ But I had
only heard a gurgle of something like “ Uhnmantl,”
which wasn’t any German word that I knew.
The heat put me into a half-doze and I began
dreamily to wonder what other people were doing.
Where had Blenkiron been posting to in that train,
and what was he up to at this moment? He had
been hobnobbing with ambassadors and swells—I
wondered if he had found out anything. What was
Peter doing ? I fervently hoped he was behaving
himself, for I doubted if Peter had really tumbled to
the delicacy of our job. Where was Sandy, too T
As like as not bucketing in the hold of some Greek
coaster in the ZEgean. Then I thought of my
battalion somewhere on the line between Hulluch
and La Bassée, hammering at the Boche, while I
was five hundred miles or so inside the Boche
frontier.
It was a comic reflection, so comic that it woke
me up. After trying in vain to find a way of stok-
ing that stove, for it was a cold night, I got up and
walked about the room. There were portraits of
two decent old fellows, probably Gaudian’s parents.
There were enlarged photographs, too, of engineer-


FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME 71
ing works, and a good picture of Bismarck. And
close to the stove there was a case of maps mounted
on rollers.
I pulled out one at random. It was a geological
map of Germany, and with some trouble I found out
where I was. I was an enormous distance from my
goal, and moreover I was clean off the road to the
East. To go there I must first go to Bavaria and
then into Austria. I noticed the Danube flowing
eastwards and remembered that that was one way
to Constantinople.
Then I tried another map. This one covered a
big area, all Europe from the Rhine and as far east
as Persia. I guessed that it was meant to show the
Bagdad railway and the through routes from Ger-
many to Mesopotamia. There were markings on it;
and, as I looked closer, I saw that there were dates
scribbled in blue pencil, as if to denote the stages
of a journey. The dates began in Europe, and
continued right on into Asia Minor and then south
to Syria.
For a moment my heart jumped, for I thought I
had fallen by accident on the clue I wanted. But
I never got that map examined. I heard footsteps
in the corridor, and very gently I let the map roll
up and turned away. When the door opened I was
bending over the stove trying to get a light for my
plpe.
It was Gaudian, to bid me join him and Stumm
in his study.
On our way there he put a kindly hand on my
shoulder. I think he thought I was bullied by
Stumm and wanted to tell me that he was my friend,
and he had no other language than a pat on the
back.
The soldier was in his old position with his elbows
on the mantelpiece and his formidable great jaw
stuck out.


12 FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME
“ Listen to me,” he said. “ Herr Gaudian and I
are inclined to make use of you. You may be a.
charlatan, in which case you will be in the devil of
a mess and have yourself to thank for it. If you
are a rogue you will have little scope for roguery.
We will see to that. If you are a fool, you will your-
self suffer for it. But if you are a good man, you
will have a fair chance, and if you succeed we will
not forget it. To-morrow I go home and you will
come with me and get your orders.”
I made shift to stand at attention and salute.
Gaudian spoke in a pleasant voice, as if he wanted
to atone for Stumm’s imperiousness. “ We are men
who love our Fatherland, Herr Brandt,” he said.
“ You are not of that Fatherland, but at least you
hate its enemies. Therefore we are allies, and trust
each other like allies. Our victory is ordained by
God, and we are none of us more than His instru-
ments.”
Stumm translated in a sentence, and his voice was
quite solemn. He held up his right hand and so
did Gaudian, like a man taking an oath or a parson
blessing his congregation.
' Then I realised something of the might of Germany.
She produced good and bad, cads and gentlemen,
but she could put a bit of the fanatic into them all.


74 THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME
“ I take no responsibility for Peter," I said. I
felt I was a cad in saying it, but that was the bargain
we had made at the start. “ I have known him for
years as a great hunter and a brave man. I know
he fought well against the English. But more I
cannot tell you. You have to judge him for yourself.
What has he done ? ”
I was told, for Stumm had got it that morning
on the telephone. While telling it he was kind
enough to allow me to put on my trousers.
It was just the sort of thing I might have foreseen.
Peter, left alone, had become first bored and then
reckless. He had persuaded the lieutenant to take
him out to supper at a big Berlin restaurant. There,
inspired by the lights and music—novel things for a
backveld hunter—and no doubt bored stiff by his
company, he had proceeded to get drunk. That
had happened in my experience with Peter about
once in every three years, and it always happened for
the same reason. Peter, bored and solitary in a town,
went on the spree. He had a head like a rock, but
he got to the required condition by wild mixing.
He was quite a gentleman in his cups, and not in the
least violent, but he was apt to be very free with
his tongue. And that was what occurred at the
Franciscana.
He had begun by insulting the Emperor, it seemed.
He drank his health, but said he reminded him of a
wart-hog, and thereby scarified the lieutenant’s
soul. Then an officer—some tremendous swell—-
at an adjoining table had objected to his talking so
loud, and Peter had replied insolently in respectable
German. After that things became mixed. There
was some kind of a fight, during which Peter calumni-
ated the German army and all its female ancestry.
How he wasn’t shot or run through I can’t imagine,
except that the lieutenant loudly proclaimed that
he was a crazy Boer. Anyhow the upshot was that


THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME 75
Peter was marched off to gaol, and I was left in a
pretty pickle.
“ I don’t believe a word of it,” I said firmly. I
had most of my clothes on now and felt more cour-
ageous. “ It is all a plot to get him into disgrace
and draft him off to the front.”
Stumm did not storm as I expected, but smiled.
“That was always his destiny,” he said, “ ever
since I saw him. He was no use to us except as a
man with a rifle. Cannon-fodder, nothing else. Do
you imagine, you fool, that this great Empire in the
thick of a world-war is going to trouble its head to
lay snares for an ignorant taakhaar ‘P ”
“ I wash my hands of him,” I said. “ If what
you say of his folly is true I have no part in it. But
he was my companion and I wish him well. What
do you propose to do with him ‘f ’-’
“ We will keep him under our eye,” he said, with
a wicked twist of the mouth. “ I have a notion that
there is more at the back of this than appears. We
will investigate the antecedents of Herr Pienaar.
And you, too, my friend. On you also we have our
eye.”
I did the best thing I could have done, for what
with anxiety and disgust I lost my temper.
“ Look here, sir,” I cried, “ I’ve had about enough
of this. I came to Germany abominating the Eng-
lish and burning to strike a blow for you. But
you haven’t given me much cause to love you. For
the last two days I’ve had nothing from you but
suspicion and insult. The only decent man I’ve met
is Herr Gaudian. It’s because I believe that there
are many in Germany like him that I’m prepared
to go on with this business and do the best I can.
But, by God, I wouldn’t raise my little finger for
your sake.”
He looked at me very steadily for a minute.
“ That sounds like honesty,” he said at last in a


76 THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME
civil voice. “ You had better come down and get
your coffee.”
I was safe for the moment but in very low spirits.
What on earth would happen to poor old Peter T
I could do nothing even if I wanted, and, besides,
my first duty was to my mission. I had made this
very clear to him at Lisbon and he had agreed, but
all the same it was a beastly reflection. Here was
that ancient worthy left to the tender mercies of the
people he most detested on earth. My only comfort
was that they couldn’t do very much with him. If
they sent him to the front, which was the worst
they could do, he would escape, for I would have
backed him to get through any mortal lines. It
wasn’t much fun for me either. Only when I was
to be deprived of it did I realise how much his com-
y had meant to me. I was absolutely alone now,
and I didn’t like it. I seemed to have about as
much chance of joining Blenkiron and Sandy as of
flying to the moon.
After breakfast I was told to get ready. When I
asked where I was going Stumm advised me to mind
my own business, but I remembered that last night
he had talked of taking me home with him and
giving me my orders. I wondered where his home
was.
Gaudian patted me on the back when we started
and wrung my hand. He was a capital good fellow,
and it made me feel sick to think that I was hum-
bugging him. We got into the same big grey car,
with Stumm’s servant sitting beside the chauffeur.
It was a morning of hard frost, the bare fields were
white with rime, and the fir-trees powdered like a
wedding-cake. We took a different road from the
night before, and after a run of half a dozen miles
came to a little town with a big railway station. It
was a junction on some main line, and after five
minutes’ waiting we found our train.


THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME 77
Once again we were alone in the carriage. Stumm
must have had some colossal graft, for the train was
crowded.
I had another three hours of complete boredom.
I dared not smoke, and could do nothing but stare
out of the window. We soon got into hilly country,
where a good deal of snow was lying. It was the
23rd day of December, and even in war time one
had a sort of feel of Christmas. You could see girls
carrying evergreens, and when we stopped at a
station the soldiers on leave had all the air of holiday
making. The middle of Germany was a cheerier
place than Berlin or the western parts. I liked the
look of the old peasants, and the women in their
neat Sunday best, but I noticed, too, how pinched
they were. Here in the country, where no neutral
tourists came, there was not the same stage-manage-
ment as in the capital.
Stumm made an attempt to talk to me on the
journey. I could see his aim. Before this he had
cross-examined me, but now he wanted to draw me
into ordinary conversation. He had no notion how
to do it. He was either peremptory and provocative,
like a drill-sergeant, or so obviously diplomatic that
any fool would have been put on his guard. That
is the weakness of the German. He has no gift for
laying himself alongside different types of men.
He is such a hard-shell being that he cannot put out
feelers to his kind. He may have plenty of brains,
as Stumm had, but he has the poorest notion of
psychology of any of God’s creatures. In Germany
only the Jew can get outside himself, and that is
why, if you look into the matter, you will find that
the Jew is at the back of most German enterprises.
After midday we stopped at a station for luncheon.
We had a very good meal in the restaurant, and
when we were finishing two officers entered. Stumm
got up and saluted and went aside to talk to them.
6


80 THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME
be won not in Europe alone. In South Africa for the
moment there is no chance, so we look to other parts
of the continent. You will win in Europe. You
have won in the East, and it now remains to strike
the English where they cannot fend the blow. If
we take Uganda, Egypt will fall. By your per-
mission I go there to make trouble for your enemies.”
A flicker of a smile passed over the worn face. It
was the face of one who slept little and whose thoughts
rode him like a nightmare.
“ That is well,” he said. “ Some Englishman once
said that he would call in the New World to redress
the balance of the Old. We Germans will summon
the whole earth to suppress the infamies of England.
Serve us well, and you will not be forgotten.”
Then he suddenly asked: “ Did you fight in the
last South African War T "
" Yes, sire,” I said. “ I was in the commando of
that Smuts who has now been bought by England.”
“ What were your countrymen’s losses T " he asked
eagerly.
I did not know, but I hazarded a guess. “ In the
field some twenty thousand. But many more by
sickness and in the accursed prison-camps of the
English."
Again a spasm of pain crossed his face.
“ Twenty thousand,” be repeated huskily. “ A
mere handful. To-day we lose as many in a skirmish
in the Polish marshes."
Then he broke out fiercely.
“ I did not seek the war. . . . It was forced on me. . . .
I laboured for peace. . . . The blood of millions is on
the. heads of England and Russia, but England most
of all. God will yet avenge it. He that takes the
sword will perish by the sword. Mine was forced
from the scabbard in self-defence, and I am guiltless.
Do they know that among your people T 33
“ All the world knows it, sire,” I said.


THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME 81
He gave his hand to Stumm and turned away. The
last I saw of him was a figure moving like a sleep-
walker, with no spring in his step, amid his tall suite.
I felt that I was looking on at a far bigger tragedy
than any I had seen in action. Here was one that
had loosed Hell, and the furies of Hell had got hold
of him. He was no common man, for in his presence
I felt an attraction which was not merely the mastery
of one used to command. That would not have im-
pressed me, for I had never owned a master. But
here was a human being who, unlike Stumm and his
kind, had the power of laying himself alongside other
men. That was the irony of it. Stumm would not
have cared a tinker’s curse for all the massacres in
history. But this man, the chief of a nation of
Stumms, paid the price in war for the gifts that had
made him successful in peace. He had imagination
and nerves, and the one was white hot and the others
were quivering. I would not have been in his shoes
for the throne of the Universe. . . .
All afternoon we sped southward, mostly in a
country of hills and wooded valleys. Stumm, for
him, was very pleasant. His Imperial master must
have been gracious to him, and he passed a bit of it
on to me. But he was anxious to see that I had got
the right impression.
“ The All-Highest is merciful, as I told you,” he said.
I agreed with him.
“ Mercy is the prerogative of kings,” he said
sententiously, “ but for us lesser folks it is a trimming
we can well do without.”
I nodded my approval.
“ I am not merciful,” he went on, as if I needed
telling that. "If any man stands in my way I
trample the life out of him. That is the German
fashion. That is what has made us great. We do
not make war with lavender gloves and fine phrases,


82 THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME
but with hard steel and hard brains. We Germans
will cure the green-sickness of the world. The nations
rise against us. Pouf 1 They are soft flesh, and
flesh cannot resist iron. The shining ploughshare
will cut its way through acres of mud.”
I hastened to add that these were also my opinions.
“ What the hell do your opinions matter? You
are a thick-headed boor of the veld. . . . Not but
what,” he added, “ there is metal in you slow Dutch-
men once we Germans have had the forging of it 1 "
The winter evening closed in, and I saw that we
had come out of the hills and were in a flat country.
Sometimes a big sweep of river showed, and, looking
out at one station, I saw a funny church with a thing
like an onion on the top of its spire. It might almost
have been a mosque, judging from the pictures I
remembered of mosques. I wished to heaven I had
given geography more attention in my time.
Presently we stopped, and Stumm led the way out.
The train must have been specially halted for him,
for it was a one-horse little place whose name I could
not make out. The station-master was waiting,
bowing and saluting, and outside was a motor-car
with big head-lights. Next minute we were sliding
through dark woods where the snow lay far deeper
than in the north. There was a mild frost in the air,
and the tyres slipped and skidded at the corners.
We hadn’t far to go. We climbed a little hill and
on the top of it stopped at the door of a big black
castle. It looked enormous in the winter night, with
not a light showing anywhere on its front. The door
was opened by an old fellow who took a long time
about it and got well cursed for his slowness. Inside
the place was very noble and ancient. Stumm
switched on the electric light, and there was a great
hall with black tarnished portraits of men and women
in old-fashioned clothes, and mighty horns of deer on
the walls.


THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME 88
There seemed to be no superfluity of servants. The
old fellow said that food was ready, and without more
ado we went into the dining-room—another vast
chamber with rough stone walls above the panelling—
and found some cold meats on a table beside a big
fire. The servant presently brought in a ham
omelette, and on that and the cold stuff we dined. I
remember there was nothing to drink but water. It
puzzled me how Stumm kept his great body going on
the very moderate amount of food he ate. He was
the type you expect to swill beer by the bucket and
put away a pie at a sitting.
When we had finished, he rang for the old man and
told him that we should be in the study for the rest
of the evening. “ You can lock up and go to bed
when you like,” he said, “ but see you have cofiee
ready at seven sharp in the morning.”
Ever since I entered that house I had the uncom-
fortable feeling of being in a prison. Here was I
alone in this great place with a fellow who could, and
would, wring my neck if he wanted. Berlin and all
the rest of it had seemed comparatively open country ;
I had felt that I could move freely and at the worst
make a bolt for it. But here I was trapped, and I
had to tell myself every minute that I was there as
a friend and colleague. The fact is, I was afraid of
Stumm, and I don’t mind admitting it. He was a
new thing in my experience and I didn’t like it. If
only he had drunk and guzzled a bit I should have
been happier.
We went up a staircase to a room at the end of a
long corridor. Stumm locked the door behind him
and laid the key on a table. That room took my
breath away, it was so unexpected. In place of the
grim bareness of downstairs here was a place all
luxury and colour and light. It was very large, but
low in the ceiling, and the walls were full of little
recesses with statues in them. A thick grey carpet


84 THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME
of velvet pile covered the floor, and the chairs were low
and soft and upholstered like a lady’s boudoir. A
pleasant fire burned on the hearth and there was a
flavour of scent in the air, something like incense or
burnt sandalwood. A French clock on the mantel-
piece told me that it was ten minutes past eight.
Everywhere on little tables and in cabinets was a
profusion of nicknacks, and there was some beautiful
embroidery framed on screens. / At first sight you
would have said it was a woman’s drawing-room./
But it wasn’t. I soon saw the difference. There
had never been a woman’s hand in that place. It
wa the room of a man who had a passion for frippery,
who had a perverted taste for soft delicate things.
It was the complement to his bluff brutality. I began
to see the queer other side to my host, that evil side
which gossip had spoken of as not unknown in the
German army. The room seemed a horribly un-
wholesome place/and I was more than ever afraid of
Stumm.
The hearthrug was a wonderful old Persian thing,
all faint greens and pinks. As he stood on it he
looked uncommonly like a bull in a china-shop. He
seemed to bask in the comfort of it, and sniffed like
a satisfied animal. Then he sat down at an escritoire,
unlocked a drawer and took out some papers.
“ We will now settle your business, friend Brandt,”
he said. “ You will go to Egypt and there take your
orders from one whose name and address are in this
envelope. This card,” and he lifted a square piece of
grey pasteboard with a big stamp at the corner and
some code words stencilled on it, “ will be your
passport. You will show it to the man you seek.
Keep it jealously, and never use it save under orders
or in the last necessity. It is your badge as an
accredited agent of the German Crown.”
I took the card and the envelope and put them in
my pocket-book.


THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME 85
“ Where do I go after Egypt 7 ” I asked.
“ That remains to be seen. Probably you will go
up the Blue Nile. Riza, the man you will meet, will
direct you. Egypt is a nest of our agents who work
peacefully under the nose of the English Secret
Service.”
“ I am willing,” I said. “But how do I reach
Egypt ‘? ”
“ You will travel by Holland and London. Here is
your route,” and he took a paper from his pocket.
“ Your passports are ready and will be given you at
the frontier.”
This was a pretty kettle of fish. I was to be
packed off to Cairo by sea, which would take weeks,
and God knows how I would get from Egypt to
Constantinople. I saw all my plans falling in pieces
about my ears, and just when I thought they were
shaping nicely.
Stumm must have interpreted the look on my face
as fear.
“ You have no cause to be afraid,” he said. “ We
have passed the word to the English police to look
out for a suspicious South African named Brandt,
one of Maritz’s rebels. It is not diflicult to have
that kind of hint conveyed to the proper quarter.
But the description will not be yours. Your name
will be Van der Linden, a respectable Java merchant
going home to his plantations after a visit to his
native shores. You had better get your dossier by
heart, but I guarantee you will be asked no questions.
We manage these things well in Germany.”
I kept my eyes on the fire, while I did some savage
thinking. I knew they would not let me out of
their sight till they saw me in Holland, and, once
there, there would be no possibility of getting back.
When I left this house I Wovld have no chance of
giving them the slip. And yet I was well on my
way to the East, the Danube could not be fifty miles


86 THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME
off, and that way ran the road to Constantinople.
It was a fairly desperate position. If I tried to get
away Stumm would prevent me, and the odds were
that I would go to join Peter in some infernal prison-
camp.
Those moments were some of the worst I ever
spent. I was absolutely and utterly baffled, like a
rat in a trap. There seemed nothing for it but to
go back to London and tell Sir Walter the game was
up. And that was about as bitter as death.
He saw my face and laughed.
“ Does your heart fail you, my little Dutchman 1
You funk the English? I will tell you one thing
for your comfort. There is nothing in the world to
be feared except me. Fail, and you have cause to
shiver. Play me false and you had far better never
have been born.”
His ugly sneering face was close above mine.
Then he put out his hands and gripped my shoulders
as he had done the first afternoon.
I forget if I mentioned that part of the damage
I got at Loos was a shrapnel bullet low down at
the back of my neck. The wound had healed well
enough, but I had pains there on a cold day. His
fingers found the place and it hurt like hell.
There is a very narrow line between despair and
black rage. I had about given up the game, but
the sudden ache of my shoulder gave me purpose
again. He must have seen the rage in my eyes, for
his own became cruel.
“ The weasel would like to bite,” he cried, “ But
the poor weasel has found its master. Stand still,
vermin. Smile, look pleasant, or I will make pulp
of you. Do you dare to frown at me 1’”
I shut my teeth and said never a word. I was
choking in my throat and could not have uttered a
syllable if I had tried.
Then he let me go, grinning like an ape.


THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME 87
I stepped back a pace and gave him my left be-
tween the eyes.
F or a second he did not realise what had hap-
pened, for I don’t suppose any one had dared to lift
a hand to him since he was a child. He blinked at
me mildly. Then his face grew red as fire.
“ God in Heaven,” he said quietly. “ I am going
to kill you,” and he flung himself on me like a moun-
tain.
I was expecting him and dodged the attack. I
was quite calm now, but pretty hopeless. The man
had a gorilla’s reach and could give me at least a
couple of stone. He wasn’t soft either, but looked
as hard as granite. I was only just from hospital
and absurdly out of training. He would certainly
kill me if he could, and I saw nothing to prevent
him.
My only chance was to keep him from getting to
grips, for he could have squeezed in my ribs in two
seconds. I fancied I was lighter on my legs than
him, and I had a good eye. Black Monty at Kim-
berley had taught me to fight a bit, but there is no
art on earth whiCh can prevent a big man in a narrow
space from sooner or later cornering a lesser one.
That was the danger.
Backwards and forwards we padded on the soft
carpet. He had no notion of guarding himself, and
I got in a good few blows. Then I saw a queer thing.
Every time I hit him he blinked and seemed to
pause. I guessed the reason for that. He had gone
through life keeping the crown of the causeway, and
nobody had ever stood up to him. He wasn’t a
coward by a long chalk, but he was a bully, and had
never been struck in his life. He was getting struck
now in real earnest, and he didn’t like it. He had
lost his bearings and was growing as mad as a batter.
I kept half an eye on the clock. I was hopeful
now, and was looking for the right kind of chance.


88 THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME
The risk was that I might tire sooner than him and
be at his mercy.
Then I learned a truth I have never forgotten.
If you are fighting a man who means to kill you,
he will be apt to down you unless you mean to kill
him too. Stumm did not know any rules to this
game, and I forgot to allow for that. Suddenly,
when I was watching his eyes, he launched a mighty
kick at my stomach. If he had got me, this yarn
would have had an abrupt ending. But by the
mercy of God I was moving sideways when he let
out, and his heavy boot just grazed my left thigh.
It was the place where most of the shrapnel had
lodged, and for a second I was sick with pain and
stumbled. Then I was on my feet again but with a
new feeling in my blood. I had to smash Stumm
or never sleep in my bed again.
I got a wonderful power from this new cold rage
of mine. I felt I couldn’t tire, and I danced round
and dotted his face till it was streaming with blood.
His bulky padded chest was no good to me, so I
couldn’t try for the mark.
He began to snort now and his breath came heavily.
“ You infernal cad,” I said in good round English,
“ I’m going to knock the stufling out of you,” but
he didn’t know what I was saying.
Then at last he gave me my chance. He half
tripped over a little table and his face stuck forward.
I got him on the point of the chin, and put every
ounce of weight I possessed behind the blow. He
crumpled up in a heap and rolled over, upsetting a
lamp and knocking a big China jar in two. His
head, I remember, lay under the escritoire from
which he had taken my passport.
I picked up the key and unlocked the door. In
one of the gilded mirrors I smoothed my hair and
tidied up my clothes. My anger had completely
gone and I had no particular ill-will left against


THE INDISCRETIONS OF THE SAME 89
Stumm. He was a man of remarkable qualities,
which would have brought him to the highest dis-
tinction in the Stone Age. But for all that he and
his kind were back numbers.
I stepped out of the room, locked the door behind
me, and started out on the second stage of my
travels.


CHAPTER VII
cams'rmss'rmn
Evnnv'rnmo depended on whether the servant was
in the hall. I had put Stumm to sleep for a bit, but
I couldn’t flatter myself he would long be quiet,
and when he came to he would kick the locked door
to matchwood. I must get out of the house without
a minute’s delay, and if the door was shut and the
old man gone to bed I was done.
I met him at the foot of the stairs, carrying a
candle.
“ Your master wants me to send off an important
telegram. Where is the nearest ofliceT There’s
one in the village, isn’t there T ” I spoke in my best
German, the first time I had used the tongue since
I crossed the frontier.
“ The village is five minutes off at the foot of the
avenue,” he said. “ Will you be long, sir T”
“ I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour,” I said.
“ Don’t lock up till I get in.”
I put on my ulster and walked out into a clear
starry night. My bag I left lying on a settle in the
hall. There was nothing in it to compromise me,
but I wished I could have got a toothbrush and some
tobacco out of it.
So began one of the craziest escapades you can
well imagine. I couldn’t stop to think of the future
yet, but must take one step at a time. I ran
down the avenue, my feet crackling on the hard
snow, planning hard my programme for the next
hour.
90


CHRISTMASTIDE 91
I found the village—half a dozen houses with one
biggish place that looked like an inn. The moon
was rising, and as I approached I saw that it was
some kind of a store. A funny little two-seated
car was purring before the door, and I guessed this
was also the telegraph office.
I marched in and told my story to a stout woman
with spectacles on her nose who was talking to a
young man.
“ It is too late,” she shook her head. “ The Herr
Burgrave knows that well. There is no connection
from here after eight o’clock. If the matter is urgent
you must go to Schwandorf.”
“ How far is that Y” I asked, looking for some
excuse to get decently out of the shop.
“ Seven miles,” she said, “ but here is Franz and
the post-wagon. Franz, you will be glad to give
the gentleman a seat beside you.”
The sheepish-looking youth muttered something
which I took to be assent, and finished off a glass
of beer. From his eyes and manner he looked as if
he were half drunk.
I thanked the woman, and went out to the car,
for I was in a fever to take advantage of this
unexpected bit of luck. I could hear the post-
mistress enjoining Franz not to keep the gentleman
waiting, and presently he came out and flopped
into the driver’s seat. We started in a series of
voluptuous curves, till his eyes got accustomed to
the darkness.
At first we made good going along the straight,
broad highway lined with woods on one side and on
the other snowy fields melting into haze. Then he
began to talk, and, as he talked, he slowed down.
This by no means suited my book, and I seriously
wondered whether I should pitch him out and take
charge of the thing. He was obviously a weakling,
left behind in the conscription, and I could have


CHRISTMASTIDE 98
I saw that my idiot had been absorbed into the
dwelling of his Gertrud. I waited no longer, but
sent the car forward at its best speed.
Five minutes later the infernal thing began to give
trouble—a nut loose in the antiquated steering-gear.
I unhooked a lamp, examined it, and put the mis-
chief right, but I was a quarter of an hour doing it.
The highway ran now in a thick forest and I noticed
branches going off every now and then to the right.
I was just thinking of turning up one of them, for
I had no anxiety to visit Schwandorf, when I heard
behind me the sound of a great car driven furiously.
I drew in to the right side—thank goodness I re-
membered the rule of the road—and proceeded decor-
ously, wondering what was going to happen. I
could hear the brakes being clapped on and the car
slowing down. Suddenly a big grey bonnet slipped
past me and as I turned my head I heard a familiar
Vo1ce.
It was Stumm, looking like something that has been
run over. He had his jaw in a sling, so that I won-
dered if I had broken it, and his eyes were beautifully
bunged up. It was that that saved me, that and his
raging temper. The collar of the postman’s coat was
round my chin, hiding my beard, and I had his cap
pulled well down on my brow. I remembered what
Blenkiron had said—that the only way to deal with
the Germans was naked bluff. Mine was naked
enough, for it was all that was left to me.
“ Where is the man you brought from Anders-
bach T” he roared, as well as his jaw would allow
him.
I pretended to be mortally scared, and spoke in the
best imitation I could manage of the postman’s high
cracked voice.
“ He got out a mile back, Herr Burgrave," ]
quavered. “ He was a rude fellow who wanted to go
to Schwandorf, and then changed his mind.”
7


94 CHRISTMASTIDE
“ Where, you fool T Say exactly where he got
down or I will wring your neck."
“ In the wood this side of Gertrud’s cottage . . . on
the left hand. . . . I left him running among the trees.”
I put all the terror I knew into my pipe, and it wasn’t
all acting.
“ He means the Heinrichs’ cottage, Herr Colonel,”
said the chauffeur. “ This man is courting the
daughter.”
Stumm gave an order and the great car backed,
and, as I looked round, I saw it turning. Then as it
gathered speed it shot forward, and presently was lost
in the shadows. I had got over the first hurdle.
' But there was no time to be lost. Stumm would
meet the postman and would be tearing after me any
minute. I took the first turning, and bucketed along
a narrow woodland road. The hard ground would
show very few tracks, I thought, and I hoped the
pursuit would think I had gone on to Schwandorf.
But it wouldn’t do to risk it, and I was determined
very soon to get the car off the road, leave it, and
take to the forest. I took out my watch and calcu-
lated I could give myself ten minutes.
I was very nearly caught. Presently I came on a
bit of rough heath, with a slope away from the road
and here and there a patch of black which I took to be
a sandpit. Opposite one of these I slewed the car to
the edge, got out, started it again and saw it pitch
head-foremost into the darkness. There was a splash
of water and then silence. Craning over I could see
nothing but murk, and the marks at the lip where the
wheels had passed. They would find my tracks in
daylight but scarcely at this time of night.
Then I ran across the road to the forest. I was
only just in time, for the echoes of the splash had
hardly died away when I heard the sound of another
car. I lay flat in a hollow below a tangle of snow-
laden brambles and looked between the pine-trees


CHRISTMASTIDE 95
at the moonlit road. It was Stumm’s car again and
to my consternation it stopped just a little short of the
sandpit.
I saw an electric torch flashed, and Stumm himself
got out and examined the tracks on the highway.
Thank God, they would be still there for him to find,
but had he tried half a dozen yards on he would have
seen them turn towards the sandpit. If that had
happened he would have beaten the adjacent woods
and most certainly found me. There was a third
man in the car, with my hat and coat on him. That
poor devil of a. postman had paid dear for his vanity.
They took a long time before they started again,
and I Was jolly well relieved when they went scouring
down the road. I ran deeper into the woods till I
found a track which——as I judged from the sky which
I saw in a clearing.—took me nearly due west.
That Wasn’t the direction I wanted, so I bore off at
right angles, and presently struck another road which
I crossed in a hurry. After that I got entangled in
some confounded kind of enclosure and had to climb
paling after paling of rough stakes plaited with osiers.
Then came a rise in the ground and I was on a low
hill of pines which seemed to last for miles. All the
time 1 was going at a good pace, and before I stopped
to rest I calculated I had put six miles between me
and the sandpit.
My mind was getting a little more active now; for
the first part of the journey I had simply staggered
from impulse to impulse. These impulses had been
uncommon lucky, but I couldn’t go on like that for
ever. Ek sal ’11 plan maak, says the old Boer when
he gets into trouble, and it was up to me now to make
a plan.
As soon as I began to think I saw the desperate
business I was in for. Here was I, with nothing
except what I stood up in—including a coat and cap
that weren’t mine—alone in mid-winter in the heart


96 CHRISTMASTIDE
of South Germany. There was a man behind me
looking for my blood, and soon there would be a hue-
and-cry for me up and down the land. I had heard
that the German police were pretty efficient, and I
couldn’t see that I stood the slimmest chance. If
they caught me they would shoot me beyond doubt.
I asked myself on what charge, and answered, “ For
knocking about a German officer.” They couldn’t
have me up for espionage, for as far as I knew they
had no evidence. I was simply a Dutchman that
had got riled and had run amok. But if they cut
down a cobbler for laughing at a second lieutenant—
which is what happened at Zabern—I calculated that
hanging would be too good for a man that had broken
a colonel’s jaw.
To make things worse my job was not to escape—
though that would have been hard enough—but to
get to Constantinople, more than a thousand miles off,
and I reckoned I couldn’t get there as a tramp. I
had to be sent there, and now I had flung away my
chance. If I had been a Catholic I would have said
a prayer to St. Theresa, for she would have understood
my troubles.
My mother used to say that when you felt down on
your luck it was a good cure to count your mercies.
So I set about counting mine. The first was that I
was well started on my journey, for I couldn’t be
above two score miles from the Danube. The second
was that I had Stumm’s pass. I didn’t see how I
could use it, but there it was. Lastly I had plenty
of money—fifty-three English sovereigns and the
equivalent of three pounds in German paper which I
had changed at the hotel. Also I had squared
accounts with old Stumm. That was the biggest
mercy of all.
I thought I’d better get some sleep, so I found a
dryish hole below an oak root and squeezed myself
into it. The snow lay deep in these woods and I was


CHRISTMASTIDE ' 97
sopping wet up to the knees. All the same I managed
to sleep for some hours, and got up and shook myself
just as the winter’s dawn was breaking through the
tree tops. Breakfast was the next thing, and I must
find some sort of dwelling.
Almost at once I struck a road, a big highway
running north and south. I trotted along in the
bitter morning to get my circulation started, and
presently I began to feel a little better. In a little I
saw a church spire, which meant a village. Stumm
wouldn’t be likely to have got on my tracks yet, I
calculated, but there was always the chance that he
had warned all the villages round by telephone and
that they might be on the look-out for me. But that
risk had to be taken, for I must have food.
It was the day before Christmas, I remembered,
and people would be holidaying. The village was
quite a big place, but at this hour—just after eight
o’clock—there was nobody in the street except a
wandering dog. I chose the most unassuming shop
I could find, where a little boy was taking down the
shutters—one of those general stores where they sell
everything. The boy fetched a very old woman,
who hobbled in from the back, fitting on her
spectacles.
“ Griiss Gott,” she said in a friendly voice, and I
took off my cap. I saw from my reflection in a
saucepan that I looked moderately respectable in
spite of my night in the woods.
I told her a story of how I was walking from
Schwandorf to see my mother at an imaginary place
called J udenfeld, banking on the ignorance of villagers
about any place five miles from their homes. I said
my luggage had gone astray, and I hadn’t time to
wait for it, since my leave was short. The old lady
Was sympathetic and unsuspecting. She sold me a
pound of chocolate, a box of biscuits, the better part
of a ham, two tins of sardines and a rucksack to carry


CHRISTMASTIDE 99
story for them. On the highroad there might be
awkward questions.
When I started out again I felt very stiff and the
cold seemed to be growing intense. This puzzled me,
for I had not minded it much up to now, and, being
warm-blooded by nature, it never used to worry me.
A sharp winter night on the high-veld was a long
sight chillier than anything I had struck so far in
Europe. But now my teeth were chattering and the
marrow seemed to be freezing in my bones.
The day had started bright and clear, but a wrack
of grey clouds soon covered the sky, and a wind from
the east began to whistle. As I stumbled along through
the snowy undergrowth I kept longing for bright
warm places. I thought of those long days on the
veld when the earth was like a great yellow bowl,
with white roads running to the horizon and a tiny
white farm basking in the heart of it, with its blue
dam and patches of bright green lucerne. I thought
of those baking days on the east coast when the sea
was like mother-of-pearl ‘and the sky one burning
turquoise. But most of all I thought of warm scented
noons on trek, when one dozed in the shadow of the
wagon and sniffed the wood-smoke from the fire
where the boys were cooking dinner.
From these pleasant pictures I returned to the
beastly present—the thick snowy woods, the lowering
sky, wet clothes, 9. hunted present, and a dismal
future. I felt miserably depressed, and I couldn’t
think of any mercies to count. It struck me that I
might be falling sick.
About midday I awoke with a start to the belief
that I was being pursued. I cannot explain how or
why the feeling came, except that it is a kind of
instinct that men get who have lived much in wild
countries. My senses, which had been numbed,
suddenly grew keen, and my brain began to work
double quick


100 CHRISTMASTIDE
I asked myself what I would do if I were Stumm,
with hatred in my heart, a broken jaw to avenge, and
pretty well limitless powers. He must have found
the car in the sandpit and seen my tracks in the
wood opposite. I didn’t lmow how good he and his
men might be at following a spoor, but I knew that
any ordinary Kaffir could have nosed it out easily.
But he didn’t need to do that. This was a civilised
country full of roads and railways. I must some time
and somewhere come out of the woods. He could
have all the roads watched, and the telephone would
set every one on my track within a radius of fifty
miles. Besides, he would soon pick up my trail in
the village I had visited that morning. From the
map I learned that it was called Greif, and it was
likely to live up to that name with me.
Presently I came to a rocky knoll which rose out
of the forest. Keeping well in shelter I climbed to
the top and cautiously looked around me. Away
to the east I saw the vale of a river with broad fields
and church-spires. West and'south the forest rolled
unbroken in a wilderness of snowy tree~tops. There
was no sign of life anywhere, not even a bird, but I
knew very well that behind me in the woods were
men moving swiftly on my track, and that it was
pretty well impossible for me to get away.
There was nothing for it but to go on till I dropped
or was taken. I shaped my course south with a
shade of west in it, for the map showed me that in
that direction I would soonest strike the Danube.
What I was going to do when I got there I didn’t
trouble to think. I had fixed the river as my im-
mediate goal and the future must take care of itself.
I was now certain that I had fever on me. It
was still in my bones, as a legacy from Africa, and
had come out once or twice when I was with the
battalion in Hampshire. The bouts had been short,
for I had known of their coming and dosed myself.


CHRISTMASTIDE 101
But now I had no quinine, and it looked as if I were
in for a heavy go. It made me feel desperately
wretched and stupid, and I all but blundered into
capture.
For suddenly I came on a road and was going to
cross it blindly, when a man rode slowly past on a
bicycle. Luckily I was in the shade of a clump of
hollies and he was not looking my way, though he
was not three yards off. I crawled forward to
reconnoitre. I saw about half a mile of road running
straight through the forest and every two hundred
yards was a bicyclist. They wore uniform and
appeared to be acting as sentries.
This could only have one meaning. Stumm had
picketed all the roads and cut me off in an angle of
the woods. There was no chance of getting across
unobserved. As I lay there with my heart sinking,
I had the horrible feeling that the pursuit might be
following me from behind, and that at any moment
I would be enclosed between “two fires.
For more than an hour I stayed there with my chin
in the snow. I didn’t see any way out, and I was
feeling so ill that I didn’t seem to care. Then my
chance came suddenly out of the skies.
The wind rose, and a great gust of snow blew from
the east. In five minutes it was so thick that I
couldn’t see across the road. At first I thought it
a new addition to my troubles, and then very slowly
I saw the opportunity. I slipped down the bank and
made ready to. cross.
I almost blundered into one of the bicyclists. He
cried out and fell off his machine, but I didn’t wait
to investigate. A sudden access of strength came
to me and I darted into the woods on the farther side.
I knew I would be soon swallowed from sight in the
drift, and I knew that the falling snow would hide my
tracks. So I put my best foot forward.
I must have run miles before the hot fit passed, and


102 CHRISTMASTIDE
I stopped from sheer bodily weakness. There was
no sound except the crush of falling snow, the wind
seemed to have gone, and the place was very solemn
and quiet. But Heavens! how the snow fell! It
was partly screened by the branches, but all the same
it was piling itself up deep everywhere. My legs
seemed made of lead, my head burned, and there
were fiery pains over all my body. I stumbled on
blindly, without a notion of any direction, determined
only to keep going to the last. For I knew that if I
once lay down I would never rise again.
When I was a boy I was fond of fairy tales, and
most of the stories I remembered had been about
great German forests and snow and charcoal burners
and woodmen’s huts. Once I had longed to see these
things, and now I was fairly in the thick of them.
There had been wolves, too, and I wondered idly if I
should fall in with a pack. I felt myself getting light-
headed. I fell repeatedly and laughed sillily every
time. Once I dropped into a hole and lay for some
time at the bottom giggling. If any one had found
me then he would have taken me for a madman.
The twilight of the forest grew dimmer, but I
scarcely noticed it. Evening was falling, and soon
it would be night, a night without morning for me.
My body was going on without the direction of my
brain, for my mind was filled with craziness. I was
like a drunk man who keeps running, for he knows
that if he stops he will fall, and I had a sort of bet
with myself not to lie down—not at any rate just yet.
If I lay down I should feel the pain in my head worse.
Once I had ridden for five days down country with
fever on me and the flat bush trees had seemed to
melt into one big mirage and dance quadrilles before
my eyes. But then I had more or less kept my wits.
Now I was fairly daft, and every minute growing
dafter.
Then the trees seemed to stop and I was walking


CHRISTMASTIDE 108
on flat ground. It was a clearing, and before me
twinkled a little light. The change restored me to
consciousness, and suddenly I felt with horrid in-
tensity the fire in my head and bones and the weakness
of my limbs. I longed to sleep, and I had a notion
that a place to sleep was before me. I moved to-
wards the light and presently saw through a screen of
snow the outline of a cottage.
I had no fear, only an intolerable longing to lie
down. Very slowly I made my way to the door and
knocked. My weakness was so great that I could
hardly lift my hand.
There were voices within, and a corner of the curtain
was lifted from the window. Then the door opened
and a woman stood before me, a woman with a thin,
kindly face.
“ Griiss Gott,” she said, while children peeped from
behind her skirts.
“ Griiss Gott,” I replied. I leaned against the
doorpost, and speech forsook me.
She saw my condition. “ Come in, sir,” she said.
“ You are sick and it is no weather for a sick man.”
I stumbled after her and stood dripping in the
centre of the little kitchen, while three wondering
children stared at me. It was a poor place, scantily
furnished, but a good log-fire burned on the hearth.
The shock of warmth gave me one of those minutes
of self-possession which come sometimes in the middle
of a fever.
“ I am sick, mother, and I have walked far in the
storm and lost my way. I am from Africa, where
the climate is hot, and your cold brings me fever.
It will pass in a day or two if you can give me a bed."
“ You are welcome,” she said; “ but first I will
make you coffee.”
I took off my dripping cloak, and crouched close to
the hearth. She gave me coffee—poor washy stuff,
but blessedly hot. Poverty was spelled large in


104 CHRISTMASTIDE
everything I saw. I felt the tides of fever beginning
to overflow my brain again, and I made a great
attempt to set my affairs straight before I was over-
taken. With difficulty I took out Stumm’s pass
from my pocket-book.
“ That is my warrant," I said. "‘ I am a member
of the Imperial Secret Service and for the sake of my
work I must move in the dark. If you will permit
it, mother, I will sleep till I am better, but no one
must know that I am here. If any one comes, you
must deny my presence.”
She looked at the big seal as if it were a talisman.
“ Yes, yes,” she said, “ you will have the bed in
the garret and be left in peace till you are well. We
have no neighbours near, and the storm will shut the
roads. I will be silent, I and the little ones."
My head was beginning to swim, but I made one
more effort.
“ There is food in my rucksack—biscuits and ham
and chocolate. Pray take it for your use. And
here is some money to buy Christmas fare for the
little ones.” And I gave her some of the German
notes.
After that my recollection becomes dim. She
helped me up a ladder to the garret, undressed me,
and gave me a thick coarse nightgown. I seem to
remember that she kissed my hand, and that she was
crying. “The good Lord has sent you," she said.
“ Now the little ones will have their prayers answered
and the Christkind will not pass by our door."


CHAPTER VIII
ran ESSEN BABGES
I LAY for four days like a log in that garret bed. The
storm died down, the thaw set in, and the snow melted.
The children played about the doors and told stories
at night round the fire. Stumm’s myrmidons no
doubt beset every road and troubled the lives of
innocent wayfarers. But no one came near the
cottage, and the fever worked itself out while I lay
in peace.
It was a bad bout, but on the fifth day it left me,
and I lay, as weak as a kitten, staring at the rafters
and the little skylight. It was a leaky, draughty old
place, but the woman of the cottage had heaped
deerskins and blankets on my bed and kept me warm.
She came in now and then, and once she brought me
a brew of some bitter herbs which greatly refreshed
me. A little thin porridge was all the food I could
eat, and some chocolate made from the slabs in my
rucksack.
I lay and dozed through the day, hearing the faint
chatter of children below, and getting stronger
hourly. Malaria passes as quickly as it comes and
leaves a man little the worse, though this was one of
the sharpest turns I ever had. As I lay I thought,
and my thoughts followed curious lines. One queer
thing was that Stumm and his doings seemed to
have been shot back into a lumber-room of my brain
and the door locked. He didn’t seem to be a creature
of the living present, but a distant memory on which
105


106 THE ESSEN BARGES
I could look calmly. I thought a good deal about
my battalion and the comedy of my present position.
You see I was getting better, for I called it comedy
now, not tragedy.
But chiefly I thought of my mission. All that wild
day in the snow it had seemed the merest farce. The
three words Harry Bullivant had scribbled had
danced through my head in a crazy fandango. They
were present to me now, but coolly and sanely in all
their meagreness.
I remember that I took each one separately and
chewed on it for hours. Kasredin—there was nothing
to be got out of that. Cancer—there were too many
meanings, all blind. v. I—that was the worst
gibberish of all.
Before this I had always taken the I as the letter
of the alphabet. I had thought the v. must stand
for van, and I had considered the German names
beginning with I—Ingolstadt, Ingeburg, Ingenohl,
and all the rest of them. I had made a list of
about seventy at the British Museum before I left
London. '
Now I suddenly found myself taking the I as the
numeral One. Idly, not thinking what I was doing,
I put it into German.
Then I nearly fell out of the bed. Von Einem—-
the name I had heard at Gaudian’s house, the name
Stumm had spoken behind his hand, the name to
which Hilda was probabiy the prefix. It was a
tremendous discovery—the first real bit of light I had
found. Harry Bullivant knew that some man or
woman called Von Einem was at the heart of the
mystery. Stumm had spoken of the same personage
with respect and in connection with the work I
proposed to do in raising the Moslem Africans. If I
found Von Einem I would be getting very warm.
What was the word that Stumm had whispered to
Gaudian and scared that worthy? It had sounded


THE ESSEN BARGES 107
like Uhnmantl. If I could only get that clear, I
would solve the riddle.
I think that discovery completed my cure. At any
rate on the evening of the fifth day—it was Wednes-
day, the 29th of December—I was well enough to get
up. When the dark had fallen and it was too late
to fear a visitor, I came downstairs and, wrapped in
my green cape, took a seat by the fire.
As we sat there in the firelight, with the three white-
headed children staring at me with saucer eyes, and
smiling when I looked their way, the woman talked.
Her man had gone to the wars on the Eastern front,
and the last she had heard from him he was in a
Polish bog and longing for his dry native woodlands.
The struggle meant little to her. It was an act of
God, a thunderbolt out of the sky, which had taken a
husband from her, and might soon make her a widow
and her children fatherless. She knew nothing of its
causes and purposes, and thought of the Russians as
a gigantic nation of savages, heathens who had never
been converted, and who would eat up German
homes if the good Lord and the brave German soldiers
did not stop them. I tried hard to find out if she
had any notion of affairs in the West, but she hadn’t,
beyond the fact that there was trouble with the
French. I doubt if she knew of England’s share in
it. She was a decent soul, with no bitterness against
anybody, not even the Russians if they would spare
her man.
That night I realised the crazy folly of war. When
I saw the splintered shell of Ypres and heard hideous
tales of German doings, I used to want to see the
whole land of the Boche given up to fire and sword.
I thought we could never end the war properly without
giving the Huns some of their own medicine. But
that woodcutter’s cottage cured me of such night-
mares. I was for punishing the guilty but letting the
innocent go free. It was our business to thank God


108 THE ESSEN BARGES
and keep our hands clean from the ugly blunders to
which Germany’s madness had driven her. What
good would it do Christian folk to burn poor little
huts like this and leave children’s bodies by the
wayside T To be able to laugh and to be merciful are
the only things that make man better than the beasts.
The place, as I have said, was desperately poor.
The woman’s face had the skin stretched tight over
the bones and that transparency which means under-
feeding; I fancied she did not have the liberal allow-
ance that soldiers' wives get in England. The chil-
dren looked better nourished, but it was by their
mother’s sacrifice. I did my best to cheer them up.
I told them long yarns about Africa and lions and
tigers, and I got some pieces of wood and whittled
them into toys. I am fairly good with a knife, and
I carved very presentable likenesses of a monkey, a
springbok, and a rhinoceros. The children went to
bed hugging the first toys, I expect, they ever pos-
sessed.
It was clear to me that I must leave as soon
as possible. I had to get on with my business, and
besides, it was not fair to the woman. Any moment
I might be found here, and she would get into
trouble for harbouring me. I asked her if she knew
where the Danube was, and her answer surprised me.
“ You will reach it in an hour’s walk,” she said.
“ The track through the wood runs straight to the
ferr .”
Nlext morning after breakfast I took my depar-
ture. It was drizzling weather, and I was feeling
very lean. Before going I presented my hostess
and the children with two sovereigns apiece. “ It is
English gold,” I said, “ for I have to travel among
our enemies and use our enemies’ money. But the
gold is good, and if you go to any town they will
change it for you. But I advise you to put it in
your stocking-foot and use it only if all else fails.


THE ESSEN BARGES 109
You must keep your home going, for some day there
will be peace and your man will come back from
the wars.”
I kissed the children, shook the woman’s hand,
and went off down the clearing. They had cried
“ Auf wiedersehen,” but it wasn’t likely I would
ever see them again.
The snow had all gone, except in patches in the
deep hollows. The ground was like a full sponge,
and a cold rain drifted in my eyes. After half an
hour’s steady trudge the trees thinned, and pre-
sently I came out on a knuckle of open ground
cloaked in dwarf junipers. And there before me lay
the plain, and a mile off a broad brimming river.
I sat down and looked dismally at the prospect.
The exhilaration of my discovery the day before
had gone. I had stumbled on a worthless piece of
knowledge, for I could not use it. Hilda V011 Einem,
if such a person existed and possessed the great
secret, was probably living in some big house in
Berlin, and I was about as likely to get anything out
of her as to be asked to dine with the Kaiser. Blen-
kiron might do something, but where on earth was
' Blenkiron T I dared say Sir Walter would value the
information, but I could not get to Sir Walter. I
was to go on to Constantinople, running away from
the people who really pulled the ropes. But if I
stayed I could do nothing, and I could not stay. I
must go on and I didn’t see how I could go on.
Every course seemed shut to me, and I was in as
pretty a tangle as any man ever stumbled into.
For I was morally certain that Stumm would not
let the thing drop. I knew too much, and besides
I had outraged his pride. He would beat the coun-
tryside till he got me, and he undoubtedly would
get me if I waited much longer. But how was I to
get over the border Y My passport would be no
good, for the number of that pass would long ere
8


110 THE ESSEN BARGES
this have been wired to every police-station in Ger-
many, and to produce it would be to ask for trouble.
Without it I could not cross the borders by any
railway. My studies of the Tourists’ Guide had
suggested that once I was in Austria I might find
things slacker and move about easier. I thought of
having a try at the Tyrol and I also thought of
Bohemia. But these places were a long way off, and
there were several thousand chances each day that
I would be caught on the road.
This was Thursday, the 80th of December, the
second last day of the year. I was due in Con-
stantinople on the 17th of January. Constantinople l
I had thought myself a long way from it in Berlin,
but now it seemed as distant as the moon.
But that big sullen river in front of me led to it.
And as I looked my attention was caught by a curious
sight. On the far eastern horizon, where the water
slipped round a corner of hill, there was a long
trail of smoke. The streamers thinned out, and
seemed to come from some boat well round the
comer, but I could see at least two boats in view.
Therefore there must be a long train of barges, with
a tug in tow.
I looked to the west and saw another such pro-
cession coming into sight. First went a big river
steamer—it can’t have been much less than 1,000
tons—and after came a string of barges. I counted
no less than six besides the tug. They were heavily
loaded and their draught must have been consider-
able, but there was plenty of depth in the flooded
river.
A moment’s reflection told me what I was looking
at. Once Sandy, in one of the discussions you have
in hospital, had told us just how the Germans muni-
tioned their Balkan campaign. They were pretty
certain of dishing Serbia at the first go, and it was
up to them to get through guns and shells to the


THE ESSEN BARGES 111
old Turk, who was running pretty short in his first
supply. Sandy said that they wanted the railway,
but they wanted still more the river, and they could
make certain of that in a week. He told us how
endless strings of barges, loaded up at the big fac-
tories of Westphalia, were moving through the
canals from the Rhine or the Elbe to the Danube.
Once the first reached Turkey, there would be regular
delivery, you see—as quick as the Turks could handle
the stuff. And they didn’t return empty, Sandy
said, but came back full of Turkish cotton and
Bulgarian beef and Rumanian com. I don’t know
where Sandy got the knowledge, but there was the
proof of it before my eyes.
It was a wonderful sight, and I could have gnashed
my teeth to see those loads of munitions going snugly
off to the enemy. I calculated they would give
our poor chaps hell in Gallipoli. And then, as I
looked, an idea came into my head. and with it an
eighth part of a hope.
There was only one way for me to get out of
Germany, and that was to leave in such good com-
pany that I would be asked no questions. That was
plain enough. If I travelled to Turkey, for instance,
in the Kaiser’s suite, I would be as safe as the mail;
but if I went on my own I was done. I had, so to
speak, to get my passport inside Germany, to join
some caravan which had free marching powers.
And there was the kind of caravan before me—the
Essen barges.
It sounded lunacy, for I guessed that munitions
of war would be as jealously guarded as old Hinden-
burg’s health. All the safer, I replied to myself,
once I get there. If you are looking for a deserter
you don’t seek him at the favourite regimental
public-house. If you’re after a thief, among the
places you’d be apt to leave unsearched would be
Scotland Yard.


THE ESSEN BARGES 118
time there, though they might have wired ahead for
a grave to be dug. Anyhow, they would be long
enough to give me a chance.
For I had decided upon the brazen course. Blen-
kiron had said you couldn’t cheat the Boche, but
you could bluff him. I was going to put up the
most monstrous bluff. If the whole countryside was
hunting for Richard Hannay, Richard Hannay
would walk through as a pal of the hunters. For I
remembered the pass Stumm had given me. If
that was worth a tinker’s curse it should be good
enough to impress a ship’s captain.
Of course there were a thousand risks. They
might have heard of me in the village and told the
ship’s party the story. For that reason I resolved
not to go there but to meet the sailors when they
were returning to the boat. Or the captain might
have been warned and got the number of my pass,
in which case Stumm would have his hands on me
pretty soon. Or the captain might be an ignorant
fellow who had never seen a Secret Service pass
and did not know what it meant, and would refuse
me transport by the letter of his instructions. In
that case I might wait on another convoy.
I had shaved and made myself a fairly respectable
figure before I left the cottage. It was my cue to
wait for the men when they left the church, wait
on that quarter-mile of straight highway. I judged
the captain must be in the party. The village, I
was glad to observe, seemed very empty. I have
my own notions about the Bavarians as fighting
men, but I am bound to say that, judging by my
observations, very few of them stayed at home.
That funeral took hours. They must have had to
dig the grave, for I waited near the road in a clump
of cherry-trees, with my feet in two inches of mud
and water, till I felt chilled to the bone. I prayed
to God it would not bring back my fever, for I was


114 THE ESSEN BARGES
only one day out of bed. I had very little tobacco
left in my pouch, but I stood myself one pipe, and I
ate one of the three cakes of chocolate I still carried.
At last, well after midday, I could see the ship’s
party returning. They marched two by two, and I
was thankful to see that they had no villagers with
them. I walked to the road, turned up it, and met the
vanguard, carrying my head as high as I knew how.
“ Where’s your captain ? ” I asked, and a man
jerked his thumb over his shoulder. The others wore
thick jerseys and knitted caps, but there was one
man at the rear in uniform.
He was a short, broad man with a weather-beaten
face and an anxious eye.
“ May I have a word with you, Herr Captain ? ”
I said, with what I hoped was a judicious blend of
authority and conciliation.
He nodded to his companion, who walked on.
“ Yes ‘? ” he asked rather impatiently.
I proffered him my pass. Thank Heaven he had
seen the kind of thing before, for his face at once
took on that curious look which one person in
authority always wears when he is confronted with
another. He studied it closely and then raised his
e es.
y“ Well, sir T ” he said. “ I observe your cre-
dentials. What can I do for you?”
“ I take it you are bound for Constantinople 7 ’9
I asked.
“The boats go as far as Rustchuk,” he replied.
“ There the stuff is transferred to the railway.”
“ And you reach Rustchuk when 7 ”
“ In ten days, bar accidents. Let us say twelve
to be safe.”
“ I want to accompany you," I said. “ In my
profession, Herr Captain, it is necessary sometimes
to make journeys by other than the common route.
That is now my desire. I have the right to call


118 THE ESSEN BARGES
board, and ten minutes later we were out in mid-
stream and our tows were lumbering into line. Coffee
was being made ready in the cabin, and while I waited
for it I picked up the captain’s binoculars and scanned
the place I had left.
I saw some curious things. On the first road I had
struck on leaving the cottage there were men on
bicycles moving rapidly. They seemed to wear
uniform. On the next parallel road, the one that ran
through the village, I could see others. I noticed,
too, that several figures appeared to be beating the
intervening fields.
Stumm’s cordon had got busy at last, and I thanked
my stars that not one of the villagers had seen me.
I had not got away much too soon, for in another
half-hour he would have had me.


118 THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER
his element smelling his way through the shoals of
the Ems mouth, or beating against a north-caster
in the shallow Baltic. He had six barges in tow, but
the heavy flood of the Danube made it an easy job
except when it came to going slow. There were two
men on each barge, who came aboard every morning
to draw rations. That was a funny business, for we
never lay to if we could help it. There was a dinghy
belonging to each barge, and the men used to row to
the next and get a lift in that barge’s dinghy, and so
forth. Six men would appear in the dinghy of the
barge nearest us and carry off supplies for the rest.
The men were mostly Frisians, slow-spoken, sandy-
haired lads, very like the breed you strike on the Essex
coast.
It was the fact that Schenk was really a deep-water
sailor, and so a novice to the job, that made me get on
with him. He was a good fellow and quite willing
to take a hint, so before I had been twenty-four hours
on board he was telling me all his difficulties, and I was
doing my best to cheer him. And difiiculties came
thick, because the next night was New Year’s Eve.
I knew that that night was a season of gaiety in
Scotland, but Scotland wasn’t in it with the Father-
land. Even Schenk, though he was in charge of
valuable stores and was voyaging against time, was
quite clear that the men must have permission for
some kind of beano. Just before darkness we came
abreast a fair-sized town, whose name I never dis-
covered, and decided to lie to for the night. The
arrangement was that one man should be left on
guard in each barge, and the other get four hours’
leave ashore. Then he would return and relieve his
friend, who should proceed to do the same thing. I
foresaw that there would be some fun when the first
batch returned, but I did not dare to protest. I was
desperately anxious to get past the Austrian frontier,
for I had a half-notion we might be searched there,


THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER 119
but Schenk took this Sylvesterabend business so
seriously that I would have risked a row if I had
tried to argue.
The upshot was what I expected. We got the first
batch aboard about midnight, blind to the world, and
the others straggled in at all hours next morning. I
stuck to the boat for obvious reasons, but next day
it became too serious, and I had to go ashore with the
captain to try and round up the stragglers. We got
them all in but two, and I am inclined to think these
two had never meant to come back. If I had a soft
job like a river-boat I shouldn’t be inclined to run
away in the middle of Germany with the certainty
that my best fate would be to be scooped up for the
trenches, but your Frisian has no more imagination
than a haddock. The absentees were both watchmen
from the barges, and I fancy the monotony of the life
had got on their nerves.
The captain was in a raging temper, for he was
short-handed to begin with. He would have started
a press-gang, but there was no superfluity of men in
that township: nothing but boys and grandfathers.
As I was helping to run the trip I was pretty annoyed
also, and I sluiced down the drunkards with icy
Danube water, using all the worst language I knew in
Dutch and German. It was a raw morning, and as
we raged through the river-side streets I remember I
heard the dry crackle of wild geese going overhead,
and wished I could get a shot at them. I told one
fellow—he was the most troublesome—that he was a
disgrace to a great Empire, and was only fit to fight
with the filthy English.
“ God in Heaven!” said the captain, “ we can delay
no longer. We must make shift the best we can. I
can spare one man from the deck hands, and you must
give up one from the engine-room.”
That was arranged, and we were tearing back rather
short in the wind when I espied a figure sitting on a


120 THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER
bench beside the booking-office on the pier. It Was
a slim figure, in an old suit of khaki: some cast-off
duds which had long lost the semblance of a uniform.
It had a gentle face, and was smoking peacefully,
looking out upon the river and the boats and us noisy
fellows with meek philosophical eyes. If I had seen
General French sitting there and looking like nothing
on earth I couldn’t have been more surprised.
The man stared at me without recognition. He was
waiting for his cue.
I spoke rapidly in Sesutu, for I was afraid the cap-
tain might know Dutch.
“ Where have you come from T " I asked.
“ They shut me up in trunk,” said Peter, “ and I
ran away. I am tired, Cornelis, and want to con-
tinue the journey by boat.”
“ Remember you have worked for me in Africa,”
I said. “ You are just home from Damaraland.
You are a German who has lived thirty years away
from home. You can tend a furnace and have
worked in mines."
Then I spoke to the captain.
“ Here is a fellow who used to be in my employ,
Captain Schenk. It’s almighty luck we’ve struck
him. He’s old, and not very strong in the head, but
I’ll go bail he’s a good worker. He says he’ll come
with us and I can use him in the engine-room.”
“ Stand up,” said the captain.
Peter stood up, light and slim and wiry as a leopard.
A sailor does not judge men by girth and weight.
“ He’ll do," said Schenk, and the next minute he
was readjusting his crews and giving the strayed
revellers the rough side of his tongue. As it chanced,
I couldn’t keep Peter with me, but had to send him
to one of the barges, and I had time for no more
than five words with him, when I told him to hold his
tongue and live up to his reputation as a half-wit.
That accursed Sylvesterabend had played havoc with


THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER 12]
the whole outfit, and the captain and I were weary
men before we got things straight.
In one way it turned out well. That afternoon we
passed the frontier and I never knew it till I saw a
man in a strange uniform come aboard, who copied
some figures on a schedule, and brought us a mail.
With my dirty face and general air of absorption in
duty, I must have been an unsuspicious figure. He
took down the names of the men in the barges, and
Peter’s name was given as it appeared on the ship’s
roll—Anton Blum.
“ You must feel it strange, Herr Brandt,” said the
captain, “ to be scrutinised by a policeman, you who
give orders, I doubt not, to many policemen.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “ It is my profession.
It is my business to go unrecognised often by my own
servants.” I could see that I was becoming rather a
figure in the captain’s eyes. He liked the way I kept
the men up to their work, for I hadn’t been a nigger-
driver for nothing.
Late on that Sunday night we passed through a
great city which the captain told me was Vienna. It
seemed to last for miles and miles, and to be as brightly
lit as a circus. After that, we were in big plains and
the air grew perishing cold. Peter had come aboard
once for his rations, but usually he left it to his partner,
for he was lying very low. But one morning—I
think it was the 5th of January, when we had passed
Buda and were moving through great sodden flats
just sprinkled with snow—the captain took it into
his head to get me to overhaul the barge loads.
Armed with a mighty type-written list, I made a
tour of the barges, beginning with the hindmost.
There was a fine old stock of deadly weapons—mostly
machine-guns and some field—pieces, and enough
shells to blow up the Gallipoli peninsula. All kinds
of shell were there, from the big 14-inch crumps to
rifle grenades and trench-mortars. It made me fairly


122 THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER
sick to see all these good things preparing for our
own fellows, and I wondered whether I would not be
doing my best service if I engineered a big explosion.
Happily I had the common sense to remember my
job and my duty to stick to it.
Peter was in the middle of the convoy, and I found
him pretty unhappy, principally through not being
allowed to smoke. His companion was an ox-eyed
lad, whom I ordered to the look-out while Peter and I
went over the lists.
“ Cornelis, my old friend,” he said, “ there are some
pretty toys here. With a spanner and a couple of
clear hours I could make these maxims about as
deadly as bicycles. What do you say to a try T ”
“ I’ve considered tha ,” I said, “ but it won’t do.
We’re on a bigger business than wrecking munition
convoys. I want to know how you got here.”
He smiled with that extraordinary Sunday-school
docility of his.
“ It was very simple, Cornelis. I was foolish in the
café—but they have told you of that. You see I was
angry, and did not reflect. They had separated us,
and I could see would treat me as dirt. Therefore
my bad temper came out, for, as I have told you, I
do not like Germans.”
Peter gazed lovingly at the little bleak farms which
dotted the Hungarian plain.
“ All night I lay in tronk with no food. In the
morning they fed me, and took me hundreds of miles
in a train to a place which I think is called Neuburg.
It was a great prison, full of English officers. . . . I
asked myself many times on the journey what was
the reason of this treatment, for I could see no sense
in it. If they wanted to punish me for insulting
them they had the chance to send me off to the
trenches. No one could have objected. If they
thought me useless they could have turned me back
to Holland. I could not have stopped them. But


THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER 128
they treated me as if I were a dangerous man, whereas
all their conduct hitherto had shown that they thought
me a fool. I could not understand it.
“ But I had not been one night in that Neuburg
place before I thought of the reason. They wanted
to keep me under observation as a check upon you,
Cornelis. I figured it out this way. They had given
you some very important work which required them
to let you into some big secret. So far, good. They
evidently thought much of you, even yon Stumm man,
though he was as rude as a buffalo. But they did
not know you fully, and they wanted a check on you.
That check they found in Peter Pienaar. Peter was
a fool, and if there was anything to blab, sooner or
later Peter would blab it. Then they would stretch
out a long arm and nip you short, wherever you were.
Therefore they must keep old Peter under their eye.”
“ That sounds likely enough,” I said.
“ It was God’s truth,” said Peter. “ And when
it was all clear to me I settled that I must escape.
Partly because I am a free man and do not like to
be in prison, but mostly because I was not sure of
myself. Some day my temper would go again, and
I might say foolish things for which Cornelis would
suffer. So it was very certain that I must escape.
“ Now, Cornelis, I noticed pretty soon that there
were two kinds among the prisoners. There were
the real prisoners, mostly English and French, and
there were humbugs. The humbugs were treated
apparently like the others, but not really, as I soon
perceived. There was one man who passed as an
English officer, another as a French Canadian, and the
others called themselves Russians. None of the honest
men suspected them, but they were there as spies
to hatch plots for escape and get the poor devils
caught in the act, and to worm out confidences which
might be of value. That is the German notion of
good business. I am not a British soldier to think


124 THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER
all men are gentlemen. I know that amongst men
there are desperate skellums, so I soon picked up this
game. It made me very angry, but it was a good
thing for my plan. I made my resolution to escape
the day I arrived at Neuburg, and on Christmas
Day I had a plan made.”
“ Peter, you’re an old marvel. Do you mean to
say you were quite certain of getting away whenever
you wanted T”
“ Quite certain, Cornelis. You see, I have been
wicked in my time and know something about the
inside of prisons. You may build them like great
castles, or they may be like a backveld tronk, only
mud and corrugated iron, but there is always a key
and a man who keeps it, and that man can be bested.
I knew I could get away, but I did not think it
would be so easy. That was due to the bogus
prisoners, my friends the spies.
“ I made great pals with them. On Christmas
night we were very jolly together. I think I spotted
every one of them the first day. I bragged about
my past and all I had done, and I told them I was
going to escape. They backed me up and promised
to help. Next morning I had a plan. In the after-
noon, just after dinner, I had to go to the commandant’s
room. They treated me a little differently from
the others, for I was not a prisoner of war, and I
went there to be asked questions and to be cursed
as a stupid Dutchman. There was no strict guard
kept there, for the place was on the second floor,
and distant by many yards from any staircase. In
the corridor outside the commandant’s room there
was a window which had no bars, and four feet from
the window the limb of a great tree. A man might
reach that limb, and if he were active as a monkey
might descend to the ground. Beyond that I knew
nothing, but I am a good climber, Cornelis.
“ I told the others of my plan. They said it was


THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER 125
good, but no one offered to come with me. They
were very noble ; they declared that the scheme was
mine and I should have the fruit of it, for if more
than one tried detection was certain. I agreed and
thanked them—thanked them with tears in my
eyes. Then one of them very secretly produced a
map. We planned out my road, for I was going
straight to Holland. It was a long road, and I had
no money, for they had taken all my sovereigns
when I was arrested, but they promised to get a
subscription up among themselves to start me.
Again I wept tears of gratitude. This was on Sun-
day, the day after Christmas. I settled to make
the attempt on the Wednesday afternoon.
“ Now, Cornelis, when the lieutenant took us to
see the British prisoners, you remember, he told us
many things about the ways of prisons. He told
us how they loved to catch a man in the act of
escape, so that they could use him harshly with a
clear conscience. I thought of that, and calculated
that now my friends would have told everything to
the commandant, and that they would be waiting
to bottle me on the Wednesday. Till then I
reckoned I would be slackly guarded, for they would
look on me as safe in the net. . . .
“ So I went out of the window next day. It was
the Monday afternoon. . . .”
“That was a bold stroke,” I said admiringly.
“ The plan was bold, but it was not skilful,” said
Peter modestly. “ I had no money beyond seven
marks, and I had but one stick of chocolate. I had
no overcoat, and it was snowing hard. Further, I
could not get down the tree, which had a trunk as
smooth and branchless as a blue gum. For a little
I thought I should be compelled to give in, and I
was not happy.
“ But I had leisure, for I did not think I would
be missed before nightfall, and given time a man
9


126 THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER
can do most things. By and by I found a branch
which led beyond the outer wall of the yard and
hung above the river. This I followed, and then
dropped from it into the stream. It was a drop of
some yards, and the water was very swift, so that
I nearly drowned. I would rather swim the Lim-
popo, Cornelis, among all the crocodiles than that
icy river. Yet I managed to reach the shore and
get my breath lying in the bushes. . . .
“ After that it was plain going, though I was very
cold. I knew that I would be sought on the northern
roads, as I had told my friends, for no one would
dream of an ignorant Dutchman going south away
from his kinsfolk. But I had learned enough from
the map to know that our road lay south-east, and I
had marked this big river.”
“ Did you hope to pick me up T ” I asked.
“ No, Cornelis. I thought you would be travelling
in first-class carriages while I should be plodding
on foot. But I was set on getting to the place you
spoke of (how do you call it? Constant Nople),
where our big business lay. I thought I might be
in time for that.”
“ You’re an old Trojan, Peter," I said; “but go
on. How did you get to that landing-stage where I
found you ‘2 ”
“ It was a hard journey,” he said meditatively.
“ It was not easy to get beyond the barbed-wire
entanglements which surrounded Neuburg—yes, even
across the river. But in time I reached the woods
and was safe, for I did not think any German could
equal me in wild country. The best of them, even
their foresters, are but babes in veldcraft compared
with such as me. . . . My troubles came only from
hunger and cold. Then I met a Peruvian smouse,l
and sold him my clothes and bought from him these.
I did not want to part with my own, which were
1 Peter meant a Polish-Jew pedlu.


THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER 12"!
better, but he gave me ten marks on the deal. After
that I went into a village and ate heavily.”
“ Were you pursued?” I asked.
“ I do not think so. They had gone north, as I
expected, and were looking for me at the railway
stations which my friends had marked for me. I
walked happily and put a bold face on it. If I saw
a man or woman look at me suspiciously I went up
to them at once and talked. I told a sad tale, and
all believed it. I was a poor Dutchman travelling
home on foot to see a dying mother, and I had been
told that by the Danube I should find the main
railway to take me to Holland. There were kind
people who gave me food, and one woman gave me
half a mark, and wished me God speed. . . . Then
on the last day of the year I came to the river and
found many drunkards.”
“ Was that when you resolved to get on one of
the river boats '1‘”
“ Ja, Cornelis. As soon as I heard of the boats
I saw where my chance lay. But you might have
knocked me over with a straw when I saw you
come on shore. That was good fortune, my friend.
. . . I have been thinking much about the Germans,
and I will tell you the truth. It is only boldness
that can baffle them. They are a most diligent
people. They will think of all likely difficulties, but
not of all possible ones. They have not much im-
agination. They are like steam engines which must
keep to prepared tracks. There they will hunt any
man down, but let him trek for open country and
they will be at a loss. Therefore boldness, my
friend; for ever boldness. Remember as a nation
they wear spectacles, which means that they are
always peering.”
Peter broke off to gloat over the wedges of geese
and the strings of wild swans that were always wing-
ing across those plains. His tale had bucked me up


128 THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER
wonderfully. Our luck had held beyond all belief,
and I had a kind of hope in the business now which
had been wanting before. That afternoon, too, I
got another fillip.
I came on deck for a breath of air and found it
pretty cold after the heat of the engine room. So
I called to one of the deck hands to fetch me up my
cloak from the cabin—the same I had bought that
first morning in the Greif village.
“ Der grime mantel ? " the man shouted up, and I
cried, Yes. But the words seemed to echo in my
ears, and long after he had given me the garment I
stood staring abstractedly over the bulwarks.
His tone had awakened a chord of memory, or, to
be accurate, they had given emphasis to what before
had been only blurred and vague. For he had
spoken the words which Stumm had uttered behind
his hand to Gaudian. I had heard something like
“ Uhnmantl,” and could make nothing of it. Now
I was as certain of those words as of my own exis-
tence. They had been “ Gn'tne mantel.” Grilne
mantel, whatever it might be, was the name which
Stumm had not meant me to hear, which was some
talisman for the task I had proposed, and which
was connected in some way with the mysterious
von Einem.
This discovery put me in high fettle. I told my-
self that, considering the difficulties, I had managed
to find out a wonderful amount in a very few
days. It only shows what a man can do with the
slenderest evidence if he keeps chewing and chewing
on it. . . .
Two mornings later we lay alongside the quays
at Belgrade, and I took the opportunity of stretching
my legs. Peter had come ashore for a smoke, and
we wandered among the battered riverside streets,
and looked at the broken arches of the great railway
bridge which the Germans were working at like


180 THE RETURN OF THE STRAGGLER
I did not realise till weeks later that that was the
first tidings of the great evacuation of Cape Helles.
What rejoiced me was the sight of Blenkiron, as
bland as a barber among those swells. Here were
two of the missionaries within reasonable distance of
their goal.


CHAPTER X
ma oumnx-nousa or SULIMAN ma nan
WE reached Rustchuk on January 10, but by no
means landed on that day. Something had gone wrong
with the unloading arrangements, or more likely
with the railway behind them, and we were kept
swinging all day well out in the turbid river. On the
top of this Captain Schenk got an ague, and by that
evening was a blue and shivering wreck. He had
done me well and I reckoned I would stand by him.
So I got his ship’s papers and the manifests of cargo,
and undertook to see to the transhipment. It
wasn’t the first time I had tackled that kind of
business, and I hadn’t much to learn about steam
cranes. I told him I was going on to Constantinople
and would take Peter with me, and he was agree-
able. He would have to wait at Rustchuk to get
his return cargo, and could easily inspan a fresh
engineer.
I worked about the hardest twenty-four hours of
my life getting the stuff ashore. The landing ofiicer
was a Bulgarian, quite a competent man if he could
have made the railways give him the trucks he
needed. There was a collection of hungry German
transport officers always putting in their oars, and
being infernally insolent to everybody. I took the
high and mighty line with them; and, as I had the
Bulgarian commandant on my side, after about two
hours’ blasphemy got them quieted.
But the big trouble came the next morning when
I had got nearly all the stuff aboard the trucks.
[3]


182 THE GARDEN-HOUSE OF
A young officer in what I took to be a Turkish
uniform rode up with an aide-de-camp. I noticed
the German guards saluting him, so I judged he was
rather a swell. He came up to me and asked me
very civilly in German for the way-bills. I gave him
them and he looked carefully through them, marking
certain items with a blue pencil. Then he coolly
handed them to his aide—de-camp and spoke to him
in Turkish.
“ Look here, I want these back,” I said. “ I can’t
do without them, and we’ve no time to waste.”-
“ Presently,” he said, smiling, and went off.
I said nothing, reflecting that the stuff was for
the Turks and they naturally had to have some say
in its handling. The loading was practically finished
when my gentleman returned. He handed me a
neatly typed new set of way-bills. One glance at
them showed that some of the big items had been
left out.
“ Here, this won’t do,” I cried. “ Give me back
the right set. This thing’s no good to me.”
For answer he winked gently, smiled like a dusky
seraph, and held out his hand. In it I saw a roll of
money.
“ For yourself,” he said. “ It is the usual custom.”
It was the first time any one had ever tried to
bribe me, and it made me boil up like a geyser. I
saw his game clearly enough. Turkey would pay
for the lot to Germany: probably had already paid
the bill; but she would pay double for the things
not on the way-bills, and pay to this fellow and his
friends. This struck me as rather steep even for
Oriental methods of doing business.
“ Now look here, sir,” I said, “ I don’t stir from
this place till I get the correct way-bills. If you
won’t give me them, I will have every item out of
the trucks and make a new list. But a correct list
I have, or the stuff stays here till Doomsday."


184 THE GARDEN-HOUSE OF
see them safe at Chataldja, or whatever they call the
artillery depot.”
I said a good deal more, but that is an abbreviated
translation of my remarks. My word for “ blighter ”
was trottel, but I used some other expressions which
would have ravished my Young Turk friend to
bear. Looking back, it seems pretty ridiculous to
have made all this fuss about guns which were going
to be used against my own people. But I didn’t see
that at the time. My professional pride was up in
arms, and I couldn’t bear to have a hand in a crooked
deal.
“ Well, I advise you to go armed,” said the com-
mandant “ You will have a guard for the trucks,
of course, and I will pick you good men. They may
hold you up all the same. I can’t help you once
you are past the frontier, but I’ll send a wire to
Oesterzee and he’ll make trouble if anything goes
wrong. I still think you would have been wiser to
humour Rasta Bey.”
As I was leaving he gave me a telegram. “ Here’s
a wire for your Captain Schenk.” I slipped the
envelope in my pocket and went out.
Schenk was pretty sick, so I left a note for him.
At one o’clock I got the train started, with a couple
of German landwehr in each truck and Peter and I
in a horse-box. Presently I remembered Schenk’s
telegram, which still reposed in my pocket. I took
it out and opened it, meaning to wire it from the
first station we stopped at. But I changed my mind
when I read it. It was from some official at Regens-
burg, asking him to put under arrest and send back
by the first boat a man called Brandt, who Was
believed to have come aboard at Absthafen on the
80th of December.
I whistled and showed it to Peter. The sooner we
were at Constantinople the better, and I prayed we
Would get there before the fellow who sent this wire


SULIMAN THE RED 135
repeated it and got the commandant to send on
the message and have us held up at Chataldja.
For my back had got fairly stiffened about these
munitions, and I was going to take any risk to see
them safely delivered to their proper owner. Peter
couldn’t understand me at all. He still hankered
after a grand destruction of the lot somewhere
down the railway. But then, this wasn’t the
line of Peter’s profession, and his pride was not at
stake.
We had a mortally slow journey. It was bad
enough in Bulgaria, but when we crossed the frontier
at a place called Mustafa Pasha we struck the real
supineness of the East. Happily I found a German
officer there who had some notion of hustling, and,
after all, it was his interest to get the stuff moved.
It was the morning of the 16th, after Peter and I
had been living like pigs on black bread and con-
demned tinned stuff, that we came in sight of a
blue sea on our right hand and knew we couldn’t
be very far from the end.
It was jolly near the end in another sense. We
stopped at a station and were stretching our legs
on the platform when I saw a familiar figure ap-
proaching. It was Rasta, with half a dozen Turkish
gendarmes.
I called to Peter, and we clambered into the truck
next our horse-box. I had been half expecting
some move like this and had made a plan.
The Turk swaggered up and addressed us. “ You
can get back to Rustchuk,” he said. “ I take over
from you here. Hand me the papers."
“ Is this Chataldja ? ’3 I asked innocently.
“ It is the end of your affair,” he said haughtily.
“ Quick, or it will be the worse for you.”
“ Now, look here, my son,” I said; “you’re a kid
and know nothing. I hand over to General von
Oesterzee and to no one else.’3


186 THE GARDEN-HOUSE OF
“ You are in Turkey,” he cried, “ and will obey
the Turkish Government.”
“ I’ll obey the Government right enough,” I said;
“ but if you’re the Government I could make a
better one with a bib and a rattle.”
He said something to his men, who unslung their
rifles.
“ Please don’t begin shooting," I said. “There are
twelve armed guards in this train who will take
their orders from me. Besides, I and my friend can
shoot a bit.”
“ F001 1 ” he cried, getting very angry. “ I can
order up a regiment in five minutes.”
“ Maybe you can,” I said; “ but observe the
situation. I am sitting on enough toluol to blow
up this countryside. If you dare to come aboard I
will shoot you. If you call in your regiment I will
tell you what I’ll do. I’ll fire this stuff, and I reckon
they’ll be picking up the bits of you and your regi-
ment off the Gallipoli Peninsula.”
He had put up a bluff—a poor one—and I had
called it. He saw I meant what I said, and became
silken.
“Good-bye, sir,” he said. “You have had a fair
chance and rejected it. We shall meet again soon,
and you will be sorry for your insolence.”
He strutted away, and it was all I could do to
keep from running after him. I wanted to lay him
over my knee and spank him.
We got safely to Chataldja, and were received by
von Oesterzee like long-lost brothers. He was the
regular gunner-officer, not thinmng about anything
except his guns and shells. I had to wait about
three hours while he was checking the stuff with the
invoices, and then he gave me a receipt which I still
possess. I told him about Rasta, and he agreed
that I had done right. It didn’t make him as mad


SULIMAN THE RED 187
as I expected, because, you see, he got his stuff safe
in any case. It was only that the wretched Turks
had to pay twice for a lot of it.
He gave Peter and me luncheon, and was altogether
very civil and inclined to talk about the war. I
would have liked to hear what he had to say, for it
would have been something to get the inside view
of Germany’s Eastern campaign, but I did not dare
to wait. Any moment there might arrive an in-
criminating wire from Rustchuk. Finally he lent
us a car to take us the few miles to the city.
So it came about that at five minutes past three
on the 16th day of January, with only the clothes we
stood up in, Peter and I entered Constantinople.
I was in considerable spirits, for I had got the
final lap successfully over, and I was looking forward
madly to meeting my friends; but, all the same, the
first sight was a mighty disappointment. I don’t
quite know what I had expected—a sort of fairyland
Eastern city, all white marble and blue water, and
stately Turks in surplices, and veiled houris, and
roses and nightingales, and some sort of string band
diseoursing sweet music. I had forgotten that winter
is pretty much the same everywhere. It was a
drizzling day, with a south-east wind blowing, and
the streets were long troughs of mud. The first part
I struck looked like a dingy colonial suburb—wooden
houses and corrugated iron roofs, and endless dirty,
sallow children. There was a cemetery I remember,
with Turks’ caps stuck at the head of each grave.
Then we got into narrow steep streets which de-
scended to a kind of big canal. I saw what I took
to be mosques and minarets, and they were about as
impressive as factory chimneys. By and by we
crossed a bridge, and paid a penny for the privilege.
If I had known it was the famous Golden Horn I
would have looked at it with more interest, but I
saw nothing save a lot of moth-eaten barges and


138 THE GARDEN-HOUSE OF
some queer little boats like gondolas. Then we
came into busier streets, where ramshackle cabs
drawn by lean horses spluttered through the mud.
I saw one old fellow who looked like my notion of a
Turk, but most of the population had the appear-
ance of London old-clothes men. All but the
soldiers, Turk and German, who seemed well-set-up
fellows.
Peter had paddled along at my side like a faithful
dog, not saying a word, but clearly not approving
of this wet and dirty metropolis.
“ Do you know that we are being followed, Cor-
nelis T” he said suddenly, “ever since we came
into this evil-smelling dorp.”
Peter was infallible in a thing like that. The
news scared me badly, for I feared that the telegram
had come to Chataldja. Then I thought it couldn’t
be that, for if von Oesterzee had wanted me he
wouldn’t have taken the trouble to stalk me. It
was more likely my friend Rasta.
I found the ferry of Ratchik by asking a soldier,
and a German sailor there told me where the Kurdish
Bazaar was. He pointed up a steep street which
ran past a high block of warehouses with every
window broken. Sandy had said the left-hand side
coming down, so it must be the right-hand side
going up. We plunged into it, and it was the filthiest
place of all. The wind whistled up it and stirred
the garbage. It seemed densely inhabited, for at
all the doors there were groups of people squatting,
with their heads covered, though scarcely a window
showed in the blank walls.
The street corkscrewed endlessly. Sometimes it
seemed to stop ; then it found a hole in the opposing
masonry and edged its way in. Often it was almost
pitch dark; then would come a greyish twilight
where it opened out to the width of a decent lane.
To find a house in that murk was no easy job, and


SULIMAN THE RED 189
by the time we had gone a quarter of a mile I began
to fear we had missed it. It was no good asking
any of the crowd we met. They didn’t look as if
they understood any civilised tongue.
At last we stumbled on it—a tumble-down coffee
house, with A. Kuprasso above the door in queer
amateur lettering. There was a lamp burning in-
side, and two or three men smoking at small wooden
tables.
We ordered coffee, thick black stuff like treacle,
which Peter anathematised. A negro brought it,
and I told him in German I wanted to speak to
Mr. Kuprasso. He paid no attention, so I shouted
louder at him, and the noise brought a man out of
the back parts.
He was a fat, oldish fellow with a long nose, very
like the Greek traders you see on the Zanzibar coast.
I beckoned to him and he waddled forward, smiling
oilily. Then I asked him what he would take,
and he replied, in very halting German, that he would
have a sirop.
“ You are Mr. Kuprasso,” I said. “ I wanted to
show this place to my friend. He has heard of your
garden-house and the fun there.”
“ The Signor is mistaken. I have no garden-
house.”
“Rot,” I said; “ I’ve been here before, my boy.
I recall your shanty at the back and many merry
nights there. What was it you called it Y Oh, I
remember—the Garden-House of Suliman the Red."
He put his finger to his lip and looked incredibly
sly. “ The Signor remembers that. But that was
in the old happy days before war came. The place
is long since shut. The people here are too poor
to dance and sing.”
“ All the same I would like to have another look
at it,” I said, and I slipped an English sovereign into
his hand.


140 THE GARDEN- HOUSE OF
He glanced at it in surprise and his manner
changed. “ The Signor is a Prince, and I will do his
will.” He clapped his hands and the negro ap-
peared, and at his nod took his place behind a little
side-counter.
“ Follow me,” he said, and led us through a long,
noisome passage, which was pitch dark and very
unevenly paved. Then he unlocked a door and
with a swirl the wind caught it and blew it back
on us.
We were looking into a mean little yard, with on
one side a high curving wall, evidently of great
age, with bushes growing in the cracks of it. Some
scraggy myrtles stood in broken pots, and nettles
flourished in a corner. At one end was a wooden
building like a dissenting chapel, but painted a
dingy scarlet, Its windows and skylights were black
with dirt, and its door, tied up with rope, flapped in
the wind.
“ Behold the Pavilion,” Kuprasso said proudly.
“That is the old place,” I observed with feeling.
“ What times I’ve seen there! Tell me, Mr. Ku-
prasso, do you ever open it now Y”
He put his thick lips to my ear.
“ If the Signor will be silent I will tell him. It is
sometimes open—not often. Men must amuse them-
selves even in war. Some of the German oflicers
come here for their pleasure, and but last week we
had the ballet of Mademoiselle Cici. The police
approve——but not often, for this is no time for too
much gaiety. I will tell you a secret. To-morrow
afternoon there will be dancing—wonderful dancing!
Only a few of my patrons know. Who, think you,
will be there ‘1‘”
He bent his head closer and said in a whisper—
“The Compagnie des Heures Roses.”
“ Oh, indeed,” I said with a proper tone of respect,
though I hadn’t a notion what he meant.


SULIMAN THE RED 141
“ Will the Signor wish to come ’1 ”
“ Sure,” I said. “ Both of us. We’re all for the
rosy hours.”
“ Then the fourth hour after midday. Walk
straight through the café and one will be there to
unlock the door. You are new-comers here? Take
the advice of Angelo Kuprasso and avoid the streets
after nightfall. Stamboul is no safe place nowadays
for quiet men.”
I asked him to name an hotel, and he rattled off a
list from which I chose one that sounded modest and
in keeping with our get-up. It was not far off, only
a hundred yards to the right at the top of the hill.
When we left his door the night had begun to
drop. We hadn’t gone twenty yards before Peter
drew very near to me and kept turning his head
like a hunted stag.
“ We are being followed close, Comelis,” he said
calmly
Another ten yards and we were at a cross-road,
where a little place faced a biggish mosque. I could
see in the waning light a crowd of people who seemed
to be moving towards us. I heard a high-pitched
voice cry out a jabber of excited words, and it
seemed to me that I had heard the voice before.
IO


CHAPTER X1
um COMPANIONS or run ROSY norms
WE battled to a corner, where a jut of building stood
out into the street. It was our only chance to pro-
tect our backs, to stand up with the rib of stone
between us. It was only the work of seconds. One
instant we were groping our solitary way in the
darlmess, the next we were pinned against a wall
with a throaty mob surging round us.
It took me a moment or two to realise that we
were attacked. Every man has one special funk in
the back of his head, and mine was to be the quarry
of an angry crowd. I hated the thought of it—the
mess, the blind struggle, the sense of unleashed
passions different from those of any single black-
guard. It was a dark world to me, and I don’t like
darkness. But in my nightmares I had never
imagined anything just like this. The narrow, fetid
street, with the icy winds fanning the filth, the un-
known tongue, the hoarse savage murmur, and my
utter ignorance as to what it might all be about,
made me cold in the pit of my stomach.
“ We’ve got it in the neck this time, old man,”
I said to Peter, who had out the pistol the comman-
dant at Rustchuk had given him. These pistols
were our only weapons. The crowd saw them and
hung back, but if they chose to rush us it wasn’t
much of a barrier two pistols would make.
Rasta’s Voice had stopped. He had done his
work, and had retired to the background. There
[42


COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS 148
were shouts from the crowd—“ Alleman ” and a word
“Khafiye ” constantly repeated. Ididn’t lmow what
it meant at the time, but now I know that they
were after us because we were Bochas and spies
There was no love lost between the Constantinople
scum and their new masters. It seemed an ironical
end for Peter and me to be done in because we were
Boches. And done in we should be. I had heard
of the East as a good place for people to disappear
in; there were no inquisitive newspapers or in-
corruptible police.
I wished to Heaven I had a word of Turkish.
But I made my voice heard for a second in a pause
of the din, and shouted that we were German sailors
who had brought down big guns for Turkey, and
were going home next day. I asked them what the
devil they thought we had done? I don’t know
if any fellow there understood German; anyhow, it
only brought a pandemonium of cries in which that
ominous word Khafiyeh was predominant.
Then Peter fired over their heads. He had to, for
a chap was pawing at his throat. The answer was
a clatter of bullets on the wall above us. It looked
as if they meant to take us alive, and that I was
very clear should not happen. Better a bloody end
in a street scrap than the tender mercies of that
bandbox bravo.
I don’t quite know what happened next. A press
drove down at me and I fired. Some one squealed,
and I looked the next moment to be strangled.
And then suddenly the scrimmage ceased, and there
was a wavering splash of light in that pit of darkness.
I never went through many worse minutes than
these. When I had been hunted in the past weeks
there had been mystery enough, but no immediate
peril to face. When I had been up against a real,
urgent, physical risk, like Loos, the danger at any
rate had been clear. One knew what one was in for.


144 COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS
But here was a threat I couldn’t put a name to, and
it wasn’t in the future, but pressing hard at our
throats.
And yet I couldn’t feel it was quite real. The
patter of the pistol bullets against the wall, like so
many crackers, the faces felt rather than seen in the
dark, the clamour which to me was pure gibberish,
had all the madness of a nightmare. Only Peter,
cursing steadily in Dutch by my side, was real.
And then the light came, and made the scene more
eerie!
It came from one or two torches carried by wild
fellows with long staves who drove their way into
the heart of the mob. The flickering glare ran up
the steep walls and made monstrous shadows. The
wind swung the flame into long streamers, dying
away in a fan of sparks.
And now a new word was heard in the crowd.
It was Chinganeh, shouted not in anger but in fear.
At first I could not see the new-comers. They
were hidden in the deep darkness under their canopy
of light, for they were holding their torches high at
the full stretch of their arms. They were shouting,
too, wild shrill cries ending sometimes in a gush of
rapid speech. Their words did not seem to be
directed against us, but against the crowd. A
sudden hope came to me that for some unknown
reason they were on our side.
The press was no longer heavy against us. It
was thinning rapidly and I could hear the scuflie
as men made off down the side streets. My first
notion was that these were the Turkish police. But
I changed my mind when the leader came out into
a patch of light. He carried no torch, but a long
stave with which he belaboured the heads of those
who were too tightly packed to flee.
It was the most eldritch apparition you can con-
ceive. A tall man dressed in skins, with bare legs


COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS 14.!
and sandal-shod feet. A wisp of scarlet cloth clung
to his shoulders, and, drawn over his head down
close to his eyes, was a skull-cap of some kind of
pelt with the tail waving behind it. He capered like
a wild animal, keeping up a strange high monotone
that fairly gave me the creeps.
I was suddenly aware that the crowd had gone.
Before us was only this figure and his half-dozen
companions, some carrying torches and all wearing
clothes of skin. But only the one who seemed to
be their leader wore the skull-cap; the rest had
bare heads and long tangled hair.
The fellow was shouting gibberish at me. His
eyes were glassy, like a man who smokes hemp, and
his legs were never still a second. You would think
such a figure no better than a mountebank, and yet
there was nothing comic in it. Fearful and sinister
and uncanny it was; and I wanted to do anything
but laugh.
As he shouted he kept pointing with his stave up
the street which climbed the hillside.
“ He means us to move,” said Peter. “ For God’s
sake let’s get away from this witch-doctor.”
I couldn’t make sense of it, but one thing was clear.
These maniacs had delivered us for the moment
from Rasta and his friends.
Then I did a dashed silly thing. I pulled out a
sovereign and offered it to the leader. I had some
kind of notion of showing gratitude, and as I had no
words I had to show it by deed.
He brought his stick down on my wrist and sent
the coin spinning in the gutter. His eyes blazed,
and he made his weapon sing round my head. He
cursed me—oh, I could tell cursing well enough,
though I didn’t follow a word; and he cried to his
followers and they cursed me too. I had offered him
a mortal insult and stirred up a worse hornet’s nest
than Rasta’s push.


146 COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS
Peter and I, with a common impulse, took to our
heels. We were not looking for any trouble with
demoniacs. Up the steep narrow lane we ran with
that bedlamite crowd at our heels. The torches
seemed to have gone out, for the place was black as
pitch, and we tumbled over heaps of offal and
splashed through running drains. The men were
close behind us, and more than once I felt a stick
on my shoulder. But fear lent us wings, and sud-
denly before us was a blaze of light and we saw the
debouchment of our street in a main thoroughfare.
The others saw it too, for they slackened off. Just
before we reached the light we stopped and looked
round. There was no sound or sight behind us in
the dark lane which dipped to the harbour.
“ This is a queer country, Cornelis,” said Peter,
feeling his limbs for bruises. “ Too many things
happen in too short a time. I am breathless.”
The big street we had struck seemed to run along
the crest of the hill. There were lamps in it, and
crawling cabs, and quite civilised-looking shops. We
soon found the hotel to which Kuprasso had directed
us, a big place in a courtyard with a very tumble-
down-looking portico, and green sun shutters which
rattled drearin in the winter’s wind. It proved, as
I had feared, to be packed to the door, mostly with
German officers. With some trouble I got an inter-
view with the proprietor, the usual Greek, and told
him that we had been sent there by Mr. Kuprasso.
That didn’t affect him in the least, and we would
have been shot into the street if I hadn’t remem-
bered about Stumm’s pass.
So I explained that we had come from Germany
with munitions and only wanted rooms for one
night. I showed him the pass and blustered a good
deal, till he became civil and said he would do the
best he could for us.
That best was pretty poor. Peter and I were


COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS 147
doubled up in a small room which contained two
camp beds and little else, and had broken windows
through which the wind whistled. We had a wretched
dinner of stringy mutton boiled with vegetables,
and a white cheese strong enough to raise the dead.
But I got a bottle of whisky, for which I paid a
sovereign, and we managed to light the stove in our
room, fasten the shutters, and warm our hearts with
a brew of toddy. After that we went to bed and
slept like logs for twelve hours. On the road from
Rustchuk we had had uneasy slumbers.
I woke next morning and, looking out from the
broken window, saw that it was snowing. With a
lot of trouble I got hold of a servant and made him
bring us some of the treacly Turkish coffee. We
were both in pretty low spirits. “ Europe is a poor
cold place,” said Peter, “ not worth fighting for.
There is only one white man’s land, and that is South
Africa.” At the time I heartily agreed with him.
I remember that, sitting on the edge of my bed,
I took stock of our position. It was not very cheer-
ing. We seemed to have been amassing enemies at
a furious pace. First of all, there was Rasta, whom
I had insulted and who wouldn’t forget it in a hurry.
He had his crowd of Turkish riff-raff and was bound
to get us sooner or later. Then there was the maniac
in the skin hat. He didn’t like Rasta, and I made
a guess that he and his weird friends were of some
party hostile to the Young Turks. But, on the
other hand, he didn’t like us, and there would be bad
trouble the next time we met him. Finally, there
was Stumm and the German Government. It could
only be a matter of hours at the best before he got
the Rustchuk authorities on our trail. It would be
easy to trace us from Chataldja, and once they had
us we were absolutely done. There was a big black
dossier against us, which by no conceivable piece of
luck could be upset.


148 COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS
It was very clear to me that, unless we could find
sanctuary and shed all our various pursuers during
this day, we should be done in for good and all.
But where on earth were we to find sanctuary?
We had neither of us a word of the language, and
there was no way I could see of taking on new char-
acters. For that we wanted friends and help, and
I could think of none anywhere. Somewhere, to be
sure, there was Blenkiron, but how could we get in
touch with him? As for Sandy, I had pretty well
given him up. I always thought his enterprise the
craziest of the lot and bound to fail. He was pro-
bably somewhere in Asia Minor, and a month or
two later would get to Constantinople and hear in
some pot-house the yarn of the two wretched Dutch-
men who had disappeared so soon from men’s sight.
That rendezVous at Kuprasso’s was no good. It
would have been all right if we had got here unsus-
pected, and could have gone on quietly frequenting
the place till Blenkiron picked us up. But to do
that we wanted leisure and secrecy, and here we
were with a pack of hounds at our heels. The place
was horribly dangerous already. If we showed
ourselves there we should be gathered in by Rasta,
or by the German military police, or by the madman
in the skin cap. It was a stark impossibility to hang
about on the off-chance of meeting Blenkiron.
I reflected with some bitterness that this was the
17th day of January, the day of our assignation. I
had had high hopes all the way down the Danube of
meeting with Blenkiron—for I knew he would be in
time—of giving him the information I had had the
good fortune to collect, of piecing it together with
what he had found out, and of getting the whole
story which Sir Walter hungered for. After that, I
thought it wouldn’t be hard to get away by Rumania,
and to get home through Russia. I had hoped to
be back with my battalion in February, having


COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS 149
done as good a bit of work as anybody in the war.
As it was, it looked as if my information would die
with me, unless I could find Blenkiron before the
evening.
I talked the thing over with Peter, and he agreed
that we were fairly up against it. We decided to go
to Kuprasso’s that afternoon, and to trust to luck
for the rest. It wouldn’t do to wander about the
streets, so we sat tight in our room all morning, and
swopped old hunting yarns to keep our minds from
the beastly present. We got some food at midday
-—cold mutton and the same cheese, and finished
our whisky. Then I paid the bill, for I didn’t dare
to stay there another night. About half-past three
we went into the street, without the foggiest notion
where we would find our next quarters.
It was snowing heavily, which was a piece of luck
for us. Poor old Peter had no greatcoat, so we
went into a Jew’s shop and bought a ready-made
abomination, which looked as if it might have been
meant for a dissenting parson. It was no good saving
my money when the future was so black. The snow
made the streets deserted, and we turned down the
long lane which led to Ratchik ferry and found it
perfectly quiet. I do not think we met a soul till
we got to Kuprasso’s shop.
We walked straight through the café, which was
empty, and down the dark passage, till we were
stopped by the garden door. I knocked and it
swung open. There was the bleak yard, now puddled
with snow, and a blaze of light from the pavilion at
the other end. There was a scraping of fiddles, too,
and the sound of human talk. We paid the negro
at the door, and passed from the bitter afternoon
into a garish saloon.
There were forty or fifty people there, drinking
coffee and sirops and filling the air with the fumes
of latakia. Most of them were Turks in European


150 COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS
clothes and the fez, but there were some German
officers and what looked like German civilians—Army
Service Corps clerks, probably, and mechanics from
the Arsenal. A woman in cheap finery was tinkling
at the piano, and there were several shrill females
with the officers. Peter and I sat down modestly
in the nearest comer, where old Kuprasso saw us and
sent us coffee. A girl who looked like a Jewess
came over to us and talked French, but I shook my
head and she went off again.
Presently a girl came on the stage and danced, a
silly affair, all a clashing of tambourines and wriggling.
I have seen native women do the same thing better
in a Mozambique kraal. Another sang a German
song, a simple, sentimental thing about golden hair
and rainbows, and the Germans present applauded.
The place was so tinselly and common that, coming
to it from weeks of rough travelling, it made me im-
patient. I forgot that, while for the others it might
be a vulgar little dancing-hall, for us it was as
perilous as a brigands’ den.
Peter did not share my mood. He was quite in-
terested in it, as he was interested in everything
new. He had a genius for living in the moment.
I remember there was a drop-scene on which was
daubed a blue lake with very green hills in the dis-
tance. As the tobacco smoke grew thicker and the
fiddles went on squealing, this tawdry picture began
to mesmerise me. I seemed to be looking out of a
window at a lovely summer landscape where there
were no wars or dangers. I seemed to feel the warm
sun and to smell the fragrance of blossom from the
islands. And then I became aware that a queer
scent had stolen into the atmosphere
There were braziers burning at both ends to warm
the room, and the thin smoke from these smelt like
incense. Somebody had been putting a powder in
the flames, for suddenly the place became very quiet.


152 COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS
from, and I was gazing at the finest landscape on
earth, lit by the pure clean light of morning.
It seemed to be part of the veld, but like no veld
I had ever seen. It was wider and wilder and more
gracious. Indeed, I was looking at my first youth. I
was feeling the kind of immortal light-heartedness
which only a boy knows in the dawning of his days.
I had no longer any fear of these magic-makers.
They were kindly wizards, who had brought me into
fairyland.
Then slowly from the silence there distilled drops
of music. They came like water falling a long way
into a cup, each the essential quality of pure sound.
We, with our elaborate harmonies, have forgotten the
charm of single notes. The African natives know
it, and I remember a learned man once telling me
that the Greeks had the same art. Those silver
bells broke out of infinite space, so exquisite and
perfect that no mortal words could have been fitted
to them. That was the music, I expect, that the
morning stars made when they sang together.
Slowly, very slowly, it changed. The glow passed
from blue to purple, and then to an angry red. Bit
by bit the notes spun together till they had made
a harmony——a fierce, restless harmony. And I was
conscious again of the skin-clad dancers beckoning
out of their circle.
There was no mistake about the meaning now.
All the daintiness and youth had fled, and passion
was beating in the air—terrible, savage passion, which
belonged neither to day nor night, life nor death,
but to the half-world between them. I suddenly
felt the dancers as monstrous, inhuman, devilish.
The thick scents that floated from the brazier seemed
to have a tang of new-shed blood. Cries broke from
the hearers—cries of anger and lust and terror. I
heard a woman sob, and Peter, who is as tough as
any mortal, took tight hold of my arm.


154 COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS
I didn’t seem to care greatly. We were done, and
there was an end of it. It was Kismet, the act of
God, and there was nothing for it but to submit. I
hadn’t a flicker of a thought of escape or resistance.
The game was utterly and absolutely over.
A man who seemed to be a sergeant pointed to us
and said something to Kuprasso, who nodded. We
got heavily to our feet and stumbled towards them.
With one on each side of us we crossed the yard,
walked through the dark passage and the empty
shop, and out into the snowy street. There was a
closed carriage waiting which they motioned us to get
into. It looked exactly like the Black Maria.
Both of us sat still, like truant schoolboys, with
our hands on our knees. I didn’t know where I was
going and I didn’t care. We seemed to be rumbling
up the hill, and then I caught the glare of lighted
streets.
“ This is the end of it, Peter," I said.
“ Ja, Cornelis,” he replied, and that was all our
talk.
By and by—hours later it seemed—we stopped.
Some one opened the door and we got out, to find
ourselves in a courtyard with a huge dark building
around. The prison, I guessed, and I wondered if
they would give us blankets, for it was perishing
cold.
We entered a door, and found ourselves in a big
stone hall. It was quite warm, which made me
more hopeful about our cells. A man in some kind
of uniform pointed to the staircase, up which we
plodded wearily. My mind was too blank to take
clear impressions, or in any way to forecast the
future. Another warder met us and took us down
a passage till we halted at a door. He stood aside and
motioned us to enter.
I guessed that this was the governor’s room, and
we should be put through our first examination. My


COMPANIONS OF THE ROSY HOURS 15!!
head was too stupid to think, and I made up my
mind to keep perfectly mum. Yes, even if they
tried thumbscrews. I had no kind of story, but i
resolved not to give anything away. As 1 turned
the handle I wondered idly what kind of sallow Turk
or bulging-necked German we should find inside.
' It was a pleasant room, with a polished wood. floor
and a big fire burning on the hearth. Beside the
fire a man lay on a couch, with a little table drawn
up beside him. On that table was a small glass of
milk and a number of Patience cards spread in rows.
I stared blankly at the spectacle, till I saw a
second figure. It was the man in the skin-cap, the
leader of the dancing maniacs. Both Peter and I
backed sharply at the sight and then stood stock
still.
For the dancer crossed the room in two strides and
gripped both of my hands.
“Dick, old man,” he cried, “I’m most awfully
glad to see you again i ’3


CHAPTER XII
mun mssronsams BEE LIGHT m mam MISSIOI
A sums of incredulity, a vast relief, and that sharp
joy which comes of reaction chased each other across
my mind. I had come suddenly out of very black
waters into an unbelievable calm. I dropped into
the nearest chair and tried to grapple with something
far beyond words.
“ Sandy,” I said, as soon as I got my breath,
“ you’re an incarnate devil. You’ve given Peter
and me the fright of our lives.”
“ It was the only way, Dick. If I hadn’t come
mewing like a tom-cat at your heels yesterday, Rasta
would have had you long before you got to your
hotel. You two have given me a pretty anxious
time, and it took some doing to get you safe here.
However, that is all over now. Make yourselves at
home, my children.”
“ Over l” I cried incredulously, for my wits were
still wool-gathering. “ What place is this T ”
“ You may call it my humble home ”—it was Blen-
kiron’s sleek Voice that spoke. “ We’ve been pre-
paring for you, Major, but it was only yesterday I
heard of your friend.”
I introduced Peter.
“ Mr. Pienaar,” said Blenkiron, “ pleased to
meet you. Well, as I was observing, you’re safe
enough here, but you’ve cut it mighty fine. Officially,
a Dutchman called Brandt was to be arrested this
158


FOUR MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT 157
afternoon and handed over to the German authorities.
When Germany begins to trouble about that Dutch-
man she will find difficulty in getting the body; but
such are the languid ways of an Oriental despotism.
Meantime the Dutchman will be no more. He will
have ceased upon the midnight without pain, as
your poet sings.”
“ But I don’t understand," I stammered. “ Who
arrested us ?”
“My men,” said Sandy. “We have a bit of a
graft here, and it wasn’t difficult to manage it. Old
Moellendorfi will be nosing after the business to-
morrow, but he will find the mystery too deep for
him. That is the advantage of a Government run
by a pack of adventurers. But, by Jove, Dick, we
hadn’t any time to spare. If Rasta had got you, or
the Germans had had the job of lifting you, your
goose would have been jolly well cooked. I had
some unquiet hours this morning.”
The thing was too deep for me. I looked at Blen-
kiron, shuffling his Patience cards with his old sleepy
smile, and Sandy, dressed like some bandit in melo-
drama, his lean face as brown as a nut, his bare
arms all tattooed with crimson rings, and the fox
pelt drawn tight over brow and ears. It was still a
nightmare world, but the dream was getting plea-
santer. Peter said not a word, but I could see his
eyes heavy with his own thoughts.
Blenkiron hove himself from the sofa and waddled
to a cupboard.
“ You boys must be hungry,” he said. “ My duo-
denum has been giving me hell as usual, and I don’t
eat no more than a squirrel. But I laid in some
stores, for I guessed you would want to stoke up
some after your travels.”
He brought out a couple of Strassburg pies, a
cheese, 9. cold chicken, a. loaf, and three bottles of
champagne.
II


IN THEIR MISSION 159
He drew down the corners of his mouth till he
looked a cross between a music-hall comedian and a
sick child.
“ If you were looking for something in the root
of the hedge, you wouldn’t want to scour the road
in a high-speed automobile. And still less would
you want to get a bird’s—eye view in an aeroplane.
That parable about fits my case. I have been in
the clouds and I’ve been scorching on the pikes, but
what I was wanting was in the ditch all the time,
and I naturally missed it. . . . I had the wrong
stunt, Major. I was too high up and refined. I’ve
been processing through Europe like Barnum’s
Circus, and living with generals and transparencies.
Not that I haven’t picked up a lot of noos, and got
some very interesting sidelights on high politics.
But the thing I was after wasn’t to be found on my
beat, for those that knew it weren’t going to tell. In
that kind of society they don’t get drunk and blab
after their tenth cocktail. So I guess I’ve no con-
tribution to make to quieting Sir Walter Bullivant’s
mind, except that he’s dead right. Yes, sir, he has
hit the spot and rung the bell. There is a mighty
miracle-working proposition being floated in these
parts, but the promoters are keeping it to themselves.
They aren’t taking in more than they can help on
the ground-floor.”
Blenkiron stopped to light a fresh cigar. He was
leaner than when he left London and there were
pouches below his eyes. I fancy his journey had not
been as fur-lined as he made out.
“ I’ve found out one thing, and that is, that the
last dream Germany will part with is the control
of the Near East. That is what your statesmen
don’t figure enough on. She’ll give up Belgium and
Alsace-Lorraine and Poland, but by God 1 she’ll never
give up the road to Mesopotamia till you have her
by the throat and make her drop it. Sir Walter is


160 FOUR MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT
a pretty bright-eyed citizen, and he sees it right
enough. If the worst happens, Kaiser will fling over-
board a lot of ballast in Europe, and it will look like
a big victory for the Allies, but he won’t be beaten
if he has the road to the East safe. Germany’s like
a scorpion: her sting’s in her tail, and that tail
stretches way down into Asia.
“ I got that clear, and I also made out that it
wasn’t going to be dead easy for her to keep that
tail healthy. Turkey’s a bit of an anxiety, as you’ll
soon discover. But Germany thinks she can manage
it, and I won’t say she can’t. It depends on the
hand she holds, and she reckons it a good one. I
tried to find out, but they gave me nothing but
eyewash. I had to pretend to be satisfied, for the
position of John S. wasn’t so strong as to allow him
to take liberties. If I asked one of the highbrows,
he looked wise and spoke of the might of German
arms and German organisation and German staff-
work. I used to nod my head and get enthusiastic
about these stunts, but it was all soft soap. She has
a trick in hand—that much I know, but I’m darned
if I can put a name to it. I pray to God you boys
have been cleverer.”
His tone was quite melancholy, and I was mean
enough to feel rather glad. He had been the pro-
fessional with the best chance. It would be a good
joke if the amateur succeeded where the expert failed.
I looked at Sandy. He filled his pipe again, and
pushed back his skin cap from his brows. What
with his long dishevelled hair, his high-boned face,
and stained eyebrows he had the appearance of some
mad mullah.
“ I went straight to Smyrna,” he said. “ It wasn’t
difficult, for you see I had laid down a good many
lines in former travels. I reached the town as a
Greek money-lender from the Fayum, but I had.
friends there I could count on, and the same evening


IN THEIR MISSION 161
I was a Turkish gipsy, a member of the most famous
fraternity in Western Asia. I had long been a
member, and I’m blood-brother of the chief boss, so
I stepped into the part ready made. But I found
out that the Company of the Rosy Hours was not
what I had known it in 1910. Then it had been all
for the Young Turks and reform; now it hankered
after the old regime and was the last hope of the
Orthodox. It had no use for Enver and his friends,
and it did not regard with pleasure the beams yeua
of the Teuton. It stood for Islam and the old ways,
and might be described as a Conservative-Nationalist
caucus. But it was uncommon powerful in the
provinces, and Enver and Talaat daren’t meddle
with it. The dangerous thing about it was that it
said nothing and apparently did nothing. It just
bided its time and took notes.
“ You can imagine that this was the very kind of
crowd for my purpose. I knew of old its little ways,
for with all its orthodoxy it dabbled a good deal in
magic, and owed half its power to its atmosphere
of the uncanny. The Companions could dance the
heart out of the ordinary Turk. You saw a bit
of one of our dances this afternoon, Dick—pretty
good, wasn’t it? They could go anywhere, and no
questions asked. They knew what the ordinary man
was thinking, for they were the best intelligence
department in the Ottoman Empire—far better than
Enver’s Khafiyeh. And they were popular too, for
they had never bowed the knee to the Nemseh—the
Germans who are squeezing out the life-blood of the
Osmanli for their own ends. It would have been as
much as the life of the Committee or its German
masters was worth to lay a hand on us, for we clung
together like leeches and we were not in the habit
of sticking at trifles.
“ Well, you may imagine it wasn’t difficult for me
to move where I wanted My dress and the pass-


162 FOUR MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT
word franked me anywhere. I travelled from Smyrna
by the new railway to Panderma on the Marmora,
and got there just before Christmas. That was
after Anzac and Suvla had been evacuated, but I
could hear the guns going hard at Cape Helles. From
Panderma I started to cross to Thrace in a coasting
steamer. And there an uncommon funny thing
happened—I got torpedoed.
“ It must have been about the last effort of a
British submarine in those waters. But she got us
all right. She gave us ten minutes to take to the
boats, and then sent the blighted old packet and a
fine cargo of 6-inch shells to the bottom. There
weren’t many passengers, so it was easy enough to
get ashore in the ship’s boats. The submarine sat
on the surface watching us, as we wailed and howled
in the true Oriental way, and I saw the captain
quite close in the conning-tower. Who do you
think it was ? Tommy Elliot, who lives on the other
side of the hill from me at home.
“ I gave Tommy the surprise of his life. As we
bumped past him, I started the ‘ Flowers of the
Forest ’—the old version—on the antique stringed
instrument I carried, and I sang the words very
plain. Tommy’s eyes bulged out of his head, and
he shouted at me in English to know who the devil
I was. I replied in the broadest Scots, which no
man in the submarine or in our boat could have
understood a word of. ‘ Maister Tammy,’ I cried,
‘ what for wad ye skail a dacent tinkler lad intil a
cauld sea? I’ll gie ye your kail through the reek
for this ploy the next time I forgaither wi’ ye on the
tap 0’ Caerdon.’
“ Tommy spotted me in a second. He laughed
till he cried, and as we moved off shouted to me in
the same language to ‘ pit a stoot hert tae a stey
drae.’ I hope to Heaven he had the sense not to
tell my father. or the old man will have had a fit.


IN THEIR MISSION 168
He never much approved of my wanderings, and
thought I was safely anchored in the battalion.
“ Well, to make a long story short, I got to Con-
stantinople, and pretty soon found touch with Blen-
kiron. The rest you know. . . . And now for
business. I have been fairly lucky—but no more,
for I haven’t got to the bottom of the thing nor
anything like it. But I’ve solved the first of
Harry Bullivant’s riddles. I know the meaning of
Kasredin.
“ Sir Walter was right, as Blenkiron has told us.
There’s a great stirring in Islam, something moving
on the face of the waters. They make no secret
of it. Those religious revivals come in cycles, and
one was due about now. And they are quite clear
about the details. A seer has arisen of the blood
of the Prophet, who will restore the Khalifate to
its old glories and Islam to its old purity. His
sayings are everywhere in the Moslem world. All
the orthodox believers have them by heart. That
is why they are enduring grinding poverty and pre-
posterous taxation, and that is why their young
men are rolling up to the armies and dying without
complaint in Gallipoli and Transcaucasia. They
believe they are on the eve of a great deliverance.
“ Now the first thing I found out was that the
Young Turks had nothing to do with this. They are
unpopular and unorthodox and no true Turks.
But Germany has. How, I don’t know, but I could
see quite plainly that in some subtle way Germany
was regarded as a collaborator in the movement.
It is that belief that is keeping the present regime
going. The ordinary Turk loathes the Committee,
but he has some queer perverted expectation from
Germany. It is not a case of Enver and the rest
carrying on their shoulders the unpopular Teuton;
it is a case of the Teuton carrying the unpopular
Committee. And Germany’s graft is just this and


164 FOUR MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT
nothing more—that she has some hand in the coming
of the new deliverer.
“They talk about the thing quite openly. It is
called the Kaéba-i-hurriyeh, the Palladium of Liberty.
The prophet himself is known as Zimrud—J the
Emerald -’-—and his four ministers are called also
after jewels—Sapphire, Ruby, Pearl, and Topaz.
You will hear their names as often in the talk of the
towns and villages as you will hear the names of
generals in England. But no one knew where Zimrud
was or when he would reveal himself, though every
week came his messages to the faithful. All that I
could learn was that he and his followers were coming
from the West.
“ You will say, what about Kasredin? That
puzzled me dreadfully, for no one used the phrase.
The Home of the Spirit! It is an obvious cliche,
just as in England some new sect might call itself
the Church of Christ. Only no one seemed to use it.
“ But by and by I discovered that there
was an inner and an outer circle in this mystery.
Every creed has an esoteric side which is kept
from the common herd. I struck this side in Con-
stantinople. Now there is a very famous Turkish
shaka called Kasrcdin, one of those old half-comic
miracle-plays with an allegorical meaning which
they call orta oyun, and which take a week to read.
That tale tells of the coming of a prophet, and I
found that the select of the faith spoke of the new
revelation in terms of it. The curious thing is that
in that tale the prophet is aided by one of the few
women who play much part in the hagiology of
Islam. That is the point of the tale, and it is partly
a jest, but mainly a religious mystery. The prophet,
too, is not called Emerald.”
“ I know,” I said; “ he is called Greenmantle.”
Sandy scrambled to his feet, letting his pipe drop
in the fireplace.


IN THEIR MISSION ,- 166
“ Now how on earth did you find out that ‘P ” he
cried.
Then I told them of Stumm and Gaudian and the
whispered words I had not been meant to hear.
Blenkiron was giving me the benefit of a steady
stare, unusual from one who seemed always to have
his eyes abstracted, and Sandy had taken to rang-
ing up and down the room.
“ Germany’s in the heart of the plan. That is
what I always thought. If we’re to find the Kaaba-
i-hurriyeh it is no good fossicking among the Committee
or in the Turkish provinces. The secret’s in Ger-
many. Dick, you should not have crossed the
Danube.”
“That’s what I half feared," I said. “ But on
the other hand it is obvious that the thing must come
east, and sooner rather than later. I take it they
can’t afford to delay too long before they deliver the
goods. If we can stick it out here we must hit the
trail. . . . I’ve got another bit of evidence. I have
solved Harry Bullivant’s third puzzle.”
Sandy’s eyes were very bright and I had an audi-
ence on wires.
“ Did you say that in the tale of Kasredin a woman
is the ally of the prophet ?”
“ Yes,” said Sandy; “ what of that T ”
“ Only that the same thing is true of Greenmantle.
I can give you her name.”
I fetched a piece of paper and a pencil from Blen-
ln'ron’s desk and handed it to Sandy.
“ Write down Harry Bullivant’s third word."
He promptly wrote down “ v. I.”
Then I told them of the other name Stumm and
Gaudian had spoken. I told of my discovery as I
lay in the woodman’s cottage.
“ The ‘ I ’ is not the letter of the alphabet, but
the numeral. The name is Von Einem—Hilda von
Einem.”


166 FOUR MISSIONARIES SEE LIGHT
“ Good old Harry,” said Sandy softly. “He was
a dashed clever chap. Hilda von Einem! Who
and where is she Y for if we find her we have done
the trick.”
Then Blenkiron spoke. “ I reckon I can put you
wise on that, gentlemen,” he said. “ I saw her no
later than yesterday. She is a lovely lady. She
happens also to be the owner of this house.”
Both Sandy and I began to laugh. It was too
comic to have stumbled across Europe and lighted
on the very headquarters of the puzzle we had set
out to unriddle.
But Blenkiron did not laugh. At the mention of
Hilda von Einem he had suddenly become very
solemn, and the sight of his face pulled me up short.
“ I don’t like it, gentlemen,” he said. “ I would
rather you had mentioned any other name on God’s
earth. I haven’t been long in this city, but I have
been long enough to size up the various political
bosses. They haven’t much to them. I reckon
they wouldn’t stand up against what we could show
them in the U-nited States. But I have met the
Frau von Einem, and that lady’s a very different
proposition. The man that will understand her has
got to take a biggish size in hats.”
“ Who is she T ” I asked.
“ Why, that is just what I can’t tell you. She
was a great excavator of Babylonish and Hittite
ruins, and she married a diplomat who went to glory
three years back. It isn’t what she has been, but
what she is, and that’s a mighty clever woman.”
Blenkiron’s respect did not depress me. I felt as
if at last we had got our job narrowed to a decent
compass, for I had hated casting about in the dark.
I asked where she lived.
“That I don’t know,” said Blenkiron. “ You
won’t find people unduly anxious to gratify your
natural curiosity about Frau von Einem.”


IN THEIR MISSION 167
“I can find that out,” said Sandy. “That’s
the advantage of having a push like mine. Mean-
time, I’ve got to clear, for my day’s work isn’t
finished. Dick, you and Peter must go to bed at
once.”
“ Why T ” I asked in amazement. Sandy spoke
like a medical adviser.
“ Because I want your clothes—the things you’ve
got on now. I’ll take them off with me and you’ll
never see them again.”
“ You’ve a queer taste in souvenirs,” I said.
“ Say rather the Turkish police. The current in
the Bosporus is pretty strong, and these sad relics
of two misguided Dutchmen will be washed up
to-morrow about Seraglio Point. ,' In this game you
must drop the curtain neat and pat at the end of
each scene, if you don’t want trouble later with the
missing heir and the family lawyer.” ’I


CHAPTER XIII
I nova IN GOOD socm'rr
I WALKED out of that house next morning with
Blenkiron’s arm in mine, a different being from the
friendless creature who had looked vainly the day
before for sanctuary. To begin with, I was splen-
didly dressed. I had a navy-blue suit with square
padded shoulders, a neat black bow-tie, shoes with
a hump at the toe, and a brown bowler. Over that
I wore a greatcoat lined with wolf fur. I had a
smart malacca cane, and one of Blenkiron’s cigars in
my mouth. Peter had been made to trim his beard,
and, dressed in unassuming pepper-and-salt, looked
with his docile eyes and quiet voice a very respect-
able servant. Old Blenkiron had done the job in
style, for, if you’ll believe it, he had brought the
clothes all the way from London. I realised now
why he and Sandy had been fossicking in my ward-
robe. Peter’s suit had been of Sandy’s procuring,
and it was not the fit of mine. I had no difficulty
about the accent. Any man brought up in the
colonies can get his tongue round American, and I
flattered myself I made a very fair shape at the
lingo of the Middle West.
The wind had gone to the south and the snow
was melting fast. There was a blue sky above Asia,
and away to the north masses of white cloud drifting
over the Black Sea. What had seemed the day
before the dingiest of cities now took on a strange
beauty, the beauty of unexpected horizons and
use


I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY 169
tongues of grey water winding below cypress-studded
shores. A man’s temper has a lot to do with his
appreciation of scenery. I felt a free man once
more, and could use my eyes.
That street was a jumble of every nationality on
earth. There were Turkish regulars in their queer,
conical khaki helmets, and wild-looking levies who
had no kin with Europe. There were squads of
Germans in flat forage-caps, staring vacantly at
novel sights, and quick to salute any officer on the
side-walk. Turks in closed carriages passed, and
Turks on good Arab horses, and Turks who looked
as if they had come out of the Ark. But it was the
rabble that caught the eye—a very wild, pinched,
miserable rabble. I never in my life saw such
swarms of beggars, and you walked down that
street to the accompaniment of entreaties for alms
in all the tongues of the Tower of Babel. Blenkiron
and I behaved as if we were interested tourists. We
would stop and laugh at one fellow and give a penny
to a second, passing comments in high-pitched
Western voices.
We went into a café and had a cup of coffee. A
beggar came in and asked alms. Hitherto Blen-
kiron’s purse had been closed, but now he took out
some small nickels and planked five down on the
table. The man cried down blessings and picked up
three. Blenkiron very swiftly swept the other two
into his pocket.
That seemed to me queer, and I remarked that I
had never before seen a beggar who gave change.
Blenkiron said nothing, and presently we moved on
and came to the harbour-side.
There were a number of small tugs moored along-
side, and one or two bigger craft—fruit boats, I
judged, which used to ply in the ZEgean. They
looked pretty well moth-eaten from disuse. We
stopped at one of them and watched a fellow in a


170 I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
blue nightcap splicing ropes. He raised his eyes
once and looked at us, and then kept on with his
business.
Blenkiron asked him where he came from, but he
shook his head, not understanding the tongue. A
Turkish policeman came up and stared at us sus-
piciously, till Blenkiron opened his coat, as if by
accident, and displayed a tiny square of ribbon, at
which he saluted. Failing to make conversation
with the sailor, Blenkiron flung him three of his
black cigars. “ I guess you can smoke, friend. if
you can’t talk,” he said.
The man grinned and caught the three neatly in
the air. Then to my amazement be tossed one of
them back.
The donor regarded it quizzically as it lay on the
pavement. “ That boy’s a connoisseur of tobacco,”
he said. As we moved away I saw the Turkish
policeman pick it up and put it inside his cap.
We returned by the long street on the crest of the
hill. There was a man selling oranges on a tray,
and Blenkiron stopped to look at them. I noticed
that the man shuffled fifteen into a cluster. Blen-
kiron felt the oranges, as if to see that they were
sound, and pushed two aside. The man instantly
restored them to the group, never raising his eyes.
“ This ain’t the time of year to buy fruit,” said
Blenkiron as we passed on. “Those oranges are
rotten as medlars.”
We were almost on our own doorstep before I
guessed the meaning of the business.
“ Is your morning’s work finished ? ” I said.
“ Our morning’s walk ‘3 ” he asked innocently.
“ I said ‘ work.’ ”
He smiled blandly. “ I reckoned you’d tumble
to it. Why, yes, except that I’ve some figuring still
to do. Give me half an hour and I’ll be at your
service, Major.”


I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY 171
That afternoon, after Peter had cooked a won-
derfully good luncheon, I had a heart-to-heart talk
with Blenkiron.
“ My business is to get noos,” he said; “ and before
I start in on a stunt I make considerable preparations.
All the time in London when I was yelping at the
British Government, I was busy with Sir Walter
arranging things ahead. We used to meet in queer
places and at all hours of the night. I fixed up a lot
of connections in this city before I arrived, and
especially a noos service with your Foreign Office
by way of Rumania and Russia. In a day or two
I guess our friends will lmow all about our dis-
coveries.”
At that I opened my eyés very wide.
“ Why, yes. You Britishers haven’t any notion
how wide-awake your Intelligence Service is. I
reckon it’s easy the best of all the belligerents. You
never talked about it in peace time, and you shunned
the theatrical ways of the Teuton. But you had
the wires laid good and sure. I calculate there isn’t
much that happens in any corner of the earth that
you don’t know within twenty-four hours. I don’t
say your highbrows use the noos well. I don’t take
much stock in your political push. They’re a lot
of silver-tongues, no doubt, but it ain’t oratory that
is wanted in this racket. The William Jennings
Bryan stunt languishes in war-time. Politics is like a
chicken-coop, and those inside get to behave as if their
little run were all the world. But if the politicians
make mistakes it isn’t from lack of good instruction
to guide their steps. If I had a big proposition to
handle and could have my pick of helpers I’d plump
for the Intelligence Department of the British
Admiralty. Yes, sir, I take off my hat to your
Government sleuths."
“ Did they provide you with ready-made spies
here 1’ ” I asked in astonishment.


I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY 178
He looked thoughtful. “ I can’t call our business
an absolute rest-cure any time. You’ve got to keep
your eyes skinned, and there’s always the risk of the
little packet of dynamite going off unexpected. But
as these things go, I rate this stunt as easy. We’ve
only got to be natural. We wear our natural clothes,
and talk English, and sport a Teddy Roosevelt smile,
and there isn’t any call for theatrical talent. Where
I’ve found the job tight was when I had got to be
natural, and my naturalness was the same brand as
that of everybody round about, and all the time I
had to do unnatural things. It isn’t easy to be
going down town to business and taking cocktails
with Mr. Carl Rosenheim, and next hour being
engaged trying to blow Mr. Rosenheim’s friends
sky high. And it isn’t easy to keep up a part which
is clean outside your ordinary life. I’ve never tried
that. My line has always been to keep my normal
personality. But you have, Major, and I guess you
found it wearing.” '
“ Wearing’s a mild word,” I said. “ But I want
to know another thing. It seems to me that the line
you’ve picked is as good as could be. But it’s a
cast-iron line. It commits us pretty deep and it
won’t be a simple job to drop it.”
“ Why, that’s just the point I was coming to,"
he said. “ I was going to put you wise about that
very thing. When I started out I figured on some
situation like this. I argued that unless I had a
very clear part with a big bluff in it I wouldn’t get
the confidences which I needed. We’ve got to be
at the heart of the show, taking a real hand and not
just looldngon. So I settled I would be a big engineer
—there w a time when there weren’t many bigger
in the United States than John S. Blenkiron. I
talked large about what might be done in Mesopo-
tamia in the way of washing the British down the
river. Well, that talk caught on. They knew of
12


17‘ I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
my reputation as an hydraulic expert, and they were
tickled to death to rope me in. I told them I
wanted a helper, and I told them about my friend
Richard Hanau, as good a German as ever supped
sauerkraut, who was coming through Russia and
Rumania as a benevolent neutral; but when he got
to Constantinople would drop his neutrality and double
his benevolence. They got reports on you by wire
from the States—I arranged that before I left
London. So you’re going to be welcomed and
taken to their bosoms just like John S. was. We’ve
both got jobs we can hold down, and now you’re in
these pretty clothes you’re the dead ringer of the
brightest kind of American engineer. . . . But we
can’t go back on our tracks. If we wanted to leave
for Constanza next week they’d be very polite, but
they’d never let us. We’ve got to go on with this
adventure and nose our way down into Mesopotamia,
hoping that our luck will hold. . . . God knows
how we will get out of it; but it’s no good going
out to meet trouble. As I observed before, I believe
in an all-wise and beneficent Providence, but you’ve
got to give Him a chance.”
I am bound to confess the prospect staggered me.
We might be let in for fighting—and worse than
fighting—against our own side. I wondered if it
wouldn’t be better to make a bolt for it, and said so.
He shook his head. “ I reckon not. In the first
place we haven’t finished our inquiries. We’ve got
Greenmantle located right enough, thanks to you,
but we still know mighty little about that holy
man. In the second place it won’t be as bad as you
think. This show lacks cohesion, sir. It is not going
to last for ever. I calculate that before you and I
strike the site of the garden that Adam and Eve
frequented there will be a queer turn of affairs.
Anyhow, it’s good enough to gamble on.”
Then he got some sheets of paper and drew me a


I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY 175
plan of the dispositions of the Turkish forces. I had
no notion he was such a close student of war, for
his exposition was as good as a staff lecture. He
made out that the situation was none too bright
anywhere. The troops released from Gallipoli wanted
a lot of refitment, and would be slow in reaching the
Transcaucasian frontier, where the Russians were
threatening. The Army of Syria was pretty nearly
a rabble under the lunatic Djemal. There wasn’t the
foggiest chance of a serious invasion of Egypt being
undertaken. Only in Mesopotamia did things look
fairly cheerful, owing to the blunders of British
strategy. “ And you may take it from me,” he said,
“ that if the old Turk mobilised a total of a million
men, he has lost 40 per cent. of them already. And
if I’m anything of a prophet he’s going pretty soon
to lose more.”
He tore up the papers and enlarged on politics.
“ I reckon I’ve got the measure of the Young Turks
and their precious Committee. Those boys aren’t
any good. Enver’s bright enough, and for sure he’s
got sand. He’ll stick out a fight like a Vermont
game-chicken, but he lacks the larger vision, sir.
He doesn’t understand the intricacies of the job no
more than a sucking-child, so the Germans play
with him, till his temper goes and he bucks like a
mule. Talaat is a sulky dog who wants to batter
mankind with a club. Both these boys would have
made good cow-punchers in the old days, and they
might have got a living out West as the gun-men of
a Labour Union. They’re about the class of Jesse
James or Bill the Kid, excepting that they’re college-
reared and can patter languages. / But they haven’t
the organising power to manage the Irish vote in a
ward election. Their one notion is to get busy with
their firearms, and people are getting tired of the
Black Hand stunt. Their hold on the country is
just the hold that a man with a Browning has over


176 I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
a crowd with walking-sticks. The cooler heads in
the Committee are growing shy of them, and an old
fox like Djavid is lying low till his time comes. Now
it doesn’t want arguing that a gang of that kind has
got to hang close together or they may hang separ—
ately. They’ve got no grip on the ordinary Turk,
barring the fact that they are active and he is
sleepy, and that they’ve got their guns loaded.”
“ What about the Germans here ? ” I asked.
Blenkiron laughed. “ It is no sort of a happy
family. But the Young Turks lmow that without
the German boost they’ll be strung up like Haman,
and the Germans can’t afford to neglect any ally.
Consider what would happen if Turkey got sick of
the game and made a separate peace. The road
would be open for Russia to the Egean. Ferdy of
Bulgaria would take his depreciated goods to the
other market, and not waste a day thinking about it.
You’d have Rumania coming in on the Allies’ side.
Things would look pretty black for that control of
the Near East on which Germany has banked her
winnings. Kaiser says that’s got to be prevented
at all costs, but how is it going to be done T"?
Blenkiron’s face had become very solemn again.
" It won’t be done unless Germany’s got a trump
card to play. Her game’s mighty near bust, but it’s
still got a chance. And that chance is a woman
and an old man. I reckon our landlady has a bigger
brain than Enver and Liman. She’s the real boss
of the show. When I came here I reported to her,
and presently you’ve got to do the same. I am
curious as to how she’ll strike you, for I’m free to
admit that she impressed me considerable.”
“ It looks as if our job were a long way from the
end,” I said.
“ It’s scarcely begun,’
said Blenkiron.
That talk did a lot to cheer my spirits, for 1 real-


I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY 1'77
ised that it was the biggest of big game we were
hunting this time. I’m an economical soul, and if
I’m going to be hanged I want a good stake for my
neck.
Then began some varied experiences. I used to
wake up in the morning, wondering where I should
be at night, and yet quite pleased at the uncertainty.
Greenmantle became a sort of myth with me. Some-
how I couldn’t fix any idea in my head of what he
was like. The nearest I got was a picture of an
old man in a turban coming out of a bottle in a
cloud of smoke, which I remembered from a child’s
edition of the Arabian Nights. But if he was dim,
the lady was dimmer. Sometimes I thought of her
as a fat old German crone, sometimes as a harsh-
featured woman like a schoolmistress with thin lips
and eyeglasses. But I had to fit the East into the
picture, so I made her young and gave her a touch
of the languid houri in a veil. I was always wanting
to pump Blenkiron on the subject, but he shut up
like a rat-trap. He was looking for bad trouble in
that direction, and was disinclined to speak about it
beforehand.
We led a peaceful existence. Our servants were
two of Sandy’s lot, for Blenkiron had very rightly
cleared out the Turkish caretakers, and they worked
like beavers under Peter’s eye, till I reflected I had
never been so well looked after in my life. I walked
about the city with Blenkiron, keeping my eyes
open, and speaking very civil. The third night we
were hidden to dinner at Moellendorff’s, so we put
on our best clothes and set out in an ancient cab.
Blenkiron had fetched a dress suit of mine, from
which my own tailor’s label had been cut and a New
York one substituted.
General Liman and Mettemich the Ambassador
had gone up the line to Nish to meet the Kaiser, who
was touring in those parts, so Moellendorff was the.


178 I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
biggest German in the city. He was a thin, foxy-
faced fellow, cleverish but monstrously vain, and
he was not very popular either with the Germans
or the Turks. He was polite to both of us, but
I am bound to say that I got a bad fright when I
entered the room, for the first man I saw was
Gaudian.
I doubt if he would have recognised me even in
the clothes I had worn in Stumm’s company, for his
eyesight was wretched. As it was, I ran no risk in
dress-clothes, with my hair brushed back and a fine
American accent. I paid him high compliments as
a. fellow engineer, and translated part of a very
technical conversation between him and Blenkiron.
Gaudian was in uniform, and I liked the look of his
honest face better than ever.
But the great event was the sight of Enver. He
was a 'slim fellow of Rasta’s build, very foppish and
precise in his dress, with a smooth oval face like a
girl’s, and rather fine straight black eyebrows. He
spoke perfect German, and had the best kind of
manners, neither pert nor overbearing. He had a
pleasant trick, too, of appealing all round the table
for confirmation, and so bringing everybody into
the talk. Not that he spoke a great deal, but all he
said was good sense, and he had a smiling way of
saying it. Once or twice he ran counter to Moellen-
dorff, and I could see there was no love lost between
these two. I didn’t think I wanted him as a friend
-—he was too cold-blooded and artificial; and I was
pretty certain that I didn’t want those steady black
eyes as an enemy. But it was no good denying his
quality. The little fellow was all cold courage, like
the fine polished blue steel of a sword.
I fancy I was rather a success at that dinner.
For one thing I could speak German, and so had a
pull on Blenkiron. For another I was in a good
temper, and really enjoyed putting my back into my


I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY 179
part. They talked very high-flown stuff about what
they had done and were going to do, and Enver was
great on Gallipoli. I remember he said that he
could have destroyed the whole British Army if it
hadn’t been for somebody’s cold feet—at which
Moellendorff looked daggers. They were so bitter
about Britain and all her works that I gathered they
were getting pretty panicky, and that made me as
jolly as a sandboy. I’m afraid I was not free from
bitterness myself on that subject. I said things
about my own country that I sometimes wake in
the night and sweat to think of.
Gaudian got on to the use of water power in war,
and that gave me a chance.
“ In my country,” I said, “ when we want to get
rid of a mountain we wash it away. There’s nothing
on earth that will stand against water. Now,
speaking with all respect, gentlemen, and as an
absolute novice in the military art, I sometimes ask
why this God-given weapon isn’t more used in the
present war. I haven’t been to any of the fronts,
but I’ve studied them some from maps and the
newspapers. Take your German position in Flan-
ders, where you’ve got the high ground. If I were
a British general I reckon I would very soon make
it no sort of position.”
Moellendorff asked, “ How T”
“ Why, I’d wash it away. Wash away the four-
teen feet of soil down to the stone. There’s a heap of
coalpits behind the British front where they could
generate power, and I judge there’s an ample water
supply from rivers and canals. I’d guarantee to
wash you away in twenty-four hours—yes, in spite
of all your big guns. It beats me why the British
haven’t got on to this notion. They used to have
some bright engineers.”
Enver was on the point like a knife, far quicker
than Gaudian. He cross-examined me in a way


180 I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
that showed he knew how to approach a technical
subject, though he mightn’t have much technical
knowledge. He was just giving me a sketch of the
flooding in Mesopotamia when an aide-de-camp
brought in a chit which fetched him to his feet.
“ I have gossiped long enough,” he said. “ My
kind host, I must leave you. Gentleman all, my
apologies and farewells.”
Before he left he asked my name and wrote it
down. “ This is an unhealthy city for strangers,
Mr. Hanan,” he said in very good English. “I
have some small power of protecting a friend, and
what I have is at your disposal.” This with the
condescension of a king promising his faVOur to a
subject.
The little fellow amused me tremendously, and
rather impressed me too. I said so to Gaudian after
he had left, but that decent soul didn’t agree.
“ I do not love him,” he said. “ We are allies—yes;
but friends—no. He is no true son of Islam, which
is a noble faith and despises liars and boasters and
betrayers of their salt.”
That was the verdict of one honest man on this
ruler in Israel. The next night I got another from
Blenkiron on a greater than Enver.
He had been out alone and had come back pretty
late, with his face grey and drawn with pain. The
food we ate—not at all bad of its kind—and the cold
east wind played havoc with his dyspepsia I can
see him yet, boiling milk on a spirit-lamp, while
Peter worked at a Primus stove to get him a hot-
water bottle. He was using horrid language about
his inside.
“ My God, Major, if I were you with a sound
stomach I’d fairly conquer the world. As it is, I’ve
got to do my work with half my mind, while the
other half is dwelling in my intestines. I’m like the
child in the Bible that had a fox gnawing at its Vitals.”


I MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY 18]
He got his milk boiling and began to sip it.
“ I’ve been to see our pretty landlady,” he said.
“ She sent for me and I hobbled off with a grip
full of plans, for she’s mighty set on Mesopotamy.”
“ Anything about Greenmantle ‘? ” I asked
eagerly.
“ Why, no, but I have reached one conclusion.
I opine that the hapless prophet has no sort of time
with that lady. I opine that he will soon wish him-
self in Paradise. For if Almighty God ever created
a female devil it’s Madame von Einem.”
He sipped a little more milk with a grave face.
“ That isn’t my duo-denal dyspepsia, Major. It’s
the verdict of a ripe experience, for I have a cool
and penetrating judgment, even if I’ve a deranged
stomach. And I give it as my con-sidered con-
clusion that that woman’s mad and bad—but princi-
pally bad.”


CHAPTER XIV
m1: LADY or THE MANTILLA
SINCE that first night I had never clapped eyes on
Sandy. He had gone clean out of the world, and
Blenkiron and I waited anxiously for a word of
news. Our own business was in good trim, for we
were presently going east towards Mesopotamia, but
unless we learned more about Greenmantle our
journey would be a grotesque failure. And learn
about Greenmantle we could not, for nobody by
word or deed suggested his existence, and it was
impossible of course for us to ask questions. Our
only hope was Sandy, for what we wanted to know
was the prophet’s whereabouts and his plans. I
suggested to Blenkiron that we might do more to
cultivate Frau von Einem, but he shut his jaw like
a rat-trap. “ There’s nothing doing for us in that
quarter,” he said. “ That’s the most dangerous
woman on earth; and if she got any kind of notion
that we were wise about her pet schemes I reckon
you and I would very soon be in the Bosporus.”
This was all very well; but what was going to
happen if the two of us were bundled off to Bagdad
with instructions to wash away the British? Our
time was getting pretty short, and I doubted if we
could spin out more than three days more in Con-
stantinople. I felt just as I had felt with Stumm
that last night when I was about to be packed of!
to Cairo and saw no way of avoiding it. Even
Blenkiron was getting anxious. He played Patience


THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA 188
incessantly, and was disinclined to talk. I tried to
find out something from the servants, but they either
knew nothing or wouldn’t speak—the former, I
think. I kept my eyes lifting, too, as I walked
about the streets, but there was no sign anywhere
of the skin coats or the weird stringed instrument.
The whole Company of the Rosy Hours seemed to
have melted into the air, and I began to wonder
if they had ever existed.
Anxiety made me restless, and restlessness made
me want exercise. It was no good walking about
the city. The weather had become foul again, and
I was sick of the smells and the squalor and the
flea-bitten crowds. So Blenkiron and I got horses,
Turkish cavalry mounts with heads like trees, and
went out through the suburbs into the open country.
It was a grey drizzling afternoon, with the begin-
nings of a sea fog which hid the Asiatic shores of the
straits. It wasn’t easy to find open ground for a
gallop, for there were endless small patches of culti-
vation and the gardens of country houses. We
kept on the high land above the sea, and when we
reached a bit of downland came on squads of Turkish
soldiers digging trenches. Whenever we let the
horses go we had to pull up sharp for a digging
party or a stretch of barbed wire. Coils of the
beastly thing were lying loose everywhere, and Blen-
kiron nearly took a nasty toss over one. Then we
were always being stopped by sentries and having
to show our passes. Still the ride did us good and
shook up our livers, and by the time we turned for
home I was feeling more like a white man.
We jogged back in the short winter twilight, past
the wooded grounds of white villas, held up every
few minutes by transport-waggons and companies
of soldiers. The rain had come on in real earnest,
and it was two very bedraggled horsemen that
crawled along the muddy lanes. As we passed one


186 THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA
The mischief was that neither of us had a word
of Turkish. I tried German, but it had no effect.
We sat looking at them, and they stood storming at
us, and it was fast getting dark. Once I turned my
horse round as if to proceed, and the two soldiers
jumped in front of me.
They jabbered among themselves, and then one
said very slowly: “ He . . . want . . . pounds,” and
he held up five fingers. They evidently saw by the
cut of our jib that we weren’t Germans.
“ I’ll be hanged if he gets a penny,” I said angrily,
and the conversation languished.
The situation was getting serious, so I spoke a
word to Peter. The soldiers had their rifles loose
in their hands, and before they could lift them we
had the pair covered with our pistols.
“ If you move,” I said, “ you are dead." They
understood that all right and stood stock still, while
the shepherd stopped his raving and took to mutter-
ing like a gramophone when the record is finished.
“ Drop your guns," I said sharply. “ Quick, or
we shoot.”
The tone, if not the words, conveyed my meaning.
Still staring at us, they let the rifles slide to the
ground. The next second we had forced our horses
on the top of them, and the three were off like
rabbits. I sent a shot over their heads to encourage
them. Peter dismounted and tossed the guns into
a bit of scrub where they would take some finding.
This hold-up had wasted time. By now it was
getting very dark, and we hadn’t ridden a mile before
it was black night. It was an annoying predica-
ment, for I had completely lost my bearings and at
the best I had only a foggy notion of the lie of the
land. The best plan seemed to be to try and get to
the top of a rise in the hope of seeing the lights of
the city, but all the countryside was so pockety
that it was hard to strike the right kind of rise


188 THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA
guessed, for the place was as black as pitch. Evi-
dently the house couldn’t be far off, but in which
direction I hadn’t a notion.
Now I didn’t want to be paying calls on any Turk
at that time of day. Our job was to find where the
road opened into the lane, for after that our way
to Constantinople was clear. One side the lane lay,
and the other the house, and it didn’t seem wise to
take the risk of tramping up with horses to the front
door. So I told Peter to wait for me at the end of
the back-road, while I would prospect a bit. I
turned to the right, my intention being if I saw the
light of a house to return, and with Peter take the
other direction.
I walked like a blind man in that nether-pit of
darkness. The road seemed well kept, and the soft
wet gravel muffled the sounds of my feet. Great
trees overhung it, and several times I wandered into
dripping bushes. And then I stopped short in my
tracks, for I heard the sound of whistling.
It was quite close, about ten yards away. And
the strange thing was that it was a tune I knew,
about the last tune you would eXpect to hear in this
part of the world. It was the Scots air: “ Ca’
the yowes to the knowes,” which was a favourite of
my father’s.
The whistler must have felt my presence, for the
air suddenly stopped in the middle of a bar. An
unbounded curiosity seized me to know who the
fellow could be. So I started in and finished it
myself.
There was silence for a second, and then the un-
known began again and stopped. Once more I
chipped in and finished it.
Then it seemed to me that he was coming nearer.
The air in that dank tunnel was very still, and I
thought I heard a light foot. I think I took a step
backward. Suddenly there was a flash of an electric


THE BADY OF THE MANTILLA 189
torch from a yard off, so quick that I could see
nothing of the man who held it.
Then a low Voice spoke out of the darkness—a voice
I knew well—and, following it, a hand was laid on
my arm. “ What the devil are you doing here,
Dick Y ” it said, and there was something like con-
sternation in the tone.
I told him in a hectic sentence, for I was beginning
to feel badly rattled myself.
“ You’ve never been in greater danger in your
life,” said the Voice. “ Great God, man, what
brought you wandering here to-day of all days Y”
You can imagine that I was pretty scared, for
Sandy was the last man to put a case too high. And
the next second I felt worse, for he clutched my arm
and dragged me in a bound to the side of the road.
I could see nothing, but I felt that his head was
screwed round, and mine followed suit. And there,
a dozen yards off, were the acetylene lights of a big
motor-car.
It came along very slowly, purring like a great
cat, while we pressed into the bushes. The head-
lights seemed to spread a fan far to either side,
showing the full width of the drive and its borders,
and about half the height of the over-arching trees.
There was a figure in uniform sitting beside the
chauffeur, whom I saw dimly in the reflex glow, but
the body of the car was dark.
It crept towards us, passed, and my mind was
just getting easy again when it stopped. A switch
was snapped within, and the limousine was brightly
lit up. Inside I saw a woman’s figure.
The servant had got out and opened the door and
a voice came from within—a clear soft voice speaking
in some tongue I did not understand. Sandy had
started forward at the sound of it, and I followed
him. It would never do for me to be caught skulking
in the bushes.
I3


190 THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA
I was so dazzled by the suddenness of the glare
that at first I blinked and saw nothing. Then my
eyes cleared and I found myself looking at the inside
of a car upholstered in some soft dove-coloured
fabric, and beautifully finished off in ivory and
silver. The woman who sat in it had a mantilla of
black lace over her head and shoulders, and with one
slender jewelled hand she kept its folds over the
greater part of her face. I saw only a pair of pale
grey-blue eyes—these and the slim fingers.
I remember that Sandy was standing very upright
with his hands on his hips, by no means like a ser-
vant in the presence of his mistress. He was a fine
figure of a man at all times, but in those wild clothes,
with his head thrown back and his dark brows drawn
below his skull-cap, he looked like some savage king
out of an older world. He was speaking Turkish,
and glancing at me now and then as if angry and
perplexed. I took the hint that he was not supposed
to know any other tongue, and that he was asking
who the devil I might be.
Then they both looked at me, Sandy with the
slow unwinking stare of the gipsy, the lady with
those curious beautiful pale eyes. They ran over
my clothes, my brand-new riding-breeches, my
splashed boots, my wide-brimmed hat. I took off
the last and made my best bow.
“ Madam,” I said, “ I have to ask pardon for
trespassing in your garden. The fact is, I and my
servant—he’s down the road with the horses and I
guess you noticed him—the two of us went for a
ride this afternoon, and got good and well lost. We
came in by your back gate, and I was prospecting
for your front door to find some one to direct us,
when I bumped into this brigand-chief who didn’t
understand my talk. I’m American, and I’m here
on a big Government proposition. I hate to
trouble you, but if you’d send a man to show


THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA 191
us how to strike the city I’d be very much in your
deb .”
Her eyes never left my face. “ Will you come into
the car Y ” she said in English. “ At the house I
will give you a servant to direct you.”
She drew in the skirts of her fur cloak to make
room for me, and in my muddy boots and sopping
clothes I took the seat she pointed out. She said a
word in Turkish to Sandy, switched off the light, and
tlye car moved on.
Women had never come much my way, and I knew
about as much of their ways as I knew about the
Chinese language. All my life I had lived with
men only, and rather a rough crowd at that. When
I made my pile and came home I looked to see a
little society, but I had first the business of the
Black Stone on my hands, and then the war, so my
education languished. I had never been in a motor-
car with a lady before, and I felt like a fish on a dry
sandbank. The soft cushions and the subtle scents
filled me with acute uneasiness. I wasn’t thinking
now about Sandy’s grave words, or about Blenkiron’s
warning, or about my job and the part this woman
must play in it. I was thinking only that I felt
mortally shy. The darkness made it worse. I was
sure that my companion was looking at me all the
time and laughing at me for a clown.
The car stopped and a tall servant opened the
door. The lady was over the threshold before I was
at the step. I followed her heavily, the wet squelch-
ing from my field-boots. At that moment I noticed
that she was very tall.
She led me through a long corridor to a room
where two pillars held lamps in the shape of torches.
The place was dark but for their glow, and it was as
warm as a hothouse from invisible stoves. I felt
soft carpets underfoot, and on the walls hung some
tapestry or rug of an amazingly intricate geometrical


192 THE LADY OF THE MANTILDA
pattern, but with every strand as rich as jewels.
There, between the pillars, she turned and faced me.
Her furs were thrown back, and the black mantilla
had slipped down to her shoulders.
“ I have heard of you,” she said. “ You are called
Richard Hanau, the American. Why have you
come to this land ‘I ”
“ To have a share in the campaign,” I said. “ I’m
an engineer, and I thought I could help out with
some business like Mesopotamia.”
“ You are on Germany’s side 7” she asked.
“ Why, yes,” I replied. “ We Americans are
supposed to be nootrals, and that means we’re free
to choose any side we fancy. I’m for the Kaiser.”
Her cool eyes searched me, but not in suspicion.
I could see she wasn’t troubling with the question
whether I was speaking the truth. She was sim'ng
me up as a man. I cannot describe that calm
appraising look. There was no sex in it, nothing
even of that implicit sympathy with which one
human being explores the existence of another. I
was a chattel, a thing infiniter removed from in-
timacy. Even so I have myself looked at a horse
which I thought of buying, scanning his shoulders
and hocks and paces. Even so must the old lords
of Constantinople have looked at the slaves which
the chances of war brought to their markets, assessing
their usefulness for some task or other with no
thought of a humanity common to purchased and
purchaser. And yet—not quite. This woman’s eyes
were weighing me, not for any special duty, but for
my essential qualities. I felt that I was under the
scrutiny of one who was a connoisseur in human
nature.
/ I see I have written that I knew nothing about
women. But every man has in his bones a conscious-
ness of sex. I was shy and perturbed, but horribly
fascinated. This slim woman, poised exquisitely


194 THE LADY OF THE MANTILLA
your servant is with them. One of my people will
guide you to the city.”
She turned away and passed out of the circle of
light into the darkness beyond. . . .
Peter and I jogged home in the rain with one of
Sandy’s skin-clad Companions loping at our side.
We did not speak a word, for my thoughts were run-
ning like hounds on the track of the past hours. I
had seen the mysterious Hilda von Einem, I had
spoken to her, I had held her hand. She had insulted
me with the subtlest of insults and yet I was not
angry. Suddenly the game I was playing became
invested with a tremendous solemnity. My old
antagonists, Stumm and Rasta and the whole German
Empire, seemed to shrink into the background,
leaving only the slim woman with her inscrutable
smile and devouring eyes. “ Mad and bad,” Blen-
kiron had called her, “ but principally bad.” I did
not think they were the proper terms, for they
belonged to the narrow world of our common experi-
ence. This was something beyond and above it, as
a cyclone or an earthquake is outside the decent
routine of nature. Mad and bad she might be, but
she was also great.
Before we arrived our guide had plucked my knee
and spoken some words which he had obviously got
by heart. “ The Master says,” ran the message,
“ expect him at midnight.”


CHAPTER XV
1x amnanaasszn Toan'r
I was soaked to the bone, and while Peter set off
to look for dinner, I went to my room to change. I
had a rub down and then got into pyjamas for some
dumb-bell exercises with two chairs, for that long
wet ride had stiffened my arm and shoulder muscles.
They were a vulgar suit of primitive blue, which
Blenkiron had looted from my London wardrobe.
As Cornelis Brandt I had sported a flannel night-
gown.
My bedroom opened off the sitting-room, and while
I was busy with my gymnastics I heard the door
open. I thought at first it was Blenkiron, but the
briskness of the tread was unlike his measured gait.
I had left the light burning there, and the visitor,
whoever he was, had made himself at home. I
slipped on a green dressing-gown Blenkiron had lent
me, and sallied forth to investigate.
My friend Rasta was standing by the table, on
which he had laid an envelope He looked round at
my entrance and saluted.
“ I come from the Minister of War, sir,” he said,
“ aid bring your passports for to-morrow. You
will travel by . . .” And then his voice tailed
away and his black eyes narrowed to slits. He had
seen something which switched him off the metals.
At that moment I saw it too. There was a mirror
on the wall behind him, and as I faced him I could
not help seeing my reflection. It was the exact


196 AN EMBARRASSED TOILET
image of the engineer on the Danube boat—blue
jeans, loden cloak, and all. The accursed mischance
of my costume had given him the clue to an identity
which was otherwise buried deep in the Bosporus.
I am bound to say for Rasta that he was a man
of quick action. In a trice he had whipped round
to the other side of the table between me and the
door, where he stood regarding me wickedly.
By this time I was at the table and stretched out
a hand for the enevlope. My one hope was non-
chalance.
“ Sit down, sir,” I said, “ and have a drink. It’s
a filthy night to move about in.”
“Thank you, no, Herr Brandt,” he said. “ You
may burn these passports, for they will not be used."
“ Whatever’s the matter with you Y ” I cried.
“ You’ve mistaken the house, my lad. I’m called
Hanau—Richard Hanan—and my partner’s Mr. John
S. Blenkiron. He’ll be here presently. Never knew
any one of the name of Brandt, barring a tobacconist
in Denver City.”
“ You have never been to Rustchuk?” he said
with a sneer.
“ Not that I know of. But, pardon me, sir, if I
ask your name and your business here. I’m darned
if I’m accustomed to be called by Dutch names or
have my word doubted. In my country we con-
sider that impolite as between gentlemen.”
I could see that my bluff was having its effect.
His stare began to waver, and when be next spoke it
was in a more civil tone.
“ I will ask pardon if I’m mistaken, sir, but you’re
the image of a man who a week ago was at Rust-
chuk, a man much wanted by the Imperial Govem-
ment."
“ A week ago I was tossing in a dirty little hooker
coming from Constanza. Unless Rustchuk’s in the
middle of the Black Sea I’ve never visited the town-


AN EMBARRASSED TOILET 197
ship. I guess you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Come to think of it, I was expecting passports. Say,
do you come from Enver Damad T’3
“ I have that honour,” he said.
“ Well, Enver is a very good friend of mine. He’s
the brightest citizen I’ve struck this side of the
Atlantic."
The man was calming down, and in another minute
his suspicions would have gone. But at that moment,
by the crookedest kind of luck, Peter entered with
a tray of dishes. He did not notice Rasta, and
walked straight to the table and plumped down his
burden on it. The Turk had stepped aside at his
entrance, and I saw by the look in his eyes that
his suspicions had become a certainty. For Peter,
stripped to shirt and breeches, was the identical
shabby little companion of the Rustchuk meeting.
I had never doubted Rasta’s pluck. He jumped
for the door and had a pistol out in a trice pointing
at my head.
“ Bonne fortune,” he cried. “ Both the birds at
one shot.” His hand was on the latch, and his
mouth was open to cry. I guessed there was an
orderly waiting on the stairs.
He had what you call the strategic advantage, for
he was at the door while I was at the other end of
the table and Peter at the side of it at least two
yards from him. The road was clear before him,
and neither of us was armed. I made a despairing
step forward, not knowing what I meant to do, for
I saw no light. But Peter was before me.
He had never let go of the tray, and now, as a
boy skims a stone on a pond, he skimmed it with its
contents at Rasta’s head. The man was opening the
door with one hand while he kept me covered with
the other, and he got the contrivance fairly in the
face. A pistol shot cracked out, and the bullet went
through the tray, but the noise was drowned in tho


198 AN EMBARRASSED TOILET
crash of glasses and crockery. The next second
Peter had wrenched the pistol from Basta’s hand
and had gripped his throat.
A dandified Young Turk, brought up in Paris and
finished in Berlin, may be as brave as a lion, but he
cannot stand in a rough-and-tumble against a back-
veld hunter, though more than double his age.
There was no need for me to help. Peter had his
own way, learned in a wild school, of knocking the
sense out of a foe. He gagged him scientifically,
and trussed him up with his own belt and two straps
from a trunk in my bedroom.
“ This man is too dangerous to let go," he said,
as if his procedure were the most ordinary thing in
the world. “ He will be quiet now till we have time
to make a plan.”
/ At that moment there came a knocking at the
door. That is the sort of thing that happens in
melodrama, just when the villain has finished off his
job neatly. The correct thing to do is to pale to the
teeth, and with a rolling, conscience-stricken eye
glare round the horizon. But that was not Peter’s
wayvé
“ e’d better tidy up if we’re to have visitors,”
he said calmly.
Now there was one of those big oak German cup-
boards against the wall which must have been
brought in in sections, for complete it would never
have got through the door. It was empty now, but
for Blenkiron’s hat-box. In it he deposited the
unconscious Rasta, and turned the key. “ There’s
enough ventilation through the top,” he observed,
“ to keep the air good.” Then he opened the door.
A magnificent kavass in blue and silver stood
outside. He saluted and proffered a card on which
was written in pencil, “Hilda von Einem.” I
I would have begged for time to change my clothes,
but the lady was behind him. I saw the black


200 AN EMBARRASSED TOILET
“ By no means,” I said, “but he’s fixed so he
can’t speak, and I guess he can’t hear much.”
“ He was the man who brought you this 7 ” she
asked, pointing to the envelope on the table which
bore the big blue stamp of the Ministry of War.
“ The same,” I said. “ I’m not perfectly sure of
his name, but I think they call him Rasta.”
Not a flicker of a smile crossed her face, but I had
a feeling that the news pleased her.
“ Did he thwart you Y” she asked.
“ Why, yes. He thwarted me some. His head
1:! a bit swelled, and an hour or two on the shelf will
do him good.”
“ He is a powerful man," she said, “ a jackal of
Enver’s. You have made a dangerous enemy.”
“ I don’t value him at two cents,” said I, though
I thought grimly that as far as I could see the value
of him was likely to be about the price of my neck.
“ Perhaps you are right,” she said with serious
eyes. “ In these days no enemy is dangerous to a
bold man. I have come to-night, Mr. Hanau, to
talk business with you, as they say in your country.
I have heard well of you, and to-day I have seen
you. I may have need of you, and you assuredly
will have need of me. . . .’5
She broke off, and again her strange potent eyes
fell on my face. They were like a burning search-
light which showed up every cranny and crack of
the soul. I felt it was going to be horribly diflicult
to act a part under that compelling gaze. She could
not mesmerise me, but she could strip me of my
fancy dress and set me naked in the masquerade.
“What came you forth to seek?” she asked.
“ You are not like the stout American Blenkiron, a
lover of shoddy power and a devotee of a feeble
science. There is something more than that in your
face. You are on our side, but you are not of the
Germans with their hankerings for a rococo Empire.


AN EMBARRASSED TOILET 201
You come from America, the land of pious follies,
where men worship gold and words. I ask, what
came you forth to seek ‘2 ”
As she spoke I seemed to get a vision of a figure,
like one of the old gods looking down on human
nature from a great height, a figure disdainful and
passionless, but with its own magnificence. It kindled
my imagination, and I answered with the stuff I
had often cogitated when I had tried to explain to
myself just how a case could be made out against
the Allied cause.
“ I will tell you, Madam," I said. “ I am a man
who has followed a science, but I have followed
it in wild places, and I have gone through it and
come out at the other side. The world, as I
see it, had become too easy and cushioned. Men
had forgotten their manhood in soft speech, and
imagined that the rules of their smug civilisation
were the laws of the universe. But that is not the
teaching of science, and it is not the teaching of life.
We had forgotten the greater virtues, and we were
becoming emasculated humbugs whose gods were
our own weaknesses. Then came war, and the air
was cleared. Germany, in spite of her blunders and
her grossness, stood forth as the scourge of cant.
She had the courage to cut through the bonds of
humbug and, to laugh at the fetishes of the herd.
Therefore I am on Germany’s side. But I came
here for another reason. I know nothing of the
East, but as I read history it is from the desert that
the purification comes. When manldnd is smothered
with shams and phrases and painted idols a wind
blows out of the wilds to cleanse and simplify life.
The world needs space and fresh air. The civilisa-
tion we have boasted of is a toy-shop and a blind
alley, and I hanker for open country.”
This confounded nonsense was well received. Her
pale eyes had the cold light of the fanatic. With


AN EMBARRASSED TOILET 208
nothing for nine hours. So I went in search of
Peter.
I had scarcely begun my long deferred meal when
Sandy entered. He was before his time, and he
looked as solemn as a sick owl. I seized on him as
a drowning man clutches a spar.
He heard my story of Rasta with a lengthening
face.
“That’s bad,” he said. “ You say he spotted
you, and your subsequent doings of course would
not disillusion him. It’s an infernal nuisance, but
_ there’s only one way out of it. I must put him in
charge of my own people. They will keep him safe
and sound till he’s wanted. Only he mustn’t see
me.” And he went out in a hurry.
I fetched Rasta from his prison. He had come
to his senses by this time, and lay regarding me with
stony, malevolent eyes.
“ I’m very sorry, sir,” I said, “ for what has hap-
pened. But you left me no alternative. I’ve got a
big job on hand and I can’t have it interfered with
by you or any one. You’re paying the price of a
suspicious nature. When you know a little more
you’ll want to apologise to me. I’m going to see
that you are kept quiet and comfortable for a day or
two. You’ve no cause to worry, for you’ll suffer no
harm. I give you my word of honour as an American
citizen.” .
Two of Sandy’s miscreants came in and bore him
off, and presently Sandy himself returned. When
I asked where he was being taken, Sandy said he
didn’t know. “ They’ve got their orders, and they’ll
carry them out to the letter. There’s a big un-
known area in Constantinople to hide a man, into
which the Khafiyeh never enter.”
Then he flung himself in a chair and lit his old pipe.
“ Dick,” he said, “ this job is getting very diffi-
cult and very dark. But my knowledge has grown


204 AN EMBARRASSED TOILET
in the last few days. I’ve found out the meaning of
the second word that Harry Bullivant scribbled.”
“ Cancer 7 ” I asked.
“ Yes. It means just what it reads and no more.
Greenmantle is dying—has been dying for months.
This afternoon they brought a German doctor to see
him, and the man gave him a few hours of life. By
now he may be dead.”
The news was a staggerer. For a moment I
thought it cleared up things. “ Then that busts the
show,” I said. “ You can’t have a crusade without
a prophet.”
“I wish I thought it did. It’s the end of one
stage, but the start of a new and blacker one. Do
you think that woman will be beaten by such a small
thing as the death of her prophet? She’ll find a
substitute—one of the four Ministers, or some one
else. She’s a devil incarnate, but she has the soul
of a Napoleon. The big danger is only beginning.”
Then he told me the story of his recent doings.
He had found out the house of Frau Von Einem
without much trouble, and had performed with his
ragamuifins in the servants’ quarters. The prophet
had a large retinue, and the fame of the minstrels—
for the Companions were known far and wide in the
land of Islam—came speedily to the ears of the Holy
Ones. Sandy, a leader in this most orthodox coterie,
was taken into favour and brought to the notice of
the four Ministers. He and his half-dozen retainers
became inmates of the villa, and Sandy, from his
knowledge of Islamic lore and his ostentatious piety,
was admitted to the confidence of the household.
Frau von Einem welcomed him as an ally, for the
Companions had been the most devoted propagan-
dists of the new revelation.
As he described it, it was a strange business.
Greenmantle was dying and often in great pain, but
he struggled to meet the demands of his protectress.


AN EMBARRASSED TOILET 205
The four Ministers, as Sandy saw them, were un-
worldly ascetics; the prophet himself was a saint,
though a practical saint with some notions of policy ;
but the controlling brain and will were those of the
lady. Sandy seemed to have won his favour, even
his affection. He spoke of him with a kind of
desperate pity.
“ I never saw such a man. He is the greatest
gentleman you can picture, with a dignity like a
high mountain. He is a dreamer and a poet, too—-
a genius if I can judge these things. I think I can
assess him rightly, for I know something of the soul
of the East, but it would be too long a story to tell
now. The West knows nothing of the true Oriental.
It pictures him as lapped in colour and idleness and
luxury and gorgeous dreams. But it is all wrong.
The de he yearns for is an austere thing. It is the
austerity of the East that is its beauty and its terror.
. . . It always wants the same things at the back of
its head. The Turk and the Arab came out of big
spaces, and they have the desire of them in their
bones. They settle down and stagnate, and by and
by they degenerate into that appalling subtlety
which is their ruling passion gone crooked. And
then comes a new revelation and a great simplifying.
They want to live face to face with God without a
screen of ritual and images and priestcraft. They
want to prune life of its foolish fringes and get back
to the noble bareness of the desert. Remember, it is
always the empty desert and the empty sky that
cast their spell over them—these, and the hot,
strong, antiseptic sunlight which burns up all rot
and decay. . . . It isn’t inhuman. It’s the humanity
of one part of the human race. It isn’t ours, it
isn’t as good as ours, but it’s jolly good all the
same. There are times when it grips me so hard that
I’m inclined to forswear the gods of my fathers!
“ Well, Greenmantle is the prophet of this great
I4


806 AN EMBARRASSED TOILET
simplicity. He speaks straight to the heart of
Islam, and it’s an honourable message. But for our
sins it’s been twisted into part of that damned German
propaganda. His unworldliness has been used for a
cunning political move, and his creed of space and
simplicity for the furtherance of the last word in
human degeneracy. My God, Dick, it’s like seeing
St. Francis run by Messalina.”
“ The woman has been here to-night,” I said.
“ She asked me what I stood for, and I invented
some infemal nonsense which she approved of. But
I can see one thing. She and her prophet may run
for different stakes, but it’s the same course.”
Sandy started. “ She has been here 1 ” he cried.
“ Tell me, Dick, what did You think of her ‘3”
“ I thought she was about two parts mad, but the
third part was uncommon like inspiration.”
“ That’s about right,” he said. “ I was wrong in
comparing her to Messalina. She’s something a
dashed sight more complicated. She runs the prophet
just because she shares his belief. Only what in him
is sane and fine, in her is mad and horrible. You
see, Germany also wants to simplify life.”
“ I know,” I said. “ I told her that an hour ago,
when I talked more rot to the second that any
mortal man ever achieved. It will come between
me and my sleep for the rest of my days.”
“ Germany’s simplicity is that of the neurotic, not
the primitive. It is megalomania and egotism and
the pride of the man in the Bible that waXed fat
and kicked. But the results are the same. She
wants to destroy and simplify; but it isn’t the sim-
plicity of the ascetic, which is of the spirit, but the
simplicity of the madman that grinds down all the
contrivances of civilisation to a featureless mono-
tony. The prophet wants to save the souls of his
people; Germany wants to rule the inanimate
corpse of the world. But you can get the same


AN EMBARRASSED TOILET 207
language to cover both. And so you have the
partnership of St. Francis and Messalina. Dick,
did you ever hear of a thing called the Superman T ”
“ There was a time when the papers were full of
nothing else,” I answered. “ I gather it was invented
by a sportsman called Nietzsche.”
“ Maybe,” said Sandy. “ Old Nietzsche has been
blamed for a great deal of rubbish he would have
died rather than acknowledge. But it’s a craze of
the new, fatted Germany. It’s a fancy type which
could never really exist, any more than the Economic
Man of the politicians. Mankind has a sense of
humour which stops short of the final absurdity.
There never has been and there never could be a
real Superman. . . . But there might be a Super-
woman.”
“ You’ll get into trouble, my lad, if you talk like
that,” I said.
“ It’s true all the same. Women have got a
perilous logic which we never have, and some of the
best of them don’t see the joke of life like the ordinary
man. They can be far greater than men, for they
can go straight to the heart of things. There never
was a man so near the divine as Joan of Arc. But
I think too they can be more entirely damnable
than anything that ever was breeched, for they
don’t stop still now and then and laugh at them-
selves. . . . There is no Superman. The poor old
donkeys that fancy themselves in the part are either
crack-brained professors who couldn’t rule a Sunday-
school class, or bristling soldiers with pint-pot heads
who imagine that the shooting of a Duc d’Enghien
made a Napoleon. But there is a Super-woman,
and her name’s Hilda von Einem.”
“ I thought our job was nearly over,” I groaned,
“ and now it looks as if it hadn’t well started. Bulli-
vant said that all we had to do was to find out the
truth.”


AN EMBARRASSED TOILET 209
“Say, boys,” he said, “ I’ve got something
pretty considerable in the way of noos. There’s been
big fighting on the Eastern border, and the Buzzards
have taken a bad knock.”
His hands were full of papers, from which he
selected a map and spread it on the table.
“ They keep mum about the thing in this capital,
but I’ve been piecing the story together these last
days and I think I’ve got it straight. A fortnight
ago old man Nicholas descended from his mountains
and scuppered his enemies there—at Kuprikeui,
where the main road eastwards crosses the Araxes.
That was only the beginning of the stunt, for be
pressed on on a broad front, and the gentleman
called Kiamil, who commands in those parts, was
not up to the job of holding him. The Buzzards
were shepherded in from north and east and south,
and now the Muscovite is sitting down outside the
forts of Erzerum. I can tell you they’re pretty
miserable about the situation in the highest quarters.
. . . Enver is sweating blood to get fresh divisions
to Erzerum from Gally-poly, but it’s a long road and
it looks as if they would be too late for the fair. . . .
You and I, Major, start for Mesopotamy to-morrow,
and that’s about the meanest bit of bad luck that
ever happened to John S. We’re missing the chance
of seeing the goriest fight of this campaign.”
I picked up the map and pocketed it. Maps were
my business, and I had been looking for one.
“ We’re not going to Mesopotamia,” I said. “ Our
orders have been cancelled.”
“ But I’ve just seen Enver, and he said he had
sent round our passports.”
“They’re in the fire,” I said. “The right ones
will come along to-morrow morning.”
Sandy broke in, his eyes bright with excitement.
“The great hills! . . . We’re going to Erzerum.
. . Don’t you see that the Germans are playing


210 AN EMBARRASSED TOILET
their big card 7 They’re sending Greenmantle to
the point of danger in the hope that his coming will
rally the Turkish defence. Things are beginning to
move, Dick, old man. No more kicking the heels
for us. We’re going to be in it up to the neck, and
Heaven help the best man. . . . I must be off now,
for I’ve a lot to do. Au revoz'r. We meet some
time soon in the hills ”
Blenkiron still looked puzzled, till I told him the
story of that night’s doings. As he listened, all the
satisfaction went out of his face, and that funny,
childish air of bewilderment crept in.
“ It’s not for me to complain, for it’s in the straight
line of our dooty, but I reckon there’s going to be
big trouble ahead of this caravan. It’s Kismet,
and we’ve got to bow. But I won’t pretend that
I’m not considerable scared at the prospect.”
“Oh, so am I,” I said. “The woman frightens
me into fits. We’re up against it this time all right.
All the same I’m glad we’re to be let into the real
star metropolitan performance. I didn’t relish the
idea of touring the provinces."
“ I guess that’s correct. But I could wish that
the good God would see fit to take that lovely lady
to Himself. She’s too much for a quiet man at my
time of life. When she invites us to go in on the
ground-floor I feel like taking the elevator to the
roof-garden.”


212 THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI
Blenkiron played Patience, and Peter and I took
a hand at picquet, but mostly we smoked and
yarned. Getting away from that infernal city had
cheered us up wonderfully. Now we were out on
the open road, moving to the sound of the guns.
At the worst we should not perish like rats in a
sewer. We would be all together, too, and that was
a comfort. I think we felt the relief which a man
who has been on a lonely outpost feels when he is
brought back to his battalion. Besides, the thing
had gone clean beyond our power to direct. It was
no good planning and scheming, for none of us had
a notion what the next step might be. We were
fatalists now, believing in Kismet, and that is a
comfortable faith.
All but Blenkiron. The coming of Hilda von
Einem into the business had put a very ugly com-
plexion on it for him. It was curious to see how
she affected the different members of our gang.
Peter did not care a rush; man, woman, and hippo-
griff were the same to him; he met it all as calmly
as if he were making plans to round up an old lion
in a patch of bush, taking the facts as they came
and working at them as if they were a sum in arith-
metic. Sandy and I were impressed—it’s no good
denying it: horribly impressed—but we were too
interested to be scared, and we weren’t a bit fascinated.
We hated her too much for that. But she fairly
struck Blenkiron dumb. He said himself it was just
like a rattlesnake and a bird.
I made him talk about her, for if he sat and
brooded he would get worse. It was a strange thing
that this man, the most imperturbable and I think
about the most courageous I have ever met, should
be paralysed by a slim woman. There was no doubt
about it. The thought of her made the future to
him as black as a thunder cloud. It took the power
out of his joints, and if she was going to be much


THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI 218
around, it looked as if Blenkiron might be counted
out.
I suggested that he was in love with her, but this
he vehemently denied.
“ No, sir; I haven’t got no sort of affection for
the lady. My trouble is that she puts me out of
countenance, and I can’t fit her in as an antagonist.
I guess we Americans haven’t got the right poise
for dealing with that kind of female. We’ve exalted
our womenfolk into little tin gods, and at the same
time left them out of the real business of life. Conse-
quently, when we strike one playing the biggest
kind of man’s game we can’t place her We aren’t
used to regarding them as anything except angels
and children. I wish I had had you boys’ upbring-
lug-SI
Angora was like my notion of some place such as
Amiens in the retreat from Mons. It was one mass
of troops and transport—the neck of the bottle, for
more arrived every hour, and the only outlet was the
single eastern road. The town was pandemonium
into which distracted German officers were trying to
introduce some order. They didn’t Worry much
about us, for the heart of Anatolia wasn't a likely
hunting-ground for suspicious characters. We took
our passports to the commandant, who viséd them
readily, and told us he’d do his best to get us trans-
port. We spent the night in a sort of hotel, where
all four crowded into one little bedroom, and next
morning I had my work cut out getting a motor-car.
It took four hours, and the use of every great name
in the Turkish Empire, to raise a dingy sort of
Studebaker, and another two to get the petrol and
spare tyres. As for a chauffeur, love or money
couldn’t find him, and I was compelled to drive the
thing myself.
We left just after midday and swung out into bare
bleak downs patched with scrubby woodlands


214 THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI
There was no snow here, but a wind was blowing
from the east which searched the marrow. Pre-
sently we climbed up into hills, and the road, though
not badly engineered to begin with, grew as rough
as the channel of a stream. No wonder, for the
traffic was like what one saw on that awful stretch
between Cassel and Ypres, and there were no gangs
of Belgian roadmakers to mend it up. We found
troops by the thousands striding along with their
impassive Turkish faces, ox convoys, mule convoys,
wagons drawn by sturdy little Anatolian horses,
and, coming in the contrary direction, many shabby
Red Crescent cars and wagons of the wounded.
We had to crawl for hours on end, till we got past a
block. Just before the darkening we seemed to
outstrip the first press, and had a clear run for about
ten miles over a low pass in the hills. I began to get
anxious about the car, for it was a poor one at the
best, and the road was guaranteed sooner or later
to knock even a Rolls-Royce into scrap iron.
All the same it was glorious to be out in the open
again. Peter’s face wore a new look, and he sniffed
the bitter air like a stag. There floated up from
little wayside camps the odour of wood-smoke and
dung-fires. That, and the curious acrid winter smell
of great wind-blown spaces, will always come to my
memory as I think of that day. Every hour brought
me peace of mind and resolution. I felt as I had felt
when the battalion first marched from Aire towards
the firing-line, a kind of keying-up and wild expecta-
tion. I’m not used to cities, and lounging about
Constantinople had slackened my fibre. Now, as
the sharp wind buffeted us, I felt braced to any
kind of risk. We were on the great road to the
east and the border hills, and soon we should stand
upon the farthest battle-front of the war. This was
no commonplace intelligence job. That was all
over, and we Were going into the firing-line, going to


THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI 215
take part in what might be the downfall of our
enemies. I didn’t reflect that we were among those
enemies, and would probably share their downfall
if we were not shot earlier. The truth is, I had got
out of the way of regarding the thing as a struggle
between armies and nations. I hardly bothered to
think where my sympathies lay. First and foremost
it was a contest between the four of us and a crazy
woman, and this personal antagonism made the
strife of armies only a dimly felt background.
We slept that night like logs on the floor of a dirty
khan, and started next morning in a powder of snow.
We were getting very high up now, and it was perish-
ing cold. The Companion—his name sounded like
Hussin—had travelled the road before and told me
what the places were, but they conveyed nothing
to me. All morning we wriggled through a big lot
of troops, a brigade at least, who swung along at a
great pace with a fine free stride that I don’t think
I have ever seen bettered. I must say I took a
fancy to the Turkish fighting man: I remembered
the testimonial our fellows gave him as a clean
fighter, and I felt very bitter that Germany should
have lugged him into this dirty business. They
halted for a meal, and we stopped too and lunched
off some brown bread and dried figs and a flask of
very sour wine. I had a few words with one of the
officers who spoke a little German. He told me they
were marching straight for Russia, since there had
been a great Turkish victory in the Caucasus. “ We
have beaten the French and the British, and now it
is Russia’s turn," he said stolidly, as if repeating a
lesson. But he added that he was mortally sick
of war.
In the afternoon we cleared the column and had
an open road for some hours. The land now had a
tilt eastward, as if we were moving towards the
vs‘ley of a great river. Soon we began to meet


216 THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI
little parties of men coming from the east with a new
look in their faces. The first lots of wounded had
been the ordinary thing you see on every front,
and there had been some pretence at organisation.
But these new lots were very weary and broken;
they were often barefoot, and they seemed to have
lost their transport and to be starving. You would
find a group stretched by the roadside in the last
stages of exhaustion. Then would come a party
limping along, so tired that they never turned their
heads to look at us. Almost all were wounded, some
badly, and most were horribly thin. I wondered how
my Turkish friend behind Would explain the sight
to his men, if he believed in a great victory. They
had not the air of the backwash of a conquering
army.
Even Blenkiron, who was no soldier, noticed it.
“These boys look mighty bad," he observed.
“ We’ve got to hustle, Major, if we’re going to get
seats for the last act.”
That was my own feeling. The sight made me
mad to get on faster, for I saw that big things were
happening in the East. I had reckoned that four
days would take us from Angora to Erzerum, but
here was the second nearly over and we were not
yet a third of the way. I pressed on recklessly,
and that hurry was our undoing.
I have said that the Studebaker was a rotten old
car. Its steering-gear was pretty dicky, and the
bad surface and continual hairpin bends of the road
didn’t improve it. Soon we came into snow lying
fairly deep, fI‘OZCD hard and rutted by the big trans-
port-wagons. We bumped and bounced horribly,
and were shaken about like peas in a bladder. I
began to be acutely anxious about the old bone-
shaker, the more as we seemed a long way short of
the village I had proposed to spend the night in.
Twilight was falling and we were still in an unfeatured


THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI 217
waste, crossing the shallow glen of a stream. There
was a bridge at the bottom of a slope—a bridge of
logs and earth which had apparently been freshly
strengthened for heavy traffic. As we approached
it at a good pace the car ceased to answer to the
wheel.
I struggled desperately to keep it straight, but it
swerved to the left and we plunged over a bank into
a marshy hollow. There was a sickening bump as
we struck the lower ground, and the whole party
were shot out into the frozen slush. I don’t yet
know how I escaped, for the car turned over and by
rights I should have had my back broken. But no
one was hurt. Peter was laughing, and Blenkiron,
after shaking the snow out of his hair, joined him.
For myself I was feverishly examining the machine.
It was about as ugly as it could be, for the front
axle was broken.
Here was a piece of hopeless bad luck. We were
stuck in the middle of Asia Minor with no means
of conveyance, for to get a new axle there was as
likely as to find snowballs on the Congo. It was
all but dark and there was no time to lose. I got
out the petrol tins and spare tyres and cached them
among some rocks on the hillside. Then we col-
lected our scanty baggage from the derelict Stude-
baker. Our only hope was Hussin. He had got to
find us some lodging for the night, and next day we
would have a try for horses or a lift in some passing
wagon. I had no hope of another car. Every
automobile in Anatolia would now be at a premium.
It was so disgusting a mishap that we all took it
quietly. It was too bad to be helped by hard swear-
ing. Hussin and Peter set off on different sides of
the road to prospect for a house, and Blenkiron and
I sheltered under the nearest rock and smoked
savagely.
Hussin was the first to strike oil. He came back


218 THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI
in twenty minutes with news of some kind of dwell-
ing a couple of miles up the stream. He went off
to collect Peter, and, humping our baggage, Blen-
kiron and I plodded up the waterside. Darkness had
fallen thick by this time, and we took some bad
tosses among the bogs. When Hussin and Peter
overtook us they found a better road, and pre-
sently we saw a light twinkle in the hollow ahead.
It proved to be a wretched tumble-down farm in a
grove of poplars—a foul-smelling, muddy yard, a
two-roomed hovel of a house, and a barn which was
tolerably dry and which we selected for our sleeping-
place. The owner was a broken old fellow whose
sons were all at the war, and he received us with the
profound calm of one who expects nothing but un-
pleasantness from life.
By this time we had recovered our tempers, and I
was trying hard to put my new Kismet philosophy
into practice. I reckoned that if risks were fore-
ordained, so were difficulties, and both must be
taken as part of the day’s work. With the remains
of our provisions and some curdled milk we satisfied
our hunger and curled ourselves up among the
pease straw of the barn. Blenkiron announced with
a happy sigh that he had now been for two days
quit of his dyspepsia.
That night, I remember, I had a queer dream. I
seemed to be in a wild place among mountains, and
I was being hunted, though who was after me I
couldn’t tell. I remember sweating with fright, for
I seemed to be quite alone and the terror that was
pursuing me was more than human. The place was
horribly quiet and still, and there was deep snow
lying everywhere, so that each step I took was
heavy as lead. A very ordinary sort of nightmare,
you will say. Yes, but there was one strange feature
in this one. The night was pitch dark, but ahead
of me in the throat of the pass there was one patch


THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI 219
of light, and it showed a rum little hill with a rocky
top: what we call in South Africa a castrol or sauce-
pan. I had a notion that if I could get to that
castrol I should be safe, and I panted through the
drifts towards it with the avenger of blood at my
heels. I woke gasping, to find the winter morning
struggling through the cracked rafters, and to hear
Blenkiron say cheerily that his duodenum had
behaved all night like a gentleman. I lay still for a
bit trying to fix the dream, but it all dissolved into
haze except the picture of the little bill, which was
quite clear in every detail. I told myself it was a
reminiscence of the veld, some spot down in the
Wakkerstroom country, though for the life of me
I couldn’t place it.
I pass over the next three days, for they were one
uninterrupted series of heart-breaks. Hussin and
Peter scoured the country for horses, Blenkiron sat
in the barn and played Patience, while I haunted the
roadside near the bridge in the hope of picking up
some kind of conveyance. My task was perfectly
futile. The columns passed, casting wondering eyes
on the wrecked car among the frozen rushes, but
they could offer no help. My friend the Turkish
oflicer promised to wire to Angora from some place
or other for a fresh car, but, remembering the state
of affairs at Angora, I had no hope from that quarter.
Cars passed, plenty of them, packed with stafi-oflicers,
Turkish and German, but they were in far too big a
hurry even to stop and speak. The only conclusion
I reached from my roadside vigil was that things
were getting very warm in the neighbourhood of
Erzerum. Everybody on that road seemed to be
in mad haste either to get there or to get away.
Hussin was the best chance, for, as I have said,
the Companions had a vary special and peculiar
graft throughout the Turkish Empire. But the first
day he came back empty-handed. All the horses


220 THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI
had been commandeered for the war, he said: and
though he was certain that some had been kept
back and hidden away, he could not get on their
track. The second day he returned with two—miser-
able screws and deplorably short in the wind from
a diet of beans. There was no decent corn or hay
left in that countryside. The third day he picked
up a nice little Arab stallion: in poor condition, it is
true, but perfectly sound. For these beasts we paid
good money, for Blenkiron was well supplied and
we had no time to spare for the interminable Oriental
bargaining.
Hussin said he had cleaned up the countryside,
and I believed him. I dared not delay another day,
even though it meant leaving him behind. But he
had no notion of doing anything of the kind. He
was a good runner, he said, and could keep up with
such horses as ours for ever. If this was the manner
of our progress, I reckoned we would be weeks in
getting to Erzerum.
We started at dawn on the morning of the fourth
day, after the old farmer had blessed us and sold us
some stale rye-bread. Blenkiron bestrode the Arab,
being the heaviest, and Peter and I had the screws.
My worst forebodings were soon realised, and Hussin,
loping along at my side, had an easy job to keep up
with us. We were about as slow as an ox-wagon.
The brutes were unshod, and with the rough roads I
saw that their feet would very soon go to pieces.
We jogged along like a tinker’s caravan, about five
miles to the hour, as feckless a party as ever dis-
graced a highroad.
The weather was now a cold drizzle, which in-
creased my depression. Cars passed us and dis-
appeared in the mist, going at thirty miles an hour
to mock our slowness. None of us spoke, for the
futility of the business clogged our spirits. I bit
hard on my lip to curb my restlessness, and I think


THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI 221
I would have sold my soul there and then for any-
thing that could move fast. I don’t know any sorer
trial than to be mad for_ speed and have to crawl at
a snail’s pace. I was getting ripe for any kind of
desperate venture.
About midday we descended on a wide plain full
of the marks of rich cultivation. Villages became
frequent, and the land was studded with olive groves
and scarred with water furrows. From what I
remembered of the map I judged that we were coming
to that champaign country near Siwas, which is
the granary of Turkey, and the home of the true
Osmanli stock.
Then at a turning of the road we came to the
caravanserai.
It was a dingy, battered place, with the pink plaster
falling in patches from its walls. There was a
courtyard abutting on the road, and a flat-topped
house with a big hole in its side. It was a long way
from any battle-ground, and I guessed that some
explosion had wrought the damage. Behind it, a
few hundred yards off, a detachment of cavalry were
encamped beside a stream, with their horses tied up
in long lines of pickets.
And by the roadside, quite alone and deserted,
stood a large new motor-car.
In all the road before and behind there was no
man to be seen except the troops by the stream.
The owners, whoever they were, must be inside the
caravanserai.
I have said I was in the mood for some desperate
deed, and lo and behold Providence had given me
the chance! I coveted that car as I have never
cOVeted anything on earth. At the moment all my
plans had narrowed down to a feverish passion to
get to the battle-field. We had to find Greenmantle
at ErZerum, and once there we should have Hilda
Von Einem’s protection. It was a time of war, and
I5


222 THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI
a front of brass was the surest safety. But, indeed,
I could not figure out any plan worth speaking of.
I saw only one thing—a fast car which might be
ours.
I said a word to the others, and we dismounted
and tethered our horses at the near end of the court-
yard. I heard the low hum of voices from the
cavalrymen by the stream, but they were three
hundred yards off and could not see us. Peter was
sent forward to scout in the courtyard. In the
building itself there was but one window looking
on the road, and that was in the upper floor. Mean-
time I crawled along beside the wall to where the
car stood, and had a look at it. It was a splendid
six-cylinder affair, brand-new, with the tyres little
worn. There were seven tins of petrol stacked
behind, as well as spare tyres, and, looking in, I saw
map-cases and field-glasses strewn on the seats as
if the owners had only got out for a minute to stretch
their legs.
Peter came back and reported that the courtyard
was empty. “There are men in the upper room,"
he said; “ more than one, for I heard their voices.
They are moving about restlessly, and may soon be
coming out.”
I reckoned that there was no time to be lost, so I
told the others to slip down the road fifty yards
beyond the caravanserai and be ready to climb in
as I passed. I had to start the infernal thing, and
there might be shooting.
I waited by the car till I saw them reach the right
distance. I could hear voices from the second floor
of the house and footsteps moving up and down.
I was in a fever of anxiety, for any moment a man
might come to the window. Then I flung myself
on the starting handle and worked like a demon.
The cold made the job difficult, and my heart was
in my mouth, for the noise in that quiet place must


THE BATTERED CARAVANSERAI 228
have woke the dead. Then, by the mercy of Heaven,
the engines started, and I sprang to the driving
seat, released the clutch, and opened the throttle.
The great car shot forward, and I seemed to hear
behind me shrill voices. A pistol bullet bored
through my hat, and another buried itself in a
cushion beside me.
In a second I was clear of the place and the rest
of the party were embarking. Blenkiron got on the
step and rolled himself like a sack of coals into the
tonneau. Peter nipped up beside me, and Hussin
scrambled in from the back over the folds of the hood.
We had our baggage in our pockets and had nothing
to carry.
Bullets dropped round us, but did no harm. Then
I heard a report at my ear, and out of a corner of
my eye saw Peter lower his pistol. Presently we
were out of range, and, looking back, I saw three men
gesticulating in the middle of the road.
“ May the devil fly away with this pistol,” said
Peter ruefully. “I never could make good shoot-
ing with a little gun. Had I had my rifle . . .”
“ What did you shoot for Y” I asked in amaze-
ment. “ We’ve got the fellows’ car, and we don’t
want to do them any harm.”
“ It would have saved trouble had I had my rifle,"
said Peter, quietly. “ The little man you call
Rasta was there, and he knew you. I heard him cry
your name. He is an angry little man, and I observe
that on this road there is a telegraph.”


CHAPTER XVII
nounu: BY THE wa'raas or BABYLOII
hon that moment I date the beginning of my mad-
ness. Suddenly I forgot all cares and difficulties
of the present and future and became foolishly
light-hearted. We were rushing towards the great
battle where men were busy at my proper trade. I
realised how much 1 had loathed the lonely days in
Germany, and still more the dawdling week in Con-
stantinople. Now I was clear of it all, and bound
for the clash of armies. It didn’t trouble me that
we were on the wrong side of the battle line. I had
a sort of instinct that the darker and wilder things
grew the better chance for us.
“ Seems to me,” said Blenkiron, bending over me,
“ that this joy-ride is going to come to an untimely
end pretty soon. Peter’s right. That young man
will set the telegraph going, and we’ll be held up at
the next township.’-’
“He’s got to get to a telegraph office first," I
answered. “ That’s where we have the pull on him.
He’s welcome to the screws we left behind, and if
he finds an operator before the evening I’m the
worst kind of Dutchman. I’m going to break all
the rules and bucket this car for what’s she worth.
Don’t you see that the nearer we get to Erzerum the
safer we are T ”
“ I don’t follow,” he said slowly. “ At Erzerum
I reckon they’ll be waiting for us with the handcuffs.
Why in thunder couldn’t those hairy ragamuflins
l“


TROUBLE BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON 225
keep the little cuss safe? Your record’s a bit too
precipitous, Major, for the most innocent-minded
military boss.”
“Do you remember what you said about the
Germans being open to bluff 7 Well, I’m going to
put up the steepest sort of bluff. Of course they’ll
stop us. Rasta will do his damnedest. But re_
member that he and his friends are not very popular
with the Germans, and Madame von Einem is.
We’re her protégés, and the bigger the German swell
I get before the safer I’ll feel. We’ve got our pass-
ports and our orders, and he’ll be a bold man that
will stop us once we get into the German zone.
Therefore I’m going to hurry as fast as God will
let me.”
/ It was a ride that deserved to have an epic written
about it. / The car was good, and I handled her well,
though I say it who shouldn’t. The road in that
big central plain was fair, and often I knocked fifty
miles an hour out of her. We passed troops by a
circuit over the veld, where we took some awful
risks, and once we skidded by some transport with
our off wheels almost over the lip of a ravine. We
went through the narrow streets of Siwas like a fire-
engine, while I shouted out in German that we
carried despatches for head-quarters. We shot out of
drizzling rain into brief spells of winter sunshine,
and then into a snow blizzard which all but whipped
the skin from our faces. And always before us the
long road unrolled, with somewhere at the end of it
two armies clinched in a death-grapple.
That night we looked for no lodging. We ate a
sort of meal in the car with the hood up, and felt
our way on in the darkness, for the headlights were in
perfect order. Then we turned off the road for
four hours’ sleep, and I had a go at the map. Before
dawn we started again, and came over a pass into
the vale of a big river. The winter dawn showed
I


WATERS OF BABYLON 227
The man spoke to us in Turkish, which Hussin inter-
preted. There was somebody in that barracks who
wanted badly to see us.
“By the waters of Babylon we sat down and
wept,” quoted Blenkiron softly. “ I fear, Major,
we’ll soon be remembering Zion.”
I tried to persuade myself that this was merely
the red tape of a frontier fortress, but I had an
instinct that difficulties were in store for us. If
Rasta had started wiring I was prepared to put up
the brazenest bluff, for we were still eighty miles
from Erzerum, and at all costs we were going to be
landed there before night.
A fussy staff-officer met us at the door. At the
,sight of us he cried to a friend to come and look.
“Here are the birds safe. A fat man and two
lean ones and a savage who looks like a Kurd. Call
the guard and march them off. There’s no doubt
about their identity.”
“ Pardon me, sir,” I said, “ but we have no time
to spare and we’d like to be in Erzerum before the
dark. I would beg you to get through any formalities
as soon as possible. This man,” and I pointed to
the sentry, “ has our passports.”
“ Compose yourself,” he said impudently; “ you’re
not going on just yet, and when you do it won’t be
in a stolen car." He took the passports and fingered
them casually. Then something he saw there made
him cock his eyebrows.
“Where did you steal these 1’? he asked, but
with less assurance in his tone.
I spoke very gently. “ You seem to be the
victim of a mistake, sir. These are our papers. We
are under orders to report ourselves at Erzerum
without an hour’s delay. Whoever hinders us will
have to answer to General von Liman. We will
be obliged if you will conduct us at once to the
Governor.!!


WATERS OF BABYLON 229
“ It is quite true,” I said, “ but I would prefer
to use a pleasanter word. You will see from our
papers that every authority on the road is directed
to give us the best transport. Our own car broke
down, and after a long delay we got some wretched
horses. It is vitally important that we should be
in Erzerum without delay, so I took the liberty of
appropriating an empty car we found outside an
in. I am sorry for the discomfort of the owners,
but our business was too grave to wait.”
“ But the telegram says you are notorious spies l 33
I smiled. “ Who sent the telegram ‘I ”
“ I see no reason why I shouldn’t give you his
name. It was Rasta Bey. You’ve picked an awk—
ward fellow to make an enemy of."
I did not smile but laughed. “ Rasta i " I cried.
“ He’s one of Enver’s satellites. That explains
many things. I should like a word with you alone,
sir."
He nodded to the staff-ofiicer, and when he had
gone I put on my most Bible face and looked as
important as a provincial mayor at a royal visit.
“ I can speak freely," I said, “ for I am speaking
to a soldier of Germany. There is no love lost
between Enver and those I serve. I need not tell
you that. This Rasta thought he had found a
chance of delaying us, so he invents this trash about
spies. Those Comitadjis have spies on the brain. . . .
Especially he hates Frau von Einem.”
He jumped at the name.
“You have orders from her??? he asked, in a
respectful tone.
“ Why, yes,” I answered, “ and those orders will
not wait.”
He got up and walked to a table, whence he turned
a puzzled face on me. “ I’m torn in two between
the Turks and my own countrymen. If I please
one I offend the other, and the result is a damnable


WATERS OF BABYLON 281
getting mixed up in the ruck of the population.
Hussin could have helped me to that. I was getting
so confident since our interview with Posselt that I
thought I could bluff the whole outfit.
But my main business that afternoon was pure
nonsense. I was trying to find my little hill. At
every turn of the road I expected to see the castrol
before us. You must know that ever since I could
stand I have been crazy about high mountains. My
father took me to Basutoland when I was a boy, and
I reckon I have scrambled over almost every bit
of upland south of the Zambesi, from the Hottentots
Holland to the Zoutpansberg, and from the ugly
yellow kopjes of Damaraland to the noble cliffs of
Mont aux Sources. One of the things I had looked
forward to in coming home was the chance of climb-
ing the Alps. But now I was among peaks that I
fancied were bigger than the Alps, and I could hardly
keep my eyes on the road. I was pretty certain that
my castrol was among them, for that dream had
taken an almighty hold on my mind. Funnily
enough, I was ceasing to think it a place of evil
omen, for one soon forgets the atmosphere of night-
mare. But I was convinced that it was a thing I
was destined to see, and to see pretty soon.
Darkness fell when we were some miles short of
the city, and the last part was difficult driving.
On both sides of the road transport and engineer’s
stores were parked, and some of it strayed into the
highway. I noticed lots of small details—machine-
gun detachments, signalling parties, squads of
stretcher-bearers—which mean the fringe of an army,
and as soon as the night began the white fingers of
searchlights began to grope in the skies.
And then, above the hum of the roadside, rose the
voice of the great guns. The shells were bursting
four or five miles away, and the guns must have
been as mam; more distant. But in that upland


282 TROUBLE BY THE
pocket of plain in the frosty night they sounded
most intimately near. They kept up their solemn
litany, with a minute’s interval between each—no
rafale which rumbles like a drum, but the steady per-
sistence of artillery exactly ranged on a target. I
judged they must be bombarding the outer forts,
and once there came a loud explosion and a red glare
as if a magazine had suffered.
It was a sound I had not heard for five months, and
it fairly crazed me. I remembered how I had first
heard it on the ridge before Laventie. Then I had
been half afraid, half solemnised, but every nerve
had been quickened. Then it had been the new
thing in my life that held me breathless with
anticipation; now it was the old thing, the thing I
had shared with so many good fellows, my proper
work, and the only task for a man. At the sound of
the guns I felt that I was moving in natural air once
more. I felt that I was coming home.
We were stopped at a long line of ramparts, and a
German sergeant stared at us till he saw the lien-
tenant beside me, when he saluted and we passed
on. Almost at once we dipped into narrow twisting
streets, choked with soldiers, where it was a hard
business to steer. There were few lights—only now
and then the flare of a torch which showed the grey
stone houses, with every window latticed and shut-
tered. I had put out my headlights and had only
side lamps, so we had to pick our way gingerly through
the labyrinth. I hoped we would strike Sandy’s
quarters soon, for we were all pretty empty, and a
frost had set in which made our thick coats seem as
thin as paper.
The lieutenant did the guiding. We had to pre-
sent our passports, and I anticipated no more diffi-
culty than in landing from the boat at Boulogne.
But I wanted to get it over, for my hunger pinched
me and it was fearsome cold. Still the guns went


WATERS OF BABYLON 283
on, like hounds baying before a quarry. The city
was out of range, but there were strange lights on
the ridge to the east.
At last we reached our goal and marched through
a fine old carved archway into a courtyard, and
thence into a draughty hall.
“ You must see the Sektionschef}? said our guide.
I looked round to see if we were all there, and
noticed that Hussin had disappeared. It did not
matter, for he was not on the passports.
We followed as we were directed through an open
door. There was a man standing with his back
towards us looking at a wall map, a very big man
with a neck that bulged over his collar.
I would have known that neck among a million.
At the sight of it I made a half-turn to bolt back.
It was too late, for the door had closed behind us,
and there were two armed sentries beside it.
The man slewed round and looked into my eyes.
I had a despairing hope that I might bluff it out, for
I was in different clothes and had shaved my beard.
But you cannot spend ten minutes in a death-
gripple without your adversary getting to know you.
He went very pale, then recollected himself and
twisted his features into the old grin.
“ So,” he said, “ the little Dutchmen! We meet
after many days."
It was no good lying or saying anything. I shut
my teeth and waited.
“ And you, Herr Blenkiron? I never liked the
look of you. You babbled too much, like all your
damned Americans."
“ I guess your personal dislikes haven’t got any-
thing to do with the matter,” said Blenkiron,
calmly. “ If you’re the boss here, I’ll thank you to
cast your eye over these passports, for we can't
tand waiting for ever.”
This fairly angered him. “ I’ll teach you manners,"


SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS 287
kind of house and bundled into a place like a wine-
cellar. It was pitch dark, and after feeling round
the walls, first on my feet and then on Peter’s back,
I decided that there were no windows. It must have
been lit and ventilated by some lattice in the ceiling.
There was not a stick of furniture in the place:
nothing but a damp earth floor and bare stone sides.
The door was a relic of the Iron Age, and I could
hear the paces of a sentry outside it.
When things get to the pass that nothing you can
do can better them, the only thing is to live for the
moment. All three of us sought in sleep a refuge
from our empty stomachs. The floor was the poorest
kind of bed, but we rolled up our coats for pillows
and made the best of it. Soon I knew by Peter’s
regular breathing that he was asleep, and I pre-
sently followed him. . . .
I was awakened by a pressure below my left ear.
I thought it was Peter, for it is the old hunter’s
trick of waking a man so that he makes no noise
But another voice spoke. It told me that there was
no time to lose and to rise and follow, and the voice
was the voice of Hussin.
Peter was awake, and we stirred Blenkiron out of
heavy slumber. We were bidden take off our
boots and hang them by their laces round our necks
as country boys do when they want to go barefoot.
Then we tiptoed to the door, which was ajar.
Outside was a passage with a flight of steps at
one end which led to the open air. On these steps
lay a faint shine of starlight, and by its help I saw
a man huddled up at the foot of them. It was our
sentry, neatly and scientifically gagged and tied up.
The steps brought us to a little courtyard about
which the walls of the houses rose like cliffs. We
halted while Hussin listened intently. Apparently
the coast was clear and our guide led us to one side,
which was clothed by a stout wooden trellis. Once
r6


260 SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS
Hussin understood. He led us at a smart pace
from one roof to another, for here they were all of
the same height, and only low parapets and screens
divided them. We never saw a soul, for a winter’s
night is not the time you choose to saunter on your
housetop. I kept my ears open for trouble behind
us, and in about five minutes I heard it. A riot of
voices broke out, with one louder than the rest, and,
looking back, I saw lanterns waving. Stumm had
realised his loss and found the tracks of the thief.
Hussin gave one glance behind and then hurried
us on at a break-neck pace, with old Blenkiron gasp-
ing and stumbling. The shouts behind us grew
louder, as if some eye quicker than the rest had
caught our movement in the starlit darkness. It
was very evident that if they kept up the chase we
should be caught, for Blenkiron was about as useful
on a roof as a hippo.
Presently we came to a big drop, with a kind of
ladder down it, and at the foot a shallow ledge run-
ning to the left into a pit of darkness. Hussin
gripped my arm and pointed down it. “ Follow it,"
he whispered, “ and you will reach a roof which
spans a street. Cross it, and on the other side is a
mosque. Turn to the right there and you will find
easy going for fifty metres, well screened from the
higher roofs. For Allah’s sake keep in the shelter
of the screen. Somewhere there I will join you.”
He hurried us along the ledge for a bit and then
went back, and with snow from the corners covered
up our tracks. After that he went straight on him-
self, taking strange short steps like a bird. I saw
his game. He wanted to lead our pursuers after
him, and he had to multiply the tracks, and trust to
Stumm’s fellows not spotting that they all were
made by one man.
But I had quite enough to think of in getting
Blenkiron along that ledge. He was pretty nearly


242 SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS
He took a step backward, gathered himself for a
spring, and leaped clean over the gap. Like a cat
he lighted on the parapet above us, and stumbled
forward with the impetus right on our heads.
“ We are safe for the moment," he whispered,
“ but when they miss me they will return. We must
make good haste.”
The next half-hour was a maze of twists and turns,
slipping down icy roofs and climbing icier chimney-
stacks. The stir of the city had gone, and from
the black streets below came scarcely a sound. But
always the great tattoo of guns beat in the east.
Gradually we descended to a lower level, till we
emerged on the top of a shed in a courtyard. Hussin
gave an odd sort of cry, like a demented owl, and
something began to stir below us.
It was a big covered wagon, full of bundles of
forage, and drawn by four mules. As we descended
from the shed into the frozen litter of the yard, a
man came out of the shade and spoke low to Hussin.
Peter and I lifted Blenkiron into the cart, and
scrambled in beside him, and I never felt anything
more blessed than the warmth and softness of that
place after the frosty roofs. I had forgotten all
about my hunger, and only yearned for sleep. Pre-
sently the wagon moved out of the courtyard into
the dark streets.
Then Blenkiron began to laugh, a deep internal
rumble which shook him violently and brought down
a heap of forage on his head. I thought it was
hysterics, the relief from the tension of the past
hour. But it wasn’t. His body might be out of
training, but there was never anything the matter
with his nerves. He was consumed with honest
merriment.
“ Say, Major,” he gasped, “ I don’t usually cherish
dislikes for my fellow men, but somehow I didn't
cotton to Colonel Stumm. But now I almost love


SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS 248
him. You hit his jaw very bad in Germany, and
now you’ve annexed his private file, and I guess
it’s important or he Wouldn’t have been so mighty
set on steeple-chasing over those roofs. I haven’t
done such a thing since I broke into neighbour
Brown’s woodshed to steal his tame ’possum, and
that’s forty years back. It’s the first piece of
genooine amusement I’ve struck in this game, and
I haven’t laughed so much since old Jim Hooker
told the tale of ‘ Cousin Sally Dillard ’ when we were
bunting ducks in Michigan and his wife’s brother had
an apoplexy in the night and died of it.’3
To the accompaniment of Blenkiron’s chuckles I
did what Peter had done in the first minute, and fell
asleep.
When I woke it was still dark. The wagon had
stopped in a courtyard which seemed to be shaded
by great trees. The snow lay deeper here, and by
the feel of the air we had left the city and climbed
to higher ground. There were big buildings on one
side, and on the other what looked like the lift of a
hill. No lights were shown, the place was in pro-
found gloom, but I felt the presence near me of
others besides Hussin and the driver.
We were hurried, Blenkiron only half awake, into
an outbuilding, and then down some steps to a roomy
cellar. There Hussin lit a lantern, which showed
what had once been a storehouse for fruit. Old
husks still strewed the floor and the place smelt of
apples. Straw had been piled in corners for beds,
and there was a rude table and a divan of boards
covered with sheepskins.
“ Where are we 7 ” I asked Hussin.
“In the house of the Master,” he said. “You
will be safe here, but you must keep still till the
Master comes.”
“ Is the Frankish lady here 7 " I asked.
Hussin nodded, and from a wallet brought out


244 SPARROWS ON THE HOUSETOPS
some food—raisins and cold meat and a loaf of bread.
We fell on it like vultures, and as we ate Hussin
diSappeared. I noticed that he locked the door
behind him.
As soon as the meal was ended the others returned
to their interrupted sleep. But I was wakeful now
and my mind was sharp-set on many things. I got
Blenkiron's electric torch and lay down on the divan
to study Stumm’s map.
The first glance showed me that I had lit on a
treasure. It was the staff map of the Erzerum de-
fences, showing the forts and the field trenches, with
little notes scribbled in Stumm’s neat small hand-
writing. I got out the big map which I had taken
from Blenkiron, and made out the general lie of the
land. I saw the horseshoe of Deve Boyun to the east
which the Russian guns were battering. Stumm’s was
just like the kind of squared artillery map we used
in France, I in 10,000, with spidery red lines show-
ing the trenches, but with the difference that it was
the Turkish trenches that were shown in detail and
the Russian only roughly indicated. The thing was
really a confidential plan of the whole Erzerum
snceirde, and would be worth untold gold to the
enemy. No wonder Stumm had been in a wax at
its loss.
The Deve Boyun lines seemed to me monstrously
trong, and I remembered the merits of the Turk as a
fighter behind strong defences. It looked as if Russia
were up against a second Plevna or a new Gallipoli.
Then I took to studying the flanks. South lay
the Palantuken range of mountain, with forts defend-
ing the passes, where ran the roads to Mush and Lake
Van. That side, too, looked pretty strong. North
in the valley of the Euphrates I made out two big
forts, Tafta and Kara Gubek, defending the road
from Olti. On this part of the map Stumm’s notes
were plentiful, and I gave them all my attention.


GREENMANTLE 249
others that he’d gone over the Portuguese border,
but I believed he lived. No native could tell us,
and since his kraal was well defended no runner
could get through. So it was necessary to send a
man.”
Peter lifted up his head and laughed. “ The man
found the chief Makapan. He was very much alive,
and made good shooting with a shot-gun. But the
man brought the chief Makapan out of his kraal
and handed him over to the Mounted Police. You
remember Captain Arcoll, Dick—Jim Arcoll ? Well,
Jim laughed so much that he broke open a wound
in his head, and had to have the doctor.”
“ You were that man, Peter,” I said.
“ Ja. I was the man. There are more ways of
getting into kraals than there are ways of keeping
people out.”
“ Will you take this chance 'l ”
“ For certain, Dick. I am getting stiff with doing
nothing, and if I sit in houses much longer I shall
grow old. A man bet me five pounds on the ship
that I could not get through a trench-line, and if
there had been a trench-line handy I would have
taken him on. I will be very happy, Dick, but I
do not say I will succeed. It is new country to me,
and I will be hurried, and hurry makes bad stalking.”
I showed him what I thought the likeliest place—
in the spurs of the Palantuken mountains. Peter’s
way of doing things was all his own. He scraped
earth and plaster out of a corner and sat down to
make a little model of the landscape on the table,
following the contours of the map. He did it extra-
ordinarily neatly, for, like all great hunters, he was
as deft as a weaver-bird. He puzzled over it for a
long time, and conned the map till he must have
got it by heart. Then he took his field-glasses—a
very good single Zeiss which was part of the spoils
from Rasta’s motor-car—and announced that he was


GREENMANTLE 251
but lit a lantern and set it on the table. Then he
went to the door and waited. Presently a light
step fell on the stairs, and Hussin drew back to let
some one enter. He promptly departed and I heard
the key turn in the lock behind him.
Sandy stood there, but a new Sandy who made
Blenkiron and me jump to our feet. The pelts and
skin-cap had gone, and he wore instead a long linen
tunic clasped at the waist by a broad girdle. A
strange green turban adorned his head, and as he
pushed it back I saw that his hair had been shaved.
He looked like some acolyte—a weary acolyte, for
there was no spring in his walk or nerve in his car-
riage. He dropped numbly on the divan and laid
his head in his hands. The lantern showed his hag-
gard eyes with dark lines beneath them.
“ Good God, old man, have you been sick ‘1 ” I
cried.
“ Not sick,” he said hoarsely. “ My body is right
enough, but the last few days I have been living in
hell.”
Blenkiron nodded sympathetically. That was how
he himself would have described the company of the
lady.
I marched across to him and gripped both his
wrists.
“ Look at me,” I said, “ straight in the eyes.”
His eyes were like a sleep-walker’s, unwink-
ing, unseeing. “ Great heavens, man, you’ve been
drugged l ” I said.
“ Drugged,” he cried, with a weary laugh. “ Yes,
I have been drugged, but not by any physic. No
one has been doctoring my food. But you can’t go
through hell without getting your eyes red-hot.”
I kept my grip on his wrists. “ Take your time,
old chap, and tell us about it. Blenkiron and I are
here, and old Peter’s on the roof not far off. We’ll
look after you-’3


252 GREENMANTLE
“ It does me good to hear your voice, Dick," he
said. “ It reminds me of clean, honest things."
“ They’ll come back, never fear. We’re at the
last lap now. One more spurt and it’s over. You’ve
got to tell me what the new snag is. Is it that
woman T ’9
He shivered like a frightened colt. “ Woman!"
he cried. “ Does a woman drag a man through the
nether-pit T She’s a she devil. Oh, it isn’t madness
that’s wrong with her. She’s as sane as you and as
cool as Blenkiron. Her life is an infernal game of
chess, and she plays with souls for pawns. She is
evil—evil—evil. . . .3! And once more he buried his
head in his hands.
It was Blenkiron who brought sense into this
hectic atmosphere. Hiu slow, beloved draw] was an
antiseptic against nerves.
“ Say, boy,” he said, “ I feel just like you about
the lady. But our job is not to investigate her
character. Her Maker will do that good and sure
some day. We’ve got to figure how to circumvent
her, and for that you’ve got to tell us what exactly’s
been occurring since we parted company.”
Sandy pulled himself together with a great effort.
“ Greenmantle died that night I saw you. We
buried him secretly by her order in the garden of
the villa. Then came the trouble about his suc-
cessor. . . . The four Ministers would be no party
to a swindle. They were honest men, and vowed
that their task now was to make a tomb for their
master and pray for the rest of their days at his
shrine. They were as immovable as a granite hill
and she knew it. . . . Then they too died."
“ Murdered Y 3! I gasped.
“Murdered . . . all four in one morning. I do
not know how, but I helped to bury them. Oh, she
had Germans and Kurds to do her foul work, but
their hands were clean compared to hers. Pity me,


GREEN MAN TLE 255
I wasn't blufling. Puzzled as I was about ways
and means I had still the blind belief that we should
win out. And as I spoke two legs dangled through
the trap and a dusty and blinking Peter descended
in our midst.
I took the maps from him and spread them on the
table.
“ First, you must know that we’ve had an almighty
piece of luck. Last night Hussin took us for a walk
over the roofs of Erzerum, and by the blessing of
Providence I got into Stumm’s room and bagged
his staff map. . . . Look there . . . d’you see his
notes 'I That’s the danger-point of the whole defence.
Once the Russians get that fort, Kara Gubek, they’ve
turned the main position. And it can be got;
Stumm knows it can ; for these two adjacent hills are
not held. . . . It looks a mad enterprise on paper,
but Stumm knows that it is possible enough. The
question is: Will the Russians guess that? I say
no, not unless some one tells them. Therefore, by
book or by crook, we’ve got to get that information
through to them.”
Sandy’s interest in ordinary things was beginning
to flicker up again. He studied the map and began
to measure distances.
“ Peter’s going to have a try for it. He thinks
there’s a sporting chance of his getting through the
lines. If he does—if he gets this map to the Grand
Duke’s staff—then Stumm’s goose is cooked. In
three days the Cossacks will be in the streets of
Erzerum."
“ What are the chances T ” Sandy asked.
I glanced at Peter. “ We’re hard-bitten fellows
and can face the truth. I think the chances against
success are about five to one."
“ Two to one,” said Peter modestly. “ Not worse
than that. I don’t think you’re fair to me, Dick,
my old friend."


258 GREENMANTLE
Then we set about equipping Peter for his crusade.
It was a simple job, for we were not rich in pro-
perties. His get-up, with his thick fur-collared great-
coat, was not unlike the ordinary Turkish officer seen
in a dim light. But Peter had no intention of pass-
ing for a Turk, or indeed of giving anybody the
chance of seeing him, and he was more concerned to
fit in with the landscape. So he stripped off the
greatcoat and pulled a grey sweater of mine over
his jacket, and put on his head a woollen helmet of
the same colour. He had no need of the map, for
he had long since got his route by heart, and what
was once fixed in that mind stuck like wax; but I
made him take Stumm’s plan and paper, hidden below
his shirt. The big difficulty, I saw, would be getting
to the Russians without being shot, assuming he
passed the Turkish trenches. He could only hope
that he would strike some one with a smattering of
English or German. Twice he ascended to the roof
and came back cheerful, for there was promise of
wild weather.
Hussin brought in our supper, and Peter made up
a parcel of food. Blenkiron and I had both small
flasks of brandy and I gave him mine.
Then he held out his hand quite simply, like a
good child who is going off to bed. It was too
much for Blenkiron. With large tears rolling down
his face he announced that, if we all came through,
he was going to fit him into the softest berth that
money could buy. I don’t think he was under-
stood, for old Peter’s eyes had now the faraway
absorption of the hunter who has found game. He
was thinking only of his job.
Two legs and a pair of very shabby boots vanished
through the trap, and suddenly I felt utterly lonely
and desperately sad. The guns were beginning to
roar again in the east, and in the intervals came the
whistle of the rising storm


CHAPTER XX
PETER PIENAAB GOES TO THE wans
THIs chapter is the tale that Peter told me—long
after, sitting beside a stove in the hotel at Bergen,
where we were waiting for our boat.
He climbed on the roof and shinned down the
broken bricks of the outer walls. The outbuilding
we were lodged in abutted on a road, and was out-
side the proper mceinte of the house. At ordinary
times I have no doubt there were sentries, but Sandy
and Hussin had probably managed to clear them
off this end for a little. Anyhow he saw nobody as
he crossed the road and dived into the snowy fields.
He knew very well that he must do the job in the
twelve hours of darkness ahead of him. The im-
mediate front of a battle is a bit too public for any one
to lie hidden in by day, especially when two or
three feet of snow make everything kenspeckle. Now
hurry in a job of this kind was abhorrent to Peter’s
soul, for, like all Boers, his tastes were for slowness
and sureness, though he could hustle fast enough
when haste was needed. As he pushed through the
winter fields be reckoned up the things in his favour,
and found the only one the dirty weather. There
was a high, gusty wind, blowing scuds of snow but
never coming to any great fall. The frost had
gone, and the lying snow was as soft as butter. That
was all to the good, he thought, for a clear, hard
night would have been the devil.
859


260 PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS
The first bit was through farmlands, which were
seamed with little snow-filled water-furrows. Now
and then would come a house and a patch of fruit
trees, but there was nobody abroad. The roads
were crowded enough, but Peter had no use for
roads. I can picture him swinging along with his
bent back, stopping every now and then to sniff and
listen, alert for the foreknowledge of danger. When
he chose he could cover country like an antelope.
Soon he struck a big road full of transport. It
was the road from Erzerum to the Palantuken pass,
and he waited his chance and crossed it. After that
the ground grew rough with boulders and patches of
thorn-trees, splendid cover where he could move
fast without worrying. Then he was pulled up
suddenly on the bank of a river. The map had
warned him of it, but not that it would be so big.
It was a torrent swollen with melting snow and
rains in the hills, and it was running fifty yards
wide. Peter thought he could have swum it, but he
was very averse to a drenching. “ A wet man
makes too much noise,” he said, and besides, there
was the off-chance that the current would be too
much for him. So he moved up stream to look for
a bridge.
In ten minutes he found one, a new-made thing of
trestles, broad enough to take transport wagons.
It was guarded, for he heard the tramp of a sentry,
and as he pulled himself up the bank he observed
a couple of long wooden huts, obviously some kind
of billets. These were on the near side of the stream,
about a dozen yards from the bridge. A door stood
open and a light showed in it, and from within
came the sound of voices. . . . Peter had a sense
of hearing like a wild animal, and he could detect
even from the confused gabble that the voices were
German.
As he lay and listened some one came over the


PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS 261
bridge. It was an oflicer, for the sentry saluted.
The man disappeared in One of the huts. Peter had
struck the billets and repairing-shop of a squad of
German sappers.
He was just going ruefully to retrace his steps
and try to find a good place to swim the stream when
it struck him that the officer who had passed him
wore clothes very like his own. He, too, had had a
grey sweater and a Balaclava helmet, for even a
German oflicer ceases to be dressy on a mid-winter’s
night in Anatolia. The idea came to Peter to walk
boldly across the bridge and trust to the sentry not
seeing the difference.
He slipped round a corner of the hut and marched
down the road. The sentry was now at the far end,
which was lucky, for if the worst came to the worst
he could throttle him. Peter, mimicking the stiff
German walk, swung past him, his head down as if
to protect him from the wind.
The man saluted. He did more, for he offered con-
versation. The ofiicer must have been a genial soul.
“ It’s a rough night, Captain,” he said in German.
“The wagons are late. Pray God, Michael hasn’t
got a shell in his lot. They’ve begun putting over
some big ones.”
Peter grunted good-night in German and strode
on. He was just leaving the road when he heard
a great halloo behind him.
The real officer must have appeared on his heels,
and the sentry’s doubts had been stirred. A whistle
was blown, and, looking back, Peter saw lanterns
waving in the gale. They were coming out to look
for the duplicate.
He stood still for a second, and noticed the lights
spreading out south of the road. He was just about
to dive off it on the north side when he was aware
of a difficulty. On that side a steep bank fell to a
ditch, and the bank beyond bounded a big flood.


262 PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS
He could see the dull rufile of the water under the
wind.
On the road itself he would soon be caught; south
of it the search was beginning; and the ditch itself
was no place to hide, for he saw a lantern moving
up it. Peter dropped into it all the same and made
a plan. The side below the road was a little under-
cut and very steep. He resolved to plaster himself
against it, for he would be hidden from the road,
and a searcher in the ditch would not be likely to
explore the unbroken sides. It was always a maxim
of Peter’s that the best hiding-place was the worst,
the least obvious to the minds of those who were
looking for you.
He waited till the lights both in the road and the
ditch came nearer, and then he gripped the edge
with his left hand, where some stones gave him
purchase, dug the toes of his boots into the wet soil,
and stuck like a limpet. It needed some strength
to keep the position for long, but the muscles of hi
arms and legs were like whipcord.
The searcher in the ditch soon got tired, for the
place was very wet, and joined his comrades on
the road. They came along, running, flashing the
lanterns into the trench, and exploring all the im-
mediate countryside.
Then rose a noise of wheels and horses from the
opposite direction. Michael and the delayed wagons
were approaching. They dashed up at a great pace,
driven wildly, and for one horrid second Peter
thought they were going to spill into the ditch at the
very spot where he was concealed. The wheels
passed so close to the edge that they almost grazed
his fingers. Somebody shouted an order and they
pulled up a yard or two nearer the bridge. The
others came up and there was a consultation.
Michael sWore he had passed no one on the road.
“ That fool Hannus has seen a ghost,” said the


264 PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS
Day. These were the Austrian howitzers—nothing
over 8-inch, I fancy, but to Peter they looked like
leviathans. Here, too, he saw for the first time a
big and quite recent shell-hole, for the Russian guns
were searching out the position. He was so inter-
ested in it all that he poked his nose where he
shouldn’t have been, and dropped plump into the
pit behind a gun-emplacement.
Gunners all the world over are the same—shy
people, who hide themselves in holes and hibernate
and mortally dislike being detected.
A gruff voice cried “ War da 9 '3 and a heavy hand
seized his neck.
Peter was ready with his story. He belonged to
Michael’s wagon-team and had been left behind
He wanted to be told the way to the sappers’ camp
He was very apologetic, not to say obsequious.
“ It is one of those Prussian swine from the Marta
Bridge,” said a gunner. “ Land him a kick to teach
him sense. Bear to your right, mannikin, and you
will find a road. And have a care when you get there,
for the Russkoes are registering on it.”
Peter thanked them and bore off to the right.
After that he kept a wary eye on the howitzers,
and was thankful when he got out of their area
on to the slopes up the hill. Here was the type of
country that was familiar to him, and he defied
any Turk or Boche to spot him among the scrub
and boulders. He was getting on very well, when
once more, close to his ear, came a sound like the
crack of doom.
It was the field-guns now, and the sound of a
field-gun close at hand is bad for the nerves if you
aren’t expecting it. Peter thought he had been hit,
and lay flat for a little to consider. Then he found
the right explanation, and crawled forward very
warily.
Presently he saw his first Russian shell. It dropped


266 PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS
think of, but conscious that nothing would get rid
of that lump of ice below his heart.
Then he could stand it no longer. He got up and
ran for his life.
But he ran forward.
It was the craziest performance. He went hell-
for-leather over a piece of ground which was being
watered with H.E., but by the mercy of Heaven
nothing hit him. He took some fearsome tosses in
shell-holes, but partly erect and partly on all fours
he did the fifty yards and tumbled into a Turkish
trench right on the top of a dead man.
The contact with that body brought him to his
senses. That men could die at all seemed a com-
forting, homely thing after that unnatural pande-
monium. The next moment a crump took the parapet
of the trench some yards to his left, and he was half
buried in an avalanche.
He crawled out of that, pretty badly cut about
the head. He was quite cool now and thinking hard
about his next step. There were men all around
him, sullen dark faces as he saw them when the
flares went up. They were manning the parapets
and waiting tensely for something else than the
shelling. They paid no attention to him, for I fancy
in that trench units were pretty well mixed up, and
under a bad bombardment no one bothers about
his neighbour. He found himself free to move as
be pleased. The ground of the trench was littered
with empty cartridge-cases, and there were many
dead bodies.
The last shell, as I have said, had played havoc
with the parapet. In the next spell of darkness
Peter crawled through the gap and twisted among
some snowy hillocks. He was no longer afraid of
shells, any more than he was afraid of a veld thunder-
storm. But he was wondering very hard how he
should ever get to the Russians The Turks were


PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS 267
behind him now, but there was the biggest danger
in front.
Then the artillery ceased. It was so sudden that
he thought he had gone deaf, and could hardly realise
the blessed relief of it. The wind, too, seemed to
have fallen, or perhaps he was sheltered by the lee
of the hill. There were a lot of dead here also, and
that he couldn’t understand, for they were new
dead. Had the Turks attacked and been driven
back? When he had gone about thirty yards he
stopped to take his bearings. On the right were the
ruins of a large building set on fire by the guns.
There was a blur of woods and the debris of walls
round it. Away to the left another bill ran out
farther to the east, and the place he was in seemed
to be a kind of cup between the spurs. Just before
him was a little ruined building, with the sky seen
through its rafters, for the smouldering ruin on the
right gave a certain light. He wondered if the
Russian firing-line lay there.
Just then he heard voices—smothered voices—not
a yard away and apparently below the ground. He
instantly jumped to what this must mean. It was
a Turkish trench—a communication trench. Peter
didn’t know much about modern warfare, but he had
read in the papers, or heard from me, enough to make
him draw the right moral. The fresh dead pointed
to the same conclusion. What he had got through
were the Turkish support trenches, not their firing-
line. That was still before him.
He didn’t despair, for the rebound from panic had
made him extra courageous. He crawled forward,
an inch at a time, taking no sort of risk, and pre-
sently found himself looking at the parados of a
trench. Then he lay quiet to think out the next
step.
The shelling had stopped, and there was that queer
kind of peace which falls sometimes on two armies


PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS 269
He lay still and did some calm thinking. There
was a man in front of him, a Turkish soldier, who
was in the enemy’s pay. Therefore he could frater-
uise with him, for they were on the same side. But
how was he to approach him without getting shot
in the process T Again, how could a man send
signals to the enemy from a firing-line without being
detected? Peter found an answer in the strange
configuration of the ground. He had not heard a
sound till he was a few yards from the place, and
they would be inaudible to men in the reserve trenches
and even in the communication trenches. If some-
body moving up the latter caught the noise, it would
be easy to explain it naturally. But the wind blow-
ing down the cup would carry it far in the enemy’s
direction.
There remained the risk of being heard by those
parallel with the bell in the firing trenches. Peter
concluded that that trench must be very thinly
held, probably only by a few observers, and the
nearest might be a dozen yards off. He had read
about that being the French fashion under a big
bombardment.
The next thing was to find out how to make him-
elf known to this ally. He decided that the only
way was to surprise him. He might get shot, but
be trusted to his strength and agility against a man
who was almost certainly wearied. When he had got
him safe, explanations might follow.
Peter was now enjoying himself hugely. If only
those infernal guns kept silent he would play out the
game in the sober, decorous way he loved. So very
delicately he began to wriggle forward to where the
sound was.
The night was now as black as ink round him, and
very quiet, too, except for soughings of the dying
gale. The snow had drifted a little in the lee of the
ruined walls, and Peter’s progress was naturally very
I8


270 PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS
slow. He could not afford to dislodge one ounce
of snow. Still the tinkling went on, now in greater
volume. Peter was in terror lest it should cease
before he got his man.
Presently his hand clutched at empty space. He
was on the lip of the front trench. The sound was
now a yard to his right, and with infinite care be
shifted his position. Now the bell was just below
him, and he felt the big rafter of the woodwork from
which it had fallen. He felt something else—a
stretch of wire fixed in the ground with the far end
hanging in the void. That would be the spy’s ex-
planation if any one heard the sound and came
seeking the cause. ~
Somewhere in the darkness before and below him
was the man, not a yard ofi. Peter remained very
still, studying the situation. He could not see, but
he could feel the presence, and he was trying to
decide the relative position of man and bell and
their exact distance from him. The thing was not
so easy as it looked, for if he jumped for where he
believed the figure was, he might miss it and get a
bullet in the stomach. A man who played so risky
a game was probably handy with his firearms. Be-
sides, if he should hit the bell, he would make a
hideous row and alarm the whole front.
Fate suddenly gave him the right chance. The
unseen figure stood up and moved a step, till his
back was against the parados. He actually brushed
against Peter’s elbow, who held his breath.
There is a catch that the Kafiirs have which
would need several diagrams to explain. It is partly
a neck hold, and partly a paralysing backward twist
of the right arm, but if it is practised on a man from
behind, it locks him as sure as if he were handcuffed.
Peter slowly got his body raised and his knees drawn
under him, and reached for his prey.
He got him. A head was pulled backward over


PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS 271
the edge of the trench, and he felt in the air the
motion of the left arm pawing feebly but unable to
reach behind.
“ Be still,” whispered Peter in German; “ I mean
you no harm. We are friends of the same purpose.
Do you speak German T ”
“ Nein,” said a mufiied voice.
“ English ? ”
“ Yes,” said the voice.
“ Thank God,” said Peter. “ Then we can under-
stand each other. I’ve watched your notion of
signalling, and a very good one it is. I’ve got to get
through to the Russian lines somehow before
morning, and I want you to help me. I’m English——
a kind of English, so we’re on the same side. If I
let go your neck will you be good and talk reason-
ably ? ”
The voice assented. Peter let go, and in the same
instant slipped to the side. The man wheeled round
and flung out an arm but gripped vacancy.
“ Steady, friend,” said Peter; “you mustn’t play
tricks with me or I’ll be angry.”
“Who are you Y Who sent you?" asked the
puzzled voice.
Peter had a happy thought. “The Companions
of the Rosy Hours ? ” he said.
“Then are we friends indeed," said the voice.
“ Come out of the darkness, friend, and I will do you
no harm. I am a good Turk, and I fought beside
the English in Kordofan and learned their tongue.
I live only to see the ruin of Enver, who has beggared
my family and slain my twin brother. Therefore I
serve the Muscov ghiaours.”
“ I don’t know what the Musky Jaws are, but if
you mean the Russians I’m with you. I’ve got news
for them which will make Enver green. The ques-
tion is, how I’m to get to them, and that is where
you shall help me, my friend.’I


272 PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE WARS
6‘ r II
“ By playing that little tune of yours again. Tell
them to expect within the next half-hour a deserter
with an important message. Tell them, for God’s
sake, not to fire at anybody till they’ve made certain
it isn’t me.”
The man took the blunt end of his bayonet and
squatted beside the bell. The first stroke brought
out a clear, searching note which floated down the
valley. He struck three notes at slow intervals.
For all the world, Peter said, he was like a telegraph
operator calling up a station.
“ Send the message in English," said Peter.
“ They may not understand it,” said the man.
“ Then send it any way you like. I trust you, for
we are brothers.”
After ten minutes the man ceased and listened.
From far away came the sound of a trench-gong.
the kind of thing they used on the Western Front
to give the gas-alarm.
“They say they will be ready,"- he said. “ I
cannot take down messages in the darkness, but
they haVe given me the signal which means ‘ Con-
sent.’ "
“ Come, that is pretty good,” said Peter. “ And
now I must be moving. You take a hint from me.
When you hear big firing up to the north get ready
to beat a quick retreat, for it will be all up with that
city of yours. And tell your folk, too, that they’re
making a bad mistake letting those fool Germans rule
their land. Let them hang Enver and his little
friends, and we’ll all be happy once more.”
“May Satan receive his soul!” said the Turk.
“ There is wire before us, but I will show you a way
through. The guns this evening made many rents
in it. But haste, for a working party may be here
presently to repair it. Remember there is much
wire before the other lines."


PETER PIENAAR GOES TO THE-WARS 278
Peter, with certain directions, found it pretty easy
to make his way through the entanglement. There
was one bit which scraped a hole in his back, but
very soon he had come to the last posts and found
himself in open country. The place, he said,
was a graveyard of the unburied dead that smelt
horribly as he crawled among them. He had no
inducements to delay, for he thought he could hear
behind him the movement of the Turkish working
party, and was in terror that a flare might reveal
him and a volley accompany his retreat.
From one shell-hole to another he wormed his
way, till he struck an old ruinous communication
trench which led in the right direction. The Turks
must have been forced back in the past week, and
the Russians were now in the evacuated trenches.
The thing was half full of water, but it gave Peter a
feeling of safety, for it enabled him to get his head
below the level of the ground. Then it came to an
end and he found before him a forest of wire.
The Turk in his signal had mentioned half an hour,
but Peter thought it was nearer two hours before
he got through that noxious entanglement. Shelling
had made little difference to it. The uprights were
all there, and the barbed strands seemed to touch
the ground. Remember, he had no wire-cutter;
nothing but his bare hands. Once again fear got
hold of him. He felt caught in a net, with monstrous
vultures waiting to pounce on him from above. At
any moment a flare might go up and a dozen rifles
find their mark. He had altogether forgotten about
the message which had been sent, for no message
could dissuade the ever-present death he felt around
him. It was, he said, like following an old lion into
bush when there was but one narrow way in, and
no road out.
The guns began again—the Turkish guns from
behind the ridge—and a shell tore up the wire a


CHAPTER XXI
was: LI'I‘I‘LE mm.
It was a wise man who said that the biggest kind
of courage was to be able to sit still. I used to feel
that when we were getting shelled in the reserve
trenches outside Vermelles. I felt it before we went
over the parapets at Loos, but I never felt it so
much as on the last two days in that cellar. I had
simply to set my teeth and take a pull on myself.
Peter had gone on a crazy errand which I scarcely
believed could come off. There were no signs of
Sandy; somewhere within a hundred yards he was
fighting his own battles, and I was tormented by the
thought that he might get jumpy again and wreck
everything. A strange Companion brought us food,
a man who spoke only Turkish and could tell us no-
thing ; Hussin, I judged, was busy about the horses.
If I could only have done something to help on
matters I could have scotched my anxiety, but
there was nothing to be done, nothing but wait and
brood. I tell you I began to sympathise with the
general behind the lines in a battle, the fellow who
makes the plan which others execute. Leading a
charge can be nothing like so nerve-shaking a busi-
ness as sitting in an easy-chair and waiting on the
news of it.
It was bitter cold, and we spent most of the day
wrapped in our greatcoats and buried deep in the
straw. Blenkiron was a marvel. There was no light
for him to play Patience by, but he never complained.
:70


278 THE LITTLE HILL
Hussin did not light a lantern. I heard his key in
the lock, and then his light step close to where we lay.
“ Are you asleep ‘I ” he said, and when I answered
he sat down beside me.
“ The horses are found,” he said, “ and the Master
bids me tell you that we start in the morning three
hours before dawn.”
It was welcome news. “ Tell me what is hap-
pening,” I begged; “we have been lying in this
tomb for three days and heard nothing.”
“The guns are busy,” he said. “The Allemans
come to this place every hour, I know not for what.
Also there has been a great search for you. The
searchers have been here, but they were sent away
empty. . . . Sleep, my lord, for there is wild work
before us."
I did not sleep much, for I was stnmg too high
with expectation, and I envied Blenkiron his now
eupeptic slumbers. But for an hour or so I dropped
off, and my old nightmare came back. Once again
I was in the throat of a pass, hotly pursued, strain-
ing for some sanctuary which I knew I must
reach. But I was no longer alone. Others were
with me: how many I could not tell, for when I tried
to see their faces they dissolved in mist. Deep snow
was underfoot, a grey sky was over us, black peaks
were on all sides, but ahead in the mist of the pass
was that curious castrol which I had first seen in my
dream on the Erzerum road.
I saw it distinct in every detail. It rose to the
left of the road through the pass, above a hollow
where great boulders stood out in the snow. Its
sides were steep, so that the snow had slipped off in
patches, leaving stretches of glistening black shale.
The kranz at the top did not rise sheer, but sloped
at an angle of forty-five, and on the very summit
there seemed a hollow, as if the earth within the
rock-rim had been beaten by weather into a cup.


THE LITTLE HILL 2791
That is often the way with a South African castrol,
and I knew it was so with this. We were straining
for it, but the snow clogged us, and our enemies
were very close behind.
Then I was awakened by a figure at my side.
“ Get ready, my lord,’3 it said; “it is the hour to
ride.”
Like sleep-walkers we moved into the sharp air.
Hussin led us out of an old postern and then through
a place like an orchard to the shelter of some tall
evergreen trees. There horses stood, champing
quietly from their nose-bags. “Good,” I thought;
“ a feed of oats before a big effort.”
There were nine beasts for nine riders. We
mounted without a word and filed through a grove
of trees to where a broken paling marked the begin-
ning of cultivated land. There for the matter of
twenty minutes Hussin chose to guide us through
deep, clogging snow. He wanted to avoid any sound
till we were well beyond earshot of the house. Then
we struck a by-path which presently merged in a
hard highway, running, as I judged, south-west by
west. There we delayed no longer, but galloped
furiously into the dark.
I had got back all my exhilaration. Indeed I was
intoxicated with the movement, and could have
laughed out loud and sung. Under the black
canopy of the night perils are either forgotten or
terribly alive. Mine were forgotten. The darkness
I galloped into led me to freedom and friends.
Yes, and success, which I had not dared to hope
and scarcely even to dream of.
Hussin rode first, with me at his side. I turned
my head and saw Blenkiron behind me, evidently
mortally unhappy about the pace we set and the
mount he sat. He used to say that horse-exercise
was good for his liver, but it was a gentle amble and


282 THE LITTLE HILL
I was for trying the stream at all costs, but Hussin
pointed out that it would do us no good. The
cavalry beyond the bridge were moving up the other
bank. “There is a path through the hills that I
know, but it must be travelled on foot. If we can
increase our lead and the mist cloaks us, there is yet
a chance.”
It was a weary business plodding up to the skirts
of the hills. We had the pursuit behind us now,
and that put an edge on every difficulty. There
were long banks of broken screes, I remember, where
the snow slipped in wreaths from under our feet.
Great boulders had to be circumvented, and patches
of bog, where the streams from the snows first made
contact with the plains, mired us to our girths.
Happily the mist was down again, but this, though
it hindered the chase, lessened the chances of Hussin
finding the path.
He found it nevertheless. There was the gully
and the rough mule-track leading upwards. But
there also had been a landslip, quite recent from the
marks. A large scar of raw earth had broken across
the hillside, which with the snow above it looked
like a slice cut out of an iced chocolate-cake.
We stared blankly for a second, till we recognised
its hopelessness.
“ I’m for trying the crags,” I said. “ Where there
once was a way another can be found.”
“ And be picked off at their leisure by these
marksmen,” said Hussin grimly. “ Look 1 ”
The mist had opened again, and a glance behind
showed me the pursuit closing up on us. They were
now less than three hundred yards off. We turned
our horses and made off eastward along the skirts
of the cliffs.
Then Sandy spoke for the first time. “ I don’t
know how you fellows feel, but I’m not going to be
taken. There’s nothing much to do except to find


THE LITTLE HILL 288
a good place and put up a fight. We can sell our
lives dearly.”
“ That’s about all,” said Blenkiron cheerfully.
He had suffered such tortures on that gallop that be
welcomed any kind of stationary fight.
“ Serve out the arms,” said Sandy.
The Companions all carried rifles slung across
their shoulders. Hussin, from a deep saddle-bag,
brought out rifles and bandoliers for the rest of us.
As I laid mine across my saddle-bow I saw it was a
German Mauser of the latest pattern.
“ It’s hell-for-leather till we find a place for a
stand,” said Sandy. “ The game’s against us this
time."-
Once more we entered the mist, and presently
found better going on a long stretch of even slope.
Then came a rise, and on the crest of it I saw the sun.
Presently we dipped into bright daylight and looked
down on a broad glen, with a road winding up it to
a pass in the range. I had expected this. It was one
way to the Palantuken pass, some miles south of the
house where we had been lodged.
And then, as I looked southward, I saw what I had
been watching for for days. A little hill split the
valley, and on its top was a kranz of rocks. It was
the castrol of my persistent dream.
On that I promptly took charge. “There’s our
fort,” I cried. “ If we once get there we can hold
it for a week. Sit down and ride for it.”
We bucketed down that hillside like men pos-
sessed, even Blenkiron sticking on manfully among
the twists and turns and slithers. Presently we
were on the road and were racing past marching
infantry and gun teams and empty wagons. I
noted that most seemed to be moving downward and
few going up. Hussin screamed some words in
Turkish that secured us a passage, but indeed our
crazy speed left them staring. Out of a corner of


284 THE LITTLE HILL
my eye I saw that Sandy had flung off most of his
wrappings and seemed to be all a dazzle of rich
colour. But I had thought for nothing except the
little hill, now almost fronting us across the shallow
glen.
No horses could breast that steep. We urged
them into the hollow, and then hastily dismounted,
humped the packs, and began to struggle up the
side of the castrol. It was strewn with great boulders,
which gave a kind of cover that very soon was
needed. For, snatching a glance back, I saw that
our pursuers were on the road above us and were
getting ready to shoot.
At normal times we would have been easy marks,
but, fortunately, wisps and streamers of mist now
clung about that hollow. The rest could fend for
themselves, so I stuck to Blenkiron and dragged
him, wholly breathleSS, by the least exposed route.
Bullets spattered now and then against the rocks,
and one sang unpleasantly near my head. In this
way we cOVered three-fourths of the distance, and
had only the bare dozen yards where the gradient
eased off up to the edge of the kranz.
Blenkiron got hit in the leg, our only casualty.
There was nothing for it but to carry him, so I
swung him on my shoulders, and with a bursting
heart did that last lap. It was hottish work, and the
bullets were pretty thick about us, but we all got
safely to the krans and a short scramble took us over
the edge. I laid Blenkiron inside the castrol and
started to prepare our defence.
We had little time to do it. Out of the thin fog
figures were coming, crouching in cover. The place
we were in was a natural redoubt, except that there
were no loopholes or sandbags. We had to show
our heads over the rim to shoot, but the danger was
lessened by the superb field of fire given by those
last dozen yards of glacis. I posted the men and


THE LITTLE HILL 285
waited, and Blenkiron, with a white face, insisted on
taking his share, announcing that he used to be
handy with a gun.
I gave the order that no man was to shoot till the
enemy had come out of the rocks on to the glacis.
lThe thing ran right round the top, and we had to
watch all sides to prevent them getting us in flank
or rear. Hussin’s rifle cracked out presently from
the back, so my precautions had not been needless.
We were all three fair shots, though none of us up
to Peter’s miraculous standard, and the Companions,
too, made good practice. The Mauser was the
weapon I knew best, and I didn’t miss much. The
attackers never had a chance, for their only hope was
to rush us by numbers, and, the whole party being
not above two dozcn, they were far too few. I
think we killed three, for their bodies were left
lying, and wounded at least six, while the rest fell
back towards the road. In a quarter of an hour it
was all over.
“They are dogs of Kurds,” I heard Hussin say
fiercely. “ Only a Kurdish ghiaour would fire on the
livery of the KaAba."
Then I had a good look at Sandy. He had dis-
carded shawls and wrappings, and stood up in
the strangest costume man ever wore in battle
Somehow he had procured field-boots and an old
pair of riding—breeches. Above these, reaching well
below his middle, he had a wonderful silken jibbah
or ephod of a bright emerald. I call it silk, but it
was like no silk I have ever known, so exquisite in the
mesh, with such a sheen and depth in it. Some
strange pattern was woven on the breast, which In the
dim light I could not trace. I’ll warrant no rarer or
costlier garment was ever exposed to lead on a bleak
winter hill.
Sandy seemed unconscious of his garb. His eye,
listless no more, scanned the hollow. “That’s only
I9


THE LITTLE HILL 287
very near its edge. It would be an odd irony if we
were the target of friendly shells.
“By the Lord Harry,” I heard Sandy say, “if
we had a brace of machine-guns we could hold this
place against a division.”
“ What price shells 'l " I asked. “ If they get a
gun up they can blow us to atoms in ten minutes.”
“ Please God the Russians keep them too busy
for that,” was his answer.
With anxious eyes I watched our enemies on the
road. They seemed to have grown in numbers.
They were signalling, too, for a white flag fluttered.
Then the mist rolled down on us again, and our
prospect was limited to ten yards of vapour.
“Steady,” I cried; “they may try to rush us
at any moment. Every man keep his eye on the
edge of the fog, and shoot at the first sign.”
For nearly half an hour by my watch we waited
in that queer white world, our eyes smarting with
the strain of peering. The sound of the guns seemed
to be hushed, and everything grown deathly quiet.
Blenkiron’s squeal, as he knocked his wounded leg
against a rock, made every man start.
Then out of the mist there came a voice.
It was a woman’s voice, high, penetrating, and
sweet, but it spoke in no tongue I knew. Only Sandy
understood. He made a sudden movement as if to
defend himself against a blow.
The speaker came into clear sight on the glacis
a yard or two away. Mine was the first face she saw.
“I come to offer terms,” she said in English.
“ Will you permit me to enter ? ”
I could do nothing except take off my cap and
say, “ Yes, ma’am.” Blenkiron, snuggled up against
the parapet, was cursing furiously below his breath.
She climbed up the kranz and stepped over the
edge as lightly as a deer. Her clothes were strange


THE LITTLE HILL 289"
What she had thought of his origin God knows, but
she had never dreamed of this. Her eyes grew larger
and more lustrous, her lips parted as if to speak,
but her voice failed her. Then by an effort she
recovered herself, and out of that strange face went
all the glow of youth and ardour. It was again the
unholy mask I had first known.
“ And these others ‘P ” she asked in a level-
voice.
“ One is a brother oficer of my regiment. The
other is an American friend. But all three of us are
on the same errand. We came east to destroy Green-
mantle and your devilish ambitions. You have
yourself destroyed your prophets, and now it is your
turn to fail and disappear. Make no mistake,
Madam; that folly is over. I will tear this sacred
garment into a thousand pieces and scatter them on
the wind. The people wait to-day for the revela-
tion, but none will come. You may kill us if you
can, but we have at least crushed a lie and done
service to our country."
I would not have taken my eyes from her face
for a king’s ransom. I have written that she was a
queen, and of that there is no manner of doubt.
She had the soul of a conqueror, for not a flicker of
weakness or disappointment marred her air. Only
pride and the stateliest resolution looked out of her
eyes.
“ I said I came to offer terms. I will still offer
them, though they are other than I thought. For
the fat American, I will send him home safely to his
own country. I do not make war on such as be.
He is Germany’s foe, not mine. You,” she said,
turning fiercely on me, “ I will hang before dusk.”
Never in my life had I been so pleased. I had
got my revenge at last. This woman had singled
me out above the others as the object of her wrath.
and I almost loved her for it.


THE LITTLE HILL 291
dam giving before a pent-up mass of icy water. She
tore off one of her gauntlets and hurled it in his face.
Implacable hate looked out of her eyes.
“ I have done with you,” she cried. “ You have
scorned me, but you have dug your own grave.”
She leaped on the parapet and the next second was
on the glacis. Once more the mist had fled, and
across the hollow I saw a field-gun in place and men
around it who were not Turkish. She waved her
hand to them, and hastened down the hillside.
But at that moment I heard the whistle of a long-
range Russian shell. Among the boulders there was
the dull shock of an explosion and a mushroom of red
earth. It all passed in an instant of time: I saw
the gunners on the road point their hands and I
heard them cry; I heard too a kind of sob from
Blenkiron—all this before I realised myself what had
happened. The next thing I saw was Sandy, already
beyond the glacis, leaping with great bounds down
the hill. They were shooting at him, but he heeded
them not. For the space of a minute he was out
of sight, and his whereabouts was shown only by
the patter of bullets.
Then he came back—walking quite slowly up the
last slope, and he was carrying something in his
arms. The enemy fired no more; they realised
what had happened.
He laid his burden down gently in a corner of the
castrol. The cap had fallen off, and the hair was
breaking loose. The face was very white but there
was no wound or bruise on it.
“She was killed at once," I heard him saying.
“ Her back was broken by a shell-fragment. Dick,
we must bury her here. . . . You see, she . . . she
liked me. I can make her no return but this.”
We set the Companions to guard, and with in-
finite slowness, using our hands and our knives, we
made a shallow grave below the eastern parapet.


CHAPTER XXII
THE GUNS or THE non'rn
BUT no more shells fell.
The night grew dark and showed a field of glitter-
ing stars, for the air was sharpening again towards
frost. We waited for an hour, crouching just behind
the far parapets, but never came that ominous
familiar whistle.
Then Sandy rose and stretched himself. “ I’m
hungry,” he said. “ Let’s have out the food, Hussin.
We’ve eaten nothing since before daybreak. I
wonder what is the meaning of this respite ‘l ”
I fancied I knew.
“ It’s Stumm’s way,” I said. “He wants to torture
us. He’ll keep us hours on tenterhooks, while he sits
over yonder exulting in what he thinks we’re en-
during. He has just enough imagination for that.
. . . He would rush us if he had the men. As it
is, he’s going to blow us to pieces, but do it slowly
and smack his lips over it.”
Sandy yawned. “ We’ll disappoint him, for we
won’t be worried, old man. We three are beyond
that kind of fear.”
“ Meanwhile we’re going to do the best we can,"
I said. “ He’s got the exact range for his whizz-
bangs. We’ve got to find a hole somewhere just
outside the castrol, and some sort of head-cover.
We’re bound to get damaged whatever happens,
but we’ll stick it out to the end. When they think
they have finished with us and rush the place, there
284


THE GUNS OF THE NORTH 295
may be one of us alive to put a bullet through old
Stumm. What do you say ‘2 ”
They agreed, and after our meal Sandy and I
crawled out to prospect, leaving the others on guard
in case there should be an attack. We found a
hollow in the glacis a little south of the casirol, and,
working very quietly, managed to enlarge it and
cut a kind of shallow cave in the hill. It would be
no use against a direct hit, but it would give some
cover from flying fragments. As I read the situa-
tion, Stumm could land as many shells as he pleased
in the castrol and wouldn’t bother to attend to the
flanks. When the bad shelling began there would
be shelter for one or two in the cave.
Our enemies were watchful. The riflemen on the
east burnt Verey flares at intervals, and Stumm’s
lot sent up a great star-rocket. I remember that
just before midnight hell broke loose round Fort
Palantuken. No more Russian shells came into our
hollow, but all the road to the east was under fire,
and at the Fort itself there was a shattering explo-
sion and a queer scarlet glow which looked as if a
magazine had been hit. For about two hours the
firing was intense, and then it died down. But it
was towards the north that I kept turning my head.
There seemed to be something different in the sound
there, something sharper in the report of the guns,
as if shells were dropping in a narrow valley whose
rock walls doubled the echo. Had the Russians by
any blessed chance worked round that flank?
I got Sandy to listen, but he shook his head.
“ Those guns are a (1026!! miles off,” he said. “ They’re
no nearer than three days ago. But it looks as if
the sportsmen on the south might have a chance.
When they break through and stream down the
valley, they’ll be puzzled to account for what re-
mains of us. . . . We’re no longer three advcnturers

 the enemy's country. We’re the advance guard of


800 THE GUNS OF THE NORTH
was never to be mine again. For the first time in
that long vigil I was torn with a sudden regret.
“ We must get into the cave before it is full light,"
I said. “ We had better draw lots for the two to go."
The choice fell on one of the Companions and
Blenkiron.
“You can count me out,” said the latter. “If
it’s your wish to find a man to be alive when our
friends come up to count their spoil, I guess I’m the
worst of the lot. I’d prefer, if you don’t mind, to
stay here. I’ve made my peace with my Maker,
and I’d like to wait quietly on His call. I’ll play a
game of Patience to pass the time.”
He would take no denial, so we drew again, and
the lot fell to Sandy.
“ If I’m the last to go,” he said, “I promise I
don’t miss. Stumm won’t be long in following me.”
He shook hands with his cheery smile, and he
and the Companion slipped over the parapet in the
final shadows before dawn.
Blenkiron spread his Patience cards on a flat
rock, and dealt out for the Double Napoleon. He
was perfectly calm, and hummed to himself his only
tune. For myself I was drinking in my last draught
of the hill air. My contentment was going. I
suddenly felt bitterly loth to die.
Something of the same kind must have passed
through Blenkiron’s head. He suddenly looked up
and asked, “Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see
anybody coming ‘I ”
I stood close to the parapet, watching every detail
of the landscape as shown by the revealing day-
break. Up on the shoulders of the Palantuken, snow-
drifts lipped over the edges of the cliffs. I wondered
when they would come down as avalanches. There
was a kind of croft on one hillside, and from a but
the smoke of breakfast was beginning to curl.


THE GUNS OF THE NORTH 80)
Stumm’s gunners were awake and apparently holding
council. Far down on the main road a convoy was
moving—I heard the creak of the wheels two miles
away, for the air was deathly still.
Then, as if a spring had been loosed, the world
suddenly leaped to a hideous life. With a growl
the guns opened round all the horizon. They were
especially fierce to the south, where a rafale beat as
I had never heard it before. The one glance I cast
behind me showed the gap in the hills choked with
fumes and dust.
But my eyes were on the north. From Erzerum
city tall tongues of flame leaped from a dozen quar-
ters. Beyond, toward the opening of the Euphrates
glen, there was the sharp crack of field-guns. I
strained eyes and ears, mad with impatience, and I
read the riddle.
“ Sandy,” I yelled, “ Peter has got through.
The Russians are r01md the flank. The town is
burning. Glory to God, we’ve won, we’ve won! "
And as I spoke the earth seemed to split beside
me, and I was flung forward on the gravel which
covered Hilda von Einem’s grave.
As I picked myself up, and to my amazement found
myself uninjured, I saw Blenkiron rubbing the dust
out of his eyes and arranging a disordered card. He
had stopped humming, and was singing aloud:
“He captured Harper's Ferry, with his nineteen men so true,
Andbefrighwned old Virginny . . . "
“Say, Major,” he cried, “ I believe this game of
mine is coming out.’-,
I was now pretty well mad. The thought that
old Peter had won, that we had won beyond our
wildest dreams, that if we died there were those
coming who would exact the uttermost vengeance,
20


802 THE GUNS OF THE NORTH
rode my brain like a fever. I sprang on the parapet
and waved my hand to Stumm, shouting defiance.
Rifle shots cracked out from behind, and I leaped
back just in time for the next shell.
The charge must have been short, for it was a bad
miss, landing somewhere on the glacis. The next
was better and crashed on the near parapet, carving
a great hole in the rocky kranz. This time my arm
hung limp, broken by a fragment of stone, but I felt
no pain. Blenkiron seemed to bear a charmed life,
for he was smothered in dust, but unhurt. He blew
the dust away from his cards very gingerly and
went on playing.
“Sister Anne,” he asked, “ do you see anybody
coming ? ”
Then came a dud which dropped neatly inside on
the soft ground. I was determined to break for the
open and chance the rifle fire, for if Stumm went
on shooting the castrol was certain death. I caught
Blenkiron round the middle, scattering his cards to
the winds, and jumped over the parapet.
“ Don’t apologise, Sister Anne,” said he. “The
game was as good as won. But for God’s sake drop
me, for if you wave me like the banner of freedom
I’ll get plugged sure and good.”
My one thought was to get cover for the next
minutes, for I had an instinct that our vigil was
near its end. The defences of Erzerum were crum-
bling like sand-castles, and it was a proof of the
tenseness of my nerves that I seemed to be deaf to
the sound. Stumm had seen us cross the parapet,
and he started to sprinkle all the surroundings of
the castrol. Blenkiron and I lay like a working-party
between the lines caught by machine-guns, taking
a pull on ourselves as best we could. Sandy had
some kind of cover, but we were on the bare farther
slope, and the riflemen on that side might have had
us at their mercy