Chapter Seventeen. Trouble by The Waters of Babylon

Greenmantle

by John Buchan

From that moment I date the beginning of my madness. Suddenly I
forgot all cares and difficulties of the present and future and
became foolishly light-hearted. We were rushing towards the great
battle where men were busy at my proper trade. I realized how much I
had loathed the lonely days in Germany, and still more the dawdling
week in Constantinople. Now I was clear of it all, and bound for the
clash of armies. It didn't trouble me that we were on the wrong side
of the battle line. I had a sort of instinct that the darker and
wilder things grew the better chance for us.

'Seems to me,' said Blenkiron, bending over me, 'that this joy-
ride is going to come to an untimely end pretty soon. Peter's right.
That young man will set the telegraph going, and we'll be held up at
the next township.'

'He's got to get to a telegraph office first,' I answered.
'That's where we have the pull on him. He's welcome to the screws we
left behind, and if he finds an operator before the evening I'm the
worst kind of a Dutchman. I'm going to break all the rules and
bucket this car for what she's worth. Don't you see that the nearer
we get to Erzerum the safer we are?'

'I don't follow,' he said slowly. 'At Erzerum I reckon they'll
be waiting for us with the handcuffs. Why in thunder couldn't those
hairy ragamuffins keep the little cuss safe? Your record's a bit too
precipitous, Major, for the most innocent-minded military boss.'

'Do you remember what you said about the Germans being open to
bluff? Well, I'm going to put up the steepest sort of bluff. Of
course they'll stop us. Rasta will do his damnedest. But remember
that he and his friends are not very popular with the Germans, and
Madame von Einem is. We're her proteges, and the bigger the German
swell I get before the safer I'll feel. We've got our passports and
our orders, and he'll be a bold man that will stop us once we get
into the German zone. Therefore I'm going to hurry as fast as God
will let me.'

It was a ride that deserved to have an epic written about it.
The car was good, and I handled her well, though I say it who
shouldn't. The road in that big central plain was fair, and often I
knocked fifty miles an hour out of her. We passed troops by a
circuit over the veld, where we took some awful risks, and once we
skidded by some transport with our off wheels almost over the lip of
a ravine. We went through the narrow streets of Siwas like a
fire-engine, while I shouted out in German that we carried despatches
for headquarters. We shot out of drizzling rain into brief spells of
winter sunshine, and then into a snow blizzard which all but whipped
the skin from our faces. And always before us the long road
unrolled, with somewhere at the end of it two armies clinched in a
death-grapple. That night we looked for no lodging. We ate a sort of
meal in the car with the hood up, and felt our way on in the
darkness, for the headlights were in perfect order. Then we turned
off the road for four hours' sleep, and I had a go at the map.
Before dawn we started again, and came over a pass into the vale of a
big river. The winter dawn showed its gleaming stretches, ice-bound
among the sprinkled meadows. I called to Blenkiron:

'I believe that river is the Euphrates,' I said. 'So,' he said,
acutely interested. 'Then that's the waters of Babylon. Great
snakes, that I should have lived to see the fields where King
Nebuchadnezzar grazed! Do you know the name of that big hill,
Major?'

'Ararat, as like as not,' I cried, and he believed me.

We were among the hills now, great, rocky, black slopes, and,
seen through side glens, a hinterland of snowy peaks. I remember I
kept looking for the castrol I had seen in my dream. The thing had
never left off haunting me, and I was pretty clear now that it did
not belong to my South African memories. I am not a superstitious
man, but the way that little kranz clung to my mind made me think it
was a warning sent by Providence. I was pretty certain that when I
clapped eyes on it I would be in for bad trouble.

All morning we travelled up that broad vale, and just before
noon it spread out wider, the road dipped to the water's edge, and I
saw before me the white roofs of a town. The snow was deep now, and
lay down to the riverside, but the sky had cleared, and against a
space of blue heaven some peaks to the south rose glittering like
jewels. The arches of a bridge, spanning two forks of the stream,
showed in front, and as I slowed down at the bend a sentry's
challenge rang out from a block-house. We had reached the fortress
of Erzingjan, the headquarters of a Turkish corps and the gate of
Armenia.

I showed the man our passports, but he did not salute and let us
move on. He called another fellow from the guardhouse, who motioned
us to keep pace with him as he stumped down a side lane. At the other
end was a big barracks with sentries outside. The man spoke to us in
Turkish, which Hussin interpreted. There was somebody in that
barracks who wanted badly to see us.

'By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,' quoted
Blenkiron softly. 'I fear, Major, we'll soon be remembering
Zion.'

I tried to persuade myself that this was merely the red tape of
a frontier fortress, but I had an instinct that difficulties were in
store for us. If Rasta had started wiring I was prepared to put up
the brazenest bluff, for we were still eighty miles from Erzerum, and
at all costs we were going to be landed there before night.

A fussy staff-officer met us at the door. At the sight of us he
cried to a friend to come and look.

'Here are the birds safe. A fat man and two lean ones and a
savage who looks like a Kurd. Call the guard and march them off.
There's no doubt about their identity.'

'Pardon me, Sir,' I said, 'but we have no time to spare and we'd
like to be in Erzerum before the dark. I would beg you to get
through any formalities as soon as possible. This man,' and I
pointed to the sentry, 'has our passports.' 'Compose yourself,' he
said impudently; 'you're not going on just yet, and when you do it
won't be in a stolen car.' He took the passports and fingered them
casually. Then something he saw there made him cock his eyebrows.

'Where did you steal these?' he asked, but with less assurance
in his tone.

I spoke very gently. 'You seem to be the victim of a mistake,
sir. These are our papers. We are under orders to report ourselves
at Erzerum without an hour's delay. Whoever hinders us will have to
answer to General von Liman. We will be obliged if you will conduct
us at once to the Governor.'

'You can't see General Posselt,' he said; 'this is my business.
I have a wire from Siwas that four men stole a car belonging to one
of Enver Damad's staff. It describes you all, and says that two of
you are notorious spies wanted by the Imperial Government. What have
you to say to that?'

'Only that it is rubbish. My good Sir, you have seen our
passes. Our errand is not to be cried on the housetops, but five
minutes with General Posselt will make things clear. You will be
exceedingly sorry for it if you delay another minute.'

He was impressed in spite of himself, and after pulling his
moustache turned on his heel and left us. Presently he came back and
said very gruffly that the Governor would see us. We followed him
along a corridor into a big room looking out on the river, where an
oldish fellow sat in an arm-chair by a stove, writing letters with a
fountain pen.

This was Posselt, who had been Governor of Erzerum till he fell
sick and Ahmed Fevzi took his place. He had a peevish mouth and big
blue pouches below his eyes. He was supposed to be a good engineer
and to have made Erzerum impregnable, but the look on his face gave
me the impression that his reputation at the moment was a bit
unstable.

The staff-officer spoke to him in an undertone.

'Yes, yes, I know,' he said testily. 'Are these the men? They
look a pretty lot of scoundrels. What's that you say? They deny it.
But they've got the car. They can't deny that. Here, you,' and he
fixed on Blenkiron, 'who the devil are you?'

Blenkiron smiled sleepily at him, not understanding one word,
and I took up the parable.

'Our passports, Sir, give our credentials,' I said. He glanced
through them, and his face lengthened.

'They're right enough. But what about this story of stealing a
car?'

'It is quite true,' I said, 'but I would prefer to use a
pleasanter word. You will see from our papers that every authority
on the road is directed to give us the best transport. Our own car
broke down, and after a long delay we got some wretched horses. It
is vitally important that we should be in Erzerum without delay, so I
took the liberty of appropriating an empty car we found outside an
inn. I am sorry for the discomfort of the owners, but our business
was too grave to wait.'

'But the telegram says you are notorious spies!'

I smiled. 'Who sent the telegram?

'I see no reason why I shouldn't give you his name. It was
Rasta Bey. You've picked an awkward fellow to make an enemy of.'

I did not smile but laughed. 'Rasta!' I cried. 'He's one of
Enver's satellites. That explains many things. I should like a word
with you alone, Sir.'

He nodded to the staff-officer, and when he had gone I put on my
most Bible face and looked as important as a provincial mayor at a
royal visit.

'I can speak freely,' I said, 'for I am speaking to a soldier of
Germany. There is no love lost between Enver and those I serve. I
need not tell you that. This Rasta thought he had found a chance of
delaying us, so he invents this trash about spies. Those Comitadjis
have spies on the brain ... Especially he hates Frau von Einem.'

He jumped at the name.

'You have orders from her?' he asked, in a respectful tone.

'Why, yes,' I answered, 'and those orders will not wait.'

He got up and walked to a table, whence he turned a puzzled face
on me. 'I'm torn in two between the Turks and my own countrymen. If
I please one I offend the other, and the result is a damnable
confusion. You can go on to Erzerum, but I shall send a man with you
to see that you report to headquarters there. I'm sorry, gentlemen,
but I'm obliged to take no chances in this business. Rasta's got a
grievance against you, but you can easily hide behind the lady's
skirts. She passed through this town two days ago.'

Ten minutes later we were coasting through the slush of the
narrow streets with a stolid German lieutenant sitting beside Me.

The afternoon was one of those rare days when in the pauses of
snow you have a spell of weather as mild as May. I remembered
several like it during our winter's training in Hampshire. The road
was a fine one, well engineered, and well kept too, considering the
amount of traffic. We were little delayed, for it was sufficiently
broad to let us pass troops and transport without slackening pace.
The fellow at my side was good-humoured enough, but his presence
naturally put the lid on our conversation. I didn't want to talk,
however. I was trying to piece together a plan, and making very
little of it, for I had nothing to go upon. We must find Hilda von
Einem and Sandy, and between us we must wreck the Greenmantle
business. That done, it didn't matter so much what happened to us.
As I reasoned it out, the Turks must be in a bad way, and, unless
they got a fillip from Greenmantle, would crumple up before the
Russians. In the rout I hoped we might get a chance to change our
sides. But it was no good looking so far forward; the first thing
was to get to Sandy.

Now I was still in the mood of reckless bravado which I had got
from bagging the car. I did not realize how thin our story was, and
how easily Rasta might have a big graft at headquarters. If I had, I
would have shot out the German lieutenant long before we got to
Erzerum, and found some way of getting mixed up in the ruck of the
population. Hussin could have helped me to that. I was getting so
confident since our interview with Posselt that I thought I could
bluff the whole outfit.

But my main business that afternoon was pure nonsense. I was
trying to find my little hill. At every turn of the road I expected
to see the castrol before us. You must know that ever since I could
stand I have been crazy about high mountains. My father took me to
Basutoland when I was a boy, and I reckon I have scrambled over
almost every bit of upland south of the Zambesi, from the Hottentots
Holland to the Zoutpansberg, and from the ugly yellow kopjes of
Damaraland to the noble cliffs of Mont aux Sources. One of the
things I had looked forward to in coming home was the chance of
climbing the Alps. But now I was among peaks that I fancied were
bigger than the Alps, and I could hardly keep my eyes on the road. I
was pretty certain that my castrol was among them, for that dream had
taken an almighty hold on my mind. Funnily enough, I was ceasing to
think it a place of evil omen, for one soon forgets the atmosphere of
nightmare. But I was convinced that it was a thing I was destined to
see, and to see pretty soon.

Darkness fell when we were some miles short of the city, and the
last part was difficult driving. On both sides of the road transport
and engineers' stores were parked, and some of it strayed into the
highway. I noticed lots of small details - machine-gun detachments,
signalling parties, squads of stretcher-bearers - which mean the
fringe of an army, and as soon as the night began the white fingers
of searchlights began to grope in the skies.

And then, above the hum of the roadside, rose the voice of the
great guns. The shells were bursting four or five miles away, and
the guns must have been as many more distant. But in that upland
pocket of plain in the frosty night they sounded most intimately
near. They kept up their solemn litany, with a minute's interval
between each - no rafale which rumbles like a drum, but the steady
persistence of artillery exactly ranged on a target. I judged they
must be bombarding the outer forts, and once there came a loud
explosion and a red glare as if a magazine had suffered.

It was a sound I had not heard for five months, and it fairly
crazed me. I remembered how I had first heard it on the ridge before
Laventie. Then I had been half-afraid, half-solemnized, but every
nerve had been quickened. Then it had been the new thing in my life
that held me breathless with anticipation; now it was the old thing,
the thing I had shared with so many good fellows, my proper work, and
the only task for a man. At the sound of the guns I felt that I was
moving in natural air once more. I felt that I was coming home.

We were stopped at a long line of ramparts, and a German
sergeant stared at us till he saw the lieutenant beside me, when he
saluted and we passed on. Almost at once we dipped into narrow
twisting streets, choked with soldiers, where it was hard business to
steer. There were few lights - only now and then the flare of a
torch which showed the grey stone houses, with every window latticed
and shuttered. I had put out my headlights and had only side lamps,
so we had to pick our way gingerly through the labyrinth. I hoped we
would strike Sandy's quarters soon, for we were all pretty empty, and
a frost had set in which made our thick coats seem as thin as
paper.

The lieutenant did the guiding. We had to present our
passports, and I anticipated no more difficulty than in landing from
the boat at Boulogne. But I wanted to get it over, for my hunger
pinched me and it was fearsome cold. Still the guns went on, like
hounds baying before a quarry. The city was out of range, but there
were strange lights on the ridge to the east.

At last we reached our goal and marched through a fine old
carved archway into a courtyard, and thence into a draughty hall.

'You must see the Sektionschef,' said our guide. I looked round
to see if we were all there, and noticed that Hussin had disappeared.
It did not matter, for he was not on the passports.

We followed as we were directed through an open door. There was
a man standing with his back towards us looking at a wall map, a very
big man with a neck that bulged over his collar. I would have known
that neck among a million. At the sight of it I made a half-turn to
bolt back. It was too late, for the door had closed behind us and
there were two armed sentries beside it.

The man slewed round and looked into my eyes. I had a
despairing hope that I might bluff it out, for I was in different
clothes and had shaved my beard. But you cannot spend ten minutes in
a death- grapple without your adversary getting to know you.

He went very pale, then recollected himself and twisted his
features into the old grin. 'So,' he said, 'the little Dutchmen! We
meet after many days.'

It was no good lying or saying anything. I shut my teeth and
waited.

'And you, Herr Blenkiron? I never liked the look of you. You
babbled too much, like all your damned Americans.'

'I guess your personal dislikes haven't got anything to do with
the matter,' said Blenkiron, calmly. 'If you're the boss here, I'll
thank you to cast your eye over these passports, for we can't stand
waiting for ever.'

This fairly angered him. 'I'll teach you manners,' he cried,
and took a step forward to reach for Blenkiron's shoulder - the game
he had twice played with me.

Blenkiron never took his hands from his coat pockets. 'Keep
your distance,' he drawled in a new voice. 'I've got you covered,
and I'll make a hole in your bullet head if you lay a hand on me.'

With an effort Stumm recovered himself. He rang a bell and fell
to smiling. An orderly appeared to whom he spoke in Turkish, and
presently a file of soldiers entered the room.

'I'm going to have you disarmed, gentlemen,' he said. 'We can
conduct our conversation more pleasantly without pistols.'

It was idle to resist. We surrendered our arms, Peter almost in
tears with vexation. Stumm swung his legs over a chair, rested his
chin on the back and looked at me.

'Your game is up, you know,' he said. 'These fools of Turkish
police said the Dutchmen were dead, but I had the happier
inspiration. I believed the good God had spared them for me. When I
got Rasta's telegram I was certain, for your doings reminded me of a
little trick you once played me on the Schwandorf road. But I didn't
think to find this plump old partridge,' and he smiled at Blenkiron.
'Two eminent American engineers and their servant bound for
Mesopotamia on business of high Government importance! It was a good
lie; but if I had been in Constantinople it would have had a short
life. Rasta and his friends are no concern of mine. You can trick
them as you please. But you have attempted to win the confidence of
a certain lady, and her interests are mine. Likewise you have
offended me, and I do not forgive. By God,' he cried, his voice
growing shrill with passion, 'by the time I have done with you your
mothers in their graves will weep that they ever bore you!'

It was Blenkiron who spoke. His voice was as level as the
chairman's of a bogus company, and it fell on that turbid atmosphere
like acid on grease.

'I don't take no stock in high-falutin'. If you're trying to
scare me by that dime-novel talk I guess you've hit the wrong man.
You're like the sweep that stuck in the chimney, a bit too big for
your job. I reckon you've a talent for ro-mance that's just wasted
in soldiering. But if you're going to play any ugly games on me I'd
like you to know that I'm an American citizen, and pretty well
considered in my own country and in yours, and you'll sweat blood for
it later. That's a fair warning, Colonel Stumm.'

I don't know what Stumm's plans were, but that speech of
Blenkiron's put into his mind just the needed amount of uncertainty.
You see, he had Peter and me right enough, but he hadn't properly
connected Blenkiron with us, and was afraid either to hit out at all
three, or to let Blenkiron go. It was lucky for us that the American
had cut such a dash in the Fatherland.

'There is no hurry,' he said blandly. 'We shall have long happy
hours together. I'm going to take you all home with me, for I am a
hospitable soul. You will be safer with me than in the town gaol,
for it's a trifle draughty. It lets things in, and it might let
things out.'

Again he gave an order, and we were marched out, each with a
soldier at his elbow. The three of us were bundled into the back
seat of the car, while two men sat before us with their rifles
between their knees, one got up behind on the baggage rack, and one
sat beside Stumm's chauffeur. Packed like sardines we moved into the
bleak streets, above which the stars twinkled in ribbons of sky.

Hussin had disappeared from the face of the earth, and quite
right too. He was a good fellow, but he had no call to mix himself
up in our troubles.