GREENMANTLE by JOHN BUCHAN

GREENMANTLE
by JOHN BUCHAN
To
Caroline Grosvenor
During the past year, in the intervals of an active life, I have
amused myself with constructing this tale. It has been scribbled in
every kind of odd place and moment - in England and abroad, during
long journeys, in half-hours between graver tasks; and it bears, I
fear, the mark of its gipsy begetting. But it has amused me to write,
and I shall be well repaid if it amuses you - and a few others - to read.
Let no man or woman call its events improbable. The war has
driven that word from our vocabulary, and melodrama has become the
prosiest realism. Things unimagined before happen daily to our friends
by sea and land. The one chance in a thousand is habitually taken,
and as often as not succeeds. Coincidence, like some new Briareus,
stretches a hundred long arms hourly across the earth. Some day, when
the full history is written - sober history with ample documents - the
poor romancer will give up business and fall to reading Miss Austen
in a hermitage.
The characters of the tale, if you think hard, you will recall.
Sandy you know well. That great spirit was last heard of at Basra,
where he occupies the post that once was Harry Bullivant's. Richard
Hannay is where he longed to be, commanding his battalion on the
ugliest bit of front in the West. Mr John S. Blenkiron, full of
honour and wholly cured of dyspepsia, has returned to the States,
after vainly endeavouring to take Peter with him. As for Peter, he
has attained the height of his ambition. He has shaved his beard
and joined the Flying Corps.
CONTENTS
1. A Mission is Proposed
2. The Gathering of the Missionaries
3. Peter Pienaar
4. Adventures of Two Dutchmen on the Loose
5. Further Adventures of the Same
6. The Indiscretions of the Same
7. Christmas Eve
8. The Essen Barges
9. The Return of the Straggler
10. The Garden-House of Suliman the Red
11. The Companions of the Rosy Hours
12. Four Missionaries See Light in Their Mission
13. I Move in Good Society
14. The Lady of the Mantilla
15. An Embarrassed Toilet
16. The Battered Caravanserai
17. Trouble By the Waters of Babylon
18. Sparrows on the Housetops
19. Greenmantle
20. Peter Pienaar Goes to the Wars
21. The Little Hill
22. The Guns of the North
CHAPTER ONE
A Mission is Proposed
I had just finished breakfast and was filling my pipe when I got
Bullivant's telegram. It was at Furling, 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 sat and thought for a bit, for the name 'Bullivant' 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. [Major
Hannay's narrative of this affair has been published under the title
of _The _Thirty-nine _Steps.]
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 forward 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 straightforward 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 announced; '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?'
'Right-o! I'll accept a job on your staff if they give you a corps.
If so be as you come down tonight, 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 Office. Sir Walter
did not keep me waiting long. But when his secretary took me to
his room I would not have recognized 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 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?'
'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?' 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 said, 'and I can't
think who told you about it. I hated the job, but I had to do it to
prevent my subalterns 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. 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 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?'
'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?' 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 today asks for the
average rather than the exception in human nature. It is like a big
machine where the parts are standardized. 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 - or, if it comes to that, a division? How if
there is a thing which you alone can do? 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 difficulties? Well, I can give you a task
which will try all your powers. Have you anything to say?'
My heart was beginning to thump uncomfortably. Sir Walter
was not the man to pitch a case too high.
'I am a soldier,' I said, '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?'
'I've read the newspapers pretty regularly since I went to hospital.
I've got some pals in the Mesopotamia 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 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 organization 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 part 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 disappointed. 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 that wind is blowing towards the Indian border.
Whence comes that wind, think you?'
Sir Walter had lowered his voice and was speaking very slow and
distinct. I could hear the rain dripping from the eaves of the
window, and far off the hoot of taxis in Whitehall.
'Have you an explanation, Hannay?' he asked again.
'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'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 cast
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? 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, remember, lies India.'
'You keep to suppositions. How much do you know?' I asked.
'Very little, except the fact. But the fact is beyond dispute. I have
reports from agents everywhere - pedlars in South Russia, Afghan
horse-dealers, Turcoman merchants, pilgrims on the road to Mecca,
sheikhs in North Africa, sailors on the Black Sea coasters, sheepskinned
Mongols, Hindu fakirs, Greek traders in the Gulf, as well
as respectable Consuls who use cyphers. They tell the same story.
The East is waiting for a revelation. It has been promised one.
Some star - man, prophecy, or trinket - is coming out of the West.
The Germans know, and that is the card with which they are going
to astonish the world.'
'And the mission you spoke of for me is to go and find out?'
He nodded gravely. 'That is the crazy and impossible mission.'
'Tell me one thing, Sir Walter,' I said. 'I know it is the fashion in
this country if a man has a special knowledge to set him to some
job exactly the opposite. I know all about Damaraland, but instead
of being put on Botha's staff, as I applied to be, I was kept in
Hampshire mud till the campaign in German South West Africa
was over. I know a man who could pass as an Arab, but do you
think they would send him to the East? They left him in my
battalion - a lucky thing for me, for he saved my life at Loos. I
know the fashion, but isn't this just carrying it a bit too far? There
must be thousands of men who have spent years in the East and
talk any language. They're the fellows for this job. I never saw a
Turk in my life except a chap who did wrestling turns in a show at
Kimberley. You've picked about the most useless man on earth.'
'You've been a mining engineer, Hannay,' Sir Walter said. 'If
you wanted a man to prospect for gold in Barotseland you would
of course like to get one who knew the country and the people and
the language. But the first thing you would require in 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 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 nerveracking
strain, of deadly peril shrouding 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 incompetent,
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! - 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', and '_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 Mesopotamia for years - mostly young officers of the
Indian Army. They carry their lives in their hands, and now and
then one disappears, and the sewers of Baghdad might tell a tale.
But they find out many things, and they count the game worth the
candle. They have told us of the star rising in the West, but they
could give us no details. All but one - the best of them. He had
been working between Mosul and the Persian frontier as a muleteer,
and had been south into the Bakhtiari hills. He found out
something, but his enemies knew that he knew and he was pursued.
Three months ago, just before Kut, he staggered into Delamain's
camp with ten bullet holes in him and a knife slash on his forehead.
He mumbled his name, but beyond that and the fact that there was
a Something coming from the West he told them nothing. He died
in ten minutes. They found this paper on him, and since he cried
out the word "Kasredin" in his last moments, it must have had
something to do with his quest. It is for you to find out if it has
any meaning.'
I folded it up and placed it in my pocket-book.
'What a great fellow! What was his name?' I asked.
Sir Walter did not answer at once. He was looking out of the
window. 'His name,' he said at last, 'was Harry Bullivant. He was
my son. God rest his brave soul!'
CHAPTER TWO
The Gathering of the Missionaries
I wrote 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?" 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 Arbuthnot - yes, that's the man.
Buried deep in the commissioned ranks of the New Army? 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.'
'He wouldn't,' said Sir Walter. 'He had always a more than
Oriental reticence. I've got another colleague 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 certainly not the impassive
kind. 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 imagination. 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. 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 choosing.
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 the story
I had read of Saint Teresa setting off at the age of ten with her small
brother to convert 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
hovering 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 Blenkiron?' 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, speaking low.
'So?' said he. 'Sir Walter is a very good friend of mine. Pleased
to meet you, Mr - or I guess it's Colonel -'
'Hannay,' I said; 'Major Hannay.' I was wondering 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 melancholy 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 capacious 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
uncomfortable feeling that they saw more than mine.
'You have been fighting, Major? The Battle of Loos? 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?'
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 a year back. But
I reflected that the good God had not given John S. Blenkiron the
kind of martial figure that would do credit to the tented field. Also
I recollected that we Americans were nootrals - benevolent 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 lawless passions of men let
loose on a battlefield. And, as a stoodent of humanity, I hankered
for the experience.'
'What have you been doing?' 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 con tracts. But I reckoned I would get let into the game somehow,
and I was. Being a nootral, I was in an advantageous 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? 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 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?' 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 in.'
'You know that it's uncommonly dangerous?'
'I judged so. But it don't do to begin counting risks. I believe in
an all-wise and beneficent Providence, but you have got to trust
Him and give Him a chance. What's life anyhow? 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? About one o'clock in the
morning, 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
out.'
I scribbled my address on a piece of paper and handed it to the
stout philosopher. 'Come to dinner tonight 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
noo 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 out of that. If a
sedentary dyspeptic could show that kind of nerve, I wasn't going
to be behind him.
I went back to my flat about five o'clock. My man Paddock had
gone to the wars long ago, so I had shifted to one of the new
blocks in Park Lane where they provide food and service. I kept
the place on to have a home to go to when I got leave. It's a
miserable business holidaying in an hotel.
Sandy was devouring tea-cakes with the serious resolution of a
convalescent.
'Well, Dick, what's the news? Is it a brass hat or the boot?'
'Neither,' I said. 'But you and I are going to disappear from His
Majesty's forces. Seconded for special service.'
'O my sainted aunt!' said Sandy. 'What is it? For Heaven's sake
put me out of pain. Have we to tout deputations of suspicious
neutrals over munition works or take the shivering journalist in a
motor-car where he can imagine he sees a Boche?'
'The news will keep. But I can tell you this much. It's about as
safe and easy as to go through the German lines with a
walking-stick.'
'Come, that's not so dusty,' said Sandy, and began cheerfully
on the muffins.
I must spare a moment to introduce Sandy to the reader, for he
cannot be allowed to slip into this tale by a side-door. If you will
consult the Peerage you will find that to Edward Cospatrick,
fifteenth Baron Clanroyden, there was born in the year 1882, as his
second son, Ludovick Gustavus Arbuthnot, commonly called the
Honourable, etc. The said son was educated at Eton and New
College, Oxford, was a captain in the Tweeddale Yeomanry, and
served for some years as honorary attache at various embassies. The
Peerage will stop short at this point, but that is by no means the
end of the story. For the rest you must consult very different
authorities. Lean brown men 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 caravanserais 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. Today 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 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?' 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? 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.'
'_V. _I,' I read.
'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?'
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 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 expecting 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 Wad Helu had, or a jewel like Solomon's
necklace in Abyssinia. You never know what will start off a jehad!
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 Bedouin
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 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?' 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 Baghdad.'
'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 knows 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?'
Sandy was studying the ceiling.
'I should add that it's about as safe as playing chuck-farthing at
the Loos Cross-roads, the day you and I went in. And if we fail
nobody can help us.'
'Oh, of course, of course,' said Sandy in an abstracted voice.
Mr Blenkiron, having finished his after-dinner recumbency, had
sat up and pulled a small table towards him. From his pocket he
had taken a pack of Patience cards and had begun to play the game
called the Double Napoleon. He seemed to be oblivious of the
conversation.
Suddenly I had a feeling that the whole affair was stark lunacy.
Here were we three simpletons sitting in a London flat and projecting
a mission into the enemy's citadel without an idea what we
were to do or how we were to do it. And one of the three was
looking at the ceiling, and whistling softly through his teeth, and
another was playing Patience. The farce of the thing struck me so
keenly that I laughed.
Sandy looked at me sharply.
'You feel like that? Same with me. It's idiocy, but all war is
idiotic, and the most whole-hearted idiot is apt to win. We're to go
on this mad trail wherever we think we can hit it. Well, I'm with
you. But I don't mind admitting that I'm in a blue funk. I had got
myself adjusted to this trench business and was quite happy. And
now you have hoicked me out, and my feet are cold.'
'I don't believe you know what fear is,' I said.
'There you're wrong, Dick,' he said earnestly. 'Every man who
isn't a maniac knows fear. I have done some daft things, but I
never started on them without wishing they were over. Once I'm in
the show I get easier, and by the time I'm coming out I'm sorry to
leave it. But at the start my feet are icy.'
'Then I take it you're coming?'
'Rather,' he said. 'You didn't imagine I would go back on you?'
'And you, sir?' I addressed Blenkiron.
His game of Patience seemed to be coming out. He was completing
eight little heaps of cards with a contented grunt. As I spoke,
he raised his sleepy eyes and nodded.
'Why, yes,' he said. 'You gentlemen mustn't think that I haven't
been following your most engrossing conversation. I guess I haven't
missed a syllable. I find that a game of Patience stimulates the
digestion after meals and conduces to quiet reflection. John S.
Blenkiron is with you all the time.'
He shuffled the cards and dealt for a new game.
I don't think I ever expected a refusal, but this ready assent
cheered me wonderfully. I couldn't have faced the thing alone.
'Well, that's settled. Now for ways and means. We three have
got to put ourselves in the way of finding out Germany's secret,
and we have to go where it is known. Somehow or other we have
to reach Constantinople, and to beat the biggest area of country we
must go by different roads. Sandy, my lad, you've got to get into
Turkey. You're the only one of us that knows that engaging people.
You can't get in by Europe very easily, so you must try Asia. What
about the coast of Asia Minor?'
'It could be done,' he said. 'You'd better leave that entirely to
me. I'll find out the best way. I suppose the Foreign Office will
help me to get to the jumping-off place?'
'Remember,' I said, 'it's no good getting too far east. The secret,
so far as concerns us, is still west of Constantinople.'
'I see that. I'll blow in on the Bosporus by a short tack.'
'For you, Mr Blenkiron, I would suggest a straight journey.
You're an American, and can travel through Germany direct. But I
wonder how far your activities in New York will allow you to pass
as a neutral?'
'I have considered that, Sir,' he said. 'I have given some thought
to the pecooliar psychology of the great German nation. As I read
them they're as cunning as cats, and if you play the feline game they
will outwit you every time. Yes, Sir, they are no slouches at sleuthwork.
If I were to buy a pair of false whiskers and dye my hair and
dress like a Baptist parson and go into Germany on the peace
racket, I guess they'd be on my trail like a knife, and I should be
shot as a spy inside of a week or doing solitary in the Moabite
prison. But they lack the larger vision. They can be bluffed, Sir.
With your approval I shall visit the Fatherland as John S. Blenkiron,
once a thorn in the side of their brightest boys on the other side.
But it will be a different John S. I reckon he will have experienced
a change of heart. He will have come to appreciate the great, pure,
noble soul of Germany, and he will be sorrowing for his past like a
converted gun-man at a camp meeting. He will be a victim of the
meanness and perfidy of the British Government. I am going to
have a first-class row with your Foreign Office about my passport,
and I am going to speak harsh words about them up and down this
metropolis. I am going to be shadowed by your sleuths at my port
of embarkation, and I guess I shall run up hard against the British
Le-gations in Scandinavia. By that time our Teutonic friends will
have begun to wonder what has happened to John S., and to think
that maybe they have been mistaken in that child. So, when I get to
Germany they will be waiting for me with an open mind. Then I
judge my conduct will surprise and encourage them. I will confide
to them valuable secret information about British preparations, and
I will show up the British lion as the meanest kind of cur. You may
trust me to make a good impression. After that I'll move eastwards,
to see the demolition 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
forgather 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 writingtable
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. Halfway
down on the left-hand side is a cafe kept by a Greek called
Kuprasso. Behind the cafe is a garden, surrounded 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 converge 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?' I asked. 'You're all right, Sandy?'
'I know German fairly well; and I can pass anywhere as a Turk.
The first will do for eavesdropping and the second for ordinary
business.'
'And you?' 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?'
'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 hat! I shall be pretty bitter about the British.
There's a powerful lot of good swear-words in the taal. I shall
know all about Africa, and be panting to get another whack at the
_verdommt _rooinek. 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 the 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
Teresa.
CHAPTER THREE
Peter Pienaar
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 1st as a King's Messenger for Cairo.
Once there I knew the King's Messenger would disappear, 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 he reckoned that Britain was
now the worst exponent of Prussianism going. That letter made a
fine racket, and the paper that printed it had a row with the Censor.
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 could 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 brusselssprout
in the eye, at which my friend said he swore in a very
unpacifist style.
After that he wrote other letters to the Press, saying 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 agitation 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 carrying
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 afternoon when I met
him in St james's Street and offered 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 3rd 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 connection
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, Cornelis 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 Dutchman 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 a 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 a 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 anyone in Lisbon who chose to be
curious would think I had landed straight from Portuguese
Africa.
I hailed one of the adjacent ruffians, and got into his rowboat,
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 '_Allemachtig', 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? Is it still old Sloggett?'
'_Ja,' said Peter, pulling himself together. 'He was speaking 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 in 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, 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 tugboat
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 lowbred
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 Johannesburg
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
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.
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
remember, 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
Kalahari 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 conquered
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 make 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.'
'But what did you propose to do with them?' 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?'
I looked at Peter sitting there smoking, as imperturbable 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 Fatherland to get a bit of our own
back from the infernal English. Neither of us knows any German -
publicly. 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 was a wonderful chap for catching
on to any game.) 'But after we get into Germany, what then?
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? 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?' he asked
anxiously. 'I shouldn't like that, Cornelis.'
'We move gently eastward to Constantinople,' I said.
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's happened to
old Solly Maritz, with his bottle face? Yon 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 naturally.
The two men who had started that morning from the hotel door
had been bogus enough, but the two men that returned were
genuine desperadoes itching to get a shot at England.
We spent the evening piling up evidence in our favour. Some
kind of republic had been started in Portugal, and ordinarily the
cafes 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, welllighted
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 curacao, which I reckoned was a new drink to him, and
presently 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
to 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 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 picture of the old 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. 'Remember 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?' he said in very stiff Dutch.
'Who the devil are you?' I asked.
'_Gott _strafe _England!' was his answer, and, turning 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-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?'
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 cafe I judge you do not love the English.'
Peter said something about stamping on their grandmothers, a
Kaffir phrase which sounded gruesome in Dutch.
The man laughed. 'That is all I want to know. You are on the
German side?'
'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 Englishmen can ever know
them. They are too soft and easy and the Kaffirs 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 England.'
Peter grunted a deep approval.
'That is good talk,' said our entertainer, and his close-set eyes
flashed. 'There is room in Germany for such men as you. Where
are you going now, I beg to know.'
'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 significantly. 'A ship
sails tomorrow 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 _Machado,' he 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 business
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 Rupprecht, 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 the
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 Peter, 'and he
told me a little German man had been off in a boat at daybreak
looking up the passenger list. Yon was a right notion of yours,
Cornelis. I am glad we are going among Germans. They are careful
people whom it is a pleasure to meet.'
CHAPTER FOUR
Adventures of Two Dutchmen on the Loose
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 speaking 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, 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 underofficer,
with the black-and-gold button of the Landsturm, hoicked
us out of the train, and we were all shepherded into 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?' he asked in Dutch.
He saluted. 'Gentlemen, I apologize. I am late because of the
slowness of the Herr Commandant's 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 bock.'
With a feeling of distinction we stalked out of the ordinary ruck
of passengers and followed the lieutenant to the station restaurant.
He plunged at once into conversation, talking the Dutch of Holland,
which Peter, who had forgotten his school-days, 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 Captain,' he said.
The new-comer looked us over with bright intelligent 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 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 he 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 conquer 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 German 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 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
officially of course I knew no German, and the conversation I
overheard did not signify much. It was mostly about regimental
details, though one chap, who was in better spirits than the rest,
observed that this was the last Christmas 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 myself 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 arc lights glowing, and to see long lines of lamps
running to the horizon. Peter dropped off early, but I kept awake
till midnight, 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 a _droschke, for there seemed
to be no porters. Our escort gave the address of some hotel and we
rumbled out into brightly lit empty streets.
'A mighty dorp,' said Peter. 'Of a truth the Germans are a great
people.'
The lieutenant nodded good-humouredly.
'The greatest people on earth,' he said, 'as their enemies will
soon bear witness.'
I would have given a lot for a bath, but I felt that it would be
outside my part, and Peter was not of the washing persuasion. But
we had a very good breakfast of coffee and eggs, and then the
lieutenant started on the telephone. He began by being dictatorial,
then he seemed to be switched on to higher authorities, for he grew
more polite, and at the end he fairly crawled. He made some
arrangements, for he informed us that in the afternoon we would
see some fellow whose title he could not translate into Dutch. I
judged he was a great swell, for his voice became reverential at the
mention of him.
He took us for a walk that morning after Peter and I had
attended to our toilets. We were an odd pair of scallywags to look
at, but as South African as a wait-a-bit bush. Both of us had readymade
tweed suits, grey flannel shirts with flannel collars, and felt
hats with broader brims than they like in Europe. I had strongnailed
brown boots, Peter a pair of those mustard-coloured abominations
which the Portuguese affect and which made him hobble like
a Chinese lady. He had a scarlet satin tie which you could hear a
mile off. My beard had grown to quite a respectable length, and I
trimmed it like General Smuts'. Peter's was the kind of loose
flapping thing the _taakhaar loves, which has scarcely ever been
shaved, and is combed once in a blue moon. I must say we made a
pretty solid pair. Any South African would have set us down as a
Boer from the back-veld who had bought a suit of clothes in the
nearest store, and his 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 wandered 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.
'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 stubby
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 topmost.
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
official 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 those
outland swine.'
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 it.'
The big man laughed. 'You see I am not forgotten,' 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,' he 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!' His scorn came like a gust of wind.
'Maritz did all the fighting there was,' said Peter sulkily. 'At any
rate he wasn't afraid of the sight of the 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 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? But, man, what can
you bring? 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?
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?'
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?' shouted Stumm.
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 overlaid 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?'
'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 Englishman 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? 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
Manyumwezi, 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 it.'
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.
'I have been for years up and down in Africa - Uganda and the
Congo and the Upper Nile. I know the ways of the Kaffir 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.
"Civilize," 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 Mussulmans 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. This 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?'
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.'
Peter went out with a puzzled face and Stumm turned to me.
'You are a dreamer, Brandt,' he said. 'But I do not reject you on
that account. Dreams sometimes come true, when an army follows
the visionary. But who is going to kindle the flame?'
'You,' I said.
'What the devil do you mean?' he asked.
'That is your part. You are the cleverest people in the world.
You have already half the Mussulman lands in your power. It is for
you to show us how to kindle a holy war, for clearly you have the
secret of it. Never fear but we will carry out your order.'
'We have no secret,' he said shortly, and glanced at the official,
who stared out of the window.
I dropped my jaw and looked the picture of disappointment. 'I
do not believe you,' I said slowly. 'You play a game with me. I
have not come six thousand miles to be made a fool of.'
'Discipline, by God,' Stumm cried. 'This is none of your ragged
commandos.' In two strides he was above me and had lifted me out
of my seat. His great hands clutched my shoulders, and his thumbs
gouged my armpits. I felt as if I were in the grip of a big ape. Then
very slowly he shook me so that my teeth seemed loosened and my
head swam. He let me go and I dropped limply back in the chair.
'Now, go! _Futsack! And remember that I am your master. I,
Ulric von Stumm, who owns you as a Kaffir owns his mongrel.
Germany may have some use for you, my friend, when you fear me
as you never feared your God.'
As I walked dizzily away the big man was smiling in his horrible
way, and that little official was blinking and smiling too. I had
struck a dashed queer country, so queer that I had had no time to
remember that for the first time in my life I had been bullied
without hitting back. When I realized 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 company.
CHAPTER FIVE
Further Adventures of the Same
Next 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 muttered 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 sight-seeing.
'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 forerunners 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
reformatory or hospital. I believe it had been a home for destitute
children. There were sentries at the gate 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 procession for a tour of inspection. There were
two doctors, both mild-looking men in spectacles, and a couple of
warders - under-officers 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 recognized. So I
kept very much in the shadow whenever we passed anybody in the
corridors. 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 came our lieutenant with one of the
doctors; then a couple of warders; and then the second doctor and
myself. I was absent-minded at the moment and was last in the
queue.
The Patience-player suddenly looked up and I saw his face. I'm
hanged if it wasn't Dolly Riddell, who was our brigade machinegun
officer at Loos. I had heard that the Germans had got him
when they blew up a mine at the Quarries.
I had to act pretty quick, for his mouth was agape, and I saw he
was going to speak. The doctor was a yard ahead of me.
I stumbled and spilt his cards on the floor. Then I kneeled to
pick them up and gripped his knee. His head bent to help me and I
spoke low in his ear.
'I'm Hannay all right. For God's sake don't wink an eye. I'm
here on a secret job.'
The doctor had turned to see what was the matter. I got a few
more words in. 'Cheer up, old man. We're winning hands down.'
Then I began to talk excited Dutch and finished the collection of
the cards. Dolly was playing his part well, smiling as if he was
amused by the antics of a monkey. The others were coming back,
the deputy-commandant with an angry light in his dull eye. 'Speaking
to the prisoners is forbidden,' he shouted.
I looked blankly at him till the lieutenant translated.
'What kind of fellow is he?' said Dolly in English to the doctor.
'He spoils my game and then jabbers High-Dutch at me.'
Officially I knew English, and that speech of Dolly's gave me my
cue. I pretended to be very angry with the very damned Englishman,
and went out of the room close by the deputy-commandant,
grumbling like a sick jackal. After that I had to act a bit. The last
place we visited was the close-confinement 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 Landsturm 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 hankered for his society.
At the station platform, where the ornament of the Landsturm
saved me all the 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 gruffly and told me to stand aside behind a wooden rail. I
obeyed, and suddenly found Stumm's eyes looking down at me.
'You know German?' he asked sharply.
'A dozen words,' I said carelessly. 'I've been to Windhuk and
learned enough to ask for my dinner. Peter - my friend - speaks it
a bit.'
'So,' said Stumm. 'Well, get into the carriage. Not that one!
There, thickhead!'
I did as I was bid, he followed, and the door was locked behind
us. The precaution was needless, for the sight of Stumm's profile at
the platform end would have kept out the most brazen. I wondered
if I had woken up his suspicions. I must be on my guard to show
no signs of intelligence if he suddenly tried me in German, and that
wouldn't be easy, for I knew it as well as I knew Dutch.
We moved into the country, but the windows were blurred with
frost, and I saw nothing of the landscape. Stumm was busy with
papers and let me alone. I read on a notice that one was forbidden
to smoke, so to show my ignorance of German I pulled out my
pipe. Stumm raised his head, saw what I was doing, and gruffly
bade me put it away, as if he were an old lady that disliked the
smell of tobacco.
In half an hour I got very bored, for I had nothing to read and
my pipe was _verboten. People passed now and then in the corridors,
but no one offered to enter. No doubt they saw the big figure in
uniform and thought he was the deuce of a staff swell who wanted
solitude. I thought of stretching my legs in the corridor, and was
just getting up to do it when somebody slid the door back and a
big figure blocked the light.
He was wearing a heavy ulster and a green felt hat. He saluted
Stumm, who looked up angrily, and smiled pleasantly on us both.
'Say, gentlemen,' he said, 'have you room in here for a little one?
I guess I'm about smoked out of my car by your brave soldiers.
I've gotten a delicate stomach ...'
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 pronounced 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 tombstone 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 suspicious 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? 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
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 distinguish
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?' 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?' he said, smiling wickedly. 'Remember 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, meditatively:
'But I don't think you are a fool. You may be 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?'
'You will be given a chance to serve Germany, the proudest
privilege a mortal man 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 ?'
'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 Baghdad 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 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 Stumm translated.
The first thing I had to do was to pretend I didn't know 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? They have still the coast, and our supplies grow daily
smaller.'
'We can send no reinforcements, but have we used all the local
resources? That is what I cannot satisfy myself about. Zimmerman
says we have, but 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 affinities.'
'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?' 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 world.' Then, lowering his
voice and raising his eyebrows, he said some word like 'uhnmantl'.
The other looked with a quick glance of apprehension 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
entertain 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. Stumm 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 backveld 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 Germany 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 wondered 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,
whatever 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! 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? As like as not
bucketing in the hold of some Greek coaster in the Aegean. Then I
thought of my battalion somewhere on the line between Hulluch
and La Bassee, 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 stoking 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 engineering 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 Baghdad railway and the through routes
from Germany 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 pipe.
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.
'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 yourself 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. Tomorrow 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 instruments.'
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 realized 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.
CHAPTER SIX
The Indiscretions of the Same
I was standing stark naked next morning in that icy bedroom,
trying to bathe in about a quart of water, when Stumm entered. He
strode up to me and stared me in the face. I was half a head shorter
than him to begin with, and a man does not feel his stoutest when
he has no clothes, so he had the pull on me every way.
'I have reason to believe that you are a liar,' he growled.
I pulled the bed-cover round me, for I was shivering with cold,
and the German idea of a towel is a pocket-handkerchief. I own I
was in a pretty blue funk.
'A liar!' he repeated. 'You and that swine Pienaar.'
With my best effort at surliness I asked what we had done.
'You lied, because you said you know no German. Apparently
your friend knows enough to talk treason and blasphemy.'
This gave me back some heart.
'I told you I knew a dozen words. But I told you Peter could
talk it a bit. I told you that yesterday at the station.' Fervently I
blessed my luck for that casual remark.
He evidently remembered, for his tone became a trifle more civil.
'You are a precious pair. If one of you is a scoundrel, why not
the other?'
'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 knew 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
calumniated 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 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 courageous. '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?'
'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?'
'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 English 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 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? 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 realize how much his company 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 humbugging 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.
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-management 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. Then he came back and made me follow him to a waitingroom,
where he told me to stay till he fetched me. I noticed that he
called a porter and had the door locked when he went out.
It was a chilly place with no fire, and I kicked my heels there for
twenty minutes. I was living by the hour now, and did not trouble
to worry about this strange behaviour. There was a volume of
time-tables on a shelf, and I turned the pages idly till I struck a big
railway map. Then it occurred to me to find out where we were
going. I had heard Stumm take my ticket for a place called Schwandorf,
and after a lot of searching I found it. It was away south in
Bavaria, and so far as I could make out less than fifty miles from
the Danube. That cheered me enormously. If Stumm lived there he
would most likely start me off on my travels by the railway which I
saw running to Vienna and then on to the East. It looked as if I might
get to Constantinople after all. But I feared it would be a useless
achievement, for what could I do when I got there? I was being
hustled out of Germany without picking up the slenderest clue.
The door opened and Stumm entered. He seemed to have got
bigger in the interval and to carry his head higher. There was a
proud light, too, in his eye.
'Brandt,' he said, 'you are about to receive the greatest privilege
that ever fell to one of your race. His Imperial Majesty is passing
through here, and has halted for a few minutes. He has done me the
honour to receive me, and when he heard my story he expressed a
wish to see you. You will follow me to his presence. Do not be
afraid. The All-Highest is merciful and gracious. Answer his
questions like a man.'
I followed him with a quickened pulse. Here was a bit of luck I
had never dreamed of. At the far side of the station a train had
drawn up, a train consisting of three big coaches, chocolate-coloured
and picked out with gold. On the platform beside it stood a small
group of officers, tall men in long grey-blue cloaks. They seemed
to be mostly elderly, and one or two of the faces I thought I
remembered from photographs in the picture papers.
As we approached they drew apart, and left us face to face with
one man. He was a little below middle height, and all muffled in a
thick coat with a fur collar. He wore a silver helmet with an eagle
atop of it, and kept his left hand resting on his sword. Below the
helmet was a face the colour of grey paper, from which shone
curious sombre restless eyes with dark pouches beneath them. There
was no fear of my mistaking him. These were the features which,
since Napoleon, have been best known to the world.
I stood as stiff as a ramrod and saluted. I was perfectly cool and
most desperately interested. For such a moment I would have gone
through fire and water.
'Majesty, this is the Dutchman I spoke of,' I heard Stumm say.
'What language does he speak?' the Emperor asked.
'Dutch,' was the reply; 'but being a South African he also
speaks English.'
A spasm of pain seemed to flit over the face before me. Then he
addressed me in English.
'You have come from a land which will yet be our ally to offer
your sword to our service? I accept the gift and hail it as a good
omen. I would have given your race its freedom, but there were
fools and traitors among you who misjudged me. But that freedom
I shall yet give you in spite of yourselves. Are there many like you
in your country?'
'There are thousands, sire,' I said, lying cheerfully. 'I am one of
many who think that my race's life lies in your victory. And I think
that that victory must 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 permission 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?'
'Yes, Sir,' I said. 'I was in the commando of that Smuts who has
now been bought by England.'
'What were your countrymen's losses?' 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 prisoncamps
of the English.'
Again a spasm of pain crossed his face.
'Twenty thousand,' he repeated huskily. 'A mere handful. Today
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?'
'All the world knows it, sire,' I said.
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
impressed 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, but with hard steel and
hard brains. We Germans will cure the green-sickness of the world.
The nations rise against us. Pouf! 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 Dutchmen once we Germans have had the forging of it!'
The winter evening closed in, and I saw that we had come out of
the hills and were in 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 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 an women
in old-fashioned clothes, and mighty horns of deer on the walls.
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 the 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 in 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 coffee
ready at seven sharp in the morning.'
Ever since I entered that house I had the uncomfortable 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 the 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 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 mantelpiece
told me that it was ten minutes past eight. Everywhere on
little tables and in cabinets was a profusion of knickknacks, 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 was 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 unwholesome 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.
'Where do I go after Egypt?' 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 to 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 difficult to
have that kind of a 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 would 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 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? 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 shoulders
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?'
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.
I stepped back a pace and gave him my left between the eyes.
For a second he did not realize what had happened, for I don't
suppose anyone had dared to lift a hand to him since he was a
child. He blinked at me mildly. Then his face grew as red as fire.
'God in heaven,' he said quietly. 'I am going to kill you,' and he
flung himself on me like a mountain.
I was expecting him and dodged the attack. I was quite calm now,
but pretty helpless. 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
Kimberley 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 hatter.
I kept half an eye on the clock. I was hopeful now, and was
looking for the right kind of chance. 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 stuffing
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
Stumm. He was a man of remarkable qualities, which would have
brought him to the highest distinction 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 SEVEN
Christmastide
Everything 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 office? There's one in the village, isn't there?'
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?'
'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 cracking on the
hard snow, planning hard my programme for the next hour.
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 there 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?' 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 done it with one hand. But by a fortunate chance I left
him alone.
'That is a fine hat of yours, mein Herr,' he said. He took off his
own blue peaked cap, the uniform, I suppose, of the driver of the
post-wagon, and laid it on his knee. The night air ruffled a shock of
tow-coloured hair.
Then he calmly took my hat and clapped it on his head.
'With this thing I should be a gentleman,' he said.
I said nothing, but put on his cap and waited.
'That is a noble overcoat, mein Herr,' he went on. 'It goes well
with the hat. It is the kind of garment I have always desired to
own. In two days it will be the holy Christmas, when gifts are
given. Would that the good God sent me such a coat as yours!'
'You can try it on to see how it looks,' I said good-humouredly.
He stopped the car with a jerk, and pulled off his blue coat. The
exchange was soon effected. He was about my height, and my
ulster fitted not so badly. I put on his overcoat, which had a big
collar that buttoned round the neck.
The idiot preened himself like a girl. Drink and vanity had
primed him for any folly. He drove so carelessly for a bit that he
nearly put us into a ditch. We passed several cottages and at the last
he slowed down.
'A friend of mine lives here,' he announced. 'Gertrud would like
to see me in the fine clothes which the most amiable Herr has given
me. Wait for me, I will not be long.' And he scrambled out of the
car and lurched into the little garden.
I took his place and moved very slowly forward. I heard the
door open and the sound of laughing and loud voices. Then it shut,
and looking back 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 mischief 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 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 remembered the
rule of the road - and proceeded decorously, wondering what was
going to happen. I could hear the brakes being clamped on and the
car slowing down. Suddenly a big grey bonnet slipped past me and
as I turned my head I heard a familiar voice.
It was Stumm, looking like something that has been run over.
He had his jaw in a sling, so that I wondered 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 Andersbach?' 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,'I quavered. 'He was a rude
fellow who wanted to go to Schwandorf, and then changed his mind.'
'Where, you fool? 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 Henrichs' 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 calculated
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 snowladen
brambles and looked between the pine-trees 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 I 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 'n 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 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 Teresa, 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 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.
'Gruss 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 the story of how I was walking from Schwandorf to
see my mother at an imaginary place called judenfeld, 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 them. I also bought some soap, a comb and a cheap razor,
and a small Tourists' Guide, published by a Leipzig firm. As I was
leaving I saw what seemed like garments hanging up in the back
shop, and turned to have a look at them. They were the kind of
thing that Germans wear on their summer walking tours - long
shooting capes made of a green stuff they call loden. I bought one,
and a green felt hat and an alpenstock to keep it company. Then
wishing the old woman and her belongings a merry Christmas, I
departed and took the shortest cut out of the village. There were
one or two people about now, but they did not seem to notice me.
I went into the woods again and walked for two miles till I
halted for breakfast. I was not feeling quite so fit now, and I did
not make much of my provisions, beyond eating a biscuit and some
chocolate. I felt very thirsty and longed for hot tea. In an icy pool I
washed and with infinite agony shaved my beard. That razor was
the worst of its species, and my eyes were running all the time with
the pain of the operation. Then I took off the postman's coat and
cap, and buried them below some bushes. I was now a clean-shaven
German pedestrian with a green cape and hat, and an absurd
walking-stick with an iron-shod end - the sort of person who roams
in thousands over the Fatherland in summer, but is a rarish bird
in mid-winter.
The Tourists' Guide was a fortunate purchase, for it contained a
big map of Bavaria which gave me my bearings. I was certainly not
forty miles from the Danube - more like thirty. The road through
the village I had left would have taken me to it. I had only to walk
due south and I would reach it before night. So far as I could make
out there were long tongues of forest running down to the river,
and I resolved to keep to the woodlands. At the worst I would
meet a forester or two, and I had a good enough 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, a 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.
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 know 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
civilized 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 everyone 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 immediate 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. 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 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 anyone 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 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
intensity 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 towards 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.
'Gruss Gott,' she said, while children peeped from behind her
skirts.
'Gruss Gott,' I replied. I leaned against the door-post, 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 selfpossession
which comes 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 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 overtaken. 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 anyone 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 EIGHT
The Essen Barges
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 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 von, 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 probably 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 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 Wednesday, 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 realized 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 nightmares. I was for punishing the guilty
but letting the innocent go free. It was our business to thank God
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? 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 allowance that soldiers' wives get in England. The children
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 possessed.
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 ferry.'
Next morning after breakfast I took my departure. 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. 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
presently 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 von
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. Blenkiron might do something, but where on earth was
Blenkiron? 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 countryside till he got me, and he undoubtedly
would get me if I waited much longer. But how was I to get over
the border? My passport would be no good, for the number of that
pass would long ere this have been wired to every police-station in
Germany, 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 30th of December, the second last day of
the year. I was due in Constantinople on the 17th of January.
Constantinople! 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 corner, 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 procession 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 considerable, 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 munitioned 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 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 factories 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 corn. 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 company 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 Hindenburg'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.
It was sound reasoning, but how was I to get on board? Probably
the beastly things did not stop once in a hundred miles, and Stumm
would get me long before I struck a halting-place. And even if I
did get a chance like that, how was I to get permission to travel?
One step was clearly indicated - to get down to the river bank at
once. So I set off at a sharp walk across squelchy fields, till I struck
a road where the ditches had overflowed so as almost to meet in the
middle. The place was so bad that I hoped travellers might be few.
And as I trudged, my thoughts were busy with my prospects as a
stowaway. If I bought food, I might get a chance to lie snug on
one of the barges. They would not break bulk till they got to their
journey's end.
Suddenly I noticed that the steamer, which was now abreast me,
began to move towards the shore, and as I came over a low rise, I
saw on my left a straggling village with a church, and a small
landing-stage. The houses stood about a quarter of a mile from the
stream, and between them was a straight, poplar-fringed road.
Soon there could be no doubt about it. The procession was
coming to a standstill. The big tug nosed her way in and lay up
alongside the pier, where in that season of flood there was enough
depth of water. She signalled to the barges and they also started
to drop anchors, which showed that there must be at least two men
aboard each. Some of them dragged a bit and it was rather a cockeyed
train that lay in mid-stream. The tug got out a gangway, and
from where I lay I saw half a dozen men leave it, carrying something
on their shoulders.
It could be only one thing - a dead body. Someone of the crew
must have died, and this halt was to bury him. I watched the
procession move towards the village and I reckoned they would
take some 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. Blenkiron 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 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 eyes.
'Well, Sir?' he said. 'I observe your credentials. What can I do for
you?'
'I take it you are bound for Constantinople?' I asked.
'The boats go as far as Rustchuk,' he replied. 'There the stuff is
transferred to the railway.'
'And you reach Rustchuk when?'
'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
upon some other branch of our country's service to help me. Hence
my request.'
Very plainly he did not like it.
'I must telegraph about it. My instructions are to let no one
aboard, not even a man like you. I am sorry, Sir, but I must get
authority first before I can fall in with your desire. Besides, my boat
is ill-found. You had better wait for the next batch and ask Dreyser
to take you. I lost Walter today. He was ill when he came aboard -
a disease of the heart - but he would not be persuaded. And last
night he died.'
'Was that him you have been burying?' I asked.
'Even so. He was a good man and my wife's cousin, and now I
have no engineer. Only a fool of a boy from Hamburg. I have just
come from wiring to my owners for a fresh man, but even if he
comes by the quickest train he will scarcely overtake us before
Vienna or even Buda.'
I saw light at last.
'We will go together,' I said, 'and cancel that wire. For behold,
Herr Captain, I am an engineer, and will gladly keep an eye on your
boilers till we get to Rustchuk.'
He looked at me doubtfully.
'I am speaking truth,' I said. 'Before the war I was an engineer in
Damaraland. Mining was my branch, but I had a good general
training, and I know enough to run a river-boat. Have no fear. I
promise you I will earn my passage.'
His face cleared, and he looked what he was, an honest, goodhumoured
North German seaman.
'Come then in God's name,' he cried, 'and we will make a
bargain. I will let the telegraph sleep. I require authority from the
Government to take a passenger, but I need none to engage a new
engineer.'
He sent one of the hands back to the village to cancel his wire.
In ten minutes I found myself on 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.
CHAPTER NINE
The Return of the Straggler
Before I turned in that evening I had done some good hours' work
in the engine-room. The boat was oil-fired, and in very fair order,
so my duties did not look as if they would be heavy. There was
nobody who could be properly called an engineer; only, besides the
furnace-men, a couple of lads from Hamburg who had been a year
ago apprentices in a ship-building yard. They were civil fellows,
both of them consumptive, who did what I told them and said
little. By bedtime, if you had seen me in my blue jumper, a pair of
carpet slippers, and a flat cap - all the property of the deceased
Walter - you would have sworn I had been bred to the firing of
river-boats, whereas I had acquired most of my knowledge on one
run down the Zambesi, when the proper engineer got drunk and
fell overboard among the crocodiles.
The captain - they called him Schenk - was out of his bearings
in the job. He was a Frisian and a first-class deep-water seaman,
but, since he knew the Rhine delta, and because the German mercantile
marine was laid on the ice till the end of war, they had turned
him on to this show. He was bored by the business, and didn't
understand it very well. The river charts puzzled him, and though
it was pretty plain going for hundreds of miles, yet he was in a
perpetual fidget about the pilotage. You could see that he would
have been far more in his element smelling his way through the
shoals of the Ems mouth, or beating against a northeaster 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 twentyfour
hours on board he was telling me all his difficulties, and I was
doing my best to cheer him. And difficulties 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 Fatherland. 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 discovered, 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, but Schenk took his _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 bench beside the bookingoffice
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 captain might
know Dutch.
'Where have you come from?' I asked.
'They shut me up in _tronk,' said Peter, 'and I ran away. I am
tired, Cornelis, and want to continue 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 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
scrutinized 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 unrecognized 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 typewritten
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 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 and 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?'
'I've considered that,' 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 cafe - 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 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 to 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
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?'
'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 afternoon, 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 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 Sunday, the day after Christmas,
and 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 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
Limpopo, 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 could 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?' 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?'
'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, and sold
him my clothes and bought from him these. [Peter meant a
Polish-Jew pedlar.] I did not want to part with my own, which were
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?'
'_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 imagination. 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 winging across those plains. His
tale had bucked me up 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 _grune _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 existence. They had been '_Grune _mantel'. _Grune _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 myself 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 beavers. There was a big
temporary pontoon affair to take the railway across, but I calculated
that the main bridge would be ready inside a month. It was a
clear, cold, blue day, and as one looked south one saw ridge after
ridge of snowy hills. The upper streets of the city were still fairly
whole, and there were shops open where food could be got. I
remember hearing English spoken, and seeing some Red Cross
nurses in the custody of Austrian soldiers coming from the
railway station.
It would have done me a lot of good to have had a word
with them. I thought of the gallant people whose capital this had
been, how three times they had flung the Austrians back over
the Danube, and then had only been beaten by the black treachery
of their so-called allies. Somehow that morning in Belgrade gave
both Peter and me a new purpose in our task. It was our business
to put a spoke in the wheel of this monstrous bloody juggernaut
that was crushing the life out of the little heroic nations.
We were just getting ready to cast off when a distinguished party
arrived at the quay. There were all kinds of uniforms - German,
Austrian, and Bulgarian, and amid them one stout gentleman in a
fur coat and a black felt hat. They watched the barges up-anchor,
and before we began to jerk into line I could hear their conversation.
The fur coat was talking English.
'I reckon that's pretty good noos, General,' it said; 'if the English
have run away from Gally-poly we can use these noo consignments
for the bigger game. I guess it won't be long before we see the
British lion moving out of Egypt with sore paws.'
They all laughed. 'The privilege of that spectacle may soon be
ours,' was the reply.
I did not pay much attention to the talk; indeed I did not realize
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 TEN
The Garden-House of Suliman the Red
We reached Rustchuk on January 10th, 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 trans-shipment. 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 agreeable. 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 officer 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.
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 anyone 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.'
He was a slim, foppish fellow, and he looked more puzzled
than angry.
'I offer you enough,' he said, again stretching out his hand.
At that I fairly roared. 'If you try to bribe me, you infernal little
haberdasher, I'll have you off that horse and chuck you in the river.'
He no longer misunderstood me. He began to curse and threaten,
but I cut him short.
'Come along to the commandant, my boy,' I said, and I marched
away, tearing up his typewritten sheets as I went and strewing them
behind me like a paper chase.
We had a fine old racket in the commandant's office. I said it was
my business, as representing the German Government, to see the
stuff delivered to the consignee at Constantinople ship-shape and
Bristol-fashion. I told him it wasn't my habit to proceed with cooked
documents. He couldn't but agree with me, but there was that
wrathful Oriental with his face as fixed as a Buddha.
'I am sorry, Rasta Bey,' he said; 'but this man is in the right.'
'I have authority from the Committee to receive the stores,' he
said sullenly.
'Those are not my instructions,' was the answer. 'They are
consigned to the Artillery commandant at Chataldja,
General von Oesterzee.'
The man shrugged his shoulders. 'Very well. I will have a word
to say to General von Oesterzee, and many to this fellow who
flouts the Committee.' And he strode away like an impudent boy.
The harassed commandant grinned. 'You've offended his Lordship,
and he is a bad enemy. All those damned Comitadjis are. You
would be well advised not to go on to Constantinople.'
'And have that blighter in the red hat loot the trucks on the
road? No, thank you. I am going to 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 hear. 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 commandant. '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 Regensburg, 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 30th 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 repeated it and got the commandant to
send on the message and have us held up at Chataldja. For my back
had fairly got 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
condemned tin 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 approaching. It was Rasta, with half a dozen
Turkish gendarmes.
I called Peter, and we clambered into the truck next our horsebox.
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?' 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.'
'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.'
'Fool!' 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 regiment 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 thinking
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 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 the
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 incriminating 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 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 discoursing sweet music. I had forgotten that winter is pretty
much the same everywhere. It was a drizzling day, with a southeast
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
descended 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 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 appearance 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, Cornelis?' 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 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 civilized 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 inside, and two or three men smoking at small
wooden tables.
We ordered coffee, thick black stuff like treacle, which Peter
anathematized. 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?
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.
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 appeared, 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 Kuprasso, do you ever open it now?'
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 themselves even in war. Some of the
German officers 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. Tomorrow afternoon there will be dancing - wonderful
dancing! Only a few of my patrons know. Who, think you, will be
here?'
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.
'Will the Signor wish to come?'
'Sure,' I said. 'Both of us. We're all for the rosy hours.'
'Then the fourth hour after midday. Walk straight through the
cafe 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 a 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, Cornelis,' he said calmly.
Another ten yards and we were at a cross-roads, 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.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Companions of the Rosy Hours
We battled to a corner, where a jut of building stood out into the
street. It was our only chance to protect 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 darkness, the next
we were pinned against a wall with a throaty mob surging round us.
It took me a moment or two to realize 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 blackguard. 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 unknown 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 commandant 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 were shouts from the crowd -
'_Alleman' and a word '_Khafiyeh' constantly repeated. I didn't know
what it meant at the time, but now I know that they were after us
because we were Boches 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 incorruptible 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. Someone 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. 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 newcomers. 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 scuffle 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 conceive. A tall man
dressed in skins, with bare legs 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 for 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 us 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.
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 suddenly 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 civilizedlooking
shops. We soon found the hotel to which Kuprasso had
directed us, a big place in a courtyard with a very tumble-downlooking
portico, and green sun-shutters which rattled drearily 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
interview 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
remembered 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 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 cheering. 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.
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 characters. 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 probably 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 Dutchmen 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 unsuspected, 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 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 cafe, 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 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 corner, 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 impatient. 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 interested 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 distance. As the tobacco smoke
grew thicker and the fiddles went on squealing, this tawdry picture
began to mesmerize me. I seemed to be looking out of a window at
a lovely summer landscape where there were no wars or danger. 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. The fiddles still sounded, but far away like an echo. The
lights went down, all but a circle on the stage, and into that circle
stepped my enemy of the skin cap.
He had three others with him. I heard a whisper behind me, and
the words were those which Kuprasso had used the day before.
These bedlamites were called the Companions of the Rosy Hours,
and Kuprasso had promised great dancing.
I hoped to goodness they would not see us, for they had fairly
given me the horrors. Peter felt the same, and we both made
ourselves very small in that dark corner. But the newcomers had no
eyes for us.
In a twinkling the pavilion changed from a common saloon,
which might have been in Chicago or Paris, to a place of mystery -
yes, and of beauty. It became the Garden-House of Suliman the Red,
whoever that sportsman may have been. Sandy had said that the
ends of the earth converged there, and he had been right. I lost all
consciousness of my neighbours - stout German, frock-coated
Turk, frowsy Jewess - and saw only strange figures leaping in a
circle of light, figures that came out of the deepest darkness to
make a big magic.
The leader flung some stuff into the brazier, and a great fan of
blue light flared up. He was weaving circles, and he was singing
something shrill and high, whilst his companions made a chorus
with their deep monotone. I can't tell you what the dance was. I
had seen the Russian ballet just before the war, and one of the men
in it reminded me of this man. But the dancing was the least part of
it. It was neither sound nor movement nor scent that wrought the
spell, but something far more potent. In an instant I found myself
reft away from the present with its dull dangers, and looking at a
world all young and fresh and beautiful. The gaudy drop-scene had
vanished. It was a window I was looking 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 lightheartedness
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 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.
I now realized that these Companions of the Rosy Hours were
the only thing in the world to fear. Rasta and Stumm seemed feeble
simpletons by contrast. The window I had been looking out of was
changed to a prison wall - I could see the mortar between the
massive blocks. In a second these devils would be smelling out
their enemies like some foul witch-doctors. I felt the burning eyes
of their leader looking for me in the gloom. Peter was praying
audibly beside me, and I could have choked him. His infernal
chatter would reveal us, for it seemed to me that there was no one
in the place except us and the magic-workers.
Then suddenly the spell was broken. The door was flung open
and a great gust of icy wind swirled through the hall, driving
clouds of ashes from the braziers. I heard loud voices without, and
a hubbub began inside. For a moment it was quite dark, and then
someone lit one of the flare lamps by the stage. It revealed nothing
but the common squalor of a low saloon - white faces, sleepy eyes,
and frowsy heads. The drop-piece was there in all its tawdriness.
The Companions of the Rosy Hours had gone. But at the door
stood men in uniform, I heard a German a long way off murmur,
'Enver's bodyguards,' and I heard him distinctly; for, though I
could not see clearly, my hearing was desperately acute. That is
often the way when you suddenly come out of a swoon.
The place emptied like magic. Turk and German tumbled over
each other, while Kuprasso wailed and wept. No one seemed to
stop them, and then I saw the reason. Those Guards had come for
us. This must be Stumm at last. The authorities had tracked us
down, and it was all up with Peter and me.
A sudden revulsion leaves a man with a low vitality. 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. Someone
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 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 I 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!'
CHAPTER TWELVE
Four Missionaries See Light in their Mission
A spasm 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!' I cried incredulously, for my wits were still woolgathering.
'What place is this?'
'You may call it my humble home' - it was Blenkiron's sleek
voice that spoke. 'We've been preparing 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 afternoon
and handed over to the German authorities. When Germany
begins to trouble about that Dutchman 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 Moellendorff will be nosing after
the business tomorrow, 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 Blenkiron, shuffling
his Patience cards with his old sleepy smile, and Sandy, dressed like
some bandit in melodrama, 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 pleasanter. 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, a cold
chicken, a loaf, and three bottles of champagne.
'Fizz,' said Sandy rapturously. 'And a dry Heidsieck too! We're
in luck, Dick, old man.'
I never ate a more welcome meal, for we had starved in that
dirty hotel. But I had still the old feeling of the hunted, and before
I began I asked about the door.
'That's all right,' said Sandy. 'My fellows are on the stair and at
the gate. If the _Metreb are in possession, you may bet that other
people will keep off. Your past is blotted out, clean vanished away,
and you begin tomorrow morning with a new sheet. Blenkiron's
the man you've got to thank for that. He was pretty certain you'd
get here, but he was also certain that you'd arrive in a hurry with a
good many inquirers behind you. So he arranged that you should
leak away and start fresh.'
'Your name is Richard Hanau,' Blenkiron said, 'born in Cleveland,
Ohio, of German parentage on both sides. One of our brightest miningengineers,
and the apple of Guggenheim's eye. You arrived this
afternoon from Constanza, and I met you at the packet.
The clothes for the part are in your bedroom next door. But I guess
all that can wait, for I'm anxious to get to business. We're not here
on a joy-ride, Major, so I reckon we'll leave out the dime-novel
adventures. I'm just dying to hear them, but they'll keep. I want to
know how our mutual inquiries have prospered.'
He gave Peter and me cigars, and we sat ourselves in armchairs
in front of the blaze. Sandy squatted cross-legged on the hearthrug
and lit a foul old briar pipe, which he extricated from some pouch
among his skins. And so began that conversation which had never
been out of my thoughts for four hectic weeks.
'If I presume to begin,' said Blenkiron, 'it's because I reckon my
story is the shortest. I have to confess to you, gentlemen, that I
have failed.'
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 contribution
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! she'll never give up the
road to Mesopotamia till you have her by the throat and make her
drop it. Sir Walter is a pretty bright-eyed citizen, and he sees it
right enough. If the worst happens, Kaiser will fling overboard 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 organization 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 professional 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 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 _beaux _yeux 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-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 o' 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 brae". I hope to Heaven he had the sense not to tell
my father, or the old man will have had a fit. 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 Constantinople, and
pretty soon found touch with Blenkiron. 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 preposterous 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 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
_Kaaba-i-hurriyeh, the Palladium of Liberty. The prophet himself is
known as Zimrud - "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 Constantinople. Now
there is a very famous Turkish _shaka called _Kasredin, 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.
'Now how on earth did you find out that?' 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 ranging 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 Germany. 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 audience 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?'
'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 Blenkiron'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.'
'Good old Harry,' said Sandy softly. 'He was a dashed clever
chap. Hilda von Einem? Who and where is she? 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?' 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.'
'I can find that out,' said Sandy. 'That's the advantage of having
a push like mine. Meantime, I've got to clear, for my day's work
isn't finished. Dick, you and Peter must go to bed at once.'
'Why?' 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 tomorrow 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.'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I Move in Good Society
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 splendidly
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 respectable 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
realized now why he and Sandy had been fossicking in my wardrobe.
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 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 - 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 cafe and had a cup of coffee. A beggar came in
and asked alms. Hitherto Blenkiron'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 alongside, and one
or two bigger craft - fruit boats, I judged, which used to ply in the
Aegean. They looked pretty well moth-eaten from disuse. We
stopped at one of them and watched a fellow in a 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 suspiciously, 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 turned and caught the three neatly in the air. Then to
my amazement he 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. Blenkiron 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?' 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.'
That afternoon, after Peter had cooked a wonderfully good
luncheon, I had a heart-to-heart talk with Blenkiron.
'My business is to get noos,' he said; 'and before I start 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 know all about our discoveries.'
At that I opened my eyes 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?' I asked in
astonishment.
'Why, no,' he said. 'But they gave me the key, and I could make
my own arrangements. In Germany I buried myself deep in the
local atmosphere and never peeped out. That was my game, for I
was looking for something in Germany itself, and didn't want any
foreign cross-bearings. As you know, I failed where you succeeded.
But so soon as I crossed the Danube I set about opening up my
lines of communication, and I hadn't been two days in this metropolis
before I had got my telephone exchange buzzing. Sometime I'll explain
the thing to you, for it's a pretty little business. I've got the cutest
cypher ... No, it ain't my invention. It's your Government's. Any one,
babe, imbecile, or dotard, can carry my messages - you saw some of them
today - but it takes some mind to set the piece, and it takes a lot of
figuring at my end to work out the results. Some day you shall hear it
all, for I guess it would please you.'
'How do you use it?' I asked.
'Well, I get early noos of what is going on in this cabbage-patch.
Likewise I get authentic noos of the rest of Europe, and I can send
a message to Mr X. in Petrograd and Mr Y. in London, or, if I
wish, to Mr Z. in Noo York. What's the matter with that for a
post-office? I'm the best informed man in Constantinople, for old
General Liman only hears one side, and mostly lies at that, and
Enver prefers not to listen at all. Also, I could give them points on
what is happening at their very door, for our friend Sandy is a big
boss in the best-run crowd of mountebanks that ever fiddled secrets
out of men's hearts. Without their help I wouldn't have cut much
ice in this city.'
'I want you to tell me one thing, Blenkiron,' I said. 'I've been
playing a part for the past month, and it wears my nerves to tatters.
Is this job very tiring, for if it is, I doubt I may buckle up.'
He looked thoughtful. 'I can't call our business an absolute restcure
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 looking on. So I settled I would be a big
engineer - there was 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 Mesopotamia in the way of washing the British
down the river. Well, that talk caught on. They knew of 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 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 mobilized 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 organizing 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 a
crowd with walking-sticks. The cooler heads in the Committee are
growing shy of them, and an old fox like David 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 separately. 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 know that without the German boost they'll be
strung up like Haman, and the Germans can't afford to neglect an
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 Aegean. 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?'
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 I realized 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. Somehow 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 bidden 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 Metternich the Ambassador had gone up the
line to Nish to meet the Kaiser, who was touring in those parts, so
Moellendorff was the 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 recognized 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 Moellendorff, 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
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 Flanders, 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?'
'Why, I'd wash it away. Wash away the fourteen 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 ample water
supply from the 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 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. Gentlemen all, my apologies and farewells.'
Before he left he asked my name and wrote it down. 'This is an
unhealthy city for strangers, Mr Hanau,' 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.'
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 himself 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 duodenal dyspepsia, Major. It's the verdict of a
ripe experience, for I have a cool and penetrating judgement, even
if I've a deranged stomach. And I give it as my considered conclusion
that that woman's mad and bad - but principally bad.'
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Lady of 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 Baghdad 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 Constantinople. I felt
just as I had felt with Stumm that last night when I was about to be
packed off to Cairo and saw no way of avoiding it. Even Blenkiron
was getting anxious. He played Patience 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
instruments. 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 fleabitten
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 beginnings 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
cultivation 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 Blenkiron 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 transportwagons
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 villa, shut in by a high
white wall, a pleasant smell of wood smoke was wafted towards us,
which made me sick for the burning veld. My ear, too, caught the
twanging of a zither, which somehow reminded me of the afternoon
in Kuprasso's garden-house.
I pulled up and proposed to investigate, but Blenkiron very
testily declined.
'Zithers are as common here as fleas,' he said. 'You don't want
to be fossicking around somebody's stables and find a horse-boy
entertaining his friends. They don't like visitors in this country;
and you'll be asking for trouble if you go inside those walls. I guess
it's some old Buzzard's harem.' Buzzard was his own private peculiar
name for the Turk, for he said he had had as a boy a natural
history book with a picture of a bird called the turkey-buzzard, and
couldn't get out of the habit of applying it to the Ottoman people.
I wasn't convinced, so I tried to mark down the place. It seemed
to be about three miles out from the city, at the end of a steep lane
on the inland side of the hill coming from the Bosporus. I fancied
somebody of distinction lived there, for a little farther on we met a
big empty motor-car snorting its way up, and I had a notion that
the car belonged to the walled villa.
Next day Blenkiron was in grievous trouble with his dyspepsia.
About midday he was compelled to lie down, and having nothing
better to do I had out the horses again and took Peter with me. It
was funny to see Peter in a Turkish army-saddle, riding with the
long Boer stirrup and the slouch of the backveld.
That afternoon was unfortunate from the start. It was not the
mist and drizzle of the day before, but a stiff northern gale which
blew sheets of rain in our faces and numbed our bridle hands. We
took the same road, but pushed west of the trench-digging parties
and got to a shallow valley with a white village among the cypresses.
Beyond that there was a very respectable road which brought us to
the top of a crest that in clear weather must have given a fine
prospect. Then we turned our horses, and I shaped our course so as
to strike the top of the long lane that abutted on the down. I
wanted to investigate the white villa.
But we hadn't gone far on our road back before we got into
trouble. It arose out of a sheep-dog, a yellow mongrel brute that
came at us like a thunderbolt. It took a special fancy to Peter, and
bit savagely at his horse's heels and sent it capering off the road. I
should have warned him, but I did not realize what was happening,
till too late. For Peter, being accustomed to mongrels in Kaffir
kraals, took a summary way with the pest. Since it despised his
whip, he out with his pistol and put a bullet through its head.
The echoes of the shot had scarcely died away when the row
began. A big fellow appeared running towards us, shouting wildly.
I guessed he was the dog's owner, and proposed to pay no attention.
But his cries summoned two other fellows - soldiers by the look of
them - who closed in on us, unslinging their rifles as they ran. My
first idea was to show them our heels, but I had no desire to be
shot in the back, and they looked like men who wouldn't stop
short of shooting. So we slowed down and faced them.
They made as savage-looking a trio as you would want to avoid.
The shepherd looked as if he had been dug up, a dirty ruffian with
matted hair and a beard like a bird's nest. The two soldiers stood
staring with sullen faces, fingering their guns, while the other chap
raved and stormed and kept pointing at Peter, whose mild eyes
stared unwinkingly at his assailant.
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 muttering 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 predicament, 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.
We had to trust to Peter's instinct. I asked him where our line
lay, and he sat very still for a minute sniffing the air. Then he
pointed the direction. It wasn't what I would have taken myself,
but on a point like that he was pretty near infallible.
Presently we came to a long slope which cheered me. But at the
top there was no light visible anywhere - only a black void like the
inside of a shell. As I stared into the gloom it seemed to me that
there were patches of deeper darkness that might be woods.
'There is a house half-left in front of us,' said Peter.
I peered till my eyes ached and saw nothing.
'Well, for heaven's sake, guide me to it,' I said, and with Peter in
front we set off down the hill.
It was a wild journey, for darkness clung as close to us as a vest.
Twice we stepped into patches of bog, and once my horse saved
himself by a hair from going head forward into a gravel pit. We got
tangled up in strands of wire, and often found ourselves rubbing
our noses against tree trunks. Several times I had to get down and
make a gap in barricades of loose stones. But after a ridiculous
amount of slipping and stumbling we finally struck what seemed
the level of a road, and a piece of special darkness in front which
turned out to be a high wall.
I argued that all mortal walls had doors, so we set to groping
along it, and presently found a gap. There was an old iron gate on
broken hinges, which we easily pushed open, and found ourselves
on a back path to some house. It was clearly disused, for masses of
rotting leaves covered it, and by the feel of it underfoot
it was grass-grown.
We dismounted now, leading our horses, and after about fifty
yards the path ceased and came out on a well-made carriage drive.
So, at least, we guessed, for the place was as black as pitch.
Evidently 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 unknown 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 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?' it said, and there was something
like consternation 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 today of all days?'
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 headlights 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 didn't
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.
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 fold 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 servant 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
someone 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 us how to strike the city I'd be very much in your debt.'
Her eyes never left my face. 'Will you come into the car?' 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 the 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 squelching 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 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?'
'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?' 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 sizing 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 infinitely removed from
intimacy. 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 consciousness of sex. I was shy and perturbed,
but horribly fascinated. This slim woman, poised exquisitely
like some statue between the pillared lights, with her fair cloud of
hair, her long delicate face, and her pale bright eyes, had the
glamour of a wild dream. I hated her instinctively, hated her
intensely, but I longed to arouse her interest. To be valued coldly by
those eyes was an offence to my manhood, and I felt antagonism
rising within me. I am a strong fellow, well set up, and rather
above the average height, and my irritation stiffened me from heel
to crown. I flung my head back and gave her cool glance for cool
glance, pride against pride.
Once, I remember, a doctor on board ship who dabbled in
hypnotism told me that I was the most unsympathetic person he
had ever struck. He said I was about as good a mesmeric subject as
Table Mountain. Suddenly I began to realize that this woman was
trying to cast some spell over me. The eyes grew large and luminous,
and I was conscious for just an instant of some will battling to
subject mine. I was aware, too, in the same moment of a strange
scent which recalled that wild hour in Kuprasso's garden-house. It
passed quickly, and for a second her eyes drooped. I seemed to read
in them failure, and yet a kind of satisfaction, too, as if they had
found more in me than they expected.
'What life have you led?' the soft voice was saying.
I was able to answer quite naturally, rather to my surprise. 'I
have been a mining engineer up and down the world.'
'You have faced danger many times?'
'I have faced danger.'
'You have fought with men in battles?'
'I have fought in battles.'
Her bosom rose and fell in a kind of sigh. A smile - a very
beautiful thing - flitted over her face. She gave me her hand.
'The horses are at the door now,' she said, 'and 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 skinclad
Companions loping at our side. We did not speak a word, for
my thoughts were running 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,' Blenkiron 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
experience. 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 FIFTEEN
An Embarrassed Toilet
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 rubdown 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 nightgown.
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, 'and bring you
your passports for tomorrow. 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 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
envelope. My one hope was nonchalance.
'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?' I cried. 'You've mistaken the
house, my lad. I'm called Hanau - Richard Hanau - and my partner's
Mr John S. Blenkiron. He'll be here presently. Never knew
anyone 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 consider
that impolite as between gentlemen.'
I could see that my bluff was having its effect. His stare began to
waver, and when he 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 Rustchuk, a man much wanted by the
Imperial Government.'
'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 township. 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?'
'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 the crash of glasses and crockery. The
next second Peter had wrenched the pistol from Rasta'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 roughand-
tumble against a backveld hunter, though more than double his
age. There was no need for me to help him. 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 way.
'We'd better tidy up if we're to have visitors,'
he said calmly.
Now there was one of those big oak German cupboards 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 hatbox. 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 would have begged for time to change my clothes, but the lady
was behind him. I saw the black mantilla and the rich sable furs.
Peter vanished through my bedroom and I was left to receive my
guest in a room littered with broken glass and a senseless man in
the cupboard.
There are some situations so crazily extravagant that they key up
the spirit to meet them. I was almost laughing when that stately
lady stepped over my threshold.
'Madam,' I said, with a bow that shamed my old dressing-gown
and strident pyjamas. 'You find me at a disadvantage. I came home
soaking from my ride, and was in the act of changing. My servant
has just upset a tray of crockery, and I fear this room's no fit place
for a lady. Allow me three minutes to make myself presentable.'
She inclined her head gravely and took a seat by the fire. I went
into my bedroom, and as I expected found Peter lurking by the
other door. In a hectic sentence I bade him get Rasta's orderly out
of the place on any pretext, and tell him his master would return
later. Then I hurried into decent garments, and came out to find
my visitor in a brown study.
At the sound of my entrance she started from her dream and stood
up on the hearthrug, slipping the long robe of fur from her slim body.
'We are alone?' she said. 'We will not be disturbed?'
Then an inspiration came to me. I remembered that Frau von
Einem, according to Blenkiron, did not see eye to eye with the
Young Turks; and I had a queer instinct that Rasta could not be to
her liking. So I spoke the truth.
'I must tell you that there's another guest here tonight. I reckon
he's feeling pretty uncomfortable. At present he's trussed up on a
shelf in that cupboard.'
She did not trouble to look round.
'Is he dead?' she asked calmly.
'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?' 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?' she asked.
'Why, yes. He thwarted me some. His head is 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 tonight, Mr
Hanau, to talk business with you, as they say in your country. I
have heard well of you, and today I have seen you. I may have need
of you, and you assuredly will have need of me. ...'
She broke off, and again her strange potent eyes fell on my face.
They were like a burning searchlight which showed up every cranny
and crack of the soul. I felt it was going to be horribly difficult to
act a part under that compelling gaze. She could not mesmerize 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. You come from America, the land
of pious follies, where men worship gold and words. I ask, what
came you forth to seek?'
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
civilization were the laws of the universe. But that is not the
teaching of science, and it is not the teaching of life. We have
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 mankind is
smothered with shams and phrases and painted idols a wind blows
out of the wild to cleanse and simplify life. The world needs space
and fresh air. The civilization we have boasted of is a toy-shop and
a blind alley, and I hanker for the open country.'
This confounded nonsense was well received. Her pale eyes had
the cold light of the fanatic. With her bright hair and the long
exquisite oval of her face she looked like some destroying fury of a
Norse legend. At that moment I think I first really feared her;
before I had half-hated and half-admired. Thank Heaven, in her
absorption she did not notice that I had forgotten the speech of
Cleveland, Ohio.
'You are of the Household of Faith,' she said. 'You will presently
learn many things, for the Faith marches to victory. Meantime I
have one word for you. You and your companion travel eastward.'
'We go to Mesopotamia,' I said. 'I reckon these are our passports,'
and I pointed to the envelope.
She picked it up, opened it, and then tore it in pieces and tossed
it in the fire.
'The orders are countermanded,' she said. 'I have need of you
and you go with me. Not to the flats of the Tigris, but to the great
hills. Tomorrow you will receive new passports.'
She gave me her hand and turned to go. At the threshold she
paused, and looked towards the oak cupboard. 'Tomorrow I will
relieve you of your prisoner. He will be safer in my hands.'
She left me in a condition of pretty blank bewilderment. We
were to be tied to the chariot-wheels of this fury, and started on an
enterprise compared to which fighting against our friends at Kut
seemed tame and reasonable. On the other hand, I had been spotted
by Rasta, and had got the envoy of the most powerful man in
Constantinople locked in a cupboard. At all costs we had to keep
Rasta safe, but I was very determined that he should not be handed
over to the lady. I was going to be no party to cold-blooded
murder, which I judged to be her expedient. It was a pretty kettle
of fish, but in the meantime I must have food, for I had eaten
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 happened. 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 anyone. You're paying the price of a
suspicious nature. When you know a little more you'll want to
apologize 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 him 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 unknown 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 difficult and very dark.
But my knowledge has grown in the last few days. I've found out
the meaning of the second word that Harry Bullivant scribbled.'
'_Cancer?' 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 someone 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 ragamuffins in the servants' quarters. The
prophet had a large retinue, and the fame of his 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 propagandists
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. The four Ministers, as Sandy saw them, were
unworldly 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 _Kaf 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 the 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 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 tonight,' I said. 'She asked me what I
stood for, and I invented some infernal 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!' he cried. 'Tell me, Dick, what
do you think of her?'
'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 than any normal 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 simplicity of the ascetic,
which is of the spirit, but the simplicity of the madman that grinds
down all the contrivances of civilization to a featureless monotony.
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
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?'
'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 Superwoman.'
'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 themselves ...
There is no Superman. The poor old donkeys that fancy themselves
in the part are either crackbrained 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 Superwoman, 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. Bullivant said that all we had to do was
to find out the truth.'
'Bullivant didn't know. No man knows except you and me. I tell
you, the woman has immense power. The Germans have trusted
her with their trump card, and she's going to play it for all she is
worth. There's no crime that will stand in her way. She has set the
ball rolling, and if need be she'll cut all her prophets' throats and
run the show herself ... I don't know about your job, for honestly
I can't quite see what you and Blenkiron are going to do. But I'm
very clear about my own duty. She's let me into the business, and
I'm going to stick to it in the hope that I'll find a chance of
wrecking it ... We're moving eastward tomorrow - with a new
prophet if the old one is dead.'
'Where are you going?' I asked.
'I don't know. But I gather it's a long journey, judging by the
preparations. And it must be to a cold country, judging by the
clothes provided.'
'Well, wherever it is, we're going with you. You haven't heard
the end of our yarn. Blenkiron and I have been moving in the best
circles as skilled American engineers who are going to play Old
Harry with the British on the Tigris. I'm a pal of Enver's now, and
he has offered me his protection. The lamented Rasta brought our
passports for the journey to Mesopotamia tomorrow, but an hour
ago your lady tore them up and put them in the fire. We are going
with her, and she vouchsafed the information that it was towards
the great hills.'
Sandy whistled long and low. 'I wonder what the deuce she
wants with you? This thing is getting dashed complicated, Dick ...
Where, more by token, is Blenkiron? He's the fellow to know
about high politics.'
The missing Blenkiron, as Sandy spoke, entered the room with
his slow, quiet step. I could see by his carriage that for once he had
no dyspepsia, and by his eyes that he was excited.
'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 this thing in the 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 he 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 tomorrow, 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
tomorrow 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 their big card? 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 _revoir. We meet some time 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.'
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Battered Caravanserai
Two days later, in the evening, we came to Angora, the first stage
in our journey.
The passports had arrived next morning, as Frau von Einem had
promised, and with them a plan of our journey. More, one of the
Companions, who spoke a little English, was detailed to accompany
us - a wise precaution, for no one of us had a word of Turkish.
These were the sum of our instructions. I heard nothing more of
Sandy or Greenmantle or the lady. We were meant to travel in our
own party.
We had the railway to Angora, a very comfortable German
_Schlafwagen, tacked to the end of a troop-train. There wasn't much
to be seen of the country, for after we left the Bosporus we ran into
scuds of snow, and except that we seemed to be climbing on to a
big plateau I had no notion of the landscape. It was a marvel that
we made such good time, for that line was congested beyond
anything I have ever seen. The place was crawling with the Gallipoli
troops, and every siding was packed with supply trucks. When we
stopped - which we did on an average about once an hour - you
could see vast camps on both sides of the line, and often we struck
regiments on the march along the railway track. They looked a
fine, hardy lot of ruffians, but many were deplorably ragged, and I
didn't think much of their boots. I wondered how they would do
the five hundred miles of road to Erzerum.
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 complexion 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 hippogriff 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 arithmetic.
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 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. Consequently, 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' upbringing.'
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 passport to the commandant, who visaed them readily, and told
us he'd do his best to get us transport. 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. There was no snow here, but a
wind was blowing from the east which searched the marrow.
Presently 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 windblown
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 expectation. 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-zone, going to 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 perishing 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 valley of a great river. Soon we began to meet
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 organization.
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, frozen hard and rutted by the big transport-wagons.
We bumped and bounced horribly, and were shaken about like peas
in a bladder. I began to be acutely anxious about the old boneshaker,
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 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 collected our scanty baggage from the derelict
Studebaker. 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 swearing. 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 in twenty minutes
with news of some kind of dwelling a couple of miles up the
stream. He went off to collect Peter, and, humping our baggage,
Blenkiron 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
presently 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 unpleasantness 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 foreordained, 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
of light, and it showed a rum little hill with a rocky top: what we
call in South Africa a _castrol or saucepan. 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 hill, 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
officer 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
staff-officers, 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 very special and peculiar graft throughout the Turkish Empire. But
the first day he came back empty-handed. All the horses 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 - miserable screws and
deplorably short in the wind from a diet of beans. There was no decent
corn or hay left in the 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 realized, 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 disgraced a highroad.
The weather was now a drizzle, which increased my depression.
Cars passed us and disappeared 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 I would have sold my soul there and then
for anything 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
champagne country near Siwas, which is the granary of Turkey,
and the home of the true Osmanli stock.
Then at the 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 battlefield.
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 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 courtyard. 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.
Meantime 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 mapcases
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 have woke the dead. Then, by
the mercy of Heaven, the engine 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 shooting with a little gun. Had I had my
rifle ...'
'What did you shoot for?' I asked in amazement. '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 SEVENTEEN
Trouble by The Waters of Babylon
From that moment I date the beginning of my madness. 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 realized how much I
had loathed the lonely days in Germany, and still more the dawdling
week in Constantinople. 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 joyride
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 a Dutchman. I'm going to break all the rules and
bucket this car for what she's worth. Don't you see that the nearer
we get to Erzerum the safer we are?'
'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 ragamuffins 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? Well, I'm going to put up the steepest sort of bluff. Of course
they'll stop us. Rasta will do his damnedest. But remember that he and
his friends are not very popular with the Germans, and Madame von
Einem is. We're her proteges, and the bigger the German swell I get
before the safer I'll feel. We've got our passports 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
headquarters. 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 its gleaming stretches, ice-bound among the
sprinkled meadows. I called to Blenkiron:
'I believe that river is the Euphrates,' I said.
'So,' he said, acutely interested. 'Then that's the waters of
Babylon. Great snakes, that I should have lived to see the fields where
King Nebuchadnezzar grazed! Do you know the name of that big
hill, Major?'
'Ararat, as like as not,' I cried, and he believed me.
We were among the hills now, great, rocky, black slopes, and,
seen through side glens, a hinterland of snowy peaks. I remember I
kept looking for the _castrol I had seen in my dream. The thing had
never left off haunting me, and I was pretty clear now that it did
not belong to my South African memories. I am not a superstitious
man, but the way that little _kranz clung to my mind made me think
it was a warning sent by Providence. I was pretty certain that when
I clapped eyes on it I would be in for bad trouble.
All morning we travelled up that broad vale, and just before
noon it spread out wider, the road dipped to the water's edge, and I
saw before me the white roofs of a town. The snow was deep now,
and lay down to the riverside, but the sky had cleared, and against a
space of blue heaven some peaks to the south rose glittering like
jewels. The arches of a bridge, spanning two forks of the stream,
showed in front, and as I slowed down at the bend a sentry's
challenge rang out from a block-house. We had reached the fortress
of Erzingjan, the headquarters of a Turkish corps and the gate
of Armenia.
I showed the man our passports, but he did not salute and let us
move on. He called another fellow from the guardhouse, who
motioned us to keep pace with him as he stumped down a side lane.
At the other end was a big barracks with sentries outside. The man
spoke to us in Turkish, which Hussin interpreted. 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?' 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.'
'You can't see General Posselt,' he said; 'this is my business. I
have a wire from Siwas that four men stole a car belonging to one
of Enver Damad's staff. It describes you all, and says that two of
you are notorious spies wanted by the Imperial Government. What
have you to say to that?'
'Only that it is rubbish. My good Sir, you have seen our passes.
Our errand is not to be cried on the housetops, but five minutes
with General Posselt will make things clear. You will be exceedingly
sorry for it if you delay another minute.'
He was impressed in spite of himself, and after pulling his
moustache turned on his heel and left us. Presently he came back and
said very gruffly that the Governor would see us. We followed him
along a corridor into a big room looking out on the river, where an
oldish fellow sat in an arm-chair by a stove, writing letters with a
fountain pen.
This was Posselt, who had been Governor of Erzerum till he fell
sick and Ahmed Fevzi took his place. He had a peevish mouth and
big blue pouches below his eyes. He was supposed to be a good
engineer and to have made Erzerum impregnable, but the look on
his face gave me the impression that his reputation at the moment
was a bit unstable.
The staff-officer spoke to him in an undertone.
'Yes, yes, I know,' he said testily. 'Are these the men? They look
a pretty lot of scoundrels. What's that you say? They deny it. But
they've got the car. They can't deny that. Here, you,' and he fixed
on Blenkiron, 'who the devil are you?'
Blenkiron smiled sleepily at him, not understanding one word,
and I took up the parable.
'Our passports, Sir, give our credentials,' I said. He glanced
through them, and his face lengthened.
'They're right enough. But what about this story of stealing a car?'
'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
inn. 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!'
I smiled. 'Who sent the telegram?
'I see no reason why I shouldn't give you his name. It was Rasta
Bey. You've picked an awkward fellow to make an enemy of.'
I did not smile but laughed. 'Rasta!' 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-officer, 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 confusion. You can go on to Erzerum, but I shall send
a man with you to see that you report to headquarters there.
I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I'm obliged to take no chances in this
business. Rasta's got a grievance against you, but you can easily
hide behind the lady's skirts. She passed through this town two
days ago.'
Ten minutes later we were coasting through the slush of the
narrow streets with a stolid German lieutenant sitting beside Me.
The afternoon was one of those rare days when in the pauses of
snow you have a spell of weather as mild as May. I remembered
several like it during our winter's training in Hampshire. The road
was a fine one, well engineered, and well kept too, considering the
amount of traffic. We were little delayed, for it was sufficiently
broad to let us pass troops and transport without slackening pace.
The fellow at my side was good-humoured enough, but his presence
naturally put the lid on our conversation. I didn't want to talk,
however. I was trying to piece together a plan, and making very
little of it, for I had nothing to go upon. We must find Hilda von
Einem and Sandy, and between us we must wreck the Greenmantle
business. That done, it didn't matter so much what happened to us.
As I reasoned it out, the Turks must be in a bad way, and, unless
they got a fillip from Greenmantle, would crumple up before the
Russians. In the rout I hoped we might get a chance to change our
sides. But it was no good looking so far forward; the first thing
was to get to Sandy.
Now I was still in the mood of reckless bravado which I had got
from bagging the car. I did not realize how thin our story was, and
how easily Rasta might have a big graft at headquarters. If I had, I
would have shot out the German lieutenant long before we got to
Erzerum, and found some way of 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 climbing 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 nightmare. 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 engineers' 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 many more distant. But in that upland
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
persistence 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-solemnized, 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 lieutenant beside me, when he
saluted and we passed on. Almost at once we dipped into narrow
twisting streets, choked with soldiers, where it was 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 shuttered. 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 present our passports,
and I anticipated no more difficulty 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 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 deathgrapple
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 anything 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 stand
waiting for ever.'
This fairly angered him. 'I'll teach you manners,' he cried, and
took a step forward to reach for Blenkiron's shoulder - the game
he had twice played with me.
Blenkiron never took his hands from his coat pockets. 'Keep
your distance,' he drawled in a new voice. 'I've got you covered,
and I'll make a hole in your bullet head if you lay a hand on me.'
With an effort Stumm recovered himself. He rang a bell and fell
to smiling. An orderly appeared to whom he spoke in Turkish, and
presently a file of soldiers entered the room.
'I'm going to have you disarmed, gentlemen,' he said. 'We can
conduct our conversation more pleasantly without pistols.'
It was idle to resist. We surrendered our arms, Peter almost in
tears with vexation. Stumm swung his legs over a chair, rested his
chin on the back and looked at me.
'Your game is up, you know,' he said. 'These fools of Turkish
police said the Dutchmen were dead, but I had the happier inspiration.
I believed the good God had spared them for me. When I got
Rasta's telegram I was certain, for your doings reminded me of a
little trick you once played me on the Schwandorf road. But I
didn't think to find this plump old partridge,' and he smiled at
Blenkiron. 'Two eminent American engineers and their servant
bound for Mesopotamia on business of high Government importance!
It was a good lie; but if I had been in Constantinople it would
have had a short life. Rasta and his friends are no concern of mine.
You can trick them as you please. But you have attempted to win
the confidence of a certain lady, and her interests are mine. Likewise
you have offended me, and I do not forgive. By God,' he cried, his
voice growing shrill with passion, 'by the time I have done with
you your mothers in their graves will weep that they ever bore you!'
It was Blenkiron who spoke. His voice was as level as the
chairman's of a bogus company, and it fell on that turbid atmosphere
like acid on grease.
'I don't take no stock in high-falutin'. If you're trying to scare
me by that dime-novel talk I guess you've hit the wrong man.
You're like the sweep that stuck in the chimney, a bit too big for
your job. I reckon you've a talent for ro-mance that's just wasted in
soldiering. But if you're going to play any ugly games on me I'd
like you to know that I'm an American citizen, and pretty well
considered in my own country and in yours, and you'll sweat blood
for it later. That's a fair warning, Colonel Stumm.'
I don't know what Stumm's plans were, but that speech of
Blenkiron's put into his mind just the needed amount of uncertainty.
You see, he had Peter and me right enough, but he hadn't properly
connected Blenkiron with us, and was afraid either to hit out at all
three, or to let Blenkiron go. It was lucky for us that the American
had cut such a dash in the Fatherland.
'There is no hurry,' he said blandly. 'We shall have long happy
hours together. I'm going to take you all home with me, for I am a
hospitable soul. You will be safer with me than in the town gaol,
for it's a trifle draughty. It lets things in, and it might let things
out.'
Again he gave an order, and we were marched out, each with a
soldier at his elbow. The three of us were bundled into the back seat
of the car, while two men sat before us with their rifles between
their knees, one got up behind on the baggage rack, and one sat
beside Stumm's chauffeur. Packed like sardines we moved into the
bleak streets, above which the stars twinkled in ribbons of sky.
Hussin had disappeared from the face of the earth, and quite
right too. He was a good fellow, but he had no call to mix himself
up in our troubles.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sparrows on the Housetops
'I've often regretted,' said Blenkiron, 'that miracles have left
off happening.'
He got no answer, for I was feeling the walls for something in
the nature of a window.
'For I reckon,' he went on, 'that it wants a good old-fashioned
copper-bottomed miracle to get us out of this fix. It's plumb against
all my principles. I've spent my life using the talents God gave me
to keep things from getting to the point of rude violence, and so
far I've succeeded. But now you come along, Major, and you hustle
a respectable middle-aged citizen into an aboriginal mix-up. It's
mighty indelicate. I reckon the next move is up to you, for I'm no
good at the housebreaking stunt.'
'No more am I,' I answered; 'but I'm hanged if I'll chuck up the
sponge. Sandy's somewhere outside, and he's got a hefty crowd at
his heels.'
I simply could not feel the despair which by every law of common
sense was due to the case. The guns had intoxicated me. I could
still hear their deep voices, though yards of wood and stone
separated us from the upper air.
What vexed us most was our hunger. Barring a few mouthfuls
on the road we had eaten nothing since the morning, and as our
diet for the past days had not been generous we had some leeway to
make up. Stumm had never looked near us since we were shoved into
the car. We had been brought to some 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 presently 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 it may have
supported fig-trees, but now the plants were dead and only withered
tendrils and rotten stumps remained.
It was child's play for Peter and me to go up that trellis, but it
was the deuce and all for Blenkiron. He was in poor condition and
puffed like a grampus, and he seemed to have no sort of head for
heights. But he was as game as a buffalo, and started in gallantly till
his arms gave out and he fairly stuck. So Peter and I went up on
each side of him, taking an arm apiece, as I had once seen done to a
man with vertigo in the Kloof Chimney on Table Mountain. I was
mighty thankful when I got him panting on the top and Hussin had
shinned up beside us.
We crawled along a broadish wall, with an inch or two of
powdery snow on it, and then up a sloping buttress on to the flat
roof of the house. It was a miserable business for Blenkiron, who
would certainly have fallen if he could have seen what was below
him, and Peter and I had to stand to attention all the time. Then
began a more difficult job. Hussin pointed out a ledge which took
us past a stack of chimneys to another building slightly lower, this
being the route he fancied. At that I sat down resolutely and put on
my boots, and the others followed. Frost-bitten feet would be a
poor asset in this kind of travelling.
It was a bad step for Blenkiron, and we only got him past it by
Peter and I spread-eagling ourselves against the wall and passing
him in front of us with his face towards us. We had no grip, and if
he had stumbled we should all three have been in the courtyard.
But we got it over, and dropped as softly as possible on to the roof
of the next house. Hussin had his finger on his lips, and I soon saw
why. For there was a lighted window in the wall we had descended.
Some imp prompted me to wait behind and explore. The others
followed Hussin and were soon at the far end of the roof, where a
kind of wooden pavilion broke the line, while I tried to get a look
inside. The window was curtained, and had two folding sashes
which clasped in the middle. Through a gap in the curtain I saw a
little lamp-lit room and a big man sitting at a table littered
with papers.
I watched him, fascinated, as he turned to consult some document
and made a marking on the map before him. Then he suddenly
rose, stretched himself, cast a glance at the window, and went out
of the room, making a great clatter in descending the wooden
staircase. He left the door ajar and the lamp burning.
I guessed he had gone to have a look at his prisoners, in which
case the show was up. But what filled my mind was an insane
desire to get a sight of his map. It was one of those mad impulses
which utterly cloud right reason, a thing independent of any plan, a
crazy leap in the dark. But it was so strong that I would have
pulled that window out by its frame, if need be, to get to that table.
There was no need, for the flimsy clasp gave at the first pull, and
the sashes swung open. I scrambled in, after listening for steps on
the stairs. I crumpled up the map and stuck it in my pocket, as well
as the paper from which I had seen him copying. Very carefully I
removed all marks of my entry, brushed away the snow from the
boards, pulled back the curtain, got out and refastened the window.
Still there was no sound of his return. Then I started off to catch
up the others.
I found them shivering in the roof pavilion. 'We've got to move
pretty fast,' I said, 'for I've just been burgling old Stumm's private
cabinet. Hussin, my lad, d'you hear that? They may be after us any
moment, so I pray Heaven we soon strike better going.'
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
realized his loss and found the tracks of the thief.
Hussin gave one glance behind and then hurried us on at breakneck
pace, with old Blenkiron gasping 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 running 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 himself, 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 foundered, he was in a sweat of
terror, and as a matter of fact he was taking one of the biggest risks
of his life, for we had no rope and his neck depended on himself. I
could hear him invoking some unknown deity called Holy Mike.
But he ventured gallantly, and we got to the roof which ran across
the street. That was easier, though ticklish enough, but it was no
joke skirting the cupola of that infernal mosque. At last we found
the parapet and breathed more freely, for we were now under
shelter from the direction of danger. I spared a moment to look
round, and thirty yards off, across the street, I saw a weird spectacle.
The hunt was proceeding along the roofs parallel to the one we
were lodged on. I saw the flicker of the lanterns, waved up and
down as the bearers slipped in the snow, and I heard their cries like
hounds on a trail. Stumm was not among them: he had not the
shape for that sort of business. They passed us and continued to
our left, now hid by a jutting chimney, now clear to view against
the sky line. The roofs they were on were perhaps six feet higher
than ours, so even from our shelter we could mark their course. If
Hussin were going to be hunted across Erzerum it was a bad look-out for
us, for I hadn't the foggiest notion where we were or where
we were going to.
But as we watched we saw something more. The wavering lanterns
were now three or four hundred yards away, but on the roofs
just opposite us across the street there appeared a man's figure. I
thought it was one of the hunters, and we all crouched lower, and
then I recognized the lean agility of Hussin. He must have doubled
back, keeping in the dusk to the left of the pursuit, and taking big
risks in the open places. But there he was now, exactly in front of
us, and separated only by the width of the narrow street.
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. Presently 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 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 hunting ducks in
Michigan and his wife's brother had an apoplexy in the night and
died of it.'
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 profound 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?' 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?' I asked.
Hussin nodded, and from a wallet brought out 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 sharpset
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 defences, showing the forts and the field
trenches, with little notes scribbled in Stumm's neat small handwriting.
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,
1 in 10,000, with spidery red lines showing 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 _enceinte, 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 strong, 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 mountains, with forts defending 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. I remembered Blenkiron's news about the Russians advancing
on a broad front, for it was clear that Stumm was taking
pains about the flank of the fortress.
Kara Gubek was the point of interest. It stood on a rib of land
between two peaks, which from the contour lines rose very steep.
So long as it was held it was clear that no invader could move
down the Euphrates glen. Stumm had appended a note to the peaks
- '_not _fortified'; and about two miles to the north-east there was a red
cross and the name '_Prjevalsky'. I assumed that to be the farthest
point yet reached by the right wing of the Russian attack.
Then I turned to the paper from which Stumm had copied the
jottings on to his map. It was typewritten, and consisted of notes
on different points. One was headed '_Kara _Gubek' and read: '__No time
to fortify adjacent peaks. Difficult for enemy to get batteries there, but not
impossible. This the real point of danger, for if Prjevalsky wins the Peaks
Kara Gubek and Tafta must fall, and enemy will be on left rear of Deve
Boyun main _position.'
I was soldier enough to see the tremendous importance of this
note. On Kara Gubek depended the defence of Erzerum, and it was
a broken reed if one knew where the weakness lay. Yet, searching
the map again, I could not believe that any mortal commander
would see any chance in the adjacent peaks, even if he thought
them unfortified. That was information confined to the Turkish
and German staff. But if it could be conveyed to the Grand Duke
he would have Erzerum in his power in a day. Otherwise he would
go on battering at the Deve Boyun ridge for weeks, and long ere he
won it the Gallipoli divisions would arrive, he would be outnumbered
by two to one, and his chance would have vanished.
My discovery set me pacing up and down that cellar in a perfect
fever of excitement. I longed for wireless, a carrier pigeon, an
aeroplane - anything to bridge over that space of half a dozen miles
between me and the Russian lines. It was maddening to have
stumbled on vital news and to be wholly unable to use it. How
could three fugitives in a cellar, with the whole hornet's nest of
Turkey and Germany stirred up against them, hope to send this
message of life and death?
I went back to the map and examined the nearest Russian positions.
They were carefully marked. Prjevalsky in the north, the
main force beyond Deve Boyun, and the southern columns up to
the passes of the Palantuken but not yet across them. I could not
know which was nearest to us till I discovered where we were. And
as I thought of this I began to see the rudiments of a desperate
plan. It depended on Peter, now slumbering like a tired dog on a
couch of straw.
Hussin had locked the door and I must wait for information till
he came back. But suddenly I noticed a trap in the roof, which had
evidently been used for raising and lowering the cellar's stores. It
looked ill-fitting and might be unbarred, so I pulled the table below
it, and found that with a little effort I could raise the flap. I knew I
was taking immense risks, but I was so keen on my plan that I
disregarded them. After some trouble I got the thing prised open,
and catching the edges of the hole with my fingers raised my body
and got my knees on the edge.
It was the outbuilding of which our refuge was the cellar, and it
was half filled with light. Not a soul was there, and I hunted about
till I found what I wanted. This was a ladder leading to a sort of
loft, which in turn gave access to the roof. Here I had to be very
careful, for I might be overlooked from the high buildings. But by
good luck there was a trellis for grape vines across the place, which
gave a kind of shelter. Lying flat on my face I stared over a great
expanse of country.
Looking north I saw the city in a haze of morning smoke, and,
beyond, the plain of the Euphrates and the opening of the glen
where the river left the hills. Up there, among the snowy heights,
were Tafta and Kara Gubek. To the east was the ridge of Deve
Boyun, where the mist was breaking before the winter's sun. On
the roads up to it I saw transport moving, I saw the circle of the
inner forts, but for a moment the guns were silent. South rose a
great wall of white mountain, which I took to be the Palantuken. I
could see the roads running to the passes, and the smoke of camps
and horse-lines right under the cliffs.
I had learned what I needed. We were in the outbuildings of a
big country house two or three miles south of the city. The nearest
point of the Russian front was somewhere in the foothills
of the Palantuken.
As I descended I heard, thin and faint and beautiful, like the cry
of a wild bird, the muezzin from the minarets of Erzerum.
When I dropped through the trap the others were awake. Hussin
was setting food on the table, and viewing my descent with anxious
disapproval.
'It's all right,' I said; 'I won't do it again, for I've found out all I
wanted. Peter, old man, the biggest job of your life is before you!'
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Greenmantle
Peter scarcely looked up from his breakfast.
'I'm willing, Dick,' he said. 'But you mustn't ask me to be
friends with Stumm. He makes my stomach cold, that one.'
For the first time he had stopped calling me 'Cornelis'. The day
of make-believe was over for all of us.
'Not to be friends with him,' I said, 'but to bust him and
all his kind.'
'Then I'm ready,' said Peter cheerfully. 'What is it?'
I spread out the maps on the divan. There was no light in the
place but Blenkiron's electric torch, for Hussin had put out the
lantern. Peter got his nose into the things at once, for his intelligence
work in the Boer War had made him handy with maps. It didn't
want much telling from me to explain to him the importance of the
one I had looted.
'That news is worth many a million pounds,' said he, wrinkling
his brows, and scratching delicately the tip of his left ear. It was a
way he had when he was startled.
'How can we get it to our friends?'
Peter cogitated. 'There is but one way. A man must take it.
Once, I remember, when we fought the Matabele it was necessary
to find out whether the chief Makapan was living. Some said he
had died, 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 a 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?'
'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 extraordinarily 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 going to follow my example and get on to the house-top.
Presently his legs disappeared through the trap, and Blenkiron and I
were left to our reflections.
Peter must have found something uncommon interesting, for he
stayed on the roof the better part of the day. It was a dull job for
us, since there was no light, and Blenkiron had not even the
consolation of a game of Patience. But for all that he was in good
spirits, for he had had no dyspepsia since we left Constantinople,
and announced that he believed he was at last getting even with his
darned duodenum. As for me I was pretty restless, for I could not
imagine what was detaining Sandy. It was clear that our presence
must have been kept secret from Hilda von Einem, for she was a
pal of Stumm's, and he must by now have blown the gaff on Peter
and me. How long could this secrecy last, I asked myself. We had
now no sort of protection in the whole outfit. Rasta and the Turks
wanted our blood: so did Stumm and the Germans; and once the
lady found we were deceiving her she would want it most of all.
Our only hope was Sandy, and he gave no sign of his existence. I
began to fear that with him, too, things had miscarried.
And yet I wasn't really depressed, only impatient. I could never
again get back to the beastly stagnation of that Constantinople
week. The guns kept me cheerful. There was the devil of a bombardment
all day, and the thought that our Allies were thundering there
half a dozen miles off gave me a perfectly groundless hope. If they
burst through the defence Hilda von Einem and her prophet and all
our enemies would be overwhelmed in the deluge. And that blessed
chance depended very much on old Peter, now brooding like a
pigeon on the house-tops.
It was not till the late afternoon that Hussin appeared again. He
took no notice of Peter's absence, 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 someone 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
carriage. He dropped numbly on the divan and laid his head in his
hands. The lantern showed his haggard eyes with dark lines beneath them.
'Good God, old man, have you been sick?' 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, unwinking, unseeing. 'Great
heavens, man, you've been drugged!' 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.'
'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?'
He shivered like a frightened colt. 'Woman!' he cried. 'Does a
woman drag a man through the nether-pit? 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.' And once
more he buried his head in his hands.
It was Blenkiron who brought sense into this hectic atmosphere.
His slow, beloved drawl 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 successor ... 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?' 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,
Dick, for I have seen honesty and virtue put to the shambles and
have abetted the deed when it was done. It will haunt me to my
dying day.'
I did not stop to console him, for my mind was on fire
with his news.
'Then the prophet is gone, and the humbug is over,' I cried.
'The prophet still lives. She has found a successor.'
He stood up in his linen tunic.
'Why do I wear these clothes? Because I am Greenmantle. I am
the _Kaaba-i-hurriyeh for all Islam. In three days' time I will reveal
myself to my people and wear on my breast the green ephod
of the prophet.'
He broke off with an hysterical laugh.
'Only you see, I won't. I will cut my throat first.'
'Cheer up!' said Blenkiron soothingly. 'We'll find some prettier
way than that.'
'There is no way,' he said; 'no way but death. We're done for, all
of us. Hussin got you out of Stumm's clutches, but you're in
danger every moment. At the best you have three days, and then
you, too, will be dead.'
I had no words to reply. This change in the bold and unshakeable
Sandy took my breath away.
'She made me her accomplice,' he went on. 'I should have killed
her on the graves of those innocent men. But instead I did all she
asked and joined in her game ... She was very candid, you know
... She cares no more than Enver for the faith of Islam. She can
laugh at it. But she has her own dreams, and they consume her as a
saint is consumed by his devotion. She has told me them, and if the
day in the garden was hell, the days since have been the innermost
fires of Tophet. I think - it is horrible to say it - that she has got
some kind of crazy liking for me. When we have reclaimed the East
I am to be by her side when she rides on her milk-white horse into
Jerusalem ... And there have been moments - only moments, I
swear to God - when I have been fired myself by her madness ...'
Sandy's figure seemed to shrink and his voice grew shrill and
wild. It was too much for Blenkiron. He indulged in a torrent of
blasphemy such as I believe had never before passed his lips.
'I'm blessed if I'll listen to this God-darned stuff. It isn't delicate.
You get busy, Major, and pump some sense into your afflicted friend.'
I was beginning to see what had happened. Sandy was a man of
genius - as much as anybody I ever struck - but he had the defects
of such high-strung, fanciful souls. He would take more than mortal
risks, and you couldn't scare him by any ordinary terror. But let his
old conscience get cross-eyed, let him find himself in some situation
which in his eyes involved his honour, and he might go stark crazy.
The woman, who roused in me and Blenkiron only hatred, could
catch his imagination and stir in him - for the moment only - an
unwilling response. And then came bitter and morbid repentance,
and the last desperation.
It was no time to mince matters. 'Sandy, you old fool,' I cried,
'be thankful you have friends to keep you from playing the fool.
You saved my life at Loos, and I'm jolly well going to get you
through this show. I'm bossing the outfit now, and for all your
confounded prophetic manners, you've got to take your orders
from me. You aren't going to reveal yourself to your people, and
still less are you going to cut your throat. Greenmantle will avenge
the murder of his ministers, and make that bedlamite woman sorry
she was born. We're going to get clear away, and inside of a week
we'll be having tea with the Grand Duke Nicholas.'
I wasn't bluffing. 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? 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 someone tells them. Therefore, by hook 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?' 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.'
I looked at that lean, tight figure and the gentle, resolute face,
and I changed my mind. 'I'm hanged if I think there are any odds,'
I said. 'With anybody else it would want a miracle, but with Peter I
believe the chances are level.'
'Two to one,' Peter persisted. 'If it was evens I wouldn't be
interested.'
'Let me go,' Sandy cried. 'I talk the lingo, and can pass as a
Turk, and I'm a million times likelier to get through. For God's
sake, Dick, let me go.'
'Not you. You're wanted here. If you disappear the whole show's
busted too soon, and the three of us left behind will be strung up
before morning ... No, my son. You're going to escape, but it will
be in company with Blenkiron and me. We've got to blow the
whole Greenmantle business so high that the bits of it will never
come to earth again ... First, tell me how many of your fellows
will stick by you? I mean the Companions.'
'The whole half-dozen. They are very worried already about
what has happened. She made me sound them in her presence, and
they were quite ready to accept me as Greenmantle's successor. But
they have their suspicions about what happened at the villa, and
they've no love for the woman ... They'd follow me through hell
if I bade them, but they would rather it was my own show.'
'That's all right,' I cried. 'It is the one thing I've been doubtful
about. Now observe this map. Erzerum isn't invested by a long
chalk. The Russians are round it in a broad half-moon. That means
that all the west, south-west, and north-west is open and undefended
by trench lines. There are flanks far away to the north and south in
the hills which can be turned, and once we get round a flank there's
nothing between us and our friends ... I've figured out our road,'
and I traced it on the map. 'If we can make that big circuit to the
west and get over that pass unobserved we're bound to strike a
Russian column the next day. It'll be a rough road, but I fancy
we've all ridden as bad in our time. But one thing we must have,
and that's horses. Can we and your six ruffians slip off in the
darkness on the best beasts in this township? If you can manage
that, we'll do the trick.'
Sandy sat down and pondered. Thank heaven, he was thinking
now of action and not of his own conscience.
'It must be done,' he said at last, 'but it won't be easy. Hussin's a
great fellow, but as you know well, Dick, horses right up at the
battle-front are not easy to come by. Tomorrow I've got some kind
of infernal fast to observe, and the next day that woman will be
coaching me for my part. We'll have to give Hussin time ... I wish
to heaven it could be tonight.' He was silent again for a bit, and
then he said: 'I believe the best time would be the third night, the
eve of the Revelation. She's bound to leave me alone that night.'
'Right-o,' I said. 'It won't be much fun sitting waiting in this
cold sepulchre; but we must keep our heads and risk nothing by
being in a hurry. Besides, if Peter wins through, the Turk will be a
busy man by the day after tomorrow.'
The key turned in the door and Hussin stole in like a shade. It
was the signal for Sandy to leave.
'You fellows have given me a new lease of life,' he said. 'I've got
a plan now, and I can set my teeth and stick it out.'
He went up to Peter and gripped his hand. 'Good luck. You're
the bravest man I've ever met, and I've seen a few.' Then he turned
abruptly and went out, followed by an exhortation from Blenkiron
to 'Get busy about the quadrupeds.'
Then we set about equipping Peter for his crusade. It was a simple
job, for we were not rich in properties. His get-up, with his thick
fur-collared greatcoat, was not unlike the ordinary Turkish officer
seen in a dim light. But Peter had no intention of passing 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 getting
shot, assuming he passed the Turkish trenches. He could only hope
that he would strike someone 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 understood, 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 TWENTY
Peter Pienaar Goes to the Wars
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 wall. The outbuilding we were lodged in abutted on a
road, and was outside the proper _enceinte 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 immediate front of a battle is a bit
too public for anyone 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 he 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.
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 someone came over the bridge. It was an
officer, 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
officer 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 conversation. The
officer 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. He could see the
dull ruffle 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 undercut 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 until 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 his 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
immediate 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 officer testily. 'It's
too cold for this child's play.'
Hannus, almost in tears, repeated his tale. 'The man spoke to me
in good German,' he cried.
'Ghost or no ghost he is safe enough up the road,' said the
officer. 'Kind God, that was a big one!' He stopped and stared at a
shell-burst, for the bombardment from the east was growing fiercer.
They stood discussing the fire for a minute and presently moved
off. Peter gave them two minutes' law and then clambered back to
the highway and set off along it at a run. The noise of the shelling
and the wind, together with the thick darkness, made it safe to
hurry.
He left the road at the first chance and took to the broken
country. The ground was now rising towards a spur of the Palantuken,
on the far slope of which were the Turkish trenches. The
night had begun by being pretty nearly as black as pitch; even the
smoke from the shell explosions, which is often visible in darkness,
could not be seen. But as the wind blew the snow-clouds athwart
the sky patches of stars came out. Peter had a compass, but he
didn't need to use it, for he had a kind of 'feel' for landscape, a
special sense which is born in savages and can only be acquired
after long experience by the white man. I believe he could smell
where the north lay. He had settled roughly which part of the line
he would try, merely because of its nearness to the enemy. But he
might see reason to vary this, and as he moved he began to think
that the safest place was where the shelling was hottest. He didn't
like the notion, but it sounded sense.
Suddenly he began to puzzle over queer things in the ground,
and, as he had never seen big guns before, it took him a moment to
fix them. Presently one went off at his elbow with a roar like the
Last Day. These were Austrian howitzers - nothing over eight-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 interested
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 '_Wer _da?' 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,
manikin, 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 half a dozen
yards to his right, making a great hole in the snow and sending up
a mass of mixed earth, snow, and broken stones. Peter spat out the
dirt and felt very solemn. You must remember that never in his life
had he seen big shelling, and was now being landed in the thick of
a first-class show without any preparation. He said he felt cold in
his stomach, and very wishful to run away, if there had been
anywhere to run to. But he kept on to the crest of the ridge, over
which a big glow was broadening like sunrise. He tripped once
over a wire, which he took for some kind of snare, and after that
went very warily. By and by he got his face between two boulders
and looked over into the true battle-field.
He told me it was exactly what the predikant used to say that
Hell would be like. About fifty yards down the slope lay the
Turkish trenches - they were dark against the snow, and now and
then a black figure like a devil showed for an instant and disappeared.
The Turks clearly expected an infantry attack, for they were
sending up calcium rockets and Very flares. The Russians were
battering their line and spraying all the hinterland, not with shrapnel,
but with good, solid high-explosives. The place would be as
bright as day for a moment, all smothered in a scurry of smoke and
snow and debris, and then a black pall would fall on it, when only
the thunder of the guns told of the battle.
Peter felt very sick. He had not believed there could be so much
noise in the world, and the drums of his ears were splitting. Now,
for a man to whom courage is habitual, the taste of fear - naked,
utter fear - is a horrible thing. It seems to wash away all his
manhood. Peter lay on the crest, watching the shells burst, and
confident that any moment he might be a shattered remnant. He lay
and reasoned with himself, calling himself every name he could
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 top of a dead man.
The contact with that body brought him to his senses. That men
could die at all seemed a comforting, homely thing after that
unnatural pandemonium. 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 he 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 thunderstorm. But he
was wondering very hard how he should ever get to the Russians.
The Turks were 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 realize 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
hill 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 presently 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 not a quarter of a mile distant.
Peter said he could hear nothing but the far-off sighing of the
wind. There seemed to be no movement of any kind in the trench
before him, which ran through the ruined building. The light of
the burning was dying, and he could just make out the mound of
earth a yard in front. He began to feel hungry, and got out his
packet of food and had a swig at the brandy flask. That comforted
him, and he felt a master of his fate again. But the next step was not
so easy. He must find out what lay behind that mound of earth.
Suddenly a curious sound fell on his ears. It was so faint that at
first he doubted the evidence of his senses. Then as the wind fell it
came louder. It was exactly like some hollow piece of metal being
struck by a stick, musical and oddly resonant.
He concluded it was the wind blowing a branch of a tree against
an old boiler in the ruin before him. The trouble was that there was
scarcely enough wind now for that in this sheltered cup.
But as he listened he caught the note again. It was a bell, a fallen
bell, and the place before him must have been a chapel. He remembered
that an Armenian monastery had been marked on the big map, and he
guessed it was the burned building on his right.
The thought of a chapel and a bell gave him the notion of some
human agency. And then suddenly the notion was confirmed. The
sound was regular and concerted - dot, dash, dot - dash, dot, dot.
The branch of a tree and the wind may play strange pranks, but
they do not produce the longs and shorts of the Morse Code.
This was where Peter's intelligence work in the Boer War helped
him. He knew the Morse, he could read it, but he could make
nothing of the signalling. It was either in some special code or in a
strange language.
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 fraternize with him, for they were on the same side. But how was
he to approach him without getting shot in the process? 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 until 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 somebody moving up the latter
caught the noise, it would be easy to explain it naturally. But the wind
blowing 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 himself known to
this ally. He decided that the only way was to surprise him. He
might get shot, but he 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 around 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 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 he 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
explanation if anyone heard the sound and came seeking the cause.
Somewhere in the darkness before him and below was the man,
not a yard off. 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 the 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. Besides, 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 Kaffirs 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 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?'
'_Nein,' said a muffled voice.
'English?'
'Yes,' said the voice.
'Thank God,' said Peter. 'Then we can understand 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 reasonably?'
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? 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 question is, how I'm to get to them, and that is
where you shall help me, my friend.'
'How?'
'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 "Consent".'
'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 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, 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 short way before him. Under cover
of the burst he made good a few yards, leaving large portions of
his clothing in the strands. Then, quite suddenly, when hope had
almost died in his heart, he felt the ground rise steeply. He lay very
still, a star-rocket from the Turkish side lit up the place, and there
in front was a rampart with the points of bayonets showing beyond
it. It was the Russian hour for stand-to.
He raised his cramped limbs from the ground and shouted
'Friend! English!'
A face looked down at him, and then the darkness again descended.
'Friend,' he said hoarsely. 'English.'
He heard speech behind the parapet. An electric torch was flashed
on him for a second. A voice spoke, a friendly voice, and the sound
of it seemed to be telling him to come over.
He was now standing up, and as he got his hands on the parapet
he seemed to feel bayonets very near him. But the voice that spoke
was kindly, so with a heave he scrambled over and flopped into the
trench. Once more the electric torch was flashed, and revealed to
the eyes of the onlookers an indescribably dirty, lean, middle-aged
man with a bloody head, and scarcely a rag of shirt on his back.
The said man, seeing friendly faces around him, grinned cheerfully.
'That was a rough trek, friends,' he said; 'I want to see your
general pretty quick, for I've got a present for him.'
He was taken to an officer in a dug-out, who addressed him in
French, which he did not understand. But the sight of Stumm's
plan worked wonders. After that he was fairly bundled down communication
trenches and then over swampy fields to a farm among trees. There he
found staff officers, who looked at him and looked at his map, and then
put him on a horse and hurried him eastwards. At last he came to a big
ruined house, and was taken into a room which seemed to be full of
maps and generals.
The conclusion must be told in Peter's words.
'There was a big man sitting at a table drinking coffee, and when I
saw him my heart jumped out of my skin. For it was the man I
hunted with on the Pungwe in '98 - him whom the Kaffirs called
"Buck's Horn", because of his long curled moustaches. He was a
prince even then, and now he is a very great general. When I saw
him, I ran forward and gripped his hand and cried, "__Hoe gat het,
_Mynheer?" and he knew me and shouted in Dutch, "Damn, if it isn't
old Peter Pienaar!" Then he gave me coffee and ham and good
bread, and he looked at my map.
'"What is this?" he cried, growing red in the face.
'"It is the staff-map of one Stumm, a German _skellum who
commands in yon city," I said.
'He looked at it close and read the markings, and then he read
the other paper which you gave me, Dick. And then he flung up
his arms and laughed. He took a loaf and tossed it into the air so
that it fell on the head of another general. He spoke to them in
their own tongue, and they, too, laughed, and one or two ran out
as if on some errand. I have never seen such merrymaking. They
were clever men, and knew the worth of what you gave me.
'Then he got to his feet and hugged me, all dirty as I was, and
kissed me on both cheeks.
' "Before God, Peter," he said, "you're the mightiest hunter
since Nimrod. You've often found me game, but never game so big
as this!"'
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Little Hill
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 nothing; 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 sympathize 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 business 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. He slept a lot of the time, and when he was awake
talked as cheerily as if he were starting out on a holiday. He had
one great comfort, his dyspepsia was gone. He sang hymns constantly
to the benign Providence that had squared his duodenum.
My only occupation was to listen for the guns. The first day after
Peter left they were very quiet on the front nearest us, but in the
late evening they started a terrific racket. The next day they never
stopped from dawn to dusk, so that it reminded me of that tremendous
forty-eight hours before Loos. I tried to read into this some
proof that Peter had got through, but it would not work. It looked
more like the opposite, for this desperate hammering must mean
that the frontal assault was still the Russian game.
Two or three times I climbed on the housetop for fresh air.
The day was foggy and damp, and I could see very little of the
countryside. Transport was still bumping southward along the road
to the Palantuken, and the slow wagon-loads of wounded returning.
One thing I noticed, however; there was a perpetual coming and
going between the house and the city. Motors and mounted messengers
were constantly arriving and departing, and I concluded that
Hilda von Einem was getting ready for her part in the defence of Erzerum.
These ascents were all on the first day after Peter's going. The
second day, when I tried the trap, I found it closed and heavily
weighted. This must have been done by our friends, and very right,
too. If the house were becoming a place of public resort, it would
never do for me to be journeying roof-ward.
Late on the second night Hussin reappeared. It was after supper,
when Blenkiron had gone peacefully to sleep and I was beginning
to count the hours till the morning. I could not close an eye during
these days and not much at night.
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?' 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 happening,' 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 strung 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, straining 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.
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,' 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 nosebags. '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 beginning 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 a short gallop that
he liked, and not this mad helter-skelter. His thighs were too round
to fit a saddle leather. We passed a fire in a hollow, the bivouac of
some Turkish unit, and all the horses shied violently. I knew by
Blenkiron's oaths that he had lost his stirrups and was sitting on his
horse's neck.
Beside him rode a tall figure swathed to the eyes in wrappings,
and wearing round his neck some kind of shawl whose ends floated
behind him. Sandy, of course, had no European ulster, for it was
months since he had worn proper clothes. I wanted to speak to
him, but somehow I did not dare. His stillness forbade me. He was
a wonderful fine horseman, with his firm English hunting seat, and
it was as well, for he paid no attention to his beast. His head was
still full of unquiet thoughts.
Then the air around me began to smell acrid and raw, and I saw
that a fog was winding up from the hollows.
'Here's the devil's own luck,' I cried to Hussin. 'Can you guide
us in a mist?'
'I do not know.' He shook his head. 'I had counted on seeing the
shape of the hills.'
'We've a map and compass, anyhow. But these make slow travelling.
Pray God it lifts!'
Presently the black vapour changed to grey, and the day broke.
It was little comfort. The fog rolled in waves to the horses' ears,
and riding at the head of the party I could but dimly see the next rank.
'It is time to leave the road,' said Hussin, 'or we may meet
inquisitive folk.'
We struck to the left, over ground which was for all the world
like a Scotch moor. There were pools of rain on it, and masses of
tangled snow-laden junipers, and long reefs of wet slaty stone. It
was bad going, and the fog made it hopeless to steer a good course.
I had out the map and the compass, and tried to fix our route so as
to round the flank of a spur of the mountains which separated us
from the valley we were aiming at.
'There's a stream ahead of us,' I said to Hussin. 'Is it fordable?'
'It is only a trickle,' he said, coughing. 'This accursed mist is
from Eblis.' But I knew long before we reached it that it was no
trickle. It was a hill stream coming down in spate, and, as I soon
guessed, in a deep ravine. Presently we were at its edge, one long
whirl of yeasty falls and brown rapids. We could as soon get horses
over it as to the topmost cliffs of the Palantuken.
Hussin stared at it in consternation. 'May Allah forgive my folly,
for I should have known. We must return to the highway and find
a bridge. My sorrow, that I should have led my lords so ill.'
Back over that moor we went with my spirits badly damped. We
had none too long a start, and Hilda von Einem would rouse
heaven and earth to catch us up. Hussin was forcing the pace, for
his anxiety was as great as mine.
Before we reached the road the mist blew back and revealed a
wedge of country right across to the hills beyond the river. It was a
clear view, every object standing out wet and sharp in the light of
morning. It showed the bridge with horsemen drawn up across it,
and it showed, too, cavalry pickets moving along the road.
They saw us at the same instant. A word was passed down the
road, a shrill whistle blew, and the pickets put their horses at the
bank and started across the moor.
'Did I not say this mist was from Eblis?' growled Hussin, as we
swung round and galloped back on our tracks. 'These cursed Zaptiehs
have seen us, and our road is cut.'
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 was
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 recognized its hopelessness.
'I'm trying for 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!'
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 east-ward 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 a 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 he 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 possessed, 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 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 _kranz,
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 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. The 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 dozen,
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 _giaour would fire on the livery of the Kaaba.'
Then I had a good look at Sandy. He had discarded 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 cal 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 the overture,' he cried. 'The opera
will soon begin. We must put a breastwork up in these gaps or
they'll pick us off from a thousand yards.'
I had meantime roughly dressed Blenkiron's wound with a linen
rag which Hussin provided. It was from a ricochet bullet which
had chipped into his left shin. Then I took a hand with the others
in getting up earthworks to complete the circuit of the defence. It
was no easy job, for we wrought only with our knives and had to
dig deep down below the snowy gravel. As we worked I took
stock of our refuge.
The _castrol was a rough circle about ten yards in diameter, its
interior filled with boulders and loose stones, and its parapet about
four feet high. The mist had cleared for a considerable space, and I
could see the immediate surroundings. West, beyond the hollow,
was the road we had come, where now the remnants of the pursuit
were clustered. North, the hill fell steeply to the valley bottom, but
to the south, after a dip there was a ridge which shut the view. East
lay another fork of the stream, the chief fork I guessed, and it was
evidently followed by the main road to the pass, for I saw it
crowded with transport. The two roads seemed to converge somewhere
farther south of my sight.
I guessed we could not be very far from the front, for the noise
of guns sounded very near, both the sharp crack of the field-pieces,
and the deeper boom of the howitzers. More, I could hear the
chatter of the machine-guns, a magpie note among the baying of
hounds. I even saw the bursting of Russian shells, evidently trying
to reach the main road. One big fellow - an eight-inch - landed not
ten yards from a convoy to the east of us, and another in the
hollow through which we had come. These were clearly ranging
shots, and I wondered if the Russians had observation-posts on the
heights to mark them. If so, they might soon try a curtain, and we
should be 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?' 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 - spurred boots and breeches over
which fell a short green kirtle. A little cap skewered with a jewelled
pin was on her head, and a cape of some coarse country cloth hung
from her shoulders. She had rough gauntlets on her hands, and she
carried for weapon a riding-whip. The fog-crystals clung to her
hair, I remember, and a silvery film of fog lay on her garments.
I had never before thought of her as beautiful. Strange, uncanny,
wonderful, if you like, but the word beauty had too kindly and
human a sound for such a face. But as she stood with heightened
colour, her eyes like stars, her poise like a wild bird's, I had to
confess that she had her own loveliness. She might be a devil, but
she was also a queen. I considered that there might be merits in the
prospect of riding by her side into Jerusalem.
Sandy stood rigid, his face very grave and set. She held out both
hands to him, speaking softly in Turkish. I noticed that the six
Companions had disappeared from the _castrol and were somewhere
out of sight on the farther side.
I do not know what she said, but from her tone, and above all
from her eyes, I judged that she was pleading - pleading for his
return, for his partnership in her great adventure; pleading, for all I
knew, for his love.
His expression was like a death-mask, his brows drawn tight in a
little frown and his jaw rigid.
'Madam,' he said, 'I ask you to tell your business quick and to
tell it in English. My friends must hear it as well as me.'
'Your friends!' she cried. 'What has a prince to do with these
hirelings? Your slaves, perhaps, but not your friends.'
'My friends,' Sandy repeated grimly. 'You must know, Madam,
that I am a British officer.'
That was beyond doubt a clean staggering stroke. 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?' she asked in a level voice.
'One is a brother officer of my regiment. The other is an American
friend. But all three of us are on the same errand. We came east
to destroy Greenmantle 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 today for the revelation, 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 he.
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.
She turned to Sandy, and the fierceness went out
of her face.
'You seek the truth,' she said. 'So also do I, and if we use a lie it
is only to break down a greater. You are of my household in spirit,
and you alone of all men I have seen are fit to ride with me on my
mission. Germany may fail, but I shall not fail. I offer you the
greatest career that mortal has known. I offer you a task which will
need every atom of brain and sinew and courage. Will you refuse
that destiny?'
I do not know what effect this vapouring might have had in hot
scented rooms, or in the languor of some rich garden; but up on
that cold hill-top it was as unsubstantial as the mist around us. It
sounded not even impressive, only crazy.
'I stay with my friends,' said Sandy.
'Then I will offer more. I will save your friends. They, too, shall
share in my triumph.'
This was too much for Blenkiron. He scrambled to his feet to
speak the protest that had been wrung from his soul, forgot his
game leg, and rolled back on the ground with a groan.
Then she seemed to make a last appeal. She spoke in Turkish
now, and I do not know what she said, but I judged it was the plea
of a woman to her lover. Once more she was the proud beauty, but
there was a tremor in her pride - I had almost written tenderness.
To listen to her was like horrid treachery, like eavesdropping on
something pitiful. I know my cheeks grew scarlet and Blenkiron
turned away his head.
Sandy's face did not move. He spoke in English.
'You can offer me nothing that I desire,' he said. 'I am the
servant of my country, and her enemies are mine. I can have neither
part nor lot with you. That is my answer, Madam von Einem.'
Then her steely restraint broke. It was like a 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
realized 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 realized 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 infinite slowness,
using our hands and our knives, we made a shallow grave below
the eastern parapet. When it was done we covered her face with the
linen cloak which Sandy had worn that morning. He lifted the
body and laid it reverently in its place.
'I did not know that anything could be so light,' he said.
It wasn't for me to look on at that kind of scene. I went to the
parapet with Blenkiron's field-glasses and had a stare at our friends
on the road. There was no Turk there, and I guessed why, for it
would not be easy to use the men of Islam against the wearer of the
green ephod. The enemy were German or Austrian, and they had a
field-gun. They seemed to have got it laid on our fort; but they were
waiting. As I looked I saw behind them a massive figure I seemed
to recognize. Stumm had come to see the destruction of his enemies.
To the east I saw another gun in the fields just below the main
road. They had got us on both sides, and there was no way of
escape. Hilda von Einem was to have a noble pyre and goodly
company for the dark journey.
Dusk was falling now, a clear bright dusk where the stars pricked
through a sheen of amethyst. The artillery were busy all around the
horizon, and towards the pass on the other road, where Fort Palantuken
stood, there was the dust and smoke of a furious bombardment.
It seemed to me, too, that the guns on the other fronts had
come nearer. Deve Boyun was hidden by a spur of hill, but up in
the north, white clouds, like the streamers of evening, were hanging
over the Euphrates glen. The whole firmament hummed and
twanged like a taut string that has been struck ...
As I looked, the gun to the west fired - the gun where Stumm
was. The shell dropped ten yards to our right. A second later
another fell behind us.
Blenkiron had dragged himself to the parapet. I don't suppose
he had ever been shelled before, but his face showed curiosity
rather than fear.
'Pretty poor shooting, I reckon,' he said.
'On the contrary,' I said, 'they know their business. They're
bracketing ...'
The words were not out of my mouth when one fell right among
us. It struck the far rim of the _castrol, shattering the rock, but
bursting mainly outside. We all ducked, and barring some small
scratches no one was a penny the worse. I remember that much of
the debris fell on Hilda von Einem's grave.
I pulled Blenkiron over the far parapet, and called on the rest to
follow, meaning to take cover on the rough side of the hill. But as
we showed ourselves shots rang out from our front, shots fired
from a range of a few hundred yards. It was easy to see what had
happened. Riflemen had been sent to hold us in rear. They would
not assault so long as we remained in the _castrol, but they would
block any attempt to find safety outside it. Stumm and his gun had
us at their mercy.
We crouched below the parapet again. 'We may as well toss for
it,' I said. 'There's only two ways - to stay here and be shelled or
try to break through those fellows behind. Either's pretty unhealthy.'
But I knew there was no choice. With Blenkiron crippled we
were pinned to the _castrol. Our numbers were up all right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Guns of the North
But no more shells fell.
The night grew dark and showed a field of glittering 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?'
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 enduring. 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 may be
one of us alive to put a bullet through old Stumm. What do you say?'
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 _castrol,
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
situation, 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 Very
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 explosion 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
dozen 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 remains of us ... We're no longer three adventurers
in the enemy's country. We're the advance guard of the Allies. Our
pals don't know about us, and we're going to be cut off, which has
happened to advance guards before now. But all the same, we're in
our own battle-line again. Doesn't that cheer you, Dick?'
It cheered me wonderfully, for I knew now what had been the
weight on my heart ever since I accepted Sir Walter's mission. It
was the loneliness of it. I was fighting far away from my friends, far
away from the true fronts of battle. It was a side-show which,
whatever its importance, had none of the exhilaration of the main
effort. But now we had come back to familiar ground. We were
like the Highlanders cut off at Cite St Auguste on the first day of
Loos, or those Scots Guards at Festubert of whom I had heard.
Only, the others did not know of it, would never hear of it. If Peter
succeeded he might tell the tale, but most likely he was lying dead
somewhere in the no-man's-land between the lines. We should
never be heard of again any more, but our work remained. Sir
Walter would know that, and he would tell our few belongings that
we had gone out in our country's service.
We were in the _castrol again, sitting under the parapets. The same
thoughts must have been in Sandy's mind, for he suddenly laughed.
'It's a queer ending, Dick. We simply vanish into the infinite. If
the Russians get through they will never recognize what is left of
us among so much of the wreckage of battle. The snow will soon
cover us, and when the spring comes there will only be a few
bleached bones. Upon my soul it is the kind of death I always
wanted.' And he quoted softly to himself a verse of an old Scots
ballad:
'Mony's the ane for him maks mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane.
Ower his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.'
'But our work lives,' I cried, with a sudden great gasp of happiness.
'It's the job that matters, not the men that do it. And our
job's done. We have won, old chap - won hands down - and there
is no going back on that. We have won anyway; and if Peter has
had a slice of luck, we've scooped the pool ... After all, we never
expected to come out of this thing with our lives.'
Blenkiron, with his leg stuck out stiffly before him, was humming
quietly to himself, as he often did when he felt cheerful. He had
only one song, 'John Brown's Body'; usually only a line at a time,
but now he got as far as the whole verse:
'He captured Harper's Ferry, with his nineteen men so true,
And he frightened old Virginny till she trembled through and through.
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul goes marching along.'
'Feeling good?' I asked.
'Fine. I'm about the luckiest man on God's earth, Major. I've
always wanted to get into a big show, but I didn't see how it would
come the way of a homely citizen like me, living in a steam-warmed
house and going down town to my office every morning. I used to
envy my old dad that fought at Chattanooga, and never forgot to
tell you about it. But I guess Chattanooga was like a scrap in a
Bowery bar compared to this. When I meet the old man in Glory
he'll have to listen some to me.'
It was just after Blenkiron spoke that we got a reminder of
Stumm's presence. The gun was well laid, for a shell plumped on
the near edge of the castro. It made an end of one of the Companions
who was on guard there, badly wounded another, and a fragment
gashed my thigh. We took refuge in the shallow cave, but some
wild shooting from the east side brought us back to the parapets,
for we feared an attack. None came, nor any more shells, and once
again the night was quiet.
I asked Blenkiron if he had any near relatives.
'Why, no, except a sister's son, a college-boy who has no need of
his uncle. It's fortunate that we three have no wives. I haven't any
regrets, neither, for I've had a mighty deal out of life. I was
thinking this morning that it was a pity I was going out when I had
just got my duo-denum to listen to reason. But I reckon that's
another of my mercies. The good God took away the pain in my
stomach so that I might go to Him with a clear head and a thankful
heart.'
'We're lucky fellows,' said Sandy; 'we've all had our whack.
When I remember the good times I've had I could sing a hymn of
praise. We've lived long enough to know ourselves, and to shape
ourselves into some kind of decency. But think of those boys who
have given their lives freely when they scarcely knew what life
meant. They were just at the beginning of the road, and they didn't
know what dreary bits lay before them. It was all sunshiny and
bright-coloured, and yet they gave it up without a moment's doubt.
And think of the men with wives and children and homes that
were the biggest things in life to them. For fellows like us to shirk
would be black cowardice. It's small credit for us to stick it out.
But when those others shut their teeth and went forward, they
were blessed heroes. ...'
After that we fell silent. A man's thoughts at a time like that
seem to be double-powered, and the memory becomes very sharp
and clear. I don't know what was in the others' minds, but I know
what filled my own ...
I fancy it isn't the men who get most out of the world and are
always buoyant and cheerful that most fear to die. Rather it is the
weak-engined souls who go about with dull eyes, that cling most
fiercely to life. They have not the joy of being alive which is a kind
of earnest of immortality ... I know that my thoughts were chiefly
about the jolly things that I had seen and done; not regret, but
gratitude. The panorama of blue noons on the veld unrolled itself
before me, and hunter's nights in the bush, the taste of food and
sleep, the bitter stimulus of dawn, the joy of wild adventure, the
voices of old staunch friends. Hitherto the war had seemed to make
a break with all that had gone before, but now the war was only
part of the picture. I thought of my battalion, and the good fellows
there, many of whom had fallen on the Loos parapets. I had never
looked to come out of that myself. But I had been spared, and
given the chance of a greater business, and I had succeeded. That
was the tremendous fact, and my mood was humble gratitude to
God and exultant pride. Death was a small price to pay for it. As
Blenkiron would have said, I had got good value in the deal.
The night was getting bitter cold, as happens before dawn. It
was frost again, and the sharpness of it woke our hunger. I got out
the remnants of the food and wine and we had a last meal. I
remember we pledged each other as we drank.
'We have eaten our Passover Feast,' said Sandy. 'When do you
look for the end?'
'After dawn,' I said. 'Stumm wants daylight to get the full savour
of his revenge.'
Slowly the sky passed from ebony to grey, and black shapes of
hill outlined themselves against it. A wind blew down the valley,
bringing the acrid smell of burning, but something too of the
freshness of morn. It stirred strange thoughts in me, and woke the
old morning vigour of the blood which 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
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
loath 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 stood close to the parapet, watching every detail of the landscape
as shown by the revealing daybreak. Up on the shoulders of the
Palantuken, snowdrifts 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 hut the smoke of breakfast
was beginning to curl. 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 quarters. Beyond, towards 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 round
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
And he frightened 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, 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 apologize, 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 crumbling 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.
But no shots came from them. As I looked east, the hillside,
which a little before had been held by our enemies, was as empty as
the desert. And then I saw on the main road a sight which for a
second time made me yell like a maniac. Down that glen came a
throng of men and galloping limbers - a crazy, jostling crowd,
spreading away beyond the road to the steep slopes, and leaving
behind it many black dots to darken the snows. The gates of the
South had yielded, and our friends were through them.
At that sight I forgot all about our danger. I didn't give a cent
for Stumm's shells. I didn't believe he could hit me. The fate which
had mercifully preserved us for the first taste of victory would see
us through to the end.
I remember bundling Blenkiron along the hill to find Sandy. But
our news was anticipated. For down our own side-glen came the
same broken tumult of men. More; for at their backs, far up at the
throat of the pass, I saw horsemen - the horsemen of the pursuit.
Old Nicholas had flung his cavalry in.
Sandy was on his feet, with his lips set and his eye abstracted. If
his face hadn't been burned black by weather it would have been
pale as a dish-clout. A man like him doesn't make up his mind for
death and then be given his life again without being wrenched out
of his bearings. I thought he didn't understand what had happened,
so I beat him on the shoulders.
'Man, d'you see?' I cried. 'The Cossacks! The Cossacks! God!
How they're taking that slope! They're into them now. By heaven,
we'll ride with them! We'll get the gun horses!'
A little knoll prevented Stumm and his men from seeing what
was happening farther up the glen, till the first wave of the rout
was on them. He had gone on bombarding the _castrol and its
environs while the world was cracking over his head. The gun
team was in the hollow below the road, and down the hill among
the boulders we crawled, Blenkiron as lame as a duck, and me with
a limp left arm.
The poor beasts were straining at their pickets and sniffing the
morning wind, which brought down the thick fumes of the great
bombardment and the indescribable babbling cries of a beaten army.
Before we reached them that maddened horde had swept down on
them, men panting and gasping in their flight, many of them
bloody from wounds, many tottering in the first stages of collapse
and death. I saw the horses seized by a dozen hands, and a desperate
fight for their possession. But as we halted there our eyes were
fixed on the battery on the road above us, for round it was now
sweeping the van of the retreat.
I had never seen a rout before, when strong men come to the
end of their tether and only their broken shadows stumble towards
the refuge they never find. No more had Stumm, poor
devil. I had no ill-will left for him, though coming down that
hill I was rather hoping that the two of us might have a final
scrap. He was a brute and a bully, but, by God! he was a man. I
heard his great roar when he saw the tumult, and the next I saw
was his monstrous figure working at the gun. He swung it south
and turned it on the fugitives.
But he never fired it. The press was on him, and the gun was
swept sideways. He stood up, a foot higher than any of them, and
he seemed to be trying to check the rush with his pistol. There is
power in numbers, even though every unit is broken and fleeing.
For a second to that wild crowd Stumm was the enemy, and they
had strength enough to crush him. The wave flowed round and
then across him. I saw the butt-ends of rifles crash on his head and
shoulders, and the next second the stream had passed over his body.
That was God's judgement on the man who had set himself
above his kind.
Sandy gripped my shoulder and was shouting in my ear:
'They're coming, Dick. Look at the grey devils ... Oh, God be
thanked, it's our friends!'
The next minute we were tumbling down the hillside, Blenkiron
hopping on one leg between us. I heard dimly Sandy crying, 'Oh,
well done our side!' and Blenkiron declaiming about Harper's Ferry,
but I had no voice at all and no wish to shout. I know the tears
were in my eyes, and that if I had been left alone I would have sat
down and cried with pure thankfulness. For sweeping down the
glen came a cloud of grey cavalry on little wiry horses, a cloud
which stayed not for the rear of the fugitives, but swept on like a
flight of rainbows, with the steel of their lance-heads glittering in
the winter sun. They were riding for Erzerum.
Remember that for three months we had been with the enemy
and had never seen the face of an Ally in arms. We had been cut off
from the fellowship of a great cause, like a fort surrounded by an
army. And now we were delivered, and there fell around us the
warm joy of comradeship as well as the exultation of victory.
We flung caution to the winds, and went stark mad. Sandy, still
in his emerald coat and turban, was scrambling up the farther slope
of the hollow, yelling greetings in every language known to man.
The leader saw him, with a word checked his men for a moment -
it was marvellous to see the horses reined in in such a break-neck
ride - and from the squadron half a dozen troopers swung loose
and wheeled towards us. Then a man in a grey overcoat and a
sheepskin cap was on the ground beside us wringing our hands.
'You are safe, my old friends' - it was Peter's voice that spoke -
'I will take you back to our army, and get you breakfast.'
'No, by the Lord, you won't,' cried Sandy. 'We've had the rough
end of the job and now we'll have the fun. Look after Blenkiron
and these fellows of mine. I'm going to ride knee by knee with
your sportsmen for the city.'
Peter spoke a word, and two of the Cossacks dismounted. The
next I knew I was mixed up in the cloud of greycoats, galloping
down the road up which the morning before we had strained to the
_castrol.
That was the great hour of my life, and to live through it was
worth a dozen years of slavery. With a broken left arm I had little
hold on my beast, so I trusted my neck to him and let him have his
will. Black with dirt and smoke, hatless, with no kind of uniform, I
was a wilder figure than any Cossack. I soon was separated from
Sandy, who had two hands and a better horse, and seemed resolute
to press forward to the very van. That would have been suicide for
me, and I had all I could do to keep my place in the bunch I rode with.
But, Great God! what an hour it was! There was loose shooting
on our flank, but nothing to trouble us, though the gun team of
some Austrian howitzer, struggling madly at a bridge, gave us a bit
of a tussle. Everything flitted past me like smoke, or like the mad
finale of a dream just before waking. I knew the living movement
under me, and the companionship of men, but all dimly, for at
heart I was alone, grappling with the realization of a new world. I
felt the shadows of the Palantuken glen fading, and the great burst
of light as we emerged on the wider valley. Somewhere before us
was a pall of smoke seamed with red flames, and beyond the
darkness of still higher hills. All that time I was dreaming, crooning
daft catches of song to myself, so happy, so deliriously happy that I
dared not try to think. I kept muttering a kind of prayer made up
of Bible words to Him who had shown me His goodness in the
land of the living.
But as we drew out from the skirts of the hills and began the
long slope to the city, I woke to clear consciousness. I felt the smell
of sheepskin and lathered horses, and above all the bitter smell of
fire. Down in the trough lay Erzerum, now burning in many
places, and from the east, past the silent forts, horsemen were
closing in on it. I yelled to my comrades that we were nearest, that
we would be first in the city, and they nodded happily and shouted
their strange war-cries. As we topped the last ridge I saw below me
the van of our charge - a dark mass on the snow - while the
broken enemy on both sides were flinging away their arms and
scattering in the fields.
In the very front, now nearing the city ramparts, was one man.
He was like the point of the steel spear soon to be driven home. In
the clear morning air I could see that he did not wear the uniform
of the invaders. He was turbaned and rode like one possessed, and
against the snow I caught the dark sheen of emerald. As he rode it
seemed that the fleeing Turks were stricken still, and sank by the
roadside with eyes strained after his unheeding figure ...
Then I knew that the prophecy had been true, and that their
prophet had not failed them. The long-looked for revelation had
come. Greenmantle had appeared at last to an awaiting people.