Greenmantle, John Buchan [big screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗

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