by John Buchan
The Deve Boyun lines seemed to me monstrously strong, and I remembered the merits of the Turk as a fighter behind strong defences. It looked as if Russia were up against a second Plevna or a new Gallipoli.
Then I took to studying the flanks. South lay the Palantuken range of mountains, with forts defending the passes, where ran the roads to Mush and Lake Van. That side, too, looked pretty strong. North in the valley of the Euphrates I made out two big forts, Tafta and Kara Gubek, defending the road from Olti. On this part of the map Stumm’s notes were plentiful, and I gave them all my attention. I remembered Blenkiron’s news about the Russians advancing on a broad front, for it was clear that Stumm was taking pains about the flank of the fortress.
Kara Gubek was the point of interest. It stood on a rib of land between two peaks, which from the contour lines rose very steep. So long as it was held it was clear that no invader could move down the Euphrates glen. Stumm had appended a note to the peaks—’not fortified’; and about two miles to the north-east there was a red cross and the name ‘Prjevalsky’. I assumed that to be the farthest point yet reached by the right wing of the Russian attack.
Then I turned to the paper from which Stumm had copied the jottings on to his map. It was typewritten, and consisted of notes on different points. One was headed ‘Kara Gubek’ and read: ‘No time to fortify adjacent peaks. Difficult for enemy to get batteries there, but not impossible. This the real point of danger, for if Prjevalsky wins the Peaks Kara Gubek and Tafta must fall, and enemy will be on left rear of Deve Boyun main position.’
I was soldier enough to see the tremendous importance of this note. On Kara Gubek depended the defence of Erzerum, and it was a broken reed if one knew where the weakness lay. Yet, searching the map again, I could not believe that any mortal commander would see any chance in the adjacent peaks, even if he thought them unfortified. That was information confined to the Turkish and German staff. But if it could be conveyed to the Grand Duke he would have Erzerum in his power in a day. Otherwise he would go on battering at the Deve Boyun ridge for weeks, and long ere he won it the Gallipoli divisions would arrive, he would be out-numbered by two to one, and his chance would have vanished.
My discovery set me pacing up and down that cellar in a perfect fever of excitement. I longed for wireless, a carrier pigeon, an aeroplane — anything to bridge over that space of half a dozen miles between me and the Russian lines. It was maddening to have stumbled on vital news and to be wholly unable to use it. How could three fugitives in a cellar, with the whole hornet’s nest of Turkey and Germany stirred up against them, hope to send this message of life and death?
I went back to the map and examined the nearest Russian positions. They were carefully marked. Prjevalsky in the north, the main force beyond Deve Boyun, and the southern columns up to the passes of the Palantuken but not yet across them. I could not know which was nearest to us till I discovered where we were. And as I thought of this I began to see the rudiments of a desperate plan. It depended on Peter, now slumbering like a tired dog on a couch of straw.
Hussin had locked the door and I must wait for information till he came back. But suddenly I noticed a trap in the roof, which had evidently been used for raising and lowering the cellar’s stores. It looked ill-fitting and might be unbarred, so I pulled the table below it, and found that with a little effort I could raise the flap. I knew I was taking immense risks, but I was so keen on my plan that I disregarded them. After some trouble I got the thing prised open, and catching the edges of the hole with my fingers raised my body and got my knees on the edge.
It was the outbuilding of which our refuge was the cellar, and it was half filled with light. Not a soul was there, and I hunted about till I found what I wanted. This was a ladder leading to a sort of loft, which in turn gave access to the roof. Here I had to be very careful, for I might be overlooked from the high buildings. But by good luck there was a trellis for grape vines across the place, which gave a kind of shelter. Lying flat on my face I stared over a great expanse of country.
Looking north I saw the city in a haze of morning smoke, and, beyond, the plain of the Euphrates and the opening of the glen where the river left the hills. Up there, among the snowy heights, were Tafta and Kara Gubek. To the east was the ridge of Deve Boyun, where the mist was breaking before the winter’s sun. On the roads up to it I saw transport moving, I saw the circle of the inner forts, but for a moment the guns were silent. South rose a great wall of white mountain, which I took to be the Palantuken. I could see the roads running to the passes, and the smoke of camps and horse-lines right under the cliffs.
I had learned what I needed. We were in the outbuildings of a big country house two or three miles south of the city. The nearest point of the Russian front was somewhere in the foothills of the Palantuken.
As I descended I heard, thin and faint and beautiful, like the cry of a wild bird, the muezzin from the minarets of Erzerum.
When I dropped through the trap the others were awake. Hussin was setting food on the table, and viewing my descent with anxious disapproval.
‘It’s all right,’ I said; ‘I won’t do it again, for I’ve found out all I wanted. Peter, old man, the biggest job of your life is before you!’
CHAPTER 19. GREENMANTLE
Peter scarcely looked up from his breakfast.
‘I’m willing, Dick,’ he said. ‘But you mustn’t ask me to be friends with Stumm. He makes my stomach cold, that one.’
For the first time he had stopped calling me ‘Cornelis’. The day of make-believe was over for all of us.
‘Not to be friends with him,’ I said, ‘but to bust him and all his kind.’
‘Then I’m ready,’ said Peter cheerfully. ‘What is it?’
I spread out the maps on the divan. There was no light in the place but Blenkiron’s electric torch, for Hussin had put out the lantern. Peter got his nose into the things at once, for his intelligence work in the Boer War had made him handy with maps. It didn’t want much telling from me to explain to him the importance of the one I had looted.
‘That news is worth many a million pounds,’ said he, wrinkling his brows, and scratching delicately the tip of his left ear. It was a way he had when he was startled.
‘How can we get it to our friends?’
Peter cogitated. ‘There is but one way. A man must take it. Once, I remember, when we fought the Matabele it was necessary to find out whether the chief Makapan was living. Some said he had died, others that he’d gone over the Portuguese border, but I believed he lived. No native could tell us, and since his kraal was well defended no runner could get through. So it was necessary to send a man.’
Peter lifted up his head and laughed. ‘The man found the chief Makapan. He was very much alive, and made good shooting with a shot-gun. But the man brought the chief Makapan out of his kraal and handed him over to the Mounted Police. You remember Captain Arcoll, Dick — Jim Arcoll? Well, Jim laughed so much that he broke open a wound in his head, and had to have a doctor.’
‘You were that man, Peter,’ I said.
‘Ja. I was the man. There are more ways of getting into kraals than there are ways of keeping people out.’
‘Will you take this chance?’
‘For certain, Dick. I am getting stiff with doing nothing, and if I sit in houses much longer I shall grow old. A man bet me five pounds on the ship that I could not get through a trench-line, and if there had been a trench-line handy I would have taken him on. I will be very happy, Dick, but I do not say I will succeed. It is new country to me, and I will be hurried, and hurry makes bad stalking.’
I showed him what I thought the likeliest place — in the spurs of the Palantuken mountains. Peter’s way of doing things was all his own. He scraped earth and plaster out of a corner and sat down to make a little model of the landscape on the table, following the contours of the map. He did it extraordinarily neatly, for, like all great hunters, he was as deft as a weaver bird. He puzzled over it for a long time, and conned
the map till he must have got it by heart. Then he took his field-glasses — a very good single Zeiss which was part of the spoils from Rasta’s motor-car — and announced that he was going to follow my example and get on to the house-top. Presently his legs disappeared through the trap, and Blenkiron and I were left to our reflections.
Peter must have found something uncommon interesting, for he stayed on the roof the better part of the day. It was a dull job for us, since there was no light, and Blenkiron had not even the consolation of a game of Patience. But for all that he was in good spirits, for he had had no dyspepsia since we left Constantinople, and announced that he believed he was at last getting even with his darned duodenum. As for me I was pretty restless, for I could not imagine what was detaining Sandy. It was clear that our presence must have been kept secret from Hilda von Einem, for she was a pal of Stumm’s, and he must by now have blown the gaff on Peter and me. How long could this secrecy last, I asked myself. We had now no sort of protection in the whole outfit. Rasta and the Turks wanted our blood: so did Stumm and the Germans; and once the lady found we were deceiving her she would want it most of all. Our only hope was Sandy, and he gave no sign of his existence. I began to fear that with him, too, things had miscarried.
And yet I wasn’t really depressed, only impatient. I could never again get back to the beastly stagnation of that Constantinople week. The guns kept me cheerful. There was the devil of a bombardment all day, and the thought that our Allies were thundering there half a dozen miles off gave me a perfectly groundless hope. If they burst through the defence Hilda von Einem and her prophet and all our enemies would be overwhelmed in the deluge. And that blessed chance depended very much on old Peter, now brooding like a pigeon on the house-tops.
It was not till the late afternoon that Hussin appeared again. He took no notice of Peter’s absence, but lit a lantern and set it on the table. Then he went to the door and waited. Presently a light step fell on the stairs, and Hussin drew back to let someone enter. He promptly departed and I heard the key turn in the lock behind him.
Sandy stood there, but a new Sandy who made Blenkiron and me jump to our feet. The pelts and skin-cap had gone, and he wore instead a long linen tunic clasped at the waist by a broad girdle. A strange green turban adorned his head, and as he pushed it back I saw that his hair had been shaved. He looked like some acolyte — a weary acolyte, for there was no spring in his walk or nerve in his carriage. He dropped numbly on the divan and laid his head in his hands. The lantern showed his haggard eyes with dark lines beneath them.
‘Good God, old man, have you been sick?’ I cried.
‘Not sick,’ he said hoarsely. ‘My body is right enough, but the last few days I have been living in hell.’
Blenkiron nodded sympathetically. That was how he himself would have described the company of the lady.
I marched across to him and gripped both his wrists.
‘Look at me,’ I said, ‘straight in the eyes.’
His eyes were like a sleep-walker’s, unwinking, unseeing. ‘Great heavens, man, you’ve been drugged!’ I said.
‘Drugged,’ he cried, with a weary laugh. ‘Yes, I have been drugged, but not by any physic. No one has been doctoring my food. But you can’t go through hell without getting your eyes red-hot.’
I kept my grip on his wrists. ‘Take your time, old chap, and tell us about it. Blenkiron and I are here, and old Peter’s on the roof not far off. We’ll look after you.’
‘It does me good to hear your voice, Dick,’ he said. ‘It reminds me of clean, honest things.’
‘They’ll come back, never fear. We’re at the last lap now. One more spurt and it’s over. You’ve got to tell me what the new snag is. Is it that woman?’
He shivered like a frightened colt. ‘Woman!’ he cried. ‘Does a woman drag a man through the nether-pit? She’s a she-devil. Oh, it isn’t madness that’s wrong with her. She’s as sane as you and as cool as Blenkiron. Her life is an infernal game of chess, and she plays with souls for pawns. She is evil — evil — evil.’ And once more he buried his head in his hands.
It was Blenkiron who brought sense into this hectic atmosphere. His slow, beloved drawl was an antiseptic against nerves.
‘Say, boy,’ he said, ‘I feel just like you about the lady. But our job is not to investigate her character. Her Maker will do that good and sure some day. We’ve got to figure how to circumvent her, and for that you’ve got to tell us what exactly’s been occurring since we parted company.’
Sandy pulled himself together with a great effort.
‘Greenmantle died that night I saw you. We buried him secretly by her order in the garden of the villa. Then came the trouble about his successor ... The four Ministers would be no party to a swindle. They were honest men, and vowed that their task now was to make a tomb for their master and pray for the rest of their days at his shrine. They were as immovable as a granite hill and she knew it... Then they, too, died.’
‘Murdered?’ I gasped.
‘Murdered... all four in one morning. I do not know how, but I helped to bury them. Oh, she had Germans and Kurds to do her foul work, but their hands were clean compared to hers. Pity me, Dick, for I have seen honesty and virtue put to the shambles and have abetted the deed when it was done. It will haunt me to my dying day.’
I did not stop to console him, for my mind was on fire with his news.
‘Then the prophet is gone, and the humbug is over,’ I cried.
‘The prophet still lives. She has found a successor.’
He stood up in his linen tunic.
‘Why do I wear these clothes? Because I am Greenmantle. I am the Kaaba-i-hurriyeh for all Islam. In three days’ time I will reveal myself to my people and wear on my breast the green ephod of the prophet.’
He broke off with an hysterical laugh. ‘Only you see, I won’t. I will cut my throat first.’
‘Cheer up!’ said Blenkiron soothingly. ‘We’ll find some prettier way than that.’
‘There is no way,’ he said; ‘no way but death. We’re done for, all of us. Hussin got you out of Stumm’s clutches, but you’re in danger every moment. At the best you have three days, and then you, too, will be dead.’
I had no words to reply. This change in the bold and unshakeable Sandy took my breath away.
‘She made me her accomplice,’ he went on. ‘I should have killed her on the graves of those innocent men. But instead I did all she asked and joined in her game... She was very candid, you know... She cares no more than Enver for the faith of Islam. She can laugh at it. But she has her own dreams, and they consume her as a saint is consumed by his devotion. She has told me them, and if the day in the garden was hell, the days since have been the innermost fires of Tophet. I think — it is horrible to say it — that she has got some kind of crazy liking for me. When we have reclaimed the East I am to be by her side when she rides on her milk-white horse into Jerusalem ... And there have been moments — only moments, I swear to God — when I have been fired myself by her madness... ‘
Sandy’s figure seemed to shrink and his voice grew shrill and wild. It was too much for Blenkiron. He indulged in a torrent of blasphemy such as I believe had never before passed his lips.
‘I’m blessed if I’ll listen to this God-darned stuff. It isn’t delicate. You get busy, Major, and pump some sense into your afflicted friend.’
I was beginning to see what had happened. Sandy was a man of genius — as much as anybody I ever struck — but he had the defects of such high-strung, fanciful souls. He would take more than mortal risks, and you couldn’t scare him by any ordinary terror. But let his old conscience get cross-eyed, let him find himself in some situation which in his eyes involved his honour, and he might go stark crazy. The woman, who roused in me and Blenkiron only hatred, could catch his imagination and stir in him — for the moment only — an unwilling response. And then came bitter and morbid repentance, and the last desperation.
It was no time to mince m
atters. ‘Sandy, you old fool,’ I cried, ‘be thankful you have friends to keep you from playing the fool. You saved my life at Loos, and I’m jolly well going to get you through this show. I’m bossing the outfit now, and for all your confounded prophetic manners, you’ve got to take your orders from me. You aren’t going to reveal yourself to your people, and still less are you going to cut your throat. Greenmantle will avenge the murder of his ministers, and make that bedlamite woman sorry she was born. We’re going to get clear away, and inside of a week we’ll be having tea with the Grand Duke Nicholas.’ I wasn’t bluffing. Puzzled as I was about ways and means I had still the blind belief that we should win out. And as I spoke two legs dangled through the trap and a dusty and blinking Peter descended in our midst.
I took the maps from him and spread them on the table.
‘First, you must know that we’ve had an almighty piece of luck. Last night Hussin took us for a walk over the roofs of Erzerum, and by the blessing of Providence I got into Stumm’s room, and bagged his staff map... Look there ... d’you see his notes? That’s the danger-point of the whole defence. Once the Russians get that fort, Kara Gubek, they’ve turned the main position. And it can be got; Stumm knows it can; for these two adjacent hills are not held ... It looks a mad enterprise on paper, but Stumm knows that it is possible enough. The question is: Will the Russians guess that? I say no, not unless someone tells them. Therefore, by hook or by crook, we’ve got to get that information through to them.’
Sandy’s interest in ordinary things was beginning to flicker up again. He studied the map and began to measure distances.
‘Peter’s going to have a try for it. He thinks there’s a sporting chance of his getting through the lines. If he does — if he gets this map to the Grand Duke’s staff — then Stumm’s goose is cooked. In three days the Cossacks will be in the streets of Erzerum.’
‘What are the chances?’ Sandy asked.
I glanced at Peter. ‘We’re hard-bitten fellows and can face the truth. I think the chances against success are about five to one.’