i8 
LAND Sc W A T E R 
July 6, 1916 
" Have ymi by any chance been following the present cam- 
paign there ? " 
" I've read the newf^papers pretty regularly since 1 went to 
hospital. I've got some pals in the Mesopotamia show. and. 
of course, I'm keen to know what is going to happen at 
Gallipoh and Salonika. 1 gather that Egypt is pretty safe. 
" If you will give me your attention for ten minutes 1 will 
supplement your newspaper reading." 
Sir Walter lay back in an armchair and spoke to the ceiling- 
It was the best storv, the clearest and the fullest. I had ever 
got of any bit of the war. He told me just how and why and 
when Turkey had left the rails. I heard about her grievances 
over our seizure of her ironclads, of the mischief the coming 
of the Goeben had wrought, of Enver and his precious Com- 
mittee, and the wav they had got a cinch on the old Turk. 
When he had spoken for a bit, be began to question me. 
" You are an intelligent fellow and you will ask how a 
Pohsh adventurer, meaning Enver, and a collection of Jews 
and gypsies, should have got control of a proud race. The 
ordinary man will tell you that it was German organisation 
backed up with German money and German arms. You will 
inquire again how, since Turkev is primarily a religious Power, 
Islam has played so small a part in it all. The Sheikh-ul- 
Islam is neglected, and though the Kaiser proclaims a Holv 
War and calls himself Hadji .Mahomet Guilliamo and says a 
Hohenzollen is descended" from a Prophet, that seems to liave 
fallen pretty flat. The ordinary man again will answer that 
Islam in Turkey is becoming a back number, and that Krupp 
guns are the new gods. Yet— I don't know. 1 do not quite 
believe in Islam becoming a back number." 
•• Look at it in another way," he went on. " If it were 
Enver and German\- alone dragging Turkey into a European 
war for purposes that no Turk cared a rush about, we might 
expect to find the regular army obedient, and Constantinople. 
But in the provinces, where Islam is strong, there would be 
trouble. Many of us counted on that. But we have been 
disappointed. ' The Syrian armv is as fanatical as the hordes 
of the Madhi. The Senussi have taken a hand in the game. 
The Persian Moslems are threatening trouble. There is a 
dry wind blowing through the East and the parched grasses 
wait the spark. And the wind' is blowing towards the Indian 
border. Whence comes that wind, think you ? " 
Sir Walter had lowered his voice and was speaking very 
slow and distinct. I could hear the rain dripping from the 
eaves of the window, and far off the hoot of the taxis in White- 
hall. 
" Have you an explanation, Hannav y " he asked again. ' 
" It looks is if Islam had a bigger hand in the thing than we 
thought," I said. " I fancy rehgion is the only thing to knit 
up such a scattered empire." 
" You are right," he said. " You must be right. We 
have laughed at the Holy War, the Jehad that old Von der 
Goltz prophesied. But I believe that stupid old man with 
the big spectacles was right. There is a Jehad preparing. 
The question is How ? " 
•' I'm hanged if I know," I said, " But I'll bet it won't be 
done by a pack of stout German officers in pickelhantes. I 
fancy you can't manufacture Holy Wars out of Krupp guns 
alone and a few staff nfficers and a battle-cruiser with her 
boilers burst." 
" Agreed. They aie not fools, however much we try to 
persuade ourselves of the contrary. But supposing they had 
got some tremendous sacred sanction — some holy thing, some 
book or gospel of some new prophet from the desert, some- 
thing which would cast over the whole ugly mechanism of 
German war the glamour of the old torrential raids whicli 
crumpled the Byzantine Empire and shook the walls of 
^'ienna ? Islam is a fighting creed, and the Mullali still stands 
in the pulpit with the Koran in one hand and a drawn sword 
in the other. Supposing there is some Ark of the Covenant 
which will madden the remotest Moslem peasant with dreams 
of Paradise ? What then, my friend ? " 
" Then there will be hell let loose in those parts pretty 
soon." 
" Hell which may spread. Beyond Persia, remember, lies 
India." 
■' You keep to suppositions. How much do you know ? " 
I asked. 
" Very little, except the fact. But the fact is beyoiid 
dispute. I have reports from agents everywhere— pedlars in 
South Russia, Afghan horse-dealers. Turcoman merchants, 
pilgrims on the road to Mecca, sheikhs in North .Africa, sailors 
on the Black Sea coasters, sharp-skinned Mongols, Hindu 
fakirs. Greek traders in the Gulf, as well as respectable Consuls 
who use cyphers. Tliey tell the same story. The East is 
waiting for a revelation. It has been promised one. Some 
star — man. prophecy, or trinket— is coming out of the Wost. 
The Germans know, and that is the card with which they are 
anine to astonisli the world. " 
" And the mission you spoke of for me is to go and find 
out ? " 
'■ He nodded gravely. *' That is the crazy and impossible 
mission." 
■■ Tell me one thing, Sir Walter," I said. " I know it is 
the fashion in this country if a man has special knowledge to 
set liim some job exactly the opposite. I know all about 
Damaraland, but instead of being put on' Botha's staff, as 
I applied to be. I was kept in Hampshire mud till the cam- 
paign in German South-West Africa was over. I know a man 
whocbuld pass as an .Arab, but do you think they would send 
him to the East ? They left him in my battalion— a lucky thing 
for me, for he saved my life at Loos. I know the fashion, 
but isn't this just carrying it a bit too far ? There must be 
thousands of men who iiave spent years in the East and talk 
any language. They're the fellows for this job. I never saw 
a Turk in my life except a chap who did wrestling turns in a 
show at Kimberley. You've picked about the most useless 
man on earth." 
" You've been a mining-engineer, Hannay," Sir Walter 
said. " If you wanted a man to prospect for gold in Barotse- 
land you would of course like to get one who knew the country 
and the people and the language. But the first thing you 
would require in him would be that In- had a nose for finding 
gold and knew his business. That is the position now. I 
beUeve that you have a nose for finding out what our enemies 
try to hide. I know that vou are brave and cool and resource- 
ful. That is why I tell you the story. Besides . . ." 
He unrolled a big map of Europe on the w^ll. 
" I can't tell you where you'll get on the track of the 
secret but I can put a limit to the quest. You won't find it 
east of the Bosphorus— not yet. It is still in Europe. It 
may be in Constantinople, or" in Thrace. It may be further 
west. But it is moving eastwards. If you are in time you 
may cut into its march at Constantinople. That much I can 
tell you. The secret is known in Germany, too. to those whom 
it concerns. It is in Europe that the seeker must search— 
at present." 
'• Tell me more," I said, " You can give me no details 
and no instructions. Obviously you can give me no help if 
I come to grief." 
He nodded. " You would be beyon^ the pale." 
" You give me a free hand ? " 
" Absolutely. You can have what money you like, and 
you can get what help you like. You can follow any plan 
you fancy and go anywhere you think fr\iitful. We can give 
no directions." 
" One last question. You say it is important. Tell me 
just how important." 
'• It is life and death," he said solemnly. " I can put if 
no higher and no lower. Once we know what is the menace 
we can meet it. As long as we are in the dark it works un- 
checked and we may be too late. The war must be won 01 
lost in Europe. Yes, but if the East blazes up, our effort 
will be distracted from Europe and the great coup may fail. 
The stakes are no less than victory and defeat, Hannay." 
1 got out of my chair and walked to the window. It was a 
diflicult moment in my life. I was harppy in my soldiering, 
above all happy in tlie company of my brother officers. I 
was asked to go off into the enemy's lands on a quest for 
which 1 believed I was manifestly unfitted— a business of 
lonely days and nights of nerve-racking strain, of deadly peril 
shrouding me like a garment. Looking out on the bleak 
weather I shivered. It was too grim a business, too inhu- 
man for flesh and blood. But Sir Walter had called it a matter 
of life and death, and I had told him that I was out to serve 
mv country. He could not give me orders, but was I not 
urider orders, higher orders than my Brigadier's ? I thought 
myself incompetent, but cleverer men than me thought me 
competent, or at least competent enough for a sporting 
chance. I knew in my soul that if I declined I should never 
be quite at peace in the world again. And yet Sir Walter 
had called the scheme madness, and said that he himself would 
never have accepted. 
How does one make a great decision ? I swear that when 
I turned round to speak I meant to refuse. But my answer 
was Yes, and I had crossed the Rubicon. My voice sounded 
cracked and far away. 
Sir Walter shook hands with me and his eyes blmked a 
little. . " I may be sending you to your death, Hannay. Good 
God, what a damned taskmistress duty is ? If so, I shall be 
haunted with regrets, but vou will never repent. Have no 
fear of that. You have chosen the roughest road, but it 
goes straight to the hill-tops." 
He handed me the half sheet of note-paper.^ On 't^weie 
written three words — " Kasredin "-7-" cancer'' and "v. I." 
" That is the only clue we possess." he said. "I cannot 
construe it, but I can tell you the story. We have had our 
atrents working in Persia" and Mesopotamia for years— 
