 CHAPTER IX THE RETURN OF THE STRAGLER 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 furnishment, a couple of lads from Hamburg, who had been a year ago apprentices in the shipbuilding 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 riverboats, whereas I had acquired most of my knowledge on one rundown, the Simbisi, when the proper engineer got drunk and fell overboard among the crocodiles. The captain, they called him Shink, was out of his bearings in the job. He was aficion and a first-class deep-water seaman, but since he knew the Rhine Delta, and because the German mercantile marine was laid on ice till the end of the 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 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 em's mouth, or beating against a northeaster in a shallow paltic. 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 on that barge's dinghy, and so forth. Six men of wood appear in the dinghy of the barge nearest us and carry off supplies for the rest. The men were mostly frutions, slow-spoken, sandy-haired lads, very like the breed you strike on the Essex coast. It was the fact that Schenck was really a deep-water sailor and so a novice of 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 twenty-four hours on board he was telling me all his difficulties, and I was doing my best to cheer him. Un-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 a fatherland. Even Schenck, though he was in charge of valuable stores and was waging against time, was quite clear that the men must have permission for some kind of bino. 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 Schenck took his Sylvesterer-band 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 struggled 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 too, and I am inclined to think these two never meant to come back. If I had a soft job, like a riverboat, 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 freestion 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 the nerves. The captain was in a raging temper, for he was shorthanded to begin with. He would have started a press-gang, but there was no superfluity of men in that township, nothing but boys and the 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 riverside 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 the filthy English. Go to the heavens, said the captain, we can delay no longer. We must make a shift the best we can. I can spare one man from the deckhands. You must give up one from the engine room. That was arranged, and we were tearing back rather short in the wind, when I aspired a figure sitting on a bench beside the booking office on the pier. It was a slim figure in an old suit of khaki, some cast-off duds which had long lost the semblance of a uniform. It had a gentle face, and was smoking peacefully, looking out upon the river and the boats, and as 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 Sissutu, for I was afraid the captain might know Dutch. Where have you come from? I asked. They shot me up in trunk, said Peter, and I run away. I am tired Cornelius, and I want to continue the journey by bolt. 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 contend to 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 is 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, lightened, slim, and wiry as leopard. A sailor does not judge men by girth and weight. Hildu, said Schenk. And the next minute he was readjusting his crews and giving the strayed revelers the rough side of his tongue. As a chance 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 Cervus Daraband 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 male. With my dirty face and general air of absorption and 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, Herbrandt, said the captain, to be scrutinized by a policeman. You who give orders. I do not doubt too many policemen. I shored 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 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 planes, and the air grew perishing cold. Peter came aboard once for his rations, but usually he left it to his partner, for he was lying very low. One morning, I think it was the 5th of January, when we had passed Buddha, 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 Galapally Peninsula. All kinds of shells were there, from the big 14 inch crumps to rifle grenades and trench mortars. It made me fairly sick to see all those good things preparing for our own fellows, and I wondered whether I could 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 a 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 oxide lad, whom I ordered to look out while Peter and I went over the lists. Cornelius, my old friend, he said, there are some pretty toys here. With a spanner and a couple of clear hours, I couldn't make these the maximums about as deadly as the 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 recognition convoys. I want to know how you got here. He smiled with that extraordinary Sunday school dosatility of his. It was very simple, Cornelius. I was foolish in the cafe, but they have told you of that. You see, I was angry, and I did not reflect. They had separated us, and I could see which treat me as dirt. Therefore, my bedtime came out for, as I had 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 the train to a place I think is called Nürburgr. 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 a 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 contact, he or two had shown that they thought me a fool. I could not understand it. But I had not been one night in that Nürburgr place before I thought of the reason. They wanted to keep me under observation as a check upon you, Cornelius. 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 Jan Stumman, 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 Pynar. Peter was a fool. And if there was anything to blab, sooner or later Peter would blab it. And 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. Someday my temper would go again and I might say foolish things for which Cornelius would suffer. So it was very certain that I must escape. Now, Cornelius, I noticed pretty soon that there were two kinds among the prisoners. There were the real prisoners, mostly English and French, and there were the homebugs. The homebugs 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 hedge plots for escape and get the poor devils caught in the act and to warm up 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 scum. 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 Newberg 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, Cornelius. You see, I've 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 big Valdronk, 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 pouts 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 stupid Dutchmen. There was no strict guard kept there. For the place was on the second floor and distinct 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, Cornelius. 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 foot 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, Cornelius, 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 love 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 slack regarded 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 skillful, said Peter Modestly. I had no money beyond seven marks and I had 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 gun. For a little I thought I would 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 I nearly drowned. I would rather swim the Limpopo Cornelius 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 southeast and I had marked this big river. Did you hope to pick me up? I asked, no Cornelius. I thought you would be travelling in first class carriages while I'd be plodding on foot. But I was set on getting to the place you spoke of, how do you call it, Constant Noble, or our big business lay. I thought I might be in time for that. You were 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 Nuremberg, 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 fieldcraft compared to such as me. My troubles came only from hunger and cold. Then I met the Peruvian smooths and sold him my clothes and bought from him these. Peter meant a Polish Jew peddler. I did not want to part with my own, which were better, but he gave me 10 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 traveling home on foot to see a dying mother. And I had been told 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 Godspeed. 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? Jaakonilius. 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 our 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. Forever boldness. Remember as a nation they were 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 the plains. His tail 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 fillet. 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 griff village. The room muntled. The man shouted up and I cried. Yes. But the words seemed echoing my ears and long after he had given me the garment I stood staring abstractly over the bulwarks. His tone had awakened a quart 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 Stum had uttered behind his hand to Gaudien. I had heard something like un-mantel and could make nothing of it. Now I was as certain of those words as of my own existence. They had been grunnantel. Grunnantel. Whatever it might be was the name which Stum 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 phoninum. This discovery put me in a high fettle. I told myself that considering the difficulties I had managed to find out a wonderful amount in a few days. It only shows what a man can do with a slenderous evidence if he keeps chewing and chewing on it. Two mornings later we lay alongside the keys at Belgrad 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 a 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. Now 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 on 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 key. There were all kinds of uniforms German, Austrian and Bulgarian and amid them was 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 in English. I reckon that's pretty good news, General. It said, if the English have run away from Galipoli we can use these new 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 Halis. What rejoiced me was the sight of Blankiron as bland as a barber among those swells. Here were two of the missionaries within reasonable distance of their goal. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Green Mantle This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Vivian Bush Houston, Texas on June 6th, 2007 Green Mantle by John Buckin Chapter 10 The Garden House of Suleiman the Red We reached Reschuk 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 in the Turbid River. On top of this, Captain Shink got an Og 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 manifest of cargo and undertook to see to the transshipment. It wasn't the first time I had tackled that kind of business and I hadn't much to learn about steam grains. I told him I was going on to Constantinople to take Peter with me and he was agreeable. He would have to wait at Reschuk to get his return cargo and could easily in span a fresh engineer. I worked about the hardest 24 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. There was a 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 gotten nearly all the stuff aboard the trucks. A young officer in what I took to be a Turkish uniform rode up with an aide to camp. I noticed the German guards saluting him so I judged who 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 to camp and spoke to him in Turkish. Look here I want these back I said I can't do without them and we've got 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 off. Here this won't do I cried gave me back the right set. This thing's no good to me. For answer he went gently smiled like a dusky serif 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 dooms day. He was a slim foppish fellow and he looked more puzzled than angry. I offered 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 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 string 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 in Bristol fashion. I told him it wasn't my habit to do 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 Rastabe 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 consigne to the artillery commandant at Chattelage, General von Ostervies. The man shrugged his shoulders very well. I will have a word to say to General von Ostervies and many to this fellow who flouts the committee. And he strode away like an impudent boy. The harassed commandant grinned. You have offended his lordship and he is a bad enemy. All those damned comatages are. He 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 Chattelage 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 trottle, 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 that I could deal. Well I advise you to go arms at 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 Ostrouzy's and he'll make trouble if anything goes wrong. I still think he would have been wiser to humor Rasta Bay. As I was leaving he gave me a telegram. Here's a wire for your captain shink. I slipped the envelope into my pocket and went out. Shink was pretty sick so I left a note for him. At one o'clock I got the train started with a couple of German landware in each truck and Peter and I in a horse box. Presently I remembered Shink'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 Absphatin 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 Chatalja. From my back it fairly got stiffened 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's 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 Mostafapasha we stuck the real supinus of the east. Happily I found a German officer there who had some notion of hustling and after all it was in his interest to get the stuff moved. It was the morning of the sixteenth after Peter and I had been living like pigs on black bread and condemned ten stuff that we came inside 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 to our horse-box. I had been half expecting some move like this and had made a plan. The Turks waggered up and addressed us. You can get back to rest Chuck, he said. I take over from you here. Hand me the papers. Is this chatalja? I asked innocently. It is the end of your affair, he said haughtily. Quicker it will be the worst for you. Now look here, my son, I said. You're a kid and none nothing. I hand over to General von Austerys and to no one else. You were 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 unplugged their rifles. Please don't begin shooting, I said. There are twelve armed guards in this train who will take their orders from me. 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 to lul 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 in 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. Goodbye, 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 ditched Talja and were received by von Austerys 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. At any moment there might arrive an incriminating wire from Ruschak. 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 and surpluses, and veiled whorries, and roses and nightingales, and some sort of string band for this coursing sweet music. I had forgotten that winter is pretty much the same everywhere. It was a drizzling day, with the 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' cap stuck at the head of each grave. Then we got into narrow, steep streets into 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 splattered 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 clothesmen, 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, Cornelius 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 the telegram had come to Tatalja. Then I thought it couldn't be that. For if von Osteris had wanted me, he wouldn't have taken the trouble to stop 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 grayish 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 tumbled-down coffee-house with A. Caprasso 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 that I wanted to speak to Mr. Caprasso. 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 syrup. You are Mr. Caprasso, I said. I wanted to show this place to my friend. He has heard of your garden-house and the fun there. The senor is mistaken. I have no garden-house. Rott, 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 Suleiman the Red. He put his finger to his lipped and looked incredibly sly. The senor remembers that. But that was in the old happy days before the 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 an English sovereign into his hand. He glanced at it in surprise and his manner changed. The senor 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 scraggly 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. He said, that is the old place I observed with feeling. What times I have seen there? Tell me, Mr. Caprasa, do you ever open it now? He put his thick lips to my ear. If the senor 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 but last week we had the ballet of mademoiselle Sisi. I could prove, 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, thank you, will be here. He bent his head closer and said in a whisper, the compagnie de jure's roses. Oh, indeed, I said with a proper tone of respect, though I hadn't a notion what he meant. Will the senor 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 newcomers here? Take the advice of Angelo Caprasso and avoid the streets after nightfall. Stemble 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, Cornelius, he said calmly. Another ten yards and we were at a crossroads where little Place faced a bigish 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. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of Green Mantle This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Green Mantle by John Buckin Chapter 11 The Companions of the Rosie Hours We battled to a corner where a jet of buildings 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. There was one special thunk 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 blackard. 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 horse-savage murmur as to what it might be all about made me cold in the pit of my stomach. We've got it in a neck this time, old man, I said to Peter, who had out the pistol the commandant at Rushchuk 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, and a word, constantly repeated. I didn't know what it meant at the time, but now I know that they were after us because we were boshes and spies. There was no love-loss between the Constantinople Scum and their new masters. It seemed an ironical end for Peter and me to be done in because we were boshes. 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 and incorruptible police. I wished to heaven I had a word of Turkish, but I made my voice heard for a second in a pause in 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, kafiyah, was predominant. Then Peter fired over their heads. He had to, for our chap was poing 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 know quite 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 Luz, 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 then the light came out and 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 CHINGANA! 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, 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 belabored 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-shot feet. A wisp of scarlet cloth clung to his shoulders, and drawn over his head down close to his eyes, was a skullcap of some kind of pelt with a 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 skullcap. 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 Montabanc, but there was nothing comic in it. Fearful and sinister and uncanny it was, and I wanted to do anything but laugh. As he shouted, he kept pointing with his stave up the street, which climbed the hillside. He means us to move, said Peter. For God's sake, let's get away from this witch doctor. I couldn't make sense of it, but one thing was clear. These maniacs had delivered us for the moment from Rosta and his friends. Then I did a dash at silly thing. I pulled out a sovereign 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 swing 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 when 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 awful 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 debouchement 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 coup de country Cornelius, said Peter, filling his limbs for bruises. Too many things happened 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 quite civilized looking shops. We soon found the hotel to which Caprosso had directed us, a big place in a courtyard with a very tumbled-down-looking portico and green sun-shutters which rattled droorily 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. Caprosso. And we would have been shot into the street if I hadn't remembered about Sturm'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. The 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. I had a bottle of stringy mutton boiled with vegetables and a white cheese strong enough to raise the dead. But I got a bottle of whiskey 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 Rischuk we had had uneasy slumbers. I woke the next morning and looking from the broken window the servant and made him bring us some of the trickly 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 Rosta insulted and who wouldn't forget it in a hurry. He had his crowd of Turkish riffraff and was bound to get us sooner or later. Then there was the maniac in the skin-hat. He didn't like Rosta 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 Stuhm and the German government. It could only be a matter of hours at the best at the restrict authorities on our trail. It would be easy to trace us from Chataljah 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 blank iron 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 here in some pothouse the yarn of the two wretched Dutchmen who had disappeared soon for men's sight. That rendezvous at Caprosse 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 blank iron 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 Rosta 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 blank iron. I reflected with some bitterness that this was the seventeenth day of January the day of our asignation. I had had high hopes all the way down the Danube of meeting with blank iron 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 Romania 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 blank iron 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 Caprosos that afternoon and to trust to luck for the rest. We went out the streets so we sat tight in our room all morning and swapped old hunting yards to keep our minds from the beastly present. We got some food at midday, cold mutton in the same cheese and finished our whiskey. 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 foggy snowshoes where we would find our next quarters. It was snowing heavily which was a piece of luck for us. Poor old Peter had no great coat so we went into a juice shop and bought a ready-made abomination which looked as if it might have been meant for a dissenting person. 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 Ratchack Ferry and found it perfectly quiet. I do not think we met a soul till we got to Caprosos shop. We walked straight through the cafe which was empty and down the dark street we knocked and it swung open. There was the bleak yard now puddles 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 syrups and filling the air with the fumes of Latakia. Most of them were Turks in European clothes and the Fez 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 Caproso saw us and sent us coffee. A girl who looked like a Jewish came over to us and talked French. But I shook my head and she went off again. Presently a girl came on the stage with a silly affair, all a clashing of tambourines and wriggling. I have seen native women do the same thing better in a Mozambique corral. Another sang a German song, a simple, sentimental thing about golden hair and rainbows and the Germans present applauded. The place was so tinsily 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-hole, for us it was as perilous as I could stand. 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 dubbed 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. There was a 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 razors burning at both ends to warm the room and the thin smoke from these smelled 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 the skin cap. He had three others with him. I heard a whisper behind me and the words were those which Caprasso had used the day before. These bedlamites were called the companions of the rosy hours and Caprasso 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 Suleiman 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 neighbors stout German, frock-coated Turk, frowsy Jewish 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 that rocked the spell, but something far more potent. In an instant I found myself ref'd 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 the morning. It seemed to be part of the veld, but like no veld I had ever seen it was wider and wilder and more gracious. Indeed I was looking at my first youth. I was feeling the kind of immortal light-heartedness which only a boy knows in the dawning of his days. I had no longer any fear of these magic makers. They were kindly wizards who had brought me into fairyland. Then slowly from the silence there distilled drops of music. They came like water falling a long way into a cup, each the essential quality of pure sound. We, with our elaborate harmonies, have gotten the charms 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, thick by bit the notes spun together till they 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 sense 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 was 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 Stoom seemed feeble simpletons by contrast. The window I had been looking out of 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 tawdryness. The companions of the rosy hours had gone, but at the door stood in uniform. I heard a German a long way off murmur. An verus, 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 empty, like magic, Turk and German tumbled over each other while Caproso wailed and wept. No one seemed to stop them and then I saw the reason. Those guards had come for us. This must be doom 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 Caproso, 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 Mariah. 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 of lighted streets. This is the end of it, Peter. I said, 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 perishingly cold. We entered a door and found ourselves in a big stone hall. We were hopeful about ourselves. A man in some kind of uniform pointed to the staircase up which we plotted 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 thumb screws. 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 neck 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 patients' 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 site 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. End of Chapter 11 CHAPTER 12 OF GREEN MANTLE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded on June 18th, 2007 by Vivian Bush in Houston, Texas. Green Mantle by John Buckin CHAPTER 12 Four missionaries see light in their mission. A spasm of incadulity 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 tomcat at your heels yesterday, Rasta would have had you long before you got to your hotel. You too 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 said incredulously, for my wits were still wool-gathering. What place is this? You may call it my humble home. It was Blinkiron'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. Pinar said, Blinkiron, 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 Brent 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. Meanwhile, the Dutchman will be no more. He will have ceased to pun 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 Mollendorf 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 haven'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 Blinkiron shuffling his patient's 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 his eyes heavy with his own thoughts. Blinkiron hobed himself from the sofa and waddled to a cupboard. You boys must be hungry, he said. My duodenum has been giving me hell as usual, and I don't eat no more than a squirrel. But I've laid in some stores, for I guess you would want to stoke up some after your travels. He brought out a couple of Strasburg pies, a cheese, a cold chicken, a loaf, and three bottles of champagne. Sandy rapturously, and a dry hideousack, 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 were on the stair and at the gate. If the Metreber in possession, you may bet that other people will keep off. Your past is blotted out, clean vanished away, and you begin tomorrow with a new sheet. Blinkiron'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 Henao, Blinkiron said, born in Cleveland, Ohio, of German parrotage on both sides. One of our brightest mining engineers 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 joyride 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 hearth rug 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 Blinkiron, 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 like 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 airplane. That parable about fits my case. I've 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 in refined. I've been processing through Europe like Barnum Circus and living with generals and transparencies. Not that I haven't picked up a lot of news 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 have 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. Blink irons 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 found out one thing, and that is that the last dream Germany will part with is control of the Near East. That is what your statesman 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 stings in her tail, and that tail stretches away 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 I reckon it is a good one. I tried to find out, but they gave me nothing but eye-wash. 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 high-brows, he looked wise and spoke of the might of German arms and German organization and German staff work. I used to nod my head when I was 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 prayed 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 disheveled hair, his high-boned face, and stained eyebrows, he had the appearance of some mad mula. 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 moneylender from the fam, but I had friends there I could count on, and the same evening I was a Turkish gypsy, 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 Rosie Hours was not what I had known it in 1910. Then it had been all for the young Turks in reform. Now it hankered after the old regime and was the last hope of the orthodox. It had no use for Inver and his friends, and it did not regard with pleasure the beau of the tutan. It stood for Islam in the old ways, and might be described as a conservative nationalist caucus, but it was uncommon powerful in the provinces, and Inver and Talat derent metal 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. It was 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 Inver's kafaya. And they were popular, too, for they had never bowed the knee to the Nimsah, the Germans who were squeezing out the lifeblood of the Ammanli for their own ends. It had 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 can imagine it wasn't difficult for me to move where I wanted. My dress and the password franked me anywhere. I traveled from Smyrna by the new railway to Pandurma on the Manmora and got there just before Christmas. That was after Anzac and Solvla had been evacuated, by the Germans going hard at Cape Hellis. From Pandurma 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 in a fine cargo of six 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, and 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 Elliott, 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 it in the broadest scots what no man in the submarine or in our boat could have understood a word of. Mr. Tommy, I cried, what for would you scale a decent tinkler lad into a cold say? I'll give you your kale through the rake for this ploy the next time I foregather with you on the top of the caedron. Tommy spotted me in a second. He laughed till he cried, and as we moved off, shouted to me to put a stoot here in Alistair Bray, I hoped to heaven he had the sense not to tell my father, or the old man will have 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 Blinkiron. The rest you know. And now for business. I've 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 Boulevin's riddles. I know the meaning of Khazreddin. Sir Walter was right, as Blinkiron 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 caliphate to its old glories in Islam to its old purity. His sayings are everywhere in the Muslim 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 in 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 Inver and the rest carrying on the shoulders the unpopular tutan. It is a case of the tutan carrying the unpopular committee. The fact 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 Kaiba-i-Urying, the Palladium of Liberty. The prophet himself is known as Zemrud, 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. You will hear where Zemrud 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 Khazradan? 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 a miracle 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 Khazradan, one of those old half-comic miracle plays with an allegorical meaning which they call orta oyan, which takes 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 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 green mantle. 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 doom and gaudian words I had not been meant to hear. Blink iron 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 is in the heart of the plan. That is what I always thought. If we were to find that Kaba'i Eurye is no good foslicking among the committee or in the Turkish provinces, the secrets in Germany. Dick, you should not have crossed the Danube. That is what I have 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 Cosredin 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 Blinkiron'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 names Doom and Gaudien had spoken. I told of my discoveries I lay on the Woodman's cottage. The I is not the letter of the alphabet but the numeral. Good old Harry, said Sandy softly. He was a dashed clever chap. Hilde von Einem? Who and where is she? For if we find her we have done the trick. Then Blinkiron spoke. I reckon I can put you wise on that, gentlemen, he said. I saw her no later than yesterday. She's 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 in life. 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 Blinkiron did not laugh. At the mention of Hilde 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've been long enough to size up the various political bosses. They haven't much to them. That's what we could show them in the United States. But I've met the Fravan Einem and that lady is a very different proposition. The man that will understand her has got to take a bigger size than hats. Who is she, I asked? Why, that is just what I can't tell you. She was a great excavator of Babylonian 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. Blinkiron's respect did not depress me. I felt as if at last we had got our job narrowed to a decent compass but I had hated casting about in the dark. I asked where she lived. That I don't know, said Blinkiron. You won't find people unduly anxious to gratify your natural curiosity about Fravan 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 advisor. 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 have a queer taste in souvenir, as I said. Say rather the Turkish police. The current in the Bosphorus is pretty strong and these sad relics of two misguided Dutchmen will be washed up tomorrow about Seriglio Point. In this game you must drop the curtain neat and pat at the end of each scene of trouble later with the missing heir and the family lawyer. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of Green Mantle This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Zachary Brewstergeis Green Mantle by John Buchan Chapter 13 I Move in Good Society I walked out of that house next morning with blank irons arm and 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 great coat lined with wolf fur. I had a smart Malacca cane and one of blank iron 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 blank iron had done the job in style for, if you'll believe it, he had brought the clothes all the way from London. I realize now why he and Sandy had been fosicking in my wardrobe. Peter's suit had been of Sandy's procuring and it was not a 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 a way 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 levees who had no kin with Europe. There were squads of Germans in their porridge caps staring vacantly at novel sights and quick to salute any officer on the sidewalk. Turks enclosed 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 babble. Blank-iron and I behaved as if we were interested tourists. We would stop and laugh at one fellow and give a penny to a second, passing comments in high-pitched western voices. We went into a café and had a cup of coffee. A beggar came in and asked alms. Hitherto Blank-iron'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 to me. Blank-iron 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. Blank-iron 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. Blank-iron asked 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. Blank-iron 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 Blank-iron 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, Blank-iron flung the 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 Blank-iron stopped to look at them. I noticed that the man shuffled fifteen into a cluster. Blank-iron felt the oranges as if to see that they were sound and pushed to a side. The man instantly restored them to the group never raising his eyes. This ain't the time of year to buy fruit, said Blank-iron as we passed on. Those oranges are rotten as meddlers. 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 got 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 Blank-iron. My business is to get news, he said. And before I start on a stunt I make considerable preparations. All the time in London when I was helping 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 in news service with your foreign office by way of Romania and Russia. In a day or two I guess our friends would know all about our discoveries. At that I opened my eyes very wide. Why yes, you Britishers have in 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 peacetime and you shunned the theatrical ways of the tootin 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 24 hours. I don't say your highbrows use the news well. I don't take much stock in your political push. There are a lot of silver tongues no doubt but it ain't oratory that is wanted in this racket. The William Jennings Brian stunt languishes in wartime. 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'd 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 myself 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 up out 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. Anyone, Babe Imbicill or Dodard can carry my messages while 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. Someday you shall hear it for all I guess it would please you. How do you use it? I asked. Well I get early news of what is going on in this cabbage patch. Likewise I get authentic news 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 New York. What's the matter with that for post office? I'm the best informed man in Constantinople. For old General Lyman 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 and the best run crowd of mount of banks 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, Blankiron, I've been playing a part for the past month and it wears my nerves to tatters. Is this job very tiring? Or if it is I doubt I may buckle up. He looks thoughtful. I can't call our business an absolute rescue or 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've got to be 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 type 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 downtown to business and taking cocktails with Mr. Carl Rosenheim and next hour being engaged with Mr. Rosenheim's friend 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 to 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 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. Blankiron. 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 a 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 has ever subbed sauerkraut who was coming through Russia and Romania 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 Costanza next week they'd be very polite, but they'd never let us. We've got to go on with this adventure and knows 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 them a chance. I am bound to confess the prospect staggered me. We might be led 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 Green Mantle 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 forever. I calculate that before you and I strike the sight of the garden 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 Die Maul. 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 forty percent of them already and if I'm anything of a prophet I'll run 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 in 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. That is a sulky dog who wants to batter mankind with a club. Both these boys would have made good cow punches in the old days and they might have got a living out west as the gunmen of a labor union. They're about the class of Jesse James or Bill the Kid, except in that their college reared and can pattern languages. But they haven't the organizing power to manage the Irish vote in a war 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. Blank iron 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 Romania coming in on the ally side. Things would look pretty black for that control of the Near East on which Germany has banked her winnings. Kaiser said that's got to be prevented at all costs but how's it going to be done? Blank iron's face had become very solemn again. It won't be done unless Germany's got a trump card to play. Her games might have 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 Lyman. 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'm 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 Blank iron. 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 steak 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. Green mantle 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 Uri in a veil. I was always wanting to pump Blankiron 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 Blankiron 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 Blankiron keeping my eyes open and speaking very civil. The third night we were bidden to dinner at Molendorf's so we put on our best clothes and set out in an ancient cab. Blankiron had fetched a dress suit of mine from which my own tailor's label had been cut and a New York one substituted. General Lyman and Metternich the ambassador had gone up the line to Niche to meet the Kaiser who was touring those parts so Molendorf 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 Gaudien. I doubt if he would have recognized me even in the clothes I had worn in Sturm's company for his eyesight was wretched. As it was I ran no risk in dress clothes with my hair brushed back in a fine American accent. I paid him high compliments as a fellow engineer and translated part of a very technical conversation between him and Blankiron. Gaudien 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 Rastasbilt 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 Merlendorf and I could see there was no love-loss 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 blank iron. 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 Merlendorf looked daggers. They were so bitter about Britain and all her works that I gathered they were getting pretty panicky and that made me jolly as a sand-boy. 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. Gaudien got on to the use of water-power and 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 in 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. Mullendorf asked, how? Why I'd wash it away. Wash away the 14 feet of soil down to the stone. There's a heap of coal pits behind the British front where they could generate power and I'd judge there's ample water supply from the rivers and canals. I'd guarantee to wash you away in 24 hours outside 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 Gaudien. He cross-examined me in a way that showed he knew how to approach a technical subject, though he might have much technical knowledge. He was just giving me a sketch of the flooding in Mesopotamia when an aide to camp brought in a chit which fetched him to his feet. He said, my kind host, I must leave you, gentlemen, all of 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 favor to a subject. The little fellow used me tremendously and rather impressed me too. I said so to Gaudien 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 face and despises liars and boasters and betrayers of their salt. This was the verdict of one honest man on this ruler of Israel. The next night I got another from Blankiron on a greater than Enver. He had been out alone and had come back pretty late with his face gray 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 milk. 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 unlike the child in the Bible that has a fox gnawing at its vitals. He got his milk boiling and began to sip it. I've been to see our pretty land lady he said. She sent for me and I hobbled off with a grip full of plans for she's mighty God Mesopotamia. Anything about green mantle 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 this isn't my duodenal dyspepsia major it's the verdict of a rap experience for I have a cool in penetrating judgment even if I have a deranged stomach and I give it as my considered conclusion that that woman's mad and bad but principally bad End of Chapter 13 Recording by Zachary Brewstergeis July 2007 Green Belt, Maryland