Greenmantle by John Buchan (reading strategies book .TXT) 📕

an economical soul, and if I’m going to be hanged I want a good stake for my neck.

Then began some varied experiences. I used to wake up in the morning, wondering where I should be at night, and yet quite pleased at the uncertainty. Greenmantle became a sort of myth with me. Somehow I couldn’t fix any idea in my head of what he was like. The nearest I got was a picture of an old man in a turban coming out of a bottle in a cloud of smoke, which I remembered from a child’s edition of the Arabian Nights. But if he was dim, the lady was dimmer. Sometimes I thought of her as a fat old German crone, sometimes as a harsh-featured woman like a schoolmistress with thin lips and eyeglasses. But I had to fit the East into the picture, so I made her young and gave her a touch of the languid houri in a veil. I was always wanting to pump Blenkiron on the subject, but he shut up like a rat-trap. He was looking for bad trouble in that direction, and was disinclined to speak about it beforehand.

We led a peaceful existence. Our servants were two of Sandy’s lot, for Blenkiron had very rightly cleared out the Turkish caretakers, and they worked like beavers under Peter’s eye, till I reflected I had never been so well looked after in my life. I walked about the city with Blenkiron, keeping my eyes open, and speaking very civil. The third night we were bidden to dinner at Moellendorff’s, so we put on our best clothes and set out in an ancient cab. Blenkiron had fetched a dress suit of mine, from which my own tailor’s label had been cut and a New York one substituted.

General Liman and Metternich the Ambassador had gone up the line to Nish to meet the Kaiser, who was touring in those parts, so Moellendorff was the biggest German in the city. He was a thin, foxy-faced fellow, cleverish but monstrously vain, and he was not very popular either with the Germans or the Turks. He was polite to both of us, but I am bound to say that I got a bad fright when I entered the room, for the first man I saw was Gaudian. I doubt if he would have recognized me even in the clothes I had worn in Stumm’s company, for his eyesight was wretched. As it was, I ran no risk in dress-clothes, with my hair brushed back and a fine American accent. I paid him high compliments as a fellow engineer, and translated part of a very technical conversation between him and Blenkiron. Gaudian was in uniform, and I liked the look of his honest face better than ever.

But the great event was the sight of Enver. He was a slim fellow of Rasta’s build, very foppish and precise in his dress, with a smooth oval face like a girl’s, and rather fine straight black eyebrows. He spoke perfect German, and had the best kind of manners, neither pert nor overbearing. He had a pleasant trick, too, of appealing all round the table for confirmation, and so bringing everybody into the talk. Not that he spoke a great deal, but all he said was good sense, and he had a smiling way of saying it. Once or twice he ran counter to Moellendorff, and I could see there was no love lost between these two. I didn’t think I wanted him as a friend—he was too cold-blooded and artificial; and I was pretty certain that I didn’t want those steady black eyes as an enemy. But it was no good denying his quality. The little fellow was all cold courage, like the fine polished blue steel of a sword.

I fancy I was rather a success at that dinner. For one thing I could speak German, and so had a pull on Blenkiron. For another I was in a good temper, and really enjoyed putting my back into my part. They talked very high-flown stuff about what they had done and were going to do, and Enver was great on Gallipoli. I remember he said that he could have destroyed the whole British Army if it hadn’t been for somebody’s cold feet—at which Moellendorff looked daggers. They were so bitter about Britain and all her works that I gathered they were getting pretty panicky, and that made me as jolly as a sandboy. I’m afraid I was not free from bitterness myself on that subject. I said things about my own country that I sometimes wake in the night and sweat to think of.

Gaudian got on to the use of water power in war, and that gave me a chance.

“In my country,” I said, “when we want to get rid of a mountain we wash it away. There’s nothing on earth that will stand against water. Now, speaking with all respect, gentlemen, and as an absolute novice in the military art, I sometimes ask why this God-given weapon isn’t more used in the present war. I haven’t been to any of the fronts, but I’ve studied them some from maps and the newspapers. Take your German position in Flanders, where you’ve got the high ground. If I were a British general I reckon I would very soon make it no sort of position.”

Moellendorff asked, “How?”

“Why, I’d wash it away. Wash away the fourteen feet of soil down to the stone. There’s a heap of coalpits behind the British front where they could generate power, and I judge there’s ample water supply from the rivers and canals. I’d guarantee to wash you away in twenty-four hours—yes, in spite of all your big guns. It beats me why the British haven’t got on to this notion. They used to have some bright engineers.”

Enver was on the point like a knife, far quicker than Gaudian. He cross-examined me in a way that showed he knew how to approach a technical subject, though he mightn’t have much technical knowledge. He was just giving me a sketch of the flooding in Mesopotamia when an aide-de-camp brought in a chit which fetched him to his feet.

“I have gossiped long enough,” he said. “My kind host, I must leave you. Gentlemen all, my apologies and farewells.”

Before he left he asked my name and wrote it down. “This is an unhealthy city for strangers, Mr Hanau,” he said in very good English. “I have some small power of protecting a friend, and what I have is at your disposal.” This with the condescension of a king promising his favour to a subject.

The little fellow amused me tremendously, and rather impressed me too. I said so to Gaudian after he had left, but that decent soul didn’t agree.

“I do not love him,” he said. “We are allies—yes; but friends—no. He is no true son of Islam, which is a noble faith and despises liars and boasters and betrayers of their salt.”

That was the verdict of one honest man on this ruler in Israel. The next night I got another from Blenkiron on a greater than Enver. He had been out alone and had come back pretty late, with his face grey and drawn with pain. The food we ate—not at all bad of its kind—and the cold east wind played havoc with his dyspepsia. I can see him yet, boiling milk on a spirit-lamp, while Peter worked at a Primus stove to get him a hot-water bottle. He was using horrid language about his inside.

“My God, Major, if I were you with a sound stomach I’d fairly conquer the world. As it is, I’ve got to do my work with half my mind, while the other half is dwelling in my intestines. I’m like the child in the Bible that had a fox gnawing at its vitals.”

He got his milk boiling and began to sip it.

“I’ve been to see our pretty landlady,” he said. “She sent for me and I hobbled off with a grip full of plans, for she’s mighty set on Mesopotamy.”

“Anything about Greenmantle?” I asked eagerly.

“Why, no, but I have reached one conclusion. I opine that the hapless prophet has no sort of time with that lady. I opine that he will soon wish himself in Paradise. For if Almighty God ever created a female devil it’s Madame von Einem.”

He sipped a little more milk with a grave face.

“That isn’t my duodenal dyspepsia, Major. It’s the verdict of a ripe experience, for I have a cool and penetrating judgement, even if I’ve a deranged stomach. And I give it as my considered conclusion that that woman’s mad and bad—but principally bad.”